Monday 11 February 2019

“These Spectral White Dogs Wear The Face Of Man..."

"...With blazing red mouths and ears."
These four 28mm scale metal Gabriel Hounds are manufactured by “Crooked Dice Game Design Studio” and are part of the company’s Villains and Monsters product line. Believed to be “the souls of unbaptised children wandering through the air until the day of judgement” the “howling of these beasts [apparently] foretold death to anyone who heard them.”

The creatures were all primed “Vallejo” White, washed with Pale Grey, and then dry-brushed using (more) White. Their eyes and ears were subsequently pigmented with Heavy Red, whilst their savage-looking teeth were ‘picked out’ using a combination of White and “Citadel” Carroburg Crimson.
"Their growling is loudest when they are at a distance, and as they draw nearer, it grows softer."
Due to their diminutive size, each model also needed to be significantly tidied up before I was finally able to gloss varnish them. This meant applying some additional “Vallejo” White and Pale Grey to their fiddly faces so as to cover over any errant "Citadel" Carroburg Crimson or "Vallejo" Heavy Red, before trying to delicately blend the ensemble back together using a smidgen more White.
Bloodletters WIPs - The Blood God's warriors are slowly having their blackened limbs 'picked out'
Stepping away from Welsh folklore I have also made some quite considerable progress with my month's main project, a unit of ten plastic Bloodletters by "Games Workshop" for "Age Of Sigmar". All the multi-piece daemons, including their Standard Bearer and Hornblower, have had their large Hellblades and fiery-red flesh finished, and now just need their black hands, hooves, and horns 'picking out' before being ready for varnishing.

Lastly, and somewhat surprisingly, I have additionally dug out a number of "Frostgrave" models by "North Star Military Figures", in order to better populate my frozen city of Felstad. I stumbled upon a series of Battle Reports over on the "Guerrilla Miniature Games" "YouTube channel, and found Ash Barker's enthusiastic commentary concerning the rule-set extremely infectious whilst I was busy painting my Blood God's minions.
"Frostgrave" WIPs - A Giant Rat, a White Gorilla and a Snow Troll
As a result I have dry-brushed both a partially-painted Snow Troll and White Gorilla with "Vallejo" White, and set upon a trio of previously-primed Giant Rats with a dabble of Heavy Charcoal. I rather embarrassingly own quite a few pieces for "Osprey Games" "fantasy skirmish wargame" so hopefully I can make some significant dent into my lead pile over the next few weeks by picking away at the occasional figure from time to time...

22 comments:

  1. Excellent work on the Gabriel Hounds they look brilliant

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    1. Thanks very much, Simon. They were a bit fiddly tbh.

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  2. I shall not watch "Alan Davis and the Dog rescuers!" again in the same way! They look ace mate.

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    1. Cheers Clint. I foolishly thought the Hounds would be a quick win, but they’re so fiddly they actually took much longer than some of my considerably larger minis.

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  3. The small dogs look good Simon, the Bloodletter is progressing well. You seem to be on a white kick at the moment with the frostgrave models

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    1. Thanks Dave. It’s funny the way colours work out on my painting table. I’ve actually put aside a load of other “Heroclix” figures as they’re to be painted exactly the same way as the Bloodletters. Fortunately, there’s also far more to the Snow Troll and White Gorilla than just white, so that should help break up the monotony for me :-)

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  4. Those dogs look very creepy to me. The faces don't look right on those bodies, which I guess is what the sculptor intended! The bloodletters are coming along nicely, good job so far. Good to see some Frostgrave stuff as I think it is a cracking game so I can't wait to see those done.

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    1. Cheers Undercoat. The Gabriel Hounds certainly are creepy with their all-too human faces. The first four Bloodletters are now finished, including their Standard bearer (with decal) and Hornblower, so I just need to push on with the others. I’ll probably do Skulltaker next before facing another ten of the demons and try to fit in the “Frostgrave” stuff as and when.

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  5. Those dogs sure are scary looking critters.

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    1. Indeed they are, Bryan. “Crooked Dice” are doing a lot of eerie sculpts currently :-)

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  6. Off the chart weird, yet wonderful!

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  7. Great Scott! I didn't think that you could have had something more terrifying than those rabbits you did last year, but I think you just did lol! Terror puppies 😃

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    1. Thanks Ivor. These creepy critters certainly took a lot longer to finish than the bunny, despite being significantly smaller. Glad you like them.

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  8. The hounds look a little aggresive if you ask me!

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    1. Cheers Ray, they do look like they bite first and ask questions later, don't they?

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  9. The dogs look funny rather than menacing (to me at least), but then again I have a strange sense of humour (I doubt they'd be a match for the demon bunny).

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    1. Thanks Joe. I'm just pleased the Gabriel Hounds are painted tbh, as they were a lot more fiddly than I anticipated.

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