Otto Long Arm – Bestiarum Miniatures

I remember a time when I would get excited about new releases by Citadel Miniatures.  This faded as GW largely moved away from the sort of things that interest me, but every now and then I find a new range or miniature creator that rekindle that excitement.  One of those I have discovered recently are the models by Bestiarum Miniatures.

 

I don’t know much about the background of the world of Bestiarum, but they create some of the most characterful, crazy, dark and sometimes disturbing models I have seen for some time.  The only problem is they don’t produce ‘physical’ miniatures. but sell their ranges as files for 3D printers.  Now, I am a luddite and most technology is beyond me so 3D printing is a mechanical sorcery that frankly terrifies me!  Thank goodness for places like Etsy and eBay where licensed sellers can be found, sometimes providing this type of mini at a reasonable price.

 

Otto Long Arm is the first Bestiarum mini I have purchased.  I’m going to be sensible this time and only buy new ones as the last model is finished… that also encourages me to paint them faster.

 

And I need that encouragement.  This is the first model I have finished in over 18 months.

 

But what a model.  Very little cleaning was required, I wasn’t tempted to convert him… just a wash, build and undercoat (White over grey over black).  The colour scheme was rather guided by the helmet, which I though was similar to a Roman Gladiator – a bit of research meant that Otto here was going to be in armour which was partly gold / bronze colour and there would be some red areas.
 

 

 Otto might once have been great, but I figured he had spent some time on some crusade in this hellish underworld – his clothing is tatty, he has bandages and damaged armour.  He’s not been able to repair what he set out with, and has picked up replacements where possible – this meant a lot of his armour would be a more conventional iron colour with plenty of rust.

 

I started on the inside and worked outwards, so the clothing and rags came first… earthy, dull colours, largely using Vallejo paints.   Then the metal, also Vallejos with plenty of rust created using sepia ink, Modelmates’ Rust Effect paint and a little GW Ryza Rust.  I painted all of the metal shield at this point as I wanted lots of damage and chipped paint – painting all of the metal now didn’t take much longer and gave me more freedom when it came to painting the design.

 

The shield was painted a Gladiator-esque red with plenty of battle damage – let’s face it, Otto is a skilled warrior and most of the time the enemy’s blows should be landing on his shield!  Then came the design; I knew enough that in the Bestiarum world Otto’s enemies are called the ‘Corrupted Ambrosia’, so I figured that Otto’s symbol would be a (non-corrupted) Ambrosia pattern.  A little Google research showed that Ambrosia has an astrological sign, a bit like the infinity symbol with the top missing… perfect!  This was added to the shield, but I wanted the symbol to be fading, broken, a symbol of Otto’s sanity and resolve.  One day, after more battles, the symbol will be gone and Otto will succumb to the corruption.

 

(I think I’ve mentioned before that creating a backstory for your model - which grows as you work on it - helps you to add character to your creation as you look to convey it with the paint)

 

The remaining armour was painted in the gold/bronze colour (GW paints this time) and as a further nod to the Roman Gladiator I only painted in this colour those armour pieces that would have been worn by a Murmillo – right arm and shoulder, knee, helmet and edge of the shield.  Again you can see the armour is tainted by the environment.

 

 

 

 

 

 The only two items that are not damaged, worn or corroding are the two relics tied to Otto’s belt.  These represent his courage and strength so are bright, with some green spot colour.  More vibrant than the rest these embody the glimmer of hope that our brave warrior will prevail.

 

Normally my bases would use fine sand or mud, but this I went for coarser tiny stones.  Otto is in a brutal environment, not the sort of place you’d go barefoot, so I used something grittier to make it seem that he was walking on a surface that felt like lego blocks.  Nasty.  Pale and ashen with a few stone slabs and bony spikes (balsa and cocktail sticks for a bit of texture) plus a couple of skulls and some anaemic looking grass - you’d not want to stay there long.  When painting the base I also drybrush some of the colour onto the feet of the model… far too often do you see models with strangely clean shoes!

