Flashbacks and Nightmares - Ork Painboy and Squig

While searching for some missing paintbrushes earlier I came across one of my favorite old GW minis from back in the day. It's been something of a bust on the hobby and painting front today so for now I'd just like to share a few photographs of that old miniature, a rather archaic Ork Painboy. I'm not exactly sure when he was in production but I'd guess it was around twenty or so years ago. Likewise I don't know how old I was when I painted this one but evidently I was still rather new to techniques such as highlighting and even thinning one's paints. Thus he is a prime candidate for another edition of Flashbacks and Nightmares, in which I take a nostalgic look at examples of my painting past, both for a sense of perspective but perhaps more importantly for some simple facepalm-inducing fun.

So this Ork Painboy has for some reason always seemed really cool to me in that goofy old school Ork sort of way. I also remember well how much fun I had painting him and displayed him proudly for many years on my bookshelf. Even considering the more simplistic style of sculpting back then compared to what we have become accustomed, I think this model still has a lot of neat little details to enjoy. Looking at his gruesome range of doctoring implements, it's easy to see why this caste of Orks became known as Painboyz. The bone saw is great, as are his many knives, cleavers, and clamps. My favorite part of the miniature however is the doctor's head mirror that he wears. It has always amused me that an Ork doctor would be concerned about something as trivial as proper lighting.

As was the case with many Ork personality blister packs, also included with the Painboy was a randomly selected squigly beast. Over the years squigs have become essentially standardized in their shape and appearance, but in olden times there was a very wide assortment of squigs which took on many different forms. Some were pretty nasty looking and may have even seemed like the dangerous little monsters that they were supposed to be. Others, however, appeared rather less ferocious....

Now that's just weird. This particular squiggly beast could be one of the most bizarre and pointless miniatures Games Workshop has ever produced. It should be no wonder then that I am so fond of it. Due to it's standout nature, this squig has been a central focus for numerous homebrew scenarios and has served as an objective marker countless other times. Indeed it's possible that this horribly ridiculous squig has been used in more of my games of 40k than perhaps any other miniature. Not quite up to the usual Grim Dark standard, is he?

Hmm... it seems that I've run out of steam this evening and need to wrap this up. It's been a long day and I'm beat, although I've really enjoyed looking back on this classic GW Ork miniature and his less-than-classic companion squig. I find it quite interesting to see how things have developed and changed over the years. If there are any old minis that you remember fondly for whatever reason, please feel free to leave a comment telling me which ones were your favorites. Otherwise I hope everyone had a great weekend filled with plenty of gaming glory.

Goodnight!

Flashbacks and Nightmares: Stone Trolls

Since the new Orcs and Goblins book was just released this weekend, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at one of my old O&G units, a mob of Stone Trolls. I don't remember exactly when I painted these but suspect it was around the mid to late 1990s. Along with being influenced by the more colorful period of Games Workshop's stylistic history, apparently I was also in a rather experimental mood when painting them. I wanted to do something different from the norm for Stone Trolls, which I'd say I achieved handily, though whether the results were worth it or not I leave for you to judge. While I am fond of these miniatures in a nostalgic way, my assessment of them leans more toward hideous....

Now for a closer look at the individual trolls... yikes! I do however like those bases right down to the classic Goblin Green edges.

This mob of Stone Trolls is lead by an Orc Big Boss but I'm not sure if that would still be allowed by today's rules. I admit to really liking this miniature and think it's a good example of the outright silliness that used to be fairly common in GW designs at the time.

So that's it for this look at some of my old miniatures, I hope you enjoyed it. I really admire creative and innovative color schemes but there is a certain risk when straying from the tried and tested. Not every experiment can be a success, after all. Nonetheless I do like these trolls but if I had to paint them over again I would likely go with a more conventional approach. I would not, however, change a thing on the Big Boss as I especially like the brightly colored skulls on his wrist and orange belt buckle. The sides of his bracelet which you can't see in these pictures have a green skull facing to the right and a red one looking back. Taste the rainbow!

As evidenced by these pictures, this was my first attempt at using a lightbox photo studio thing. Along with getting some brighter lights there's obviously still much for me to learn regarding miniatures photography. It is my good fortune then that just earlier today I saw Nesbet of Nesbet Miniatures has posted what looks to be a very helpful tutorial on this exact subject. Part 1 of the tutorial even has instructions for making your own portable lightbox and photo studio. Awesome! Part 2 looks at correcting common mistakes made when photographing miniatures, and Part 3 is about photo editing. Good stuff if you're interested in that sort of thing... thanks, Nesbet!

