Mordor Army picture update

Just thought I should update these Mordor army pictures. 

Not shown here are the Great Beast of Gorgoroths - no, I mean Great Beasts of the Plains - that I am working on.

Age of Sigmar War Turtle-base!

Base 120 mm oval. Face: Not in focus. Beverage of choice when doing the base and taking the shaky pics? Coffee! Obviously!

Yes, yes, the tail is broken off, and yes, yes it's obviously not for Age of Sigmar, it's just something I said to look cool and get more internet friends. But you could easily use it as a Magmadroth, just put something kewl on top of it and paint it red. Voila!

Renendra barells really stand out like a sore thumb if you're lazy like me and avoid puttying them up.

Just reused the parts from the now "defunct" old fastitocalon (it got a one way trip into the wall in one my well-adjusted, Swedish, well-tempered tantrums).

The boat is a test cast that I have filed down to look more like driftwood and like it's been sinking down in the sand for some time. Lots of painting left though. That's what weekends are for, nay?

Humans -> Archetypes -> Kitsch

There's a lot to say about this picture but I shan't. This is just a way for me to make way for the next post, whenever I will be able to get it out of me: When is a human culture reduced into rubbish, kitsch? When will GW use these as a template for extrapolation into some sort of Golden Feathers of the Primarch Stannis Barathian?

When will my dying culture be reduced into the equivalent of the Indians', and how can the so called Swedes above be used as an archetype in 40k? Seeing as they are the exact same thing in our time - politically, nota bene - as the Indian Chieftains* above were at the time the picture was taken? (The picture is colorized, found it on lmgur, not sure on the source from there on however)

Who knows and who cares, my point is: How is it that 40k, arguably one of the most popular tabletop wargames in the Western world** can rely so heavily on all these old, old grind-down archetypes - Eqyptians in space!? Do we like this? Things I knooow! Or is it just a way to appreciate culture and human stuff-thingies in a positive way? Is it even possible to get any customers in the mini-wargaming-world if one would just do something extremely alien and new?
    Granted, I know that people like to "indentify" with things and I am also aware of the saying about innovations: Take an old thing, mix it with another old thing and voila: New thing! But still, would it be extremely off-putting to try out something very new?
   Obviously, not I nor you could probably pull it off, but a big company perhaps? Or is it just a bad business-decision? Or is it that hard? To think of something truly different? Enlighten me on something truly new in the wargaming world (fantasy themed - not space things, please) that I have missed.

The above talk was not my original idea, I was just going to make way for another post for the weekend, so we will have to come back to the Indians later. 


*) The difference between the two groups is extreme. Look at the Swedish "men", ingratiating smiles, weak postures, weak faces, defensively putting their hands over their crotches, more hen than in a KFC...
**) There might be something in China which could potentially be bigger to my dis-knowledge, hence this caveat.

War Turtle, painting of...

It could probably be painted in a lot of other cool colour schemes but I settled with a light green and some darks, and subtle reds in the gill-like things on it's tail and neck. Spot colour: Yellow (eyes). And slight yellow-ish claws.

This example was the first cast, and should really have gone into the bin, but it was nice enough for me to keep for myself, hence this paint-up, which I really enjoyed - the big shell was really nice to toy around with (I tried two other colour schemes just for relaxation). Since this was a test example, I removed zero mould lines (try to find them, you can't!) and did not bother to green stuff the end of the tail which is obviously missing due to air being trapped. The next cast I did lacked this problem, which was bretty kood.

This is a water-living giant turtle and it has some flora and fauna on it's shell. But not too much.
 

I have done zero with the base... plans include broken boats just to really tie it in with coastal affairs.

The shell in more detail. Contact me in the comments below and I will sell you one - the moulds turned out relly nice.
 

Great War Turtle!

Fastitocalon, rather. Upon perusing IP- and copyright-databases from the UK and the USA it seems that the word fastitocalon is only copyrighted if you would write a novel or something. But I could be wrong, hence the catchy and neutral new name: Great War Turtle. If anyone has a better name, please provide it in a comment below and you might get something wicked awesome in the mail.
     This is the first cast which I used to evaluate the moulds, and obviously some details are missing. Do not worry, it shall be fixed in the next cast.

