Monday 27 February 2017

John Blanche's Pyratii of the Voodoo Forest - Gunwhayle

So, two months ago, I proposed on the INQ28 Facebook group the idea of doing something artistic in the 40mm scale based perhaps on the popular Femme Militant miniatures. Instead, Mr Blanche commented that perhaps I should look to making something more piratical for his own Voodoo Forest setting.

She was actually finished just over a fortnight ago, but I hadn't gotten around to taking some (rather terrible) photos of her until yesterday. She ended up being quite a few firsts for me (such as her pistol) and in the end she became something of personal vignette of myself. Unintentionally, I might add, although I do worry that my posterior really is that....large.

I called her Gunwhayle, spelled in that typical Blanchean way, for a nautical nod.





Спасибо за прочтение


Sunday 26 February 2017

Efrafan Warrior

♫ A long long time ago, I can still remember, when Games Workshop only had five stores ♫

Actually I can't, because this harkens back to the misty age of 1983, some months before I was born when the Manchester store first opened it's doors and they give away this very cute little miniature to celebrate: a unique Broo variant for Runequest.

Photo courtesy of Solegends

Some six years later, being a very precocious child obsessed with mythology (mostly Greek at that point), I was given my first 'choose your own adventure' book entitled; Steeleye and the Lost Magic.


Now this gem of a book was filled with some rather macabre and dark illustrations that may well have sparked my first interest in the larger fantasy genre. However, despite the years that have passed, this particular illustration has stayed with me.


I don't know why this particular illustration stayed with me above all the others in the book, but it's one I have been meaning to emulate in miniature form for a while. After a few false starts a year ago, I put it on the back burner until the DAoS movement started recently and I was inspired to give it another go.


 
The Efrafan (a name appropriated from Watership Down by Richard Adams) are native to the Realm of Ghur and, as warriors of Order, they are currently embattled in the bitter and protracted Underwarren War against the Skaven.

Спасибо за прочтение

Friday 17 February 2017

Minimalism in AoS28

Okay, so perhaps I should start by explaining a little on what AoS28 is.

Following on from the successes of the INQ28 movement and it's ethos in exploring the darker, forgotten corners of the 41st Millennium and the people who dwell within. AoS28 proposes the same ideals, but naturally, focussing on the Mortal Realms following the cataclysmic events of the Age of Chaos. Inspired by the likes of that which came before (such as Mordheim), AoS28 seeks to move the action away from the frontline 'big battles' and discover what happened to those poor souls that did not have a safe haven in which to wait out the apocalypse. Coupled with the Blanchesque aesthetic that proved very popular in the INQ28 circles, AoS28 attempts to move away from the 'luminescent' vision of the Mortal Realms promoted by Games Workshop and instead delve into a much darker pastiche.

Okay, onto explaining what I mean by 'minimalism'.

Instead of the art/music movement popular in the 20th Century, what I mean by minimalism is rather the characters in the Mortal Realms that represent the 'Man on the Clapham Omnibus'. Now, the Blanchesque aesthetic, especially in miniatures, normally includes loading characters up with all sorts of trinkets, gewgaws, furs and such, treading that fine line between what is artistic and what is overloading. But what about turning that philosophy on it's head?

That is what I mean by minimalism, the dichotomy of the heroic in the simplistic. Compared the grand armies fighting on the front line, in these forgotten corners that the AoS28 ethos espouses, the lowly spearman would become the mightiest of heroes, defending the boarders of their besieged little niche. Essentially, with minimalism, I ask how would I (or anyone living an 'ordinary' life) fare should the forces of Chaos suddenly rampage about my doorstep? What kind of weapons could I find in my own home? What kind of armour, if any?

With minimalism in mind, gone are the mightiest heroes to be replaced by Fred Bloggs armed with a kitchen knife tied to a broom handle. Gone are powerful archmages to be replaced with Jane Doe the hedge witch and her bag of petty magicks.

Just a thought.

Спасибо за прочтение

Friday 3 February 2017

Unkindness


Our hearths are gone out and our hearts are broken,
And but the ghosts of homes to us remain,
And ghastly eyes and hollow sighs give token
From friend to friend of an unspoken pain.
S Lainer - Ancient Terran wordsmith


On a nameless world, far flung from the decaying bosom of the Imperium, the man waited at an ancient wooden escritoire. Hunched over, with frayed quill in wrinkled claw, he scratched out his final repose to the dim light of a single guttering candle. His chamber was small, barely ten paces across each way, with a bare-bones billet alongside one wall and the aforementioned desk with accompanying chair. The open maw of a pipe set into the floor served as his latrine. Piled in one corner, empty and half-empty ration-cans putrefied, adding an underlining tang of rot to the stench of sweated sheets and the stink of his own unwashed body.

The only entrance lay directly behind him; a heavy iron bulkhead, long ago sealed shut with oxidised rust. Many years ago, this had been a safe haven, deep underground and well stocked with provisions and water. He had survived for nearly a decade by carefully portioning, eating a single can but once a week. But now the food had run out, and the thousands of kilo-tonnes of earth and stone above his head had become an oppressive weight.

He had been a large man once. Corpulent, with greasy rolls of flab sagging from a poorly built frame like semi-molten wax. Now he had been reduced to little more than an emaciated skeleton, his formerly opulent robes now rags stained variously in foetid greys and browns from his bodily excretions. It had been a folly to run here, he had realised some years ago when escape had proven impossible, to live but a little longer. This hadn’t been a penance for his crimes, but rather a long, drawn out death sentence that he had imposed upon himself. His safe haven was, in fact, a tomb disguised by his hubris.

His rations had run out a month ago, and after a fortnight, he had taken to consuming his own excrement for sustenance, to eke out a little more string of his miserable existence. But this was not out of desperation to live, but rather spite against those he had wronged. For they did not forgive and they did not forget.

Sickness had already taken root in his veins and he did not have long left in this world, yet his mind was already little more than the tattered remnants of the proud man he was, insanity having taken root some years before his body had started to fail. So now, his final testament was little more than illegible scratches on the labels from his tins, his inkwell long since dried to blackened flakes.

Suddenly, something changed in the aspect of the room, and a familiar, yet dreadful carrion reek, palpable yet subtle, entered his nostrils. He did not need to turn around for he knew what would be waiting behind him.

“So, you have found me at last”, his voice cracked, unused to speaking for such a long time, “come to take my life?”.

Then, just as it had suddenly arrived, the mouldering miasma vanished and the man risked a tentative look over his bony shoulder and took in the absence of the room. Nothing had changed; had he just been speaking to shadows and thin air?

No, he realised in horror, his visitor hadn’t needed to waste any energy to take his life. Better to leave him here to perish in suffering in his own self-imposed tomb amongst the shadows and thin air.

The shadows and thin air.

Спасибо за прочтение