Ora pro nobis

I’m painting monks at the moment. Five of them are now finished, the next are almost done and yet another five await the brush. They are the inhabitants of the small monastery of St Gotthart in the Black Mountains. A small ecclesiastic community dedicated to the ongoing praise of the illustrious St Gotthart – a warrior knight martyred in the struggles against the forces of evil lurking in the deep forests climbing the steep slopes of the region.  Some whisper that St Gotthart perhaps was murdered by his own due to petty jealousy and internal struggle among his warrior brethren, but such things are dismissed by the devout monks.

In a scenario we are going to play in the end of January this small community is facing a dire threat. The vampire Anna Lustig and her coconspirator, the necromancer Peter Luther, are planning their revenge on the monks of St Gottharts order after the friars dispatched their vampire master Walther von Löwe to the Chaos Wastes in a previous confrontation in our campaign. The undead host is now out for bloody revenge and their aim is not only to kill all the monks, but also to burn down the site and claim the relics stored in the temple. It is now up to the monks, a few adventurers who happen to seek shelter for the night in the monastery as well as a selection of other personalities to defend the sacred site against the brutal attackers. Great, pulpy stuff and I’ll write more about the scenario as time approaches.

The monks you see are a diverse lot. I have been collecting monks for a while and those you see here are, from left to right, produced by Gripping Beast, Foundry, Black Tree and the two last are also from Gripping Beast. I really like the monks produced by Black Tree; the minis are full of character and very clean sculpts matching perfectly the old school lead I normally push around. The same goes for the monks from Foundry, although they suffer slightly from some dodgy details, such as the very clumsy club of the one you see here. The monks from Gripping Beast look fine from a distance but up close the sculpting is awkward and the casting very shoddy. Put bluntly I found them disappointing.

What’s your opinion – have you any experience with Gripping Beast minis? Well, more about monks in the coming post.

 

Cheers

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hoot! Hoot! Says the giant owl

Here’s my latest effort, the weird and wonderful Giant Owl released by Citadel in 1988. I have had my eye on this model for quite a while, but it was only after having seen Harry the Hammer’s painted specimen at this year’s BOYL that I realized that I had to get one myself.  It’s like that with us collectors, the mind works in strange ways.

Actually I’m not completely sure why I’m so infatuated with this model. Owls are just strange creatures and there’s also something odd about this model. Something spooky, and I guess it’s all in the face of the model. However, you also need to acknowledge the dynamics of the model. Instead of just sculpting a sitting owl, which perhaps world have been the obvious and classic way to do an owl, the sculptor (not sure who made it), depicted the owl just before it’s taking off. Brilliant!

Once I began to plan the painting of my giant owl I came to think of Celanawe and Lieam’s epic struggle against a fierce, vicious owl in David Petersen’s fine Mouse Guard series. The confrontation takes place during the winter and I was thus inspired to give my owl’s base a snow theme.

Celanawe and Lieam’s epic struggle against a fierce, vicious owl in David Petersen’s fine Mouse Guard series

I’m quite happy with the result. What do you think?

 

Cheers

Martin

Three newly painted beastmen

Here’s a few beastmen I finished recently. I had them hanging on my desk for a while and wanted to have them finished now. Otherwise I’m not focusing on chaos at the moment but monks –and lots of them! More about that in a later post. But back to the beastmen. There’s really not that much to tell – more 80’s Citadel goodness painted with complete disregard to the standard colours of the four great old ones of the chaos pantheon. As mentioned before, I’m quite bored with the self-imposed limitations to the choice of colours when it comes to chaos.

The photos don’t really do the paintwork much justice, but I find myself seriously challenged by the lighting conditions at the moment and I’m actually considering buying some sort of artificial light system. Well, more post are in the pipeline. Stay tuned.

Cheers