Tag Archives: Warhammer

Orc1 Warrior Orc/Orc Champion (Kev Adams, 1987-88 or thereabouts) Part 1.

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The earliest I can find this particular orc is in the 1988 “blue” catalogue listed as an Orc Champion, though he’s an alternate sculpt of “Mannik” from the ORC1 Warrior Orc range, found in the 1987 Citadel Journal, so it’s likely he was originally part of that range, given his dodgy facial sculpt. The catalogues get pretty ropey from 1987 and back. Anyway, he’s a duplicate of a figure I painted myself way back in the period between ’88-90 who I found and reburbished recently, with a small touch-up and a new base. The plan was to complete the pair and post them together, but I lost the original shield from the original Orc, so until I find it and remount it, this guy stands alone.

I’ve gone for much the same colour scheme as I did with my other older orcs (that came later, circa 4th edition WHFB), and painted both the red of and the the skull on his stomach guard as a reference to those figures. The highlight of this figure though, is his shield. The freehand orc-face design was originally painted way back in my early days – I think I originally planned for it to go on a war machine – but when I saw it sitting around after all these years, I decided to get it onto a figure, and this guy fit the bill perfectly. All I really did besides the rim was add the upper level highlights.

With his not-especially-interesting front, and cool looking shield on his back, this guy is a shoo-in to be in the rear rank of any force on aesthetic value alone. 😉

Citadel F3 Barbarians (Alan & Michael Perry, 1987)

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Ok, so only our friend here with the double-bladed axe “Gerloc” actually appears in the 1987 Citadel Journal under the F3 banner, but the other two models are both variants on “Gudrud”, who is on that same page, so I’m comfortable with placing these in the same vintage.  A further variant appears in the 1988 “Blue” catalogue under the Barbarian range, along with a Valkyrie-styled figure who I kept in a baggie alongside the boys here for many years. She’ll be painted alongside the Shieldmaidens and Valkyries from Foundry.

This first figure clearly draws heavy inspiration from Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo’s Conan artwork, as do so many barbarians from so many ranges.

This figure was a real motivator for me to learn new techniques for painting black hair, which (let’s face it) can be a right pain in the arse, since we don’t want it to look blue, or grey, or dark brown. Hopefully I’ve managed to pull it off (thanks, Duncan!) and if I haven’t – blame Duncan!

Gerloc here is pretty much also Conan. The spike from his helm was lost long ago, but at least I managed to keep the rest of him intact enough over the years.

I painted these three together, and tried for a slightly more tanned look to their skin than my usual Caucasian skin without appearing too ruddy or too orange. Not that you can really tell here with no models to compare the trio to.

Also on these three, I avoided painting on any tattoos, as I’d be temped to with any models that have a lot of muscular skin showing. Given that they’re old-school models that are a representation of a particular style of artwork (Frazetta, Vallejo) I left their bare skin bare of ink.

This third figure is actually not Conan! He looks and feels to me like a barbarian warlord. The stance, topknot of hair, helm under his arm and especially his cape really work together to suggest a veteran of many battles who now leads a party of warriors to battle.

Of course, his stature being that of a figure circa the late 1980’s means that he looks like a peon when stood next to a newer Barbarian from pretty much any company – let alone something like a Khorne Bloodbound (his spiritual successors), so he may well be relegated to veteran warrior or even a regular warrior/cannon fodder when/if he’s used in any games.

I was painting a similar Chronpia model alongside these guys, but he got bumped at the 11th hour so I could concentrate on this trio of truly old-school models. He’ll be done soon, and the four shall again be united!

Finally – a note and shout-out to those people whose Blogger/Blogspot blogs that I follow – especially Curis and The Responsible One. For whatever reason, either my computer, or my browser, or something is screwy and so when trying to leave a comment in Blogspot blogs using my WordPress account often (almost always) throws me into some weird loop of selecting my username and “publishing” my comment, but then it goes back to selecting my username, and then round and round we go. So I might not be commenting much – but I’m still out here watching and reading! And if you’re unfamiliar with their blogs, you should definitely check them out!