Bloody Valentine: 16 days and counting

Sixteen days to the our second (and over twice as big) Warhammer Fantasy tournament (http://ordo-ineptus.com/40ktourny.aspx)

The army I'm working on to use in the tournament is an Orcs and Goblins army with a Halloween theme, which I named "Ghost 'N Goblins" after the arcade game from the 1980's. The picture above is the art for it. I think it must be the most difficult video game in the universe. Basically you're this little guy running around in armor and a lance fighting spooky but cartoony monsters and whenever something hits you - which usually occurs sometime soon after hitting the 1Player button - your armor flies off and you're running around fighting zombies and demons in your underwear, until you get hit again and die. Which usually happens somewhere in the next 0.5 seconds....

With less than three weeks to go, I'm not in too bad a shape. The lion's share of the work - and by that I mean the rank and file troops - have already been done. Mostly it's the character stuff that's left.

The goblins (and I painted up 170 all at once, over the course of a couple weeks back in November) are all set. The hoods I did with a liche purple base followed by Warlock Purple, the robes I did with Necron Abyss followed by Liche Purple, and the skin was I believe a Dark Angels Green base followed by ever-lightening mixes of Snot Green and Camo Green.

The bases were all decorated with a metal ivy vines I had gotten from an overseas online distributor. I also did up several bases of just pumpkins (sculpted ones and ones bought from Reaper miniatures) and these will be interspersed throughout the goblin bases to give them the effect of being in a pumpkin patch.

My 'fanatics' in each unit are malicious ghosts that are unleashed from the pumpkin patches by the goblins. There are 18 of them total and each were completely hand sculpted by me, other than their hands, which I used parts from the GW ghoul kit for. I made the basic shape of their bodies and arms with Sculpey, then put them together and attached the hands, and then went back and did the flowing robes with green stuff. I then used Sculpey again for the jack-o-lantern heads, and finally molded some flames coming off of a few of them.

I can't remember what I used for painting, as it was a multitude of increasingly lighter coats, starting with a blue base. At the end I mixed in a metallic white to give them a little shimmer. Right now, they're all done except for the pumpkin stems and their hands, and then the bases.

The ten man unit of Black Orcs are also almost done. The only thing that remains is to do the metal of their weapons and details like the banner pole and the musician's drum. I had given them all the full facemask helmets to make them more imposing, and painted them with Graveyard Earth and then two coats of Bleached Bone and a highlight of Bleached Bone/Skull White and then a Ogryn Flesh wash. The armor I did with a Scab Red/Chaos Black base followed by Scab Red highlights and a Devlan Mud wash. I used green stuff to change the traditional bad moon Orc symbol on the banner pole to a pumpkin face that better matched the army theme.

The three man unit of trolls I am still currently working on converting, though I'm almost finished. I started with two of the trolls that come in the Battle for Skull Pass set and a Reaper mini. The plastic GW models were holding a dwarven statue over their heads. I cut the statue (and the hands holding it) off of both of these and then cut the arms off of another as well and re-glued them to be outstretched downward rather than upward. For the one with the arms still over his head I used the fleeing villager from the giant kit and glued him in place to the stumps and sculpted three fingered troll hands to be clutching him by the leg and arm.

For the metal Reaper model I cut off the left hand and the club it was holding, then took the bit from the giant kit of the villager clutched in the giant's hand, cut away the giant hand (only cutting myself twice in the process!), and glued it down to the stump and modeled the troll hand grasping him by the waist. Finally the third troll I sculpted a pair of troll heads out of green stuff and attached them to the body and built up more of the upper torso and shoulders around them. I took the bag stuffed with halflings from the giant kit, added some green stuff to the hollow in one side, and glued it to the base on the troll's left side. I then sculpted a troll hand so that it appears to be either pushing one of the halflings into the bag or perhaps pulling one out. For the right hand I used a hand from the GW zombie kit that was holding a really wicked looking serrated knife and then sculpted the troll hand over the zombie hand. The final pose makes it look like the troll is about to do some dinner prep (heh heh). I plan on having a fourth troll base with a big cooking pot on a fire with arms and heads sticking out of it. This would be a fourth troll when needed, and on the display base I plan on doing for the army, it will sit in front of the three trolls so that they all appear to be in the process of adding the 'ingredients' for their stew. The concept for the trolls came from idea of the three witches which is often repeated in mythology and literature (saw a promo poster for the Clash of the Titans remake that featured the witches and they look pretty grotesque)

For the characters, I have two shamans (one goblin and one orc), a goblin boss on a giant spider, and a orc shaman general in a chariot. The general is going to be the most elaborate piece and I haven't started yet although I pretty much have all the materials.

For the goblin boss I used the Goblin Big Boss on Giant Spider mini from the collectors range that I had gotten with my White Dwarf subscription a couple years back. I decided I didn't like the goblin sitting up on the hodai so I'm using a Reaper mini of a kobold king instead. I have assembled the spider (I think it may have been even more of a pain than the Tomb Scorpion) but still need to put together the perch and add the mini. Not too much conversion work, which is why I've left it alone for now. The only thing I will do is use some green stuff to give the effect that the dog-like kobold snout is a mask worn by a goblin (Halloween themed army, remember?)

I'm going with a grim reaper theme for the two shamans on foot, with the orc shaman being 'Bigg Deff'' and the goblin shaman being 'Littel Deff". Both will be dressed in matching robes and masks, and both will have scythes. Big Deff will have a set of scales in his left hand (with human heads on them) and Littel Deff will have a small cauldron out of which the harvested souls will be seen emerging, ever trying to escape. Bigg Deff started life as an Orc Boy from the 6th ed WFB set, but he's mostly green stuff now. Right now I've got the basic shape of him and just have to do the detail work. I want to add lots of bits hanging from his belt to give him lots of details to paint up nice and obscure somewhat my 'still-learning' sculpting work on the robes. I have to add more to the hood to make it pointy, and then give him a scythe to replace the blade currently in his right hand. I started working on the scales, which will be using real chains. I'm hoping to have the whole model done and ready to paint by the end of the weekend and am hoping to use him as my submission for our Ordo Ineptus painting contest on the first of February.

Littel Deff is going to be a lot less work, as he's already got the robes and hood. I started with the goblin shaman from the Skull Pass set and cut away the horns on his hood, the top of his staff pole, and the madcap mushrooms from his little cauldron. I made wire armitures of the ghosts to help in the sculpting and glued them in place coming out of the cauldron, and just need to use green stuff for them and the mask he'll be wearing, and then give him a scythe in his right hand.

I'm also going to be providing most of the terrain for the tournament, and so I've been working on that as well.

This week I've been working on painting up a couple of store-bought pieces I've had forever. One is the Temple of Skulls that I've got almost finished, and the other is the Gate of Skulls (I think a Forgeworld piece from a while back) that I have to do a little more on.

I also started working on some gallows, using balsa to build several of them and then using the gibbet bit from the Warhammer Giant kit for two of them (using the chain from the bell in the zombie kit) and working on a corpse for another with some zombie bits. I also am modifying the hanging cages from the giant kit to make them look metal rather than wood, and will be hanging them with chain from a craft store. A couple of the gallows I will leave empty, ready for new occupents!

And that's what I've got on my table right now. I'm hoping to have the trolls, shamans, and spider boss ready for painting at the end of the weekend, and have the gallows, skull temple and skull gate all done so I can start working on more of the terrain stuff. I'm looking to start sculpting the general's chariot (yup it's going to be mostly all sculpt) early next week.

Now that I've introduced all of the projects, hopefully the next post won't be such an enormous Wall of Text!