XLIX. Devil Went Down to Gardens of Hecate

The fifth bell-ringer creature (yay, I'm half way through them!). This is a special one, though: the Devil. In folk carnivals a Devil characther is often present, along with Death, Bear with Handler, Hobby Horse, etc.

I was very free with my design, but he nontheless got his pitchfork, hooves and horns. ; ) 

The body is a Plaguebearer, but lower parts of his legs were replaced with horse legs. Just as I promised, I stole that neat idea from Jeff Vader's Plague Prophet conversion. The head and tail come from a Black Knights mount, and the pitchfork from the plastic Giant kit. 

Fun fact: he was first painted in a different colour scheme. I liked it and he looked good on his own, but so it happened that it made him look too different from the rest of his faction. With the makeover he lost some of his devilishness, but at least now he fits in. The deviant... : P This was the first paintjob:

  *   *   *

My LGS finally restocked some of The Hobbit range, so I today I picked up a box of Goblin Warriors for my Troglodytes. I like that kit a lot. Each of the 18 goblins is a unique sculpt, and they are all single piece figures, but without looking two-dimensional. They won't need much alteration beside exchanging their metal blades for weapons of either bone or flint. 

I also came by a blister of Freeboter's Fate pistols, so my characters can accessorize when the need arizes.

XLVIII. An Old Fence and A New Goatman

I slapped some paint on that fence gate I made earlier. Here I tried out Agrellan Earth, to get somehing like old, cracked paint.   

Then I thought it would be a good idea to make some fence pieces to go with the door. It was pretty tedious business, but listening to audiobooks while working made it bearable. I alway like to listen to somehing while I paint and such, I think this time I went through Arthur Machen's The White People, and The Great God Pan, and possibly something else.

 Now I have ten fence segments of this kind in total, including the one with the gate in it. 

 *   *   *

Another cattle-headed revenant joins the ranks. This one has Tzeentch Horror arms on the standard Plaguebearer body.

 Here's the whole group:

*   *   *

XLVII. Some More Revisions

While at it, I messed with the musical Bell-Ringer as well. I wasn't too happy with his warpaint (which I introduced to counter the monotony of his big green surfaces), or his skin tone in general. So after repainting the skin in a more suitable shade of sickly green, I tried to employ other means adding a bit of detail and interest. First, I let his head sprout a couple of antlerlike branches with tin leaves. I like it, because it's a pretty surreal concept. Just this was not enough, as the chest area was the biggest problem. After trying out some other stuff, I eventually just hung a bell around his neck- and that solved the problem.

And here's a group shot of the three done so far:

*   *   *

Several parcels of goodies have arrived to my address this week, including a small order from Victoria Miniatures. I ordered the awesomly grotesque and quite amusing Labyrintus Fairies, and along with them these white metal goggles:

 I am very, very pleased with these. In fact, as soon as I unpacked the goggles, I installed them on the Plague Doctor and the Nurse. I think it considerably improved their faces:

Now I'll have to restrain myself from putting goggles on everything... 

And just this afternoon I picked up a pair of the new Citadel Technical paints: Typhus Corrosion and Agrellan Earth. Can't wait to try them out. Especially the latter, since it seems like a crackle effect paint that actually works.

XLVI. The Third Bell-Ringer

And here we go: my first mini in 2014. Another footsoldier of Hades:

 

Just as the others, he is a converted plastic Plaguebearer. I replaced the daemonic sword with a wooden club I sculpted. Added a rope around his waist, with several jingle bells on it. The hairy neck was built up with green stuff, and the face is a GW beastman skull. The horns are spikes from VC Corpse Cart.

 

I did some more changes on the first bell-ringer: added the ribbons hanging from his horns and changed the colour of his intestines to black. 

This happens to me a lot. When I work on a faction my idea and vision of it evolves as I slowly get through models, so the ones I make at the beginning often get updated at some point later.

XLV. The Keeper of the Golden Bough

Happy New Year!

*    *    *

Behold the last miniature I painted in 2013: the Keeper of the Golden Bough, a giant tree-man:

 

In one scenario the Doctor and the Countess will both try to get their hands on the Golden Bough, a legendary alchemical ingredient. They will know the Bough grows somewhere in the canopy of what was once a sacred glade, but is now a collection of ancient gnarled trees. However, they will not know exactly which tree it is on, and they will have to look for it while fighting each other and creatures of Hades.

Once someone finds the tree with the Golden Bough and tries to collect it, its Keeper will awake: the old tree itself will uproot and start atacking everyone around it. Only when the Keeper is brought to the ground can the Bough be picked up...
We haven't yet written the exact rules, but you see the general idea.

A closeup of the "head", where the Golden Bough sits:

And a size comparison with what was until now the largest model in the Gardens: