Orlygg's Oldhammer Picture Post

Welcome back to this, our second weekly round up of the most interesting pieces of Oldhammer painting this side of the Lustrian Continent. Think of this article as the old school 'Eavy Metal fix you used to get monthly, when you never quite new which miniatures would pop up and things were not organised around release schedules - well not quite so much! The painting was often organised by individual painters too, as do we here on the Oldhammer blog. Sadly, you cannot count on me to impart loads of quality painting advice as I am rather rubbish at dabbing the stuff on minis. Thankfully, we have a whole stack of people around our community (and a bit beyond it) who are producing imaginative and inspirational pieces or work.

There, two words. Inspirational and imaginative. They are all that I look for when I put together these posts. No dreary generic colour schemes here. Nor any photoshop monstrosities. Just pure and simple Oldhammer goodness. 

Kari Hernesniemi provides us with the first figure this week with an incredible Harboth painted model. He has nailed the 'look' of the old school here and his work is heavily influenced by '80s Blanche. Just look at the quality apparent on that shield and the associated piece of armour around this orcs ample belly. OUTSTANDING! Kari has used colour to great effect here, making the model seem real (and not like the cartoon characters that I produce) and beautifully lit. I love they wash that washes have been used to suggest not only depth in the armour, but also a greasy rusty filthy quality too. You can tell that this chap hasn't maintained his equipment in any shape or form. Though the excellent painting does pose the question of where all these orcs get their painting done, doesn't it? The exquisite work spreads to the trousers as well, with some technically brilliant patterns not to mention a hyper realistic base. 

This is the first of two chaos miniatures painted by Carlos Pantojo Martinez from the Spanish Language Facebook group. As members of that group will know, Carlos is a prolific and extremely gifted painter who dazzles us all with his work. Here we see a perfectly interpreted Slanneshi Champion, painted with all the pastel tones that you would expect of the Pleasure God but without looking like a Liquorice Allsort! Careful layering has brought out the highlights to perfection here and unusual colour choices for the armour help key in the chaotic nature of the old chaos range. The old school base helps support the crazy colour scheme and results in a model that appears to have step out of Slaves to Darkness. 

A second piece by Carlos, one of the original plaguebearer models (and some of my personal favourites since boyhood) sculpted by Kev Adams. He has used similar tones to the Slanneshi champion but this model makes great use of that rather unearthly green. The innards and claws are simply presented, as is the sword but the face has some exquisite detailing, especially on the tongue. Lovely teeth too, with a great suggestion of rot on that daemonic enamel! You can almost smell this daemon's breath! 

Jeff McC is well known in the Oldhammer Community, particularly on the forum, and I have chosen wonderful goblin fanatics for inclusion this week. I love the bright green he has got on his models and the beautiful contrast he achieves with the blues and golds of the fabrics. But it is the home made bases that really inspire! According to Jeff, the bases he created are designed to give the impression that the fanatics are spinning recklessly out of control. What a fantastic idea and really simple to pull off. The added mushrooms are a nice touch too! 

Tartar Sauce has shared with us some striking half orcs, one of the races that don't get much love on the Oldhammer scene. His work goes to show that you don't need an intricate painting style to pull off great looking models. His simple, clean style provide all that is needed to produce a great looking unit. I love the way he has off set the green on the models' faces with the crimson red or the shields. I would be proud to have models looking this good on my miniature shelf!

Juancho Pinta is another Spanish Oldhammerer. Here we has a selection of his Bretonnian knights. And how splendid do they look? I love the riot of different colours used here and the brilliant detailing on the shields, tabards and pennants. Closer inspection of his style will show that this striking finish has been created with some harsh highlighting rather than blending. I am sure that you will agree with me when I state the this style really works with bright, detailed figures such as these. 

Gareth Shaw has been busy at work this week, publishing some striking beastmen for his Nurgle Chaos project. These pestigors are full of rather unhealthy menace and his limited choice of tones suggests a diseased squalor. I am particularly interested in the way he contrasts the lighter skin tone, which is more similar of modern paint jobs of beastmen, with the darker shades used for the clothing. This really makes the models 'pop' out at you on the table top. Now, the just need some suitably Nurglesque shields! 

Now Gareth was discussing how best to varnish your models on the Facebook Group. His thoughts turned into quite a discussion about the best media to use. As you will have seen from his beastmen, and the troll above, Gareth has been using gloss to keep his paintwork secure. Now gloss varnish brings make memories of distant yesteryears for me, ranks upon ranks of red coated soldiers and, of course, the work of Steve Mussared. I feel that his use of gloss really brings out the oozy nature of the Nurgle models and makes a refreshing change to how we see miniatures presented. 

CreepyPortrait is fairly new on the Oldhammer Scene but he has shared with us some dark and dangerous looking work in the last week or so. His skeletons are brilliant, and perfectly represent the earthy bones of some long dead warriors. Though the photographs are a little dark, it looks like CreepyPortrait has used a combination of washes and drybrushing to created the feel of the bone though I am not so certain what he has used to create the textures on his bases. The shields too are really evocative of the skeleton horde, and feature some ghastly (in a good way) facial designs on them. Designs that I will be stealing in the future! 

Goumon Gael painted these for Mick Leach ( I think) and I thought them worthy of a share here. Here we have a strand of the fantastic that seems to leap from the pages of the original fantasy miniatures books of the '80s. Bright colours, naturalistic patterns and intelligent basing makes for a excellent result. I love the use of aquarium plants and real snail shells too. 

And finally, Fanch Pandera has been hard at work with his classic Citadel leadpile in recent days. His work is 'Eavy Metal standard really and remains hopelessly out of our ability range but isn't it a joy to see? I find that just gazing at work of this standard gets me thinking about how to improve my own because I notice loads of little touches that I could apply to my own work. 

Well, I hope you enjoyed this week's run down through the Oldhammer painting world. I certainly enjoyed putting these images together and discussing what I thought about them. Feel free to make your own judgements and comments as you don't have to agree with me. I hope to make this post a weekly dose of goodness, but i suspect it will bounce around a little regarding publication days as life intervenes. 

Until then, happy painting!

Orlygg.