 

 

 

Not really my finest work but a nice start after such a long break.  I enjoyed painting this model so much I’ve picked up a bit of the painting bug again…  The next Bestiarum mini is already on order…

 

I hope you find these blogs useful – there are many other pages and sites that tell you what paints to use and describe the techniques to get the colour on the model.  I want mine to be a bit different, to describe the thought processes and background of the creation of my artwork.  If it helps you to think a bit differently as you build and paint and enables you to improve your work, then all the better 😊

 

Thanks for reading... thoughts, tips, questions and comments are welcomed!

Rat Ogre - 2015

 

 

For me the GW Skaven Stormfiends were an example of the ‘creep’ of Warhammer towards 40K, which finally culminated in the ‘40K lite’ Age of Sigmar – all those sci-fi-esque weapons, mind controlling brain rats and so on just didn’t work with the way I see the Warhammer World.  They did get me thinking about creating a monster that showed the pinnacle of some crazed Clan Moulder experiment... which is how this Rat Ogre was born.

Stormfiends:                                                

 

 

Not a Stormfiend:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The idea of a huge armoured Rat Ogre was interesting enough, but I started thinking about a crossbreed with some other creature to make it even more imposing, and quickly settled on a porcupine.  I mean, a giant rodent Ogre encased in armour is one thing, but one covered with spines?  Imagine meeting that down some dark sewer! 

I started to experiment with bitz and blu-tac using a Stormfiend as the base model.  None of the arms worked for me, so I whipped some off a Rat Ogre from the Island of Blood set.  The pose of the upper body and arms looked a little odd, as if this beast was just flexing his muscles, so the addition of a weapon made the arms look more natural.  The model was beginning to look like he fulfilled some sort of armoured guard role, so a halberd seemed right, with a huge metal ball at the other end to make it look a bit more balanced.

 The build took almost as long as the paint job!  Because of the way it had to be built and sculpted I wasn’t able to paint it in smaller sections, so it was completely built then painted.  I added a few armour plates and blades from the Stormfiend set, but all of the spines were from my bitz box or carved from plastic rod.  The spines were the last to be added so that they could be positioned in a way that flowed more naturally with the pose of the Ogre.  I also had to position them in such a way that they would not get caught in tunnels, so the natural spines point behind the model… he’s not able to walk backwards down tunnels though!

 

 

Where possible I use bitz rather than sculpting new things with Green Stuff (mainly out of laziness!), but a lot of hair was sculpted to cover gaps and holes, as well as to sculpt those areas where the spines had ‘punched’ through the armour.

 

Undercoated black with spray highlights of grey then white (I’m too much of a luddite for an airbrush) this was painted with Vallejo paints for the more earthy colours, while the colourful areas (red, blue, etc) were GW paints.  I also like to do my washes with the pretty good GW Shades range rather than inks.

 

When deciding in which order to paint I would always advocate starting on the inside and working out… skin, then hair, then clothing, then armour, then weapons, then base.  It means you are less likely to get paint on something you’ve already done, but also makes it easier to cover up any mistakes.  This model was slightly different in that it is hunched over, so the ‘inside’ was also the front of the torso and I had to account for the belt, belly, etc when determining order of painting. 

 

 I don’t paint blue very often, and thought it would make a nice colour for the armour in contrast to the big areas of skin and hair, as well as looking nice next to the ivory coloured spines.  The armour was always going to be rusty and scratched, but when doing this I prefer to paint the area up as if it is fairly new and clean, then add the dirt and rust and damage – it means I don’t have to commit to the areas of damage early on.  When adding damage it is important to think about how the model moves and fights and where damage might naturally occur; edges and corners are more likely to be scraped and worn than the centre of armour plates which may be more likely to be scratched and dented.   This big fella moves down tunnels so is bound to have lots of paint worn off the edges of the pauldrons (shoulders)  and vambraces (lower arms).  Enemies are more likely to be in front of him – you’d never squeeze past him in a tunnel - so there should be less battle damage at the back!  To get the damage effect the areas were painted first with a terracotta/ orange mix then silver, then I went back and painted little blue highlights to show the edges of the chipped paint.

 

 

 

Little areas of red add a nice spot colour and I think the paint scheme flows nicely through the red, purple and blue spectrums.

