Monday 22 September 2014

Citadel devout cleric...and some muscled reinforcments


Alright people ! Some of you may remember that I am currently engaged in a 2nd edition Dungeon and Dragons campaign on the Oldhammer forum. This campaign is run by the most excellent Captain Crooks with fellow players Gaj/Weazil, Count von Bruno, Penddraig and Weismonsters.
The party has reached the 3rd chapter of its adventures and as the time goes by, the bound between players and the fun had is ever growing.

If you fancy having a good read with adventure, laughters, great cultural references and all, I strongly welcome you to give them a read. All the player's and GM's notes are hidden to make the story clear and nice to read but you can see how the work goes behind the scene (if you wish to) by clicking on the spoiler boxes. The 3 chapters so far are :
 
Back in March, I decided I wanted to have new models to represent our characters in the  campaign and while I clearly knew I was going to use the classic paladin from the Citadel adventurer starter set, I learnt that my friend Bruno found the devout cleric to be close to what he had in mind for his Spellsword Rambulge.

So here he is ! The devout cleric is now officially going to be a Spellword, or spellmace since Rambulge is more comfortable with a cudgel than with a blade.







The adventurers starter set is a wonderful set which I happily got for quite cheap in a complete pristine state a few years back. All the models are archetypal and represent what you would expect from their race and class. They are really nice models though with tons of character and all.

Image taken from Solegend

As most of you know, the starter set came out with a wonderful cover by John Blanche which was the first part of a two piece drawing (the other one depicting the monsters from the monster starter set).

Image taken from Solegend

You can see I didn't go very far to get my ideas for the painting. Red for the robe with white for the hood and shield and black flames and checkers highlighted with some gold, typically the kind of palette you would expect from models of this period (will I ever get my own personnality and start painting my own way !.


Only thing that puzzled me was that the eyes are sculpted which leaves no real margin to paint them and the resulting facial expression is not really to my liking.


You may have noticed that a little guest had made its way on the base. This tiny frog here is called Lemmy and his Rambulge's familiar. It normally lives in the spellsword's pants but I thought it ought to come out for the photo !
It was the occasion to use those tiny frogs and the end of the drumsticks in the plastic bretonnian men at arms sprue.

At this scale it was hard to take a decent picture but I really stuck with basics for this one, I didn't want it to draw th eattentin from the real star and I wanted it to remain a bit hidden.



Like all the other characters of the campaign, Rambulge is one character I love to see developping and his relations with the softer gender are always a source of fun and sympathy !


Rambulge offers more than meets the eye and he is always found at the hardest of the fight, facing strong enemies with no other concern than the good of the party.




I hope you like Rambulge, to be honest I'm not entirely satisfied with the painting. It's been acommplished in too many sessions all seperated by too much time. This is not a method that suits me. I reallly need to finish models rapidly or at least in one go otherwise I tend to procrastinate and then I don't enjoy painting. After an hour getting back on Rambulge I was enjoying th emodel again but the end result would have greatly benefited from shorter work period. I hope Bruno will pardon me. After all my own character Seu is also a long way from being finished and I've set myself a personnal challenge of painting icons and freehands on him so now I keep delaying the model until I find the "right" moment...


Anyway, as usual, I just can't help myself ending my post with something totally unrelated...

I've received a few parts a while ago and I know have every part that's been made (and catalogued) for my chaos traitor terminators.

One things bothered though, there are 3 bodies in all :

Since I already used the terminator captain body to make a character,  I only had 2 bodies left to build my main squad. The first mody sporting a huge skullface mask, I thought it was apt to represent the unit leader which left me with only 1 body to build the rest of the squad from.


This meant building all the options from only one body. I really wanted to avoid building them in silly positions with the arms in the air or with silly monolithic identical poses.

 

Some pinning and bending was used to give some variety to the poses without breaking the feeling of weight and might these model are meant to have. I'm quite happy with the result in the end since none of them look the same exactly and since all the poses seems "natural" or as natural as a man can look when his shoulders are higher than his head...



Hope you like them !

