Update

So the slow progress continues. I have another knight on the go (man, I'd forgotten how much I hate painting over a white undercoat!), and I decided to finish the 4 archers I had on the go, before I started on the men at arms.

So I now have 4 painted archers. Not a legal unit, but a start!apologies for the dim 'n' dingy photos, but for some reason the flash on the camera I'm using won't always fire when I tell it to.

Above is the 4 archers, with defensive stake & brazier. Originally I was going to try and paint the coals all orange and glowing - and I may still go back to add that in - but when I was painting them it did occur to me that it's when there's the white ash on the coals that a barbecue is at its hottest...

I've stuck with blue for the small shields, as these archers all form part of the retinue of my battle standard bearer (photo of him below...). I decided not to do a freehand little boar, as I'm already spending more time on these models than their measly points value can justify!

You may notice that they all have red hoods or jerkins; initially I included red as it was the only bright colour I had to hand, but I quite like the consistency. In my mind, it's the equivalent of a high vis jacket so they don't get shot by accident when on a hunting party. 

As I mentioned previously, I really like the detail on the plastic archers. I've stuck with my initial instincts, and kept the men at arms devoid of any extra accoutrements, but I've laden the archers down with accessories. I like the concept of them as foragers for the army, so I have all the food items on their belts, representing them hunting en route to the battle. This chap has a rabbit, a rat, and a turnip all on his belt. I suspect the rabbit goes to the Knights, while rat + turnip = bowl of brown.

I do have some issues with the command of the archers; I'll leave that moan for now, though.

I also took a couple more photos today, first off the aforementioned standard bearer.

I did him last year - at the time I had a slight issue with the transfer, trying to heat dry it too quickly caused it to fog up, but it looks OK. He's got the De Lisque banner, so he could be an army standard bearer, or if I downgrade De Lisque to a paladin or unit champion, this could easily be a unit standard. 

And speaking of De Lisque, here's a clearer picture of him too. 

So that's my total thus far: 4 men at arms, 4 archers, 3 knights, including a hero/champion and standard bearer. So...no legal units, yet, let alone a legal army!

The plan is to carry on plugging away at the knights, and to speed paint up my men at arms. Next update when I have at least 10 of them done. Or when I get this yellow-barded knight done. So probably the men at arms. ;)

VBB

Isn't it? Wasn't it? Standard.

The other day I posted about a couple of conversions I did for my army; given I'm playing Andrew B's shambling hordes on Monday, I figured I'd best pull my finger out and get on with the painting.

So I did.

LEADBELLY: Orc Battle Standard Bearer

Converted from the Avatar of War shaman model, with weapons and standards from the Orc sprues and armour and skulls from the undead sprue. I wanted him to stand out, and since red was the detail colour for my army, it made sense to do his cloak and standard in that colour. 

Given his rag-tag, mismatched armour, I decided to paint the banner as if it had been looted. So I painted it up with a black chevron, intentionally aping the design on the shield of my wolf rider musician. The idea being that Morthang's Waaagh have tangled with a Bretonnian army before, squishing some Knights Errant in the process. Then I slapped some orcy glyphs on top. The skull design has been repeated across my army, but I added a crude, stylised flaming sword, as he is Morthang Da Burna's standard bearer. 

I'm super-chuffed with how he turned out. He's virtually unrecognisable as the same model as my shaman Drogrot Gorkeye. 

I was concerned he'd look more similar from the rear, as the cloak has a lot of detail. It is amazing, though, the difference a paintjob makes. A shield slapped on, and a banner to draw the eye, combined with a lick of red paint and Gork's your uncle. 

Leadbelly from behind

I decided to "dirty up" the banner and his tattered red cloak. Initially I was going to use a brown wash (Agrax Earth Shade to the rescue) but it turned the glyphs a funny pink colour. Once that dried, and I redid the white glyphs, I opted for a drybrush of bown/black instead, and it worked really well. 

Once I put him in the unit, he looks even better, nicely offsetting the red of the shields. Here he is with the Orc Boyz unit "Da Red Skullz" and their boss Grak Skulltaker.

Leadbelly in situ with Da Red Skullz

 Finally, before I sign off, here's a shot of Leadbelly and Big Toof, my savage orc big boss. I did take a shot of Big Toof in Skargutz' Boyz, along with Drogrot the shaman, but Big Toof's sword is blocking Drogrot from the camera, so I'll try that again later.

Da Big Boss Men. Or rather orcs. 

Here's hoping the Ld boost and battle standard (which allows a reroll on all Ld tests, as well as an extra +1 combat resolution) will prove handy. I know Big Toof's attacks will...

Adapt. Improvise. Overcome.

As I mentioned last post, I'm doing some converting just now: to whit, one Battle Standard Bearer (as well as some more wolf riders). I'm using the Shaman model from Avatar of War, as I ended up with 2 by accident, and I knew I had lots of spare Orcy bits. Behold: Orc Big Boss and Morthang's Battle Standard Bearer.

Leadbelly

 Flash has killed the detail on the metal bits, but hopefully you can see well enough that it's hardly recognisable as a shaman. The head and sword-hand, as well as spear/banner are basic Orc Boy bitz, while his armour is from the skelly warrior bits, donated by Andrew B. One breastplate looked too small, but I had the idea to put two on him, as if he was too big and fat to get armour that fit him. A green stuff belly and a dab of glue, and he has a name: Leadbelly. Some more undead bits and bobs finish him off, hiding the handle of the staff, and a pile o'skulls on the base. Trophies and what not.

Leadbelly from the rear

He looked pretty different from behind, too, but I popped a shield on his back to hide some of the detail, to make him look different, and to keep him in line with the Orc Boyz he'll be accompanying to battle.

`Remarkably fast to do, and I think he'll look great once he's painted.

So, on to the wolf-riders.

I wasn't planning on posting anything about these guys. I've already blogged about GW's awesome Fenrisian Wolf models, and how good they look as wolf-rider mounts. However, when I went to make my next five, I encountered a problem. Maths.

I had miscounted when I checked I had enough bitz left over for 10 riders. Specifically, I was shy right arms with bows and, more worryingly, left arms. Not just left arms with the right pose or weapon, but left arms. Period.

D'oh!

Time to adapt, improvise and overcome! To deal with the bow issue, I mostly used spears. I made a few in a throwing pose, and ensured they all had quivers and bows on their backs. This will mean I can split the spears up and say the units just have bows or, if I ever want a unit with spears, I can put them together and hey-presto! Spear unit.

The other arms were trickier though. In my first Frankenstein's monster, I used two bits of different right arms chopped up and put together to make something that looked roughly arm and elbow-like. The hand was a round stump, but that was easily hidden behind a shield. Turned out OK, in the end.

From the rear: messy

From the front: OK

So, buoyed by my pleasant surprise, I turned to the musician. I am sick to bits of the Goblin musician. There is just one instrument - a horn, gripped in the right hand - and so far I've done one for my archers and my first wolf-rider unit. I couldn't face yet another, but luckily I didn't have to as Andrew B's undead sprues contained an enormous horn, which was just too comical not to use. 

Problem was, it had a skelly arm in it. So some snipping, and finagling, and I had a goblin arm in there. The hand is a touch too small - being a skelly hand, but once the shield's whacked on, it looks grand. 

My, that's a big horn. Fnar fnar etc.

The rest of the wolf riders look pretty good. The spears are dynamic and I like this rearing (slightly out of control?) gobbo. If I ever need a boss for the unit, he'll do!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

So all converted up. Now I just need to paint the buggers!