It ends today!

The whole warband armed and ready.

To give a proper end to the dwarf warband project for SAGA, I wanted to summarize the all thing in a single post with some group pictures of the all bunch. By the same mean, I'll be ending the blogging for 2012. I am taking two weeks break off the brushes, incidentally to be among my relatives for Christmas, before coming back in 2013 with new projects and a challenge to accomplish.

Warlord, banner and hornblower

Now, before I leave, I wanted to share a few thoughts about this project. The choice dwarves to start with SAGA is obviously odd. My pristine intention was to put together an actual Anglo-Danes warband. But when John and I decided to throw ourselves in the SAGA joy, it seemed to me that I could never go through the all process of purchasing, preparing and so on (you all know the drill). Also I did not have quite the time to decide which figures I would want to order, so I moved on with what I had, and rush through the bushy beards.

Twelve double-handed axes make 3 pts of SAGA hearthguards

I had the design to paint a dwarf warband inspired by images from the Russian folklore and tales since a while. I actually started to put together a few figs last winter, then got caught by other idea and lost motivation. I wanted to have group of figures that would be versatile enough to be used with any kind of rule set, and slowly came to the concept of soft fantasy, of which I have read about here and there. Basically the goal was to create something that would be closer in essence to the flavor of fairy tales and myths, than to the hardcore vision of a teenager of worlds and realms torn by wars led by brutal morons armed with none the less moronic weapons or ninetypercentnaked armored chicks.

The shieldwall. Sixteen shields or 2 pts of SAGA warriors.

The fact that I picked GW LotR figures for this project was only because I found the design, that the Perry brothers gave them, to be quite close to the traditional Rus outfits, especially the helmets and scale armors. To tell the truth, even though I am a definite fan of Tolkien's novels, I never really meant to use these dwarves in their original Middle Earth setting, nor did I ever really mean to play the Lord of the Ring Battle Game. It is only now that they are all painted and ready that I have started to consider this option. Also, because John, after years of painting Napos, has suddenly jumped in his son's collection, and is slowly bringing back to life a quite impressive collection. But, I can tell, I will need to think about it twice; because the concept of Durin’s Folks, is not something I am nearly quite enough familiar with.   

Twelve bows and dozens of arrows makes 1 pt of SAGA levies.

Next projects will be all more historical in essence. Well… probably with a twist, since I am not that much an historical accuracy geek. But, I am already planning ahead to give these dwarves some opponents of their size, an unexpected warband of creatures raised in the shadows of the deepest forests from popular beliefs, myths and beyond...

Finaly for the actual Lor of the Ring fans,
Murin and Drar, the fearsome brothers.

Merry Christmas to all who pass by and see you in 2013!

The last of their kind

Finaly, here they are, contemplating the empty horizon of their endless fate, the last of their kind, kings of fading realms and lost dreams... Or, to put it straight, the last two figures I'll be painting for the SAGA dwarves project. 

"Axes drawn, watch your back...

One of those could have make a convincing a warlord, but I did not really need an other one, instead of what I thought it would be fun to have my 6 pts war band led by the Anglo-Danes King Harald and his two brothers, from the rule book. Thus, since I wanted to have these two Dwarf Kings painted since ages, here are the two brothers.

...I have the feeling someone is staring at us from behind."

Now, I know that I will suffer from the comparison, but I thought it would be fare to show the picture that inspired me for those last two. Again, it is a magnificent piece of art from the russian illustrator Ivan I. Bilibine, whose work led almost all my choice with the painting of the dwarf  war band. I discovered the artist six years ago and his rather colorful prints have been haunting me ever since. Eventually it had me dive into the russian folklore and discover wonders that I never could quite imagine before. Lets just say for now that my attempt to render something from these corpus of inspiration is a first try, that is to be followed by many other.

Ivan I. Bilibine, an illustration for the tale Vassilissa the Beauty.

But, for the time being, I'll be soon setting sail towards other interests, other kind of being too. The kind of regular human sized figures of an appearance totally compatible with SAGA. But that will be for 2013, for I recklessly enrolled in a painting contest that I have absolutly no chance to win (well, I did it more out of friendship, than for the vanity of honors), whose rules stipulate that brushes have to be kept dry from paint until december the 20th. So, more on that latter, I'll probably post an entry detailing what my modest participation to this challenge will consist of.

Oh, and I soon as I can take descent pictures of the all war band, I think I'll bundle it together on a single page... That is it for now!

New shields on the blog

Well, the title says it all. At first I thought I'd name these new shielded warriors New kids on the block... But this sounded way too absurd.

