Monday 19 March 2018

CLXV. Duardin Warriors of Volmar

Here come the rest of the Duardin.



Volmar sits on a mountain on Erebos, and is inhabited mostly by Duardin and Kobolds. People of Volmar are well adapted to their high-altitude life. They manage to grow crops on artificially constructed terraces, and herd goats on their mountain pastures. What their own efforts at agriculture cannot supply, they trade for the riches they discover in their mines. 

Duardin and Kobolds are very similar in height and build. The easiest way to tell them apart is  looking at the nose and ears: they are both elongated in Kobolds. However, the biggest difference is the fact Kobolds do not give birth to living young like Duardin, but lay eggs. This makes them incompatible, so Kobolds and Duardin generally do not intermarry. But they consider themselves to be one people, and most of their culture is shared.  

The kingdom has been on good terms with its neighbours for a very long time; conflicts with other realms are not common and not large in scale. 

Let's take a look at each of the Chosen Axes (and hammers!) of Volmar.

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Fjul.

This was originally the Fjul-Grimnir model, the leader of Chosen Axes. What I liked about the original model is the set of keys, the giant's skull on the base, and the pose. As with the others, the mohawk was cut off to make way for a conical helm with a mask. This not so practical ceremonial helm has a bit of a samurai vibe mixed in... The runes in his skin were sanded away. I admit that weapon is utterly ridiculous, but for some reason I liked it. So I kept it, only removing the dragon head detail from the bottom end (the part I disliked). I had to replace it with something of similar shape and size in order to preserve balance. So I stuck a ring into a clutched hand from my bits box and glued that on.

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Ugal.

This was the first one done, discussed in my last post.

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Maegri.

This was Mad Maegrim, originally wielding a pair of axes. I simply wanted some variety.

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Tefk.


And finally, this was Tefk Flamebearer. He used to have two different axes, but gave him one I removed from Maegrim, so now he has a matching pair.

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A few shots of different stages of sculpting Tefk's helmet. The nose ring was actually added in the middle of painting.


Fjul's armour is the most elaborate one. I'm relatively satisfied with it, but I see I need to work more on my symmetry. Here I went to some other Trudvang dwarf armour designs, by Alvaro Tapia. The 'beard' portion of the mask covers a larger area on the front, basically being a chest plate. It's an interesting solution. 


When I look at my four warriors side by side, I feel the style of the helmets across the warband should have been more consistent. That's something to keep in mind for next time.


The original Chosen Axes are Fyreslayers. Photo taken from games-workshop.com.

22 comments:

  1. My dark piece of cake!
    Perfect work!

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  2. You removed all the parts that make them look like plastic toys and added just enough to make them grim and gritty. This works perfect with the simple colour sheme. Perfect! Are you planing the other factions of Shadespire as well or do you only paint the ones you like most?

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    1. Thanks. So far I have four out of eight: Liberators, undead, rats, and these dwarves. I sold off the khorne guys from the starter as soon as I had bought it, to save some money. Now I know what I would do with them, but unless I for some reason decide to buy another starter, they won't get done. The orcs are the most difficult because of their specific body makeup. But I have a plan for them, so I think they are next.

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  3. Great work! Good conversion and fantastic painting!

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  4. They're so good, it's not fair!

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  5. These are so amazing I love the Mesopotamian look to them. Another masterpiece. I wish GW shared your amazing aesthetical sense. I would love to one day see you have your own miniature company.

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    1. Cheers Urion. Who knows what future will bring.

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  6. Very nice! And as goofy and impractical as Fjul's axe is, I have a soft spot for it myself. Glad to see you kept it.

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  7. Lovely stuff.

    That little bit of fluff makes me want to know so much more about how these guys live, but at the same time gives me enough to paint a vivid picture.

    I'm a big fan of your "alternate" world building. Like 40k, the realms of AoS have scope for practically any civilisation you could think of, and I'm much more interested in the smaller-scale, less war-riