Orctober surprise

Grot Gunslinger
28 mm scale

Don't take your guns to town son
Leave your guns at home Bill
Don't take your guns to town

I grabbed this figure out of the depths of my lead pile as an entry in the popular "Orc-tober challenge" on Instagram, started by Old Man Paints.  I don't expect to win, and I'm not even sure what the prizes are, but it was a fun exercise.  I don't usually do greenskins at all, and it was a chance to stretch my style a bit and do another "dark style" figure... without it being largely black like my Plague Doctor.  I also follow Grave Wraith Terrain on Instagram and love his unique style - grim and dark without being monochromatic.  I didn't go quite that far this time... but I should try it.

The mini itself is apparently a Gorkamorka grot from c. 1999, which doesn't seem that "Oldhammer" to me... but it's as old as many of my coworkers, so I think it qualifies :)  I added the gunsmoke as an impulse at the last minute, and was convinced I'd wrecked it, but it turned out greasy and wispy which really suits him.

"I don't like the looks of that fella who just walked in..."

Everyday people

Sci-fi civilians
15mm

I am no better and neither are you
We are the same whatever we do

 

Sure, the swashbuckling space smugglers, adventurers, alien death bots, and heavily armored troopers get all the glory... but somebody has to live in the universe of the shiny spacey future.  Those somebodies are all the workers, merchants, spacers and countless other "little people".  And they deserve their own figures :)

I had a lot of fun with these; I think they turned out as real little characters, all unique.  The minis are from CP models and Ground Zero Games, with a few light conversions.

 

Come and play, everything's a-okay
Friendly neighbors, yes that's where we meet
Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?

Doctor Death

Plague Doctor
28 mm

Ah, the classic medieval plague doctor.  Robed and masked to prevent infection, he might show up at your bedside to poke your armpits with a long stick and inevitably deliver tragic news to your loved ones.  Or he might... roam around the muddy streets with a skull on a chain, just being generally creepy.  Since they hadn't invented golf yet.

 

I actually love this figure, despite its odd choice of accessories.  The original CP Models figure had a ball and chain, but I felt that was pretty non sequitur, so I sculpted a (somewhat lantern-jawed) skull over it to provide a visual focus on what I'd already planned to be a very dark-coloured character.

 

 

I mixed a very brownish black for his robes, and a straight black for his mask; a subtle difference that's supposed to indicate the difference between fabric and leather, but is of course completely invisible in these photos.  Oh well...

Of course it's raining... it's always raining...

Happy Spooktober!

The Carceral State

Alien prisoners and guards
15mm

Early one morning
The blues came fallin' down
I was all locked up in jail
And prison bound

 

Technology and culture may evolve but apparently throwing society's rule breakers into confinement always stays in fashion... this group of non-human convicts might be petty hustlers, violent career criminals, or even hapless political prisoners of a despotic regime. Their heavily-armed guards march them around, tolerating no disobedience or attempts to escape.

I think these two CP Models sets (boiler-suited aliens and guards) that come with a choice of heads are such a great idea.  Depending on the head used, the characters really turn out feeling very different, especially the guards who could be anything from simple gas-masked near-future humans to genetically-engineered apes or very weird aliens!  The "boiler suits" can easily be spacers' jumpsuits, uniforms, or as here, prison garb.

"Stay in line, scum, or it's the box for you!"

More human than human

Cyborg Specialist
28mm

I am doll eyes, doll mouth, doll legs

I love this CP miniatures figure!  Is she a remorseless android killer, or a superhuman hero in an era when even humanity itself is a vague designation?  As a "Ghost in the Shell" fan, I obviously chose the latter... But still, the cyborg Major Kusanagi cuts an eerie figure, a living doll with a human brain, who rains destruction on lesser foes and has more in common with her enemies than her allies.  This model isn't the closest version of her out there, but it's close enough, and it has a great transhuman-cyborg aesthetic with the human head and visibly artificial, jointed body.

