XXXV. Vermin!

Rats

 

I figured the Gardens needed some plague-carrying rats to skitter around, so I  painted up these:

It felt they would look weird on 30mm lipped bases, so I put them on plain 25mm ones. It works. I have more of them waiting to be painted. In the end I'll have about 20; all various GW plastic rats. They could be useful for different scenarios.

Rat King

Rat king is a rare phenomenon: a number of rats somehow become interwined at their tails, which also get stuck together with stuff such as dirt, ice, excrement or blood. Rat kings were often considered a bad omen, especially of plague.

Mummified rat king, kept in the scientific museum Mauritianum in Altenburg, Germany. It was discovered in 1828 in a miller's fireplace.

I think rat kings are pretty cool, so I wanted a miniature rat king. I can see the Plague Doctor or the Countess attempting to kill it for its magical properties and/or because of its association with plague, while it continuouisly spawns swarms of rats to defend itself. I kind of imagine it not as a group of rats, but as a single multi-bodied entity.
Anyway, here it is. I put it on a 40mm base. It consists of 8 little rats from the Skaven Abomination kit, and some thin wire for the tail knot in the centre.

XXXIV. Artwork

Unfortuantely I' m too busy with other stuff to be working on new GoH miniatures at the moment, but I found a bit of time to scan my latest attempts at stat card artwork. 

Crimson Sphynx. I pretty much ripped off the pose from Santiago Caruso's artwork which was the inspiration for the model in the first place.

Ravenous Bloodfiend. I took a lot of liberty with that one. It's as if the artist who painted it never really encountered this spirit, but rather imagined it from accounts of those who had seen it.

Gheists. To avoid it looking dull I depicted not one but three of them, and added the "rain drops" to fill up the space.

The Plague Doctor. Done in a different style than the others, and on different kind of paper.

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XXXIII. Making Terrain III

The large Hanging Tree stood half-painted on my desk for a while. So I used my study-breaks throughout the last couple of days to finish it. 

Mushrooms!

The base is a CD covered with a layer of clay.

Three more wooden fences done:

And this little road sign. I painted the bird  to represent a hooded crow, which is the most common kind of crow in my parts. It's got a grey body with a black head, wings and tail.

Let's see what we've got so far:

• 1 Citadel Wood
• 2 Hanging Trees
• 1 large Hanging Tree
• 7 wooden fences
• 1 large house
• 1 chapel
• 3 barrels
• 1 crucifix
• 1 road sign.

Not bad, I'd say. That's all from me for today, now it's back to studying.