It's a relief to show these rough beards, since it took me quite long to finished them. I must say that painting shields directly on the figure, is a completly different story than painting them when they are attached to a flat cardboard. 

In the end this new serie does not come out to bad. Only It has me sweating a little more. On the other hand, these are lead soldiers and after having been caught by the versatility of plastic figures, I start to feel more and more conservative as time goes by.

Now I really like the new patterns I tried with the mix of white, blue and red. Although it was hard to achieve regular curves (still need to improve on this soft spot), it seems to me that both shields looks quite fine, and have this bright eastern touch to them. But, I can't tell the same about my two attempts with the yellow, green and white designs. Not that I do don't like them, rather that they don't stand out as well as I expected. White against yellow doesn't make for sharp contrasts.

I tried to have a special attention on the shield above, since this character is supposed to be some sort of hero/captain/leader, or Drar if we stick to the LotR rulebook... Or is it Murin? Anyway, this one supposedly depicts a flower pattern taken again from a drawing by Bilibin. You guys tell me if you can see how the leaves and petals are arranged together.

Last of the new cool kids. This bearded ten years old has some quite nice red facial hairs, isn't it? He was supposed to carry an ugly GW shield cluttered with carved crows. I thought a kid this age could not carry such an heavy piece of iron, so I went with something more handy for his infant arm.

That's it for the moment. Oh... and, please have a look back to my previous post. I have been adding new pics. Last time, I felt a little puny with the double-handed axes. May we keep this place colourful and friendly!

A rabbit, a dwarf and an humble piece of land.

I have been fighting on different fronts lately, slowly building up a new gameboard for SAGA skirmishes, and painting a new batch of Anglo-Dvergish, at the same time. And, hum... you know what they say about chasing two rabbits... This ended up with two rather unproductive weeks which I found quite frustrating. And an Halloween party hangover did not really help. I was only kept motivated by the decisive progress I made on the preparation of a short SAGA campaign to be played between Skraelings and Vikings for the domination of Vinland. And the enthousiastic correspondance that John and I had while creating and editing the scenarios. But more on that later...

More double-handed axes...

Some new dwarf warriors shall finally see light during the week. Meanwhile, here is a group of dwarves armed with double-handed axes, that I painted few weeks ago, but did not found the opportunity to publish a descent picture of them. As this blog is also a mean to keep record of all units I paint, here they are. I might field them as two points of Anglo-Dvergish hearthguards.

Now,  my primary goal with the dwarves is really close to be achieved. Thus, I have thought my next move should be completly devoted to terrain building. And fortunatly, the postman rang my doorbell at the end of the week, right on time to support my efforts toward this new objective. So here is a preview of what is to come next: an awfully cool slice of perryness.

Perry Miniatures, Medieval Cottage.

I'll try to arrange the wattlework fences in some sort of medieval way, and I might cut it down into pieces to round things a little. By the way, am I the only one who find some sort of ressemblance between these really handy Renadra fences and the equally famous artwork of the Limbourg's Brothers ?

February, Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.

I might try to stick to their colour schemes...

A banner for their fame

Alkonost by Ivan I. Bilibine,

an illustration for the tale

Vassilissa the Beauty.

Today's entry is dedicated to Alkonost, a famous deity of the slavic mythology. Half-woman half-bird, Alkonost flies from the sky to deliver the messages of gods, specificaly the good news. Her twin sister Sirin, who brings the bad news, is slightly less worshiped...

Alkonost peddles the fame of the heroes around the world of men. She is thus a reccuring character of the russian tales. At least in the versions illustrated by Ivan I. Bilibine (1876-1942), a sheer genius who issued some of the best pieces of art ever inspired by popular tales and folklore, where her presence personifies the narrative.

As the colour pattern of the dwarves is primarily inspired by the russian folklore, and despite the fact that I call them Anglo-Dvergish now, which is completly misleading, I thought I had to stick with this idea and try to craft an heraldry inspired by russian tales, for the warlord. Alkonost quickly springs to my mind, for she seemed convenient enough for my drawing skills.

Now the result might look a little cartoonish, although I do think it also holds some early medieval touch. I must say, I had a really relaxing time at painting this small piece. I somehow felt like a monk of the so called Dark Ages and it worthed doing this only for the time travel.

Not as good as Bilibine, but I am happy with the result.
Although I have made a mistake. Does someone see it?

I really needed someone of trust to take care of such a precious handmade banner. Hence the reason I have adorned the bearer with a grey beard. He is probably the uncle of the warlord, the most trusted brother of his mother, the kind of tough nut who survived many feud in the past...

