It's not all black and white

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Although sometimes it might seem like it.











But cheer up my friend. Why do you look so downcast and miserable? Why, you've got two ladyfriends to play with, there's even a third one knocking about somewhere but she's a bit of a munter.






I'm miserable because whatever tosser sculpted me gave me a great big giant head, made me the ugliest sculpt in the range, and then gave me the best tabletop stats to make me sell well.

Ah, but at least a nice guy gave you your moustache back with greenstuff.

Yes, I looked like a right twit* before that.



And now for the criticism.

Yeah, yeah, you thought that was the criticism. Well, it was. And here's some more. The sword's too big (fat), the shield's too small and the head really is that large. No perspective tricks or anything. The bad news is that once I've painted both his mates I've got six more of the same to do so I might need to look into converting those stupid swords in a way that won't look crud*. That's not even thin enough to be a plank sword. There's no way i's a single handed weapon.

[Keeper]

I don't really like this range of dwarves much at all.  You've been doing a great job painting them, Balgin, but the sculpts are just far too exaggesrated for me.

However, this is the first one that I've really liked! :)  OK the sculpt is still sill and I agree with all of your criticisims about it, but I think you're paintjob has really brought out a lot of character that wasn't apparant before.

If it was made by a different company, I'd be saying JAGU ;) :D

[Custom_Hobby]

I agree with both of you on the criticisms and with Keeper that Balgin really did do the miniature justice.

[Perv]

I think they look great mate, my only criticism would be not enough shading on that big sword blade but seeing as you dont like it I suppose you dont care about neglecting it  :icon_w00t:

[alrith72]

I agree with the above, horrible figures, nice paint jobs. If i was being picky i'd say the bases could do with a tidy up.

[Dr.Evil]

Best just using sand as gravel and add a few bigger stones, just started doing this myself, paint the stand black and cover the area you want with the PVA and dip in gravel.
Add a few blobs of PVA and set slightly bigger stones in them, you don't have to worry about painting a stright edge then.  :icon_wink:

[Custom_Hobby]

Blagin did you color the PVA?

[Balgin Stondraeg]

I agree with both of you on the criticisms and with Keeper that Balgin really did do the miniature justice.

You should've seen it before the greenstuff when it had no moustache and a mouth half the size of it's head :(. I've got one without putty I could take a picture of but you can probably find pictures of their ugly Pacman'ness online anyway.

Blagin did you color the PVA?

What PVA?

I painted the base heavily with Goblin Green and then dipped it in the green flock before the paint could dry. I then shook it a bit and blew on it then touched up the edges later. It's how I do all my green bases (Khadoran snow bases are Ice Blue and snow flock).

[Custom_Hobby]

That would explain it. Either way good work :bludrgn2:

[Balgin Stondraeg]

The other two are nearly finished now. I'd liek to say one thing about the Rackham sculpts in general. Their hair is "inking hair", not "highlighting up hair". There's a real difference. Some miniatures have hair you can either highlight up or highlight up and then ink. Some are so fine and crude that you can only ink it for a good result.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Well I've tidied up the base edges a little since these pictures (and touched up one's moustache as some metal had got on it) but here's some group photo's for you all to look at. Now you can see how it fits together as a coherent colour scheme. I was going for "oily" grubby gritty metal without going for rust (with the edges and raised details kept clean as a mark of pride and because it actualy looks quite intimidating too :)).







And now for a shield shot (one had nasty lumpy nobbly bits sticking out that I didn't notice 'till I'd started painting so I covered the irregularity with a thick layer of blobby paint).




And here's a few close ups. I'm considering doing the swords the same way as the armour (really dark but with a bright silver cutting edge) but the complete bright blade sort of looks okay too.