St. George and the Dragon

It was a matter of pure coincidence, but I was looking for some other stuff over the net and I eventually found this:

 Oh, you can see how I had no option but to get it, right? It belongs to Reconquer Designs ranges, which have quite pretty interesting medieval stuff, mostly focused in Reconquista, but with some other generic models.

In fact I found it on my local shop's web, which has a 3D printing service, and it made the whole thing much easier. When I got the actual model I couldn't be more pleased. Absolutely delightful and just right like the pic above. The details are stunning and everything was lovely. So I couln't wait to throw some paint on it!

This is technically a Wyvern, but it will do

I thought of doing the dragon red, but in the end I went for a more classic green. In fact I gave it the same treatment as the Orc Warlord on Wyvern from a few weeks ago. I made some research on St. George and the Dragon representations in art through history and there are a lot of different interpretations and readings of both the knight and the beast. However, I think this is the first time I see St. George in this Norman style.

To be fitted later!

Apparently St. George was a Roman officer of Cappadocian Greek ascendance, a Praetorian to Diocletian, and who was sentenced to death for not abjuring his Christian faith. Wikipedia assists me by stating that the Diocletian Persecution of 303 was especifically aimed at Christians within the ranks of the professional soldiers of the Roman Army, and hence when George was caught. He was beheaded at Nicomedia on 23 April 303. So the tradition says.

It seems that the cult to St. George became popular in the following centuries. But what about the dragon? The legend doesn't come up until the 11th century, spreading through Europe during the 12th century.

Yeah, that guy is nothing without me!

 

(By the way, do you see that hole on the dragon's neck? It's designed so the spear can go through it when the model is assembled. Seriously top notch design work!)

Once upon a time... It is said that a dragon built its nest on a natural spring nearby the town of Silene, Lybia, and that the people gave two sheep each day to the beast so they could get water. But at some point there were no sheep enough, so they started to give the dragon human sacrifices, on a raffle basis. The system worked until one day the King's daughter was chosen. Only then people seemed to have a problem with the whole thing (Hello?? No one is making any kind of social criticism here? Ahem. Never mind...). Long story short, George faces the dragon, kills it and the citizens of the town became Christians. Woohooo.

Well, there are way better sources for the story than this blog. Go make some research.

Going back to the model, I had this little frame at home, and I thought it was perfect for this occasion:

Come on, dragon, go home, you're drunk

Some DAS putty to make it more 3D

I had some doubts when it came to painting St. George. There are as many representations as artists, I'd dare to say, so I didn't feel bound by specific colours. I couldn't make his clothes white, as that was the colour of the horse. I thought of green, but it was all too green alongside the dragon.

Besides, I'm getting a Rohirrim vibe here

So this was my final take:

It took me some time to get to this solution

In the meantime, I moved forward with the base:

Barren desert. But the dragon's lair was supposed to be close to a spring

So some vegetation is required

I took my chances with the black edge on the base, I thought it would look better this way, instead of using the whole base as part of the vignette, with land and grass.

This is the final result:

St. George seems to be quite popular all over Europe, being the patron of many countries and regions, revered from East to West, from Russia to England, spanning Ukraine, Hungary, much of the Mediterranean.. and outside that, even Ethiopia! As I googled him to write this post, I discover that Muslims also consider George as a prophetic figure in Islamic sources. I'm happy to display someone who brings together so many different people. We have too few of those.

Something old, something new, something red

Misleading title, I admit it ;)

Long story short, I've used my Secundaris Space Marines Method to build some Blood Angels. Let's get the pic first and the long, boring text later:

Why did I choose to do that, so suddenly? It's quite unexpected, isn't it? OK, a (not so) little digression...

My younger, who quite recently just turned 5, has been fiddling/toying/playing with my miniatures for some quite time now. He gets them from the shelves or drawers and just pew-pews with them or makes his own story, whatever. You know this kind of stuff, we all have done it. Needless to say, quite a significant number of minis end up on the workbench again for... extensive repairings. I don't really care. I believe it's more important that the kids enjoy and get familiar with dad's toys. I only keep the most fragile models away from them.

The thing is that he's been playing with my Carcharodons, making them fight against almost anything else around. All kind of beasts, space lizards or whatever. So it's all I like these knights, pew pew. A few weeks ago he plainly asked me if I could make some knights like those for him, but in red. That's important, as it's his favourite colour. He was tired of using those boring, dark grey space knights.