18 comments:

  1. Standing applause JB, standing applause!
    Trusty Cudgel and toad familiar and all- if Rambulge survives long enough to get out of his filth encrusted, soiled rags, purchase some much needed armour and have a bathe and shave I'm damn sure this is the perfect representation of him in 28mm.
    Observe him blushing awkwardly as he clumsily attempts to engage that nubile femme, that's not going to end well, and what would his mother say about her?
    He really needs to get around to reading that book too.
    Brilliant work mate, it has my official blessing ( wether or not that's a good thing or not is debatable though!)

    I really look forward to seeing what you do with those Traitor Terminators, I love the minis.

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    1. We do need to get everyone to the armoury (apart from Bari who only lacks a loincloth now). I'm also half dreaming that if we (especially I ) survice our last combat, we might even level up ! I'm glad you like him enough to gran thim your belssing, I would have felt awkward hitting too far away from the spot...

      To be honest I'v epacked the terminators away for t hemoment as they've proven far too tempting for my weak resolve. There are another pistful of models I want to get finishd before moving on so I must ficus. They will get my loving attention at some point sooner rather than later I promise ;)

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  2. I love the frog. The cleric looks great of course, but the close up of the frog is the winning image :)

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    1. Thanks, I get what you mean I think. I hid it a bit so that you don't immediately pay attentin to it and I enjoyed painting it a silly look (funn yhow a horizontal bar in place of the pupil gives a strange look...).

      I will be honest with you my dear Paul, I'm going to play right in your alley in little time. It will not be with the same result or dedication but it should ring some bells I think...

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  3. That Rambulge looks great, and I think he has the distinction of being the first character in the game to have two models painted up especially to represent him :) it's hard not to be fond of the 'bulge, the big dolt! ;)

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    1. Well, just like for the old D&D range, the different models represent Rambulge at diffeent stages of his evolution. Bruno implies tha tthe one above depicts a well advanced Rambulge (level 10+ ?)

      Seu will soon have his second model though th enew one will be considerably less imposing (drop from 32mm scale to early 28mm).
      At least the honour to have 2 models is better than the one of having the first toadwarts on his genitals...

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    2. We all know 'bulgey is a big attention whore!
      I see this mini as Rambulge around level 5, hopefully by that stage he won't be so quick to soil himself or fall in love with the first woman he sees- but you never know!

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    3. You mean level 5+5 ! I actually noticed you had enough XPs to level up last time, you sure don't want to raise too high too quick !

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  4. He looks good, and emulating the box art is not a cop out. I know what you mean about taking too long to finish a figure. My work flow is spotty at best and I lose inspiration quickly.

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    1. I guess it's kinda the same for everyone. I know if can get painting I'm OK, th emiute I stop I'm into serious trouble. I just needed a couple of hours to finish that guys and he coud ahve been a lot better if I had taken those 2 hours then. Lesson learnt.

      Thanks Sean

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  5. Excellently painted cleric, I like the work on the robes, and the time taken to give extra detail to the shield. The frog is a lovely addition too.
    Nice to see some Rogue Trader era Terminators getting some attention as well.

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    1. Thanks Lee ! The freehand on the shield was a good idea to avoid something too flat, I wanted to ad details on the robe but I prefred decrating the shield since I wanted the robe to be dirty. The frog took only 5 minutes tops ti paint but at least it makes the model look a bit more like Bruno's character !

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  6. In a highly unoriginal fashion I would like to applaud you on the muddied robe lower section and froggy companion...both are lovely and the overall effect is great! Love the shield & inspiration too :)

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    1. Thanks a lot. It's quite a change from our late Rogue trader focus of late isn't it ? I really think a few details like muddied robe or rusted parts can make the difference when you want to tell a story with a model; I try to avoid using too much of those tricks but it can sometimes make the difference. Glad you like him, now go read his story, it's even better !

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  7. Replies
    1. One thing at a time Phreedh ! Orks are due for Orctober !
      You'll have them in all their greenish tone and bright coloured glory.

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  8. Rambulge even stood up to the plate in the game of 40K when the Squat Ancestor Lord got stage fright. He gets around!

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    1. Good, our Rambulge sure can handle tough times ;))

      Thanks !

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