Celtic (ish) flag design

After reading through David James excellent book "draw your own Celtic designs", I thought I would have a go at adding a Celtic deign to the Hordes Titan Gladiator, I am currently painting.

First step was to measure and sketch out the flag from the miniature..

Once you allow for the fabric that goes around the flag pole, I have a flag area of 12.5mm by 44mm. Now to sketch out an ambitious flag design. I choose to go for a Celtic fish because of the fish on the models flag pole and the top symbol is a Skorne emblem...

The problem came when I tried to paint this onto the flag. It turned out I just could not manage to paint a 2mm wide border  pattern without it looking like a big fat splodge. So I painted over with a base colour and tried again with a 4mm wide pattern.

This appears to work quite well. After going through this I believe I can paint the next one at 3mm wide, but after all that effort I could not bring myself to paint over and start this design again. The problem now is that this does not leave much of a gap for the patterns in the middle. In the end I opted for a simple Skorne shape.

This has taken a day a side to complete and at that one side is not yet fully highlighted. Hope it is worth all the effort...

Hordes Titan Gladiator striped and ready to go.

After finishing my first Skorne titan gladiator, its time to start on my second. With the first chap I spent some time making her stand more up-right. This time I have gone for a more simple build.

She still needed some green stuff around the stomach area. For some reason all of these figures require some work in this fashion. The moulds just do not seem to be designed to fit together as they come. Don't get me wrong, the work is fairly minor, but it is required.

Now it is time to get the gold and green paint out again. I have given some thought to a different flag pattern this time, and if I am brave enough I will go for a celtic (ish) look.

Warhammer - Hordes: Hill Fort scenery

Mid week I started tarting up old and underused bits of scenery. The process has moved on a step. Previously I took tired looking hill and unused ruins and combined them by gouging out small pits in the hills to mount the ruins; and by making walls from bits of card.

I then gave the whole ensemble two hearty coverings of PVA to give them some protection. The guys at the club tend to throw them around a bit and packing away is always done at speed, so they need all the protection they can get. I then covered in sand in the normal way.

Once again, I gave a substantial covering of PVA. It never hurts to help protect them. The club has adopted a standard colour scheme for all of our scenery, and it has made a dramatic improvement to the way all the pieces of scenery fit together. To match the colour scheme, the hills are undercoated black, painted scorched brown and dry brushed bleached bone. Flock is then added in a patchwork effect.

These items can either be used individually as singke ruins or collectively to give the impression of a much larger ruined fortification.

WIP: warhammer - hordes hill fort scenery

The process of tidying up the clubs scenery continues. A couple of the guys went through the boxes and wrenched out some of the less used and untidy bits of scenery.

This included small foam hills which looked a little untidy and some pegasus hobbies castle turrets which were just not being used. To avoid throwing them away, I have decided to have a go at combining them into hill fort type things....

I have added chipboard under the hills to make them a little more robust. I have then put a circular hole into the hill to recess the turrets. To make them look more at home I have added walls by adding a bit of foamboard with cardboard cut bricks.

I have then tied it all together with a bit of builders caulk.

Simple.

Next up will come a bit of sand, paint and flock.

Skorne: Titan Gladiator with green armour

First Titan gladiator is now finished.

Nothing too unconventional going on with the paint scheme, except for the fact that I have decided to go for a Skorne army clad in Green. Truth to be told, I don't tend to enjoy painting red and I don't think I have ever really got to the point where I feel in control of the red colour I can produce. I painted a fair amount of green in my Vampire counts army, so thought I would continue with the theme. I always thought that green and cream/gold were complimentary colours anyway.

As discussed in the WIP post I have changed the emblem that sits on the standard. I am quite happy with the way it came out. To my way of thinking it fits quite happily with the style of the Titan. I also think I have got away with the green stuff rope over his belly. My opinion anyway...

The flag is a straight reproduction of the one at the back of the Skorne army book (except in green of course) and was very straight forward to paint. I was going to go for a more Celtic flag, but ran out of energy when I got to that point.

I considered going for a pink elephant look, but lost courage, so ended up with a muddy grey brown. Lots of washes went into making up the colour, but I think that that is mainly because I never had a clear view on what colour I was aiming at.

Hope you enjoy him / her. Strange, I think of her as a lady, don't know why.

Hordes: Titan Gladiator WIP

After finishing a unit of Gatormen, it is time to start the first of the real Skorne units. The first I will have a go at is a Titan Gladiator.

I have tried to make this chap stand a little more upright, so I could better see his happy smiling face! This has meant that I have had to add a reasonable amount of greenstuff around his stomach. This also meant I needed to lengthen his rope braces so his pants dont fall down. Not too difficult, I just needed to be a bit careful.

A bit more around the seams and the addition of an extra plate (to hide his poor joint when I twisted him up) and he is mostly there. I choose to change the emblem at the top of the flag pole so that he will look a little different. I removed the fish thing and added a helmet/shield combination taken from the top of a warhammer empire knight figure.

I found tht the glag pole connection was very fragile and needed the addition of a very robust load of pinning.

Gatorman; Gatorman, does whatever a gatorman does

First complete unit finished for some time and it's a Gatorman unit for my Skorne Army.

Unit leader:

This guy is pretty much as he comes out of the pack. I have added some curve to the tail and used a little greenstuff to disguise the joins, but he is what he is...

Gator B

With this lad, I have converted the two hand (paw) hold on the spear into a single hand hold and given him a bone to hang onto. The bone comes straight from the GW ghouls sprue. The tail has also had a bit of a bend to give him a more natural look.

Gator C

This is the conventional / standard Gatorman pose. You only get two poses with Gatormen (not counting the leader). Once again all I have done is give him a slight tweak on the tail.

Gator D

This is my favourite of the pack. It is the only model I received with this pose and I think it is by far the best pose they have gone for. Once again very little to change, just a little bend on his tail.

Gator E

Final chap to join the pack and this is back to the standard model (as Gator C). I have made his spear one handed and have bent the other arm (leg?) up. The tail is twisted right back on itself this time.

I found the position of the mould joint on the arm quite difficult. I tried and failed to avid a lump or swelling on the arm muscle when I green stuff over the join.

Hope you enjoy them...

New year - new game system - Gatormen WIP

Adopting my normal technique of building an army around those units / figures that I like the models for; I have started the Skorne army with a unit of Gatormen.

The problem with these guys is that there are only two poses (outside of the unit leader). Therefore I have had a go at cutting and repining the arms into different locations. I have also bent the tails around a little to try and avoid that flat look that is a direct result of how they are cast.

Looks like it is time to dig out the green paint....