 

A figure whose body is largely monochromatic isn't always so interesting to look at, so I thought I'd try some ambient light effects on this piece.  I pictured her walking through an area with coloured neon lights on both sides reflected on her skin, and on the wet pavement and detritus beneath her.  Once I'd finished that, it seemed that a painted backdrop would suit her too...

 

🎶 Put on my best Sunday dress
And I walk straight into this mess of mine 🎶

 

The sincerest form of flattery

Mimic chest
28mm scale

Sometimes you hunt the treasure... sometimes the treasure hunts you

 

Mimic chests are a very popular subject for miniatures right now for some reason and I've wanted one for a while.  This Nolzur's version is perhaps not the most unique, but it's definitely iconic. I love the lunging motion, and that giant tongue whipping out to snare unsuspecting adventurers into that horrible mouth :O

This was a quick paint job; it's not going to win any contests but I'm very pleased with the result!  Nolzur's minis are generally really easy to paint, the one drawback being that their multipart nature means there are often deep recesses that are hard to get paint INTO.  The mouth here is a good example.

"Why does the boss even keep this thing around?  It's a menace!"

There has never been a time without unicorns

Unicorn
28 mm scale

A long time ago when the earth was green,
And there was more kinds of animals than you've ever seen,
They'd run around free while the earth was being born,
But the loveliest of them all was the Unicorn.

This lovely unicorn was one of the offerings in Bears Head miniatures' last kickstarter, and I knew I had to have one.  I love its real feeling of bulk and power; it's not a gracile, vulnerable
"The Last Unicorn" style creature but a lot more like a war horse.

To me the unicorn represents hope...  I didn't know how thematic that'd be when I ordered it late last year... sure do now.

I recently picked up a bottle of metallic medium and lightly applied that to the unicorn's back, mane and tail to give it a bit of enchanted sparkle.  It didn't really work that well for photos, but in person it definitely adds something extra :)  I'm also pretty happy with this nature base.  It had some growing pains as I had to scrape off a really bad static grass attempt, but the second try with a mixture of flock, foam foliage, and Italian seasoning along with some Gamers Grass clumps worked a lot better.

(Idyllic setting courtesy of the Oxfam Canada calendar)

The magic of nature

Forest witch and her familiars

28 mm

Colors swirl in spiral skies
The trees stare back with willful eyes
The night doesn't frighten me
Cast a stone cast an eye
Water mirrors never lie
The earth is firm beneath your feet

This Bears Head figure took a while to grow on me once I had it in hand - I liked it, but didn't know exactly what to do with it. Luckily, I'd also bought an assortment of Philip Hynes' amazing animal figures, including this adorable little rabbit and squirrel!

 

I won't lie, I was watching a lot of "The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" while painting this, but its vision of witches who by and large behave like Christians and just add "Satanic" in front of everything ("Satanic blessing", "dark baptism"... "evil church camp?") obviously didn't move me so much. So here she is, a crone in touch with nature and the living things of the deep woods. She may have her own morality, but I don't think she's hosting any Dark Baptisms or roasting any babies...

"You're outnumbered, witch!"
"You think death has any power here?  In my world, surrounded by life?

Happy little trees
28 mm scale

I also made my first trees! I used the basic method from this video (including homemade clump foliage), but there are lots of other good foliage and tree tutorials out there.  They're a bit sparse, but I think I achieved a somewhat natural look.

Definitely little.  Perhaps happy.

"I hope that's not releasing some kind of fumes" - my wife

Return of the Shoggoth Masters

Elder Thing
28 mm scale

Unlike many of H. P. Lovecraft's horrors, the Elder Things were not supernatural or truly malicious in any way.  They were aliens who traveled to earth in the Cambrian era, founding a strange civilization and bio-engineering the dreaded Shoggoths as their servants.  Though hinted at in various eldritch volumes of the past, their existence was only truly discovered by Antarctic explorers from Miskatonic University in the 1930s, precipitating the loss of most of the expedition.

This alien from H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness is actually a figure I sculpted myself about 5 years ago... I primed it and everything, but I think what stalled me then was that I couldn't decide on a reasonable colour scheme.  If you look at fan art of Elder Things online, people seem to go with everything from "grim grey" to "tropical parrot with tentacles".  I finally decided to go with a bit of colour, but I tried to keep it muted or a bit desaturated... I don't think Elder Things are specifically "evil", but I didn't want it looking goofy either.