Flashbacks and Nightmares: Plaguebearers

While messing around with my Chaos Marines yesterday I took some extra pictures of my unit of Plaguebearers that I painted probably about seven years ago. I'm not sure exactly when these miniatures came out but it seems like it has been a long time now and I think they've stood the test of time nicely. This group of ten daemons is still one of my favorite units that I've ever painted and they always make me smile. Also, since the models are basically just a blob of gross on legs and a sword, I remember them being super easy to paint as well. There's no denying it, Nurgle is fun.

I painted these Plaguebearers having been inspired by two of my med school classes, anatomy lab and pathology, and wanted them to resemble the cadavers from class rather than going for the more classic, sort of fantastic style of daemons. It might be macabre but I thought this would be an appropriate way to differentiate my monsters somewhat and still represent the Nurgle aesthetic. I started by painting them like tanned skin and then proceeded to bruise and disease the hell out of them with numerous washes and glazes. One of my goals was to avoid the wet, slimy look and instead intended them to have more of a putrefying flesh vibe going on. I wanted this to be true even for the areas of exposed organs which I tried to make look like rotten fatty tissue streaked with a some blood and pus but without going overboard on this.

The challenge therefore was to use the thinned pigments, maybe even some inks but on that my memory is hazy, without letting too much shine build up. I am happy with the results and I feel like these guys do a good job conveying the cadaverous plague-corpse look that I had envisioned. Green is my favorite color to paint so I was also glad that there were a few nurglings scattered around to get my hue of preference involved. Per my usual style of photography, all these pictures turned out rather dark and shadowy so it's hard to make out the loathsome runts. I just wanted to note them as they were also one of my favorite elements of these miniatures to paint and are really characterful and quite expressive.

It's been fun taking another look at these guys and remembering all the vile times I've had with them over the years. These little abominations have been a staple of my Chaos Marine armies ever since I finished painting them and have been as satisfying to use in games as they were to paint. So thank you for indulging me once again in another trip down Psychosis Lane. Ciao!

(These are the seven I would normally use when feeling fluffy, or when short on points....)

Flashbacks and Nightmares: The Call of Cthulhu

While digging through a box of old miniatures, I came across this handful of RAFM Call of Cthulhu models. I'm not sure when I painted them but have a feeling they come from the early to mid 90s, making them probably fifteen or more years old. I was reading tons of Lovecraft back then and loved everything Cthulhu. As a miniatures guy as well, I bought these over the course of a few years and then painted all of them in two days. I sure did paint a hell of a lot faster in those days... ;) I may have planned on using them somehow for the CoC roleplaying game but I imagine there would have been significant scale problems with that. So they ended up being display pieces that spent the majority of the last decade or so squished between layers of bubble wrap in a humble shipping box.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to post some pictures of these madness-inducing monsters as sort of a look back at my painting past and such, especially as most of these figures appear to be no longer in production. I remember it being enjoyable to paint those crazy colors but my miniatures still fall humorously short of inspiring any of the same type of fear and insanity as their literary counterparts do. As hard as it is to represent Lovercraftian horror in art, I was never going to be able to do it real justice with little metal models. Regardless, I still think they're some cool buggers and I'm glad I held onto them all this time.

After taking just a couple of photos I noticed my camera was no longer focusing properly on the miniatures. I don't think I did anything improper but suddenly all of my pictures were turning out either much too dark or else very blurry. Hmm, surely a sign of the mythos at work. The only way I could get anything at all in focus was to put the camera right up to the model and then use the flash. The pictures looked weird but didn't seem all that inappropriate considering the subject matter. Well, if that's what Cthulhu wants, so be it. I decided to just make do with the conditions at hand and play around a bit, taking somewhat unusual shots that emphasis for me the sense odd angles that make Great Old Ones smile. Plus another lesson I've learned is don't mess around with cosmic evil, or else Cthulhu will break your camera.

So here's some blurry, overexposed pictures of weirdly colorful Mythos creatures for your enjoyment... hooray for random posting!

Mi-Go

???

(I can't remember this guy's exact name, but it was something like Byakkhi... I'll look it up when I can.)

Nyarlathotep

Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath

Tsathoggua (one of my personal favorites of the Great Old Ones)

[EDIT: The pictured mythos creature above whose name I couldn't remember is called a Byakhee, so I was at least close.]