Dhamp's Dwarf Warband (WIP)

So in the newbie section I said I'd post some pics of my WIP Dwarf Warband. Well here we go.

I only have three models to share right now, and none of them are 100%

To start, the Dwarf Noble:


Looking at the Dwarf Warband options I decided to deck out my noble with Gromil armor. Super expensive, and it'll mean that the rest of my warband will suffer gear wise. The way I see it though, Gromil armor will never be as cheap or available as it is starting out. That, and it looks cool. I started with an Iron Breaker of course.

This model is the first time I have ever touched green stuff, and the very first thing I did on him was the cape. It's rough, but functional. I'm pretty happy with the hammer. Although, I forgot to show it, but I have a Dwarf medallion (the face medallions) embedded into the head of the hammer.

I noticed that a lot of the Dwarfs in the artwork have horns, but it seems most of the minis have wings. So I decided to give my guy horns. Well, the true story is that I accidentally knocked off the wings I sculpted for him when I was fiiling down the hammer and thought horns would look cooler anyway.

I still have some more work to do on him. I'm going to add tiny "dragon mouths" to the tips of the horns. I need to add rivets or some sort of flair to the shaft of the hammer as well. Finally, I'm going to add a small dragon head statuette to the top of his helmet, like some of the other dwarf models have (like one of the crew from one of the war machines has a boar on the top of his helm).

Secondly, here is my Engineer:


I started with the thunderer sprue to make this guy.

The most obvious feature is the gigantic mechanical arm sticking out of his backpack. You see, I imagine engineers always wanting an extra hand, or at least some help. Someone to hold a light for instance. But, I also imagine engineers also don't really trust non-engineers to be of much use to them when they're doing engineery work. So as an engineer, I figured he would just solve the problem himself. The arm holds a lantern that hangs from the hook. I forgot to hang the lantern on the hook when I took these pictures (whoops).

I used a bunch of Imperial Guard parts and I shaved a piece from a Tau vehicle sprue to create the arm. I need to add little gears to the hinge, but I was failing at it and gave up for the time being.

I converted the normally chain skirt to a leather looking one, and I swapped out the normal left hand for the beefier cannon that is also included in the thunderer sprue.

I still need to add little tools and stuff attached to his pack. Maybe one or two more pouches...? Also, there is a gap where the front connects to the back that is bothering me. I was thinking of giving him the tapered shoulder pads that most of the engineer models have, but I'm not sure at the moment.

In general I just need to add more engineery type details.

Last is a very simple one, and the pics aren't that clear:


This Slayer model has an open left hand, and his right foot is at an odd angle. So I cut off both, shifted the foot, and sculpted a new hand holding a second axe. I have two Slayers, and they technically both have hammers (point shaving!), but our group is pretty lax. I'm going to keep them as axes and I'll upgrade them asap (maybe with Dwarf Axes?) as the game moves along.

You can't see the details as well on the hand, and it's a little rough. I actually did this last night in poor light. Also, the top of the hand was getting thinner and thinner as I pushed and prodded, so I added a bandage to mask it.

Overall I'm pretty pleased. These aren't exactly terrific, but I'm proud of them. I'm getting better with green stuff, and will probably take on more and more daring scultping projects as time goes on.

The rest of my warband consists of two Quarrelers and another Slayer. I'll keep posting as they come along.

Of course open to comments and crits by all!

Oh My Goodness!!! That is really well done!!!

I absolutely love what you have done! Fantastic GS skills for the first time. I'll be trying GS for my first time this week too. I hope to hold a candle to what you've done.
Cheers!

Thanks for joining and posting. I can't wait to see your progress!

BRAVO!
Beyond being excellent pieces of work, they have a well thought out story to them. Your sculpting is just beautifu;l I can't imagine how incredible your work will become as you get more practice. The mechanical arm on the Engineer is an absolutely great idea, & extremely well executed. It worked out well that you were dissatisfied with the Slayer's hand; the bandage is a very nice touch & very in charatcer.

You are extremely talented. Of course I hate you.

DeafNala wrote:

Of course I hate you.

*psst: I think it's regulation to wait until they have 10 posts before you share your hate lol

Ashton wrote:

DeafNala wrote:

Of course I hate you.

*psst: I think it's regulation to wait until they have 10 posts before you share your hate lol

Thanks Aston. I stand corrected. In seven more posts, I'll hate you.

Lol, well here is one more toward that goal!

Thanks for your kind words. My greatest fear right now is ruining all my hard work with paint! That will be an adventure all on it's own.

Fantastic job dhamp!

Very impressive sculpting skills.

dhamp wrote:

This model is the first time I have ever touched green stuff

What?

That is just incredible. You must have at least read/seen some tutorials or something... Or we have just met the most talented sculptor on the planet.

What sculpting tool(s) did you use?

Oh, rest assured, I read a ton of tutorials beforehand.

I had the green stuff in my possession for weeks before I even worked up the nerve to open it! I poured over videos, and online how-tos until I felt confident that I could do it.

Then I just sat down and did the cape. It took me several tries too, and I learned quickly that, for stuff like the cape, it's best to let green stuff set a bit before working with it. It's just so soft it droops all on it's own without touching it when you have it rolled out like that. The entire time I was working on it, I was a nervous wreck.