 

 

 

 

 

As ever while building and painting the model I was thinking of the overall ‘story’ of the model.  The original Stormfiend had one foot on a rock (which GW seems to love almost as much as they do models jumping off rocks!), but my model was in some subterranean vignette – I came up with the idea of him in a two-level sewer or similar.  Which meant I had to find him a two-level sewer or similar!  Unable to locate anything to suit my needs I ended up building him one with little bricks I purchased online, made of hard plaster or similar.  Each brick was painstakingly weathered at the edges and glued in place, a long slog but definitely worth it, especially when I was able to add a little drain cover!

 

 

 

As I worked on the model I realised that there would be a big open space at the front of the base.  Never a fan of a big open space on a model I added some rats, emerging from the sewers, emboldened by their giant friend!  They were painted in dark colours so as not to detract from the Ogre, but certainly something that would reward the person who took a bit of time to look at the piece!     

 

 

 

 

This model was entered into the Golden Demons Competition in 2015 and was one of the last I entered before retiring from the Demons due to the time constraints of work and family.  It didn’t make it into the second round of the competition.

 

The following year I went to Salute in London and took this fella along – he was a finalist in the peer-judged Salute Painting Competition, of which I am very proud.  I love this big spiky rat fella 😉
You can see some of the other entries here: https://www.beastsofwar.com/eventslist/salute-2016-painting-competition/ (apparently my model looks wicked!)

 

 

Thanks for reading... thoughts, tips, questions and comments are welcomed :)

 

 

Tyranid Lictor – Golden Demon UK 40K Monster Gold, 1999

 

In my mind I have a vision of a piece of GW artwork from the late 90s – a Catachan Jungle Fighter in a body of water, with a Lictor rising above him.

Whether this piece of art actually exists, or it’s what I envisaged when I started this project, I don’t know… but that was the plan: a diorama involving a Lictor, a Guardsman and some water.  I never got further than hollowing out a wooden plinth and completing the Lictor.

I know I tried to recreate the Lictor from a piece of art; it’s either the one in my mind, or this one by Mark Gibbons:

Still, it’s not far off.  The original Lictor model looked like this:

 

 For me the original model doesn’t quite click, I think due to the head and the position of the claw arms at the back.  It does still form the base for the conversion with some bending of limbs, addition of lots of spikes and other claws and some quite extensive sculpting with Milliput, especially the head.  A lot of pin points went into this (as well as into my hand!) and plenty of ‘niddy gribbly bitz from GW Mail Order.  Back in the day GW would provide individual model components through Mail Order and it was superb, sorely missed.  Now they like you to buy the whole set just for a specific head or weapon (but there are plenty of good bitz sellers online).

 

 This was a pain to paint, literally!  It’s metal, was fully built before painting so is fairly heavy and has lots of pointy bits.  I think most of my best models have had some blood in the process for similar reasons (or slipping with the scalpel), but I don’t suggest you try; Khorne has no influence over your brushwork.

A very simple, limited, earthly set of colours with a natural pink spot colour.  I wanted this beast to appear as if he had been camouflaged, so he was painted with similar colours to the ones I used on the base.  The claws and spikes were painted up to a natural ivory white to stand out and make it look even more dangerous.

The base harked back to the original idea, with the Guardsman who had just been dispatched by the Lictor, slightly hidden among the reeds with just the odd limb and his rifle poking out.  Little details like the helmet strap make a difference, while things like the positioning of the wounds tell the story.

It’s just as well I never went for the whole diorama, at the time I created water by layering gloss paint… a lengthy, painstaking process, but it allowed me to give it some shape as well, like the poisonous drool from the mouth tentacles.

  

 

 The wooden tree root in the water was made from a piece of wire with superglue soaked tissue paper wrapped round it and shaped.  It sets really hard but can be shaped as it dries, you could use an accelerator to set it harder, quicker.  There is a Lizard in there too… he had no idea the Lictor was there, otherwise he’d have scarpered. This base also used the toothbrush bristle grass mentioned previously.

 

 And to my surprise a lucky gold!! This year was the one I remember properly meeting my chum and long time friendly rival Mark Lifton – he picked up a bronze in the same category with a great Ork Warboss.

Check out the other winners here:  http://demonwinner.free.fr/uk/1999/golden_demon_winner.php?categorie=2#1st

 

Thanks for reading... thoughts, tips, questions and comments are welcomed :)