Monotonous, yes, I know, so have some Asian bum-photograhpies.

You can see that the joints aren't really that tight...

... heeey-hooo - that's what she said! But seriously though dude, if you make sure that any sprue-parts are gone with the wind (don't do that, use wet tools or face-mask when dealing with stone-lung-inducing resin) then I think you will be okay. It still is a lot easier to assemble than, for example, the GW Mordor Troll in white metal.

Finally got to fix a new and better Cart of Everliving Flame - the iconic center-piece for Gondor. A vehicle that inspire the Minas Tirith troops and remind them of their inevitable and cherised death in battle. With everliving fires (pyres, really) and grand banners it rolls into battle.

Only question that remains design-wise: Shall it be flanked by soldiers/guards?

Army of Sigmar on a budget.

Obviously I am not playing AoS. Call it click-bait, call it a lie, it doesn't matter, because this model is technically Warhammer and hence Army of Sigmar-related. I might use it for my "extended" Lord of the Rings-game/-hobby-world that I am mildly immersed in.

The real model is shown to the left here. In case you missed the last blogpost (and I am quite sure you did - last time I checked there had been a whopping 10 unique IP:s "enjoying" that post, not the most interesting post it seems - personally I was very pleased with it, how I got the "special snowflake" crowbared into the whole post, but pearls for swines and Swedes).

I lost my "blueprint" for how the WHFB-flair-wings (snow-themed) were supposed to be attached to my home-made base wings and presto:

Tamiya fast-curing putty made it all well and fine. I am actually looking forward to paint this beast. Not the other one though, the fiery one... too diphikult...

asd

Phoenix and Phrostbird!

Frostbird, obviously. Thought I was going to do some sort of wordplay as it were. So where were we? Last time we saw each other, I had just sloppily painted the Isengard Steam Tank and had some things to do - I think it was my "big weekend" I had in front of me.

The Big Weekend was acceptable. Barely acceptable. It was not an enjoyable weekend but such is life. So, when I came back to my place, I started work on the old Warhammer Phoenix - now known as the Army or Age of Sigmar Phoenix.

Please click image above for an explanation why I was so tired after my big weekend. It also had to do with the reason I spent time with my friends who live in Malmö #2:

Got a nice and un-sweet migraine a few days and nights after... horrible how that town has just fallen into the invaders' hands. Witnessed a lot of bad things over the Friday, Saturday and EVEN Sunday night. I couldn't let it bother me more than the-artist-formerly-known-as-Prince-who-is-now-RIP:ing would, so I left with a frown...

But back to the Frostbird: The pieces left over from the Phoenix was used together with plasticard to get this little mockup.

The pieces missing for another bird are: Feets x2, base-wings x2 and body/torso. It was quite nice doing this project inbetween other things: Mould-making and Midgard Giants almost got the best of me.

- - -

Quick recap. I finished this dude, as you guys know...
 

... but I guess you did not know I had the dude sawed apart! Yep, and for what reason does one cut up a model? You guessed it you special...

... snowflake you! Mould making. I decided to make a mould after getting 3 out of 4 pre-orders that I asked for (thank you dead Warhammer-Forum and other places).
    But in all honesty, this Midgard Giant is a special snowflake... in all the worst connotations of the word...

... just like these special snowflakes...

Come on Europeans, get back to your awesome roots. Strangle fight-dogs into submission with your balls hanging freely!

Obviously, the hobby takes precedence of ball-hanging, so instead of taking charge of my crumbling society, I started sculpting the wings for the Frostbird - and as you know, the highest form of praise is imitation, so there you go Gejms Wokshop: I copied your computer rendered wings. Happy now fuckos?

And before we go, I would like to tie this seemingly untidy and uncoherent blogpost together with the thing above: This chaos and Weimar-like state that Sweden (and most of the Western European world is experiencing) has it's charm: I got the contact details to one of the hottest babes I have ever seen. She wants me to contact her on some form of snapp-chat, where "things can't be recorded". Wow... not sure what that means but I think the decadence might have it's pros...