So I got this unexpected commission, one I could never refuse! These were the essential guidelines:

1. They had to be red. My first idea was not to do a mainstream Chapter (spoiler: I changed my mind later), I thought it would be nice to do a different thing, something more characterful. Well, of course I couldn't do something as vanilla as, let's say Genesis Chapter. What kind of dad does that to their own child. In the future it would be something like "-Hey, how did your old man got you into Warhammer?" "-He painted me some Genesis Chapter Marines" "-Uuuuugg". Ahem. I seriously considered the Exorcists, as I've done other Chapters involved in the Badab War in the past. In fact I even started painting them with this idea in mind, as you'll see later. However, this involved the future problem of explaining to my kid the weird stuff surrounding this Chapter, such as daemonic possessions, the Puritans vs the Radicals within the Inquisition... the Inquisition itself... well, you know. Anyway, while I was on the early stages, he saw a pic on my computer of Blood Angels and he asked "-Are those my red knights?" "-Well, son, not particularly these, but..." "-But I like these. I want these." "-Ooookay". No more questions, your Honor. Blood Angels it is. In fact I honestly think that in the end it was the right choice. If he's ever to play WH40K on his own in the future I guess it's better to start with something better known, such as this Chapter. Blood Angels then!
2. They had to be, I wouldn't dare to say sturdy, but at least a little bit resistant. Their primary use is not precisely going to be on a gaming board by adults, but by a 5 y/o. For that reason I didn't even consider metal miniatures. It needed them to be plastic, and with the least possible number of pieces involved. I had a few spare Primaris Marines on their sprues, so they seemed like the obvious choice.
3. Once I was on this course of action, I wanted visual coherence with my other stuff, i.e., my realscale Carcharodons. Please be aware that all this stupid fanfic from 10th Edition, such as the Primaris Marines, the resurrected Primarchs and other nonsense simply doesn't exist in the Suberverse. Don't even bother to mention it. I have large, towering Space Marines, and that's it. That's why I used regular Space Marines helmets. But, as said above, I wouldn't dare to make just but the minimal, essential conversions. I don't want a hundred pieces all over everyday.
4. I can't believe you just read all that. Let's see the pictures!

Raw Materials

You can see that I originally intended to add a Captain, but in the end I dropped it out of the project. It could make sense as an Exorcist Space Marine Captain, but not that much as a Blood Angels Captain.

I even started to paint it!

I'm not a fan of the new large bolters, but I can live with them. I shortened them for my Carcharodons, but I kept them for these Marines, as I feared little broken bits all over the place. However, I shortened the plasma gun, that was too much for me!

I hadn't painted this amount of red in quite some time!

Both my kids helped in the early stages with the base colour. It was one of their first contacts with the brushes and we worked on some of the basics, it was a pretty cool experience :)

As Old School as I could get them

 I went for a Second Edition aesthetics (well of course!), and I must confess that I thoroughly enjoyed the process. The vibrant red, the breast plate eagles in yellow, that kind of stuff... ohh, I felt like thirty years ago, in the middle of the Red Era. This was the kind of work I would have liked to do then but lacked the skills to achieve, so I can say that these five Space Marines have been a total second chance for me!

Here you have them, one by one.

The mohawk helped with the oldschool vibe

As I see this pic now I notice I haven't finished the checkers on the kneepad! :O

I didn't think of the Croatian Marine until I had it finished

The bolter and pistol pose is quite Second Edition too

It can't be retro if you don't use a beakie head

I'm displeased with the decals. I only used the Blood Angels symbol on the left shoulderpads, but I think it won't be that long until I tear them apart and paint them. For now, here you have the final result:

The best thing of all this is that my kid is happy with his new red warriors, and that's invaluable for me.

Oh, but now the elder brother (8), has just asked if he could also get some minis for him! I've proudly answered that for sure, what would you like, kiddo? And I didn't expect the answer... Marvel Superheroes minis. Wow.

Well, I guess I'm looking for the Crisis Protocol stuff now...

Interlude: Holiday sketches

 Something out of the usual today. I've enjoyed some days off with the family. Nothing spectacular, just a short trip a couple of hours far from home. The thing is that, though the forecast predicted some rain, we had a little more than expected, and even some snow, so we had to stay indoors more time than we had planned. The kids managed well (most important thing!) and I took the chance to take a ballpen and a sketchbook and let myself go with some quick drawings of our excursions over the area.

These were my first attempts of doing this kind of thing in years, so please excuse the quality and just value the enthusiasm XD

First, the castle of Burgo de Osma, the village where we stayed, top of the hill, with the medieval (originally Roman) bridge over the river.

Please mind the river, I clearly still have a lot to learn

Not a great deal, I'm afraid, more a warm-up than anything else. I tried to depict the 10th century ruined castle that dominates the landscape over the area, from a pic I took from the other side of the river.

Then I took a slightly more serious endeavour, I tried a more detailed drawing of the cathedral of the village. This time I have a couple of WIP pics:

The cathedral of Burgo de Osma

There are some serious perspective issues and some stuff I only noticed when it was too late, but somehow the ctrl+z thing didn't work here. I have to say it's the first time I try to do this thing right with ink, with no previous pencil whatsoever, so I had no chance to correct any mistake.

