Monday 14 September 2020

"Mudmen Are Formed In Pools Of Mud..."

"...Where enchanted rivers collect and evaporate and concentrate the dweomer."
These ten 15mm scale metal miniatures of some Lesser Earth Elementals are produced by “Alternative Armies” and can be bought either separately as blister HOT88 Lesser Elementals or as part of the company's pre-made twenty-four point strong HOTT1017 Elemental Army pack. The diminutive sculpts count as a Horde for "Hordes Of The Things", with five figures sitting quite snuggly upon a 40mm x 30mm base.

To begin with, each model was super-glued upon a wooden baton to help my brush-tip better reach all their details, and were primed in two coats of "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna. The Mudmen were then washed in "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade, before being dry-brushed with (more) "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna.
"Because they are creatures of magic, mudmen are sometimes called dweomerlings."
I did consider subsequently applying a lighter tone to the diminutive figures so as to highlight each sculpt's smooth details a little bit more, perhaps by giving them all a fleeting touch of "Vallejo" Heavy Brown. But I soon realised that I had a bigger problem to solve first because the Strong Tone Quickshade seemed to have acted like paint stripper on all the Lesser Elementals and disconcertingly disintegrated their base layers down to the bare metal.

As a result I had to reapply two more coats of "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna to all of the miniatures and reapply the "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade once again. This time whatever chemical reaction had occurred before failed to materialise, so I swiftly gave them a (second) dry-brush of "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna and thought it best to leave the brutes well enough alone...
"The Power Of Kroll" WIPs - A Swampie Warrior, Rohm-Dutt and Ranquin
I therefore simply 'snapped' all of the Mudmen off of their painting sticks, and super-glued them onto some pre-cut plastic bases I bought off "eBay". Admittedly, "Alternative Armies" do supply the necessary bases for the figures as part of their HOTT Army packs. However, the resin stands are a bit chunky for my liking, and I was keen to maintain the aesthetic established by my previously painted "De Bellis Antiquitatis" forces.

Finally, having recently watched several viewings of the 1978 "Doctor Who" adventure "The Power Of Kroll", I have assembled and based my collection of Swampie Warriors by "Black Tree Design". This is by far my favourite of the "Key To Time" stories, so I was rather pleased to discover I also own figures of the Swampie Leader, Ranquin, and the traitorous gun-runner Rohm-Dutt too.

12 comments:

  1. The painting of the mudmen turned out well in the end Simon, the sculpts are a little uninspiring if I'm honest, the who models look a lot more interesting

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    1. Thanks Dave. I too am not a fan of the sculpts if I'm honest. They are rather uninspiring now its come time to painting them. I have an Undead and a Dogman army set aside as opposition, so hopefully when the time comes to paint them up I'll be more inspired.

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  2. Mudmen p and running, erm, slithering ? They probably look as good as they can be given the starting figure.
    I like the other swamp dwellers thoug Rohm is a bit of an awkward looking figure.

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    1. Cheers Joe. I'm not actually sure what Rohm-Dutt is supposed to be doing tbh. It is an odd pose, and I'd much rather he was chewing on a straw or handling a blaster as in the TV story.

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  3. The Mudmen turned out quite well in the end, you could also use them for a 15mm "Flash Gordon" scenario if you wanted, the sculpts are not the best I have to agree, but in a way I wish I'd gone for a simpler army myself as I have had the opposite problem, Mark Copplestone has produced some wonderful and very detailed sculpts for my army and that is part of the reason I'm having a bit of a nightmare with them! If I get chance I'll post up the first fig's today, just need to write the text!

    Anyway nice start on the DW fig's too, "The Power of Kroll" is a classic as you so rightly said.

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Thanks Roger. I was thinking the exact same thing about "15mm" Flash Gordon. I've also painted some of Mark Copplestone's 15mm myself - both Conan and Red Sonja, and as you say, they are very detailed - especially compared to the "Alternative Armies" ones I'm doing. It's a pity BTD don't do the Gas Refinery's crew as well from "The Power Of Kroll", and I'd definitely have been interested in them too.

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    2. I would imagine proxies for the refinery crew wouldn't be too hard to find, perhaps you should get Jez onto it?

      Cheers Roger.

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    3. I was actually tempted to have a look at "Hero Forge" but they're obviously a little expensive. I think some of the "Crooked Dice" minis might suffice as proxies too, but that's another project for another year LOL!!!

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    4. "Minion May?" perhaps......oh please god someone stop me!!!!!

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    5. "Minion May" sounds good to me, Roger. I'll remind you closer to the time next year ;-)

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  4. Really like those mud men. I think they are nicer sculpt than the water elementals. I don't think the lack of detail detracts to be honest as they are smooth gloopy mud in a human shape. Nicely painted too. Not sure what happened with the paint being stripped off there. I might throw that wash away!

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    1. Cheers Undercoat. I've had a few problems with different washes over the past month, so am starting to wonder whether the heat through the window is affecting the bottles in some way. I had exactly the same problem with the Giant Earth Elemental and ended up using "Citadel" Agrax Earthshade in the end.

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