I made this piece out of greenstuff over a wooden bead and wire; the results were pretty detailed, but when I revisited it it was obvious the wings are not nearly as robust as they should be... one had broken off.  It definitely wouldn't do well as a gaming figure.  I think that if I made it today I'd also use a very different wing design, this one is a little too simple/static.  Oh well.  I still like that weird tool it's carrying.

He didn't remotely recognize the species, but he
figured politeness couldn't hurt.

Exobiology Major

First Contact

15mm scale

Dr. Phan watched in amazement as the roiling mass of spheroids churned this way and that, finally elevating itself to over two meters off the ground.  The individual globules seemed to grow and shrink smoothly, matter flowing between them in a faintly discernible phosphorescent process.  As she peered at the entity, it slowly arched forward, several large spheres taking up position an arm's length from her faceplate. Particles seemed to travel through its body, coalescing in a constellation of bright spots in the sphere closest to her. "Hello," she said, "Who are you?"

This piece was a "quick" (2 days) response to a friend; I asked for a prompt for my next piece and she offered "first interplanetary meeting".  The astronaut figure is from Ground Zero Games, the alien is my own design. I tried to come up with a truly unique concept for an intelligent alien: a sort of syncytial giant slime-mold-like entity that's not formless, but doesn't have a fixed skeleton or appendages either.  I wanted to hint at sensory structures that float free in the body and are recruited to whatever part is proximal to the object or direction of interest. 

On a technical level, the alien is just a collection of balls of greenstuff, stuck together as haphazardly as possible.  The blue life form on the ground is a mixture of blue paint, acrylic gel medium, and sand.  The photo backdrop was hastily painted today, I've never done that before!

Watcher of the sandy sea

Desert dweller and solar droid

15 mm

Perhaps they're a roamer, seeking salvage or hidden wisdom in the deep desert.  A moisture farmer gleaning a living selling water pulled from the dry air.  Or a reclusive hermit, anxious to remain alone.  Whoever they are, along with their trusty but worn droid, repaired and rebuilt a dozen times, they probably know the ways of the desert as well as anyone ever has.

I've had these figures kicking around for a while... the human is from Alternative Armies HOF sci-fi range while the droid is from Ground Zero Games.  They're both converted a bit; I added the respirator pack and the antenna to the human (a definite improvement to a fairly generic sculpt!), the solar array to the droid. The human's attire is inspired by real life desert people - the Berbers of North Africa.  The colour coordination with the droid's solar array was unintentional, but looks pretty good.

"Sss-sss-sss, how are things huuuuman? All quiet out here?"
"You're the first visitors in weeks. Will you share water?"
"Sss... it would be an honour."

Indigenous spirit of greed

Wendigo

28mm scale

Blood is on the table and the mouths are chokin'...
But I'm goin' hungry

Even if this wendigo figure from Bears Head Miniatures has more in common with recent horror movie depictions than traditional Anishnaabe legends, it's still a terrifying beast. It lurches through the snow, ravenous mouth forever hungry, its distinctly human forelimbs betraying its origins as an utterly corrupted soul.

In addition to reinforcing taboos against cannibalism, it's not hard to understand why a society living on the land, who relied on each other's cooperation every day, would believe that greed and selfishness could literally make you a monster.  The wendigo can also be understood as a symbol for rapacious acquisitiveness that throws an individual out of harmony with their community and environment... probably a metaphor worth paying attention to in our time.

On a technical note, I based this figure on a craft plywood disc covered in Fimo.  It's metal so I was able to sculpt the stump and rocks, and bake it, figure and all, before adding the skull and a stick as a taller tree trunk.  I used Golden acrylic gel medium mixed with bluish-white paint, sprinkled with baking soda when still wet, as the snow. Hopefully this will avoid it yellowing in the future.

A more traditional depiction of the wendigo,

by Ojibwe artist Norval Morrisseau