The inner geek in me can't help but see the village (the center of it nowadays remaining essentially medieval) but with a Mordheim twist, full of ruined stone and wooden houses, high walls and tons of dangers and adventures behind every corner. I guess I should call it Osmaburgheim to make it sound commercial, hmmm...

We made a short trip to a nearby castle, Gormaz, which happens to be the largest fortress in Spain. I was amazed by the sheer bulk of it, ruined and abandoned as it is (which is an absolute shame, but that's another story). A 10th century castle (though built over a previous fortification), originally from the Caliphate and (very long story short) later on conquered by Castilians.

Again, from a pic I took with the phone

Dated yesterday

I would have liked to draw some other pieces, as I took bazillions of pics of dead rocks piled up in awesome shapes like those above, but I'm happy I found some time to produce at least these.

I guess I should provide the source pics for you to decide how close I got from the original XD

Now it's the time to confess I have like a ton of minis I got from Crusader years ago for a 28mm medieval project I have in mind. I may have to bring them on the bench...

Second chance

These days I've been in an unexpected project. Back in 2004 I painted an Orc Warlord on Wyvern as a commission for a friend. Recently both rider and beast suffered from an undesired gravity challenge, and were reduced to this state:

Ouch

My friend asked me if I could glue the pieces again and restore the model to its previous general shape. But of course, once I had this in my hands, I couldn't just reattach the bits back and leave it alone. A 20 years old paintjob deserved some deeper restoration.

So I took this different approach!

I repainted the whole Wyvern. Both belly and wing membranes were painted in Vallejo Khaki and I tried a slightly more vibrant green for the scales and so.

There are not two adjacent scales in the same exact tone of green

I kind of did the same to the Orc Warlord. I dared to paint more pieces of armour in red, instead of plain metal, and added Orc flames, checkers and stuff. The helmet had lost the horns/fangs/whatever it had at both sides, so I replaced them with a couple of horns belonging to the Dwarf plastic boxed set (form 5th Edition, I believe?)

If he sneezes, chances are to get his eyes ripped off the face

Here you have the whole piece back again to life:

I'm suddenly feeling the urge to play WHFB again after so many years!

It's not that usual to get such a second chance of painting a commissioned model. It's interesting, as you get to see how much you have actually evolved along the years, and to see what you do differently now or keep on doing the same.

Let's see what comes next!

To Infinity... and beyond!

 Quite some time since I didn't paint Infinity, but in fact the original project wasn't really finished, so about time I did something about it!

I had painted the Operation Kaldstrom core box, but my pal also got the "Beyond Operation Kaldstrom" expansion pack, as well as a couple of heavy units; here y ou have them all!

First of all, I had a mini still pending from the core box, Oktavia Grímsdóttir. I had painted her, but not taken any pics. She´s a mercenary (well, maybe a little bit more complicated than that, but the word covers it all for this post's sake), so she can provide some flexibility to your games.

Now with added snow

 Right, I've added snow to the bases (I have to fix this one!). The effect works fine at tabletop distance, but I'm afraid that if you look closer, it looks like the mini has just opened a box from Amazon and all the protecting stuff has spilled all over.

Anyway! The Panoceania team is made of  these guys, a Varg (spec ops), a Boyg Soldier (scary bloke in his uberarmour) and a Locust (a hacker, don't be fooled by his gun):

A Varg, A Boyg and a Locust come into a bar...

A Varg, A Boyg and a Locust come out from the bar...

I tried to reproduce the same colour I previously used on other Panoceania units, but I believe this time I got maybe a slightly deeper blue. Anyway I think it works. They all have interesting designs and are exquisite miniatures, but that's precisely what makes a challenge out of each one of them!

Let's move on. The Yu Jing team also consists of three members, a Shàng Jí ("superior"), which is a Hacker in an armour; a special character, Jing Qo, The Shadow of Huangdi; and a Ye Mao ("wildcat"), covering the spec ops role for the group.

Seriously, you have to be more careful when you open your boxes, look at the floor

Hey, no, I'm not done with you, come here immediately!

Once again I tried to reproduce the colours, but I think this time my orange is a little bit more vibrant than my previous work, which was slightly more yellow toned. However, I believe they all look fine when together.

I told you that besides the "Beyond" expansion pack, my pal also got heavy units. In Infitity these are known as TAG (Tactical Armoured Gear). Panoceania got this Cutter:

Well, this monster truly impresses

On the other hand, Yu Jing counts with the Blue Wolf Mongol Cavalry:

Looking for Red Riding Hood

For sure you can have quite a game with all this! Here you have a pic with this whole batch:

We could make the cover of a book with such a composition

And a final pic with all the stuff I've painted so far, with snow bases for all:

The whole project!

Fortunately the differences in tones are not severe and the new freshly painted minis match the previous ones, I'm relieved!

Well, of course now that the minis are painted, there's only one thing we can do... we have to learn to play! I'll let you know of my progress on that front!!