Return; complete with a Rat Ogre

It has been just over a month since I last blogged. For this I am sorry. I blame a combination of intense overwork, nice weather, two new kittens and some limited success for England at the Cricket.

For those that don't know cricket, it is a quintessentially English game, whose rules are best summarised as;

1. There are two teams. One out, one in.
2. The team that's out try to get the player that's in, out.
3. When they do get him out, he goes in.
4. Then the next player goes out. As long as he's out, he's in.
5. The object is then for the team that's out to get the second player out. When they get him out, he goes in.
6. This process is repeated for each innings until the team that's out gets the team that's in all out.
7. When the whole team is out, the team that was in goes out, and the team that was out goes in.
8. Then they play a second innings until they're all out. Except one player. He remains not out.

 But it rained today, Cricket was stopped and I had little else to do but update the blog....

Some time ago I prepared a small number of rat ogres and last month I actually blogged the first of the finished chaps. Now it is time to show and tell with the second..

 The conversion work on this young lad was pretty minimal. I repositioned the head so that it pointed forward (I was worried that if they all looked at their shoulders it might suggest either a poor masseuse or excessive in breeding). I also removed the symbol that was carved into the flesh of the animals back and got rid of quite a bit of the stitching that joined the various body parts together.

The painting heavily emphasised the skin colour. The hair texture was painted on as i thought I would be able to achieve a look of finer (or even thinner) hair this way.

Hope you enjoyed, more to come soon (unless it stops raining of course).

Skaven Muscle: A finished rat ogre

When last we saw the skaven Rat-ogres they had been, assembled, converted and filled with green stuff. The nest step is to slap on a bit of paint. So that is what I have done with this young lad. Nothing too strange going on here, but I have cut off his hand at the shoulder strap and turned his arm around so that it is extended.

This resulted in it sticking out a bit so I added some chains and stuff off a chaos marauder. I also had to cut a block under his left leg because the chain would have been dragging on the floor..

I went for a skin tone and overall I am quite happy with him.

Off to paint a second..

Storm of Magic ready: Karl Franz on Imperial Dragon

This weekend Games workshop will release "Storms of Magic" an expansion to the warhammer fantasy system. The expansion seeks to encourage the use of magic and monsters. The the words of GW themselves "Roused by the ever-changing magical tides, monstrous beasts emerge from their places of rest to once again wreak havoc across the lands."

Roused by such words, I could not resist the temptation to resurrect a part completed project from my own past. Around two years ago I set out to build Karl Fanz riding on the Imperial dragon. Unfortunately, I just ran out of steam.

Nothing for it but to brush the dust off the figure and set about finishing the beast.

The dragon is the High elf dragon, but I wanted him to look a bit less like everyone else's dragon, so I cut him into little bits and reassembled him, but this time standing on his tail. I had to remove all the little high elf emblems off the armour and I elected to replace the over large reins. His foot needed a little work as did his stomach, but generally I am happy with the pose.

I worked on the assumption that just about every army would be able to field a dragon, so I made its rider removable. This was achieved with the use of magnets in the riders bottom and on the seat. You will never see the underside of the rider so I am not too worried that I have not disguished this magnet well. This arrangement does give me the option of having alternative riders or none at all.

Karl Franz was painted using the colour scheme of the remainder of my empire army. This is cream and blue. I modeled him with his massive hammer, because I guess he would always choose it. The photos below so him sat on a brass rod, so I could photograph him.

The base I kept pretty plain, I just modelled a collapsed wall. I didn't want to distract too much from the big chap.

Hope you enjoy...