One thing about the various models that we call “Oldhammer” is when looking for them in the old catalogues, there’s an awful lot of them that just aren’t listed in various catalogues. This guy is one of those. After a bit of digging around, I found a model that this guy is a variation of – “Mannik” of the ORC1 range, as shown in the 1987 Citadel Compendium. So given the way things worked back then, it only makes sense that this model was sculpted and released alongside. It’s certainly got the weird, malformed, and horrible-to-paint face that quite a few of Kev Adams’ earlier orcs had before he refined and stuck with the orc look that has remained today through any number of Citadel’s sculptors and even games companies (hello, Blizzard!)

The interesting thing (to me) is that the model on the left was originally painted by me back in the 90’s, along with the shield of the guy on the right. Basically, a couple of years ago I found my original model rotting in a figure case, and decided to rebase him and touch him up just a little. At the same time, I started a “new” version of the same model in something closer to my current style. Except.. in fixing up the original, his orc-face shield popped off. And then various combinations of the two models and the original shield fell in and out of the black hole that apparently exists on and around my painting area, eventually resulting in the newly-painted model having the original shield glued onto it, and the old model having the newer shield glued onto it as I found them and tried to finish off both models for the final time this month.

So now they’re both finished, but truth be told – and especially sitting here looking at the images as I write this, I’m not happy with the new (our left) shield. I think the original one really aces it. I’m going to have to go in again and fix up that newer shield.

I’ll update in some form once I’ve done that…