Two things have gone a little wrong. First of all, an hair of my brush got lost in the middle of the flag, and I could not remove it. I think one can really see it on this picture.

Second of all, for some reason my matt varnish has turned into a gloss varnish, so the mantle looks a little shiny... I probably did not shake the varnish enough... I'll have to come back to it later.

Out on a party with some friends.

The board of trustees

I was in a hurry last time and I could not post those pictures. So here they come, "a little late" grunts the warlord, but they were on time for the game at least.

With so much beard hairs stuffing his mouth,
this warlord really needs someone to blow his orders away.

In fact those Dvergars Huscarls performed well, as they managed to chop down John's Ulfhednar (see them here http://fuentesdeonoro.blogspot.ca/2012/08/more-saga.html), in the first turn of our first game of Saga. They were a little helped by the arrowing of the Dvergars Geburs on the Ulfhednar in the first place (Did you read about the pointy arrows ?), yet no one survived this bloody first action. But this caught us directly in the brutality of the game, and I must say John and I were conquered.

The Dvergars Huscarls.
As they lived, they died.

We managed to play three games in an afternoon, and we already plan to meet again in a month. Until then, I must be able to work on descent bases for the warband and build up more terrain features. 

Isn't it the same picture as above ?
Well... there is a slight adjustment in angle...

I would also like to add a banner and raise high the heraldry of my warlord's ancestors. I am already on something... We shall see if it is good enough to be share...

A warlord indeed

It was about time I finish this one. John is about to arrive at my place within an hour for our first SAGA game. Well, this is the kind of thick beard that he will have to shave off today. I hope his axes are well sharpen, because mine have a greedy thirst for blood today. It is canadian thanksgiving this week-end, yet today, there will be no mercy !

Here he is, Warlord of the Dvergers.
He still needs a proper name to carve into legend.

I must say I really reach my limit with this one. I have bring my eyes to a level of focus I won't overpass.  So, this is probably the best I have to offer. It would take lenses that I can't afford, to be more accurate. Therefor you will notice that my brush shakes a little on the details. Well that's it, I am not a robot-painter. 

It is the last time I use Games Workshop paintbrushes. The fine detail brush I use, lost its hairs at a pace I could not believe. I finished this figure with only half of the hairs on the brush and that was kind of irritating, as the paint would not flow regularly. Thus I think I'll definitly turn to the Army Painter products very soon.

With an axe this size...

He'd shorten anyone...

the brutal one...

as much as the wise

Others to come very soon. Horn blower and Hearthguards... But I am running out of time now... I keep you posted.

Harassed by arrows, they bend like bows

I managed to finish a unit of archers this week. I will use them as levies. They look probably a little too dressed up for a bunch of vulgar peasants, but farmers in russian tales wear always quite colourful outfits. Also, those are dwarves after all, or Dvergers as I decided to call them for a more Vicking flavour, and these guys tend to make up for their short size with some trappings of wealth.

Twelve Dvergers armed with pointy arrows...

ready to unleash the wrath of their bows.

Looking closely at the picture, one might notice a slight alteration in style. I actually painted a first batch of 8 figures, six months ago, and I added four more to reach the number of levies needed for Saga. Meanwhile, I have grown more confident with the technic and details I use on them, and the last four are tin metal figures instead of plastic. I think one can really notice that the carving is somehow sharper.

A close up on my four favorites. 

Careful, this one is big...

Now, I only have to finish a warlord and four Hearthguards to get those Dvergers ready to rip spine...

A shield and a Saga

I got my copie of both SAGA rule books yesterday. That's a start. I expected something thicker though.   After a quick reading through, I think I will play the dwarfs as Anglo-Danish for a start. The double-handed axes you ask ? Indeed, the double-handed axes.

I also had the chance to take a few pictures this morning, here is the result. First 30 shots were a mess, so I can only display the shielded warriors for the moment. The double-handed axes you ask ? Next time.

A eight warriors unit.

Note that the basing still needs little attention. But I am not quite sure I'll be able to texture those before Oct. the 6...

A close up on my favorite shield patterns.

No shield no Saga

A not so well taken picture to illustrate what I am currently at. This is my first attempt ever to paint shield patterns. I think all in all, it does not come out to bad. Credit for the inspiring pictures goes to: 

http://www.hourofwolves.org/?view=armies&which=earlyRussiansDBA&pic=13

This first glance is part of a wider project involving dwarfs taken away from LotR to play SAGA.

Russian style shields for LotR Dwarf warriors.
The small ones come next...