I found a cheap set of sculpting tools at Michaels (a craft store). It has a bunch of wooden prods and pokers, as well as some metal tools in there. Although, I'm already looking to replace them with better metal tools. Some of the metal tools from this set have rough imperfections on the edges, and the wooden tools are wearing out quick. Keeping them wet all the time opens them up a bit, and tiny bits of green stuff have gotten caught into the pores. The surface of some of the tools are already starting to lose their smoothness because of that.

I bought this set after the cape though, because I realized I needed them badly. I think I used the eraser end of a pencil and the back of a pin (one that had a big round ball at the end) to shape the cape after it started to harden a bunch. I used a pen to push in some of the folds and stuff around the neck. You can't see it too well, but there is actually still some blue ink in some of the folds from that.

The hammer took me numerous tries. It's so hard to get sharp edges with green stuff. I eventually dried a block of it and just carved it out and added the rune and stuff later.

The beards on both the engineer and the noble were me learning to use the new tools I bought. (After all, the Iron Breaker beards are hardly fitting for a noble dwarf!).

I'm having a blast learning as I go, and getting such kind comments sure bolsters my confidence!

dhamp wrote:

Although, I'm already looking to replace them with better metal tools.

I can't vouch for the quality, (cause I haven't used them yet) but they were cheap, and seem to be pretty good. They were $15 (including shipping to Montana, USA) for 12 stainless steel tools (tool on each end)

The guy sells a million of them. Here's the auction I won:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=250246399597&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=015

From a brief inspection, there seemed to be small bits of metal sticking out some places, but I think a normal file should be good enough to fix them up.

I hope that helps.

Stunning work!!!! Looking forward to see them painted.

Take your time, do not rush it. And have proper light when painting them.

great work! looks great

I'm a Michael's patron also. Their Americana & FolkArt paints are excellent & very reasonably priced. I may even have the same sculpting tools [saving my pennies for a GF9 upgrade: www.gf9.com ], although my "sculpting has been limited to cowls & such with Milliput I'd like to expand into the Green/Brown/Gray stuff. Tthe Milliput Does, however, give one an excuse for inferior quality sculpting [excuses are a valuable resource].

Don't sweat the painting. We work in a Very forgiving medium, & you seem to have a natural talent. I actually don't have to wait for your tenth post; I can hate you right now.

Wow! That is really really impressive! Awesome Green Stuff skills. Really cool!

I like a lot the troll slayer ! Impressive stuff and works on the noble too !

I keep coming back to stare at that Engineer. That is just such a great idea & carried out so well. I've GOT to try something akin to that with my Night Goblins; of course, with Night Goblins it would be somewhat cruder & less functional [NOTE: the great part about Goblins is the cruder the piece the more in character it is; this works out well with my modeling abilities ].

Thanks for the idea. I DON'T REALLY HATE YOU [yet].

I'm glad you like that arm. I'd love to see what you can pull off on your Night Goblins.

Last night I sat down and finished another mini for my warband. This time a Dwarf Quarreler. It's a simple conversion, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

At first I started with this:


I like the way it looked as if he was pondering his last shot with his pipe. However, there were some serious problems with the mini that I just couldn't get myself to let go.

When trying to attach a quiver, I noticed there was no real good place for it to go, except on his hip. But when I tried to attach it, I noticed this:



This left a gigantic gap between his belt and the quiver! That couldn't stand, so I started another one from the identical parts of the spure, with a little surgery:



Ah, much better!

The end result:



Since my engineer offers an additional 6" to his range, I wanted to reflect that somehow, so I added a scope. Used a little bit of plasticard for the bracket, and some green stuff. The scope itself is one of those clear risers for flying models in 40k. I still need to add the eye piece for the other end, and add a tiny lens to it. I'll have to make sure I prime that really well when I go to paint it.

I also turned his chainmail shirt to a regular cloth one. I need to add hair or something to the top to cover that seam between the hair that was there and the back of his shirt though.

So essentially, just a bunch of minor touch ups here and there.

Two more models to go and I'll be done enough to play!

Great Work! I love the scope! and the shirt came out well too. Bravo.

Excellent work! The telescopic sight really is a cool feature; it adds so much character to the piece. Isn't it nice to get carried away with a mini, & know you are not going to have to reproduce it dozens of times as you would with WHFB?

While you're dreading it, the rest of us forumites can hardly wait to see these little suckers all painted up. So it's "BULLY, CHARGE!" time.

I really am going to just have to suck it up and paint these guys. I just keep thinking of tiny little details I still want to add to them.

I'm loving the small scale of this game. I would never put this much effort into a full scale army.

May be, if you started your painting with a henchman or a Beardling;i.e., a basic grunt, it wouldn't be as intimidating. You'll see your painting skills developing over a short period of time, & it might be best if you save the really detailed pieces for when you are satisfied with the results.

If you haven't acquired your paints yet, I recommend the Americana & Folk Art ranges available from Michael's. They are excellent paints & they won't bankrupt you .

There, that takes care of being serious; now I can go back to strange mode.

great modeling you did there!! really like it!! want to see them painted!!

I would LOVE to see some of these painted up. =)

-Andy

Awesome work! I really like the contemplative look your pipe-smoker has. You're making me debate my choice of Reikland in favour of my Dawi I've never been a fan of the head you used for the Quarreler, but you've made it far far better! Well done!
I 100% concur with DeafNala about Folk Art and Americana paints. Not only are they affordable to begin with, but Michaels frequently has sales on either of them, usually at around $1.50. Very nice! However the brushes at Michaels aren't always brilliant.

--Ironfoundersson