Heartbreaker Ratman Champion with Mechanical Hand (Tim Prow) (Mechanismo March ’19)

Heartbreaker Ratman Champion with Mechanical Hand Tim Prow

Today I start showing the models I finished this month(!) with one of the off-brand Skaven I kinda previewed during my review of the AK Interactive Spray Primers recently. Sculpted by Tim Prow many years ago for Heartbreaker, the model is still available today from RPE (Ral Partha Europe – who confusingly, apparently have no current connection to Ral Partha). I’m also counting this one towards Mechanismo March as the Mechanical Arm/Not-Powerfist is a pretty integral part of the model.

Heartbreaker Ratman Champion with Mechanical Hand Tim Prow

I was a little stuck originally about the colours to use on his clothing, as I really haven’t come up with an “army colour” for my Skaven (let’s face it – it’ll probably overall be a melange of earthy, muddy greens and browns) but I did want to use a more interesting colour on this guy – and what better to use than yellow as a nod to Wudugast, who has been chipping away at his yellow-themed Skaven army for the last couple of years and sharing them on his blog. which helped serve as an inspiration to me actually managing to finish my Plague Censer Bearers recently, and now, along with Alex’s AoS challenge this one and his fellows (one still very WIP).

Kev Adams’ Heartbreaker Orc Warlord (1995)

I’d planned to take new, better group photos of the Iron Warriors for today’s post, but unfortunately I was feeling under the weather yesterday, and am still that way now – so it didn’t happen. With a solid week of work ahead of me, it’ll hopefully happen next weekend!

In the meantime, here’s a model where I already had the photographs ready. This guy is another of my renovated models. Having been painted back some number of years ago, the overall palette I’d used was more than a little too garish and had a few too many colours for my modern, more refined taste. The solution? Repaint parts of the model, tone some of it down, and give it a new base. Ergo! A new lease on life for this previously rather sad model.

Kev Adams' Heartbreaker Orc Warlord (1995)

The slotta dates this model as sculpted back in 1995. It’s a hella-chunky model, and the huge shoulderpads really give him some heft. I think the rather plain helmet could have been a lot nicer, though. As with much of the old-school stuff in my collection, I purchased this model back in the 1990’s. Part of Kev Adams’ post-GW output, I find it odd that someone like RPE hasn’t re-released it alongside the other Heartbreaker stuff that they have.

Kev Adams' Heartbreaker Orc Warlord (1995)

Originally I’d painted him as a Black Orc, which means I started him before the current line of plastics or their predecessors that share the current aesthetic in metal. I rebased him onto a 32mm base, which fits the figure much more betterer. I also lightened up his skin from the near-black that it was and repainted many of the “soft parts”, making his leather and cloth accessories much more appropriate. Purple pouch? Yellow wristbands? Ugh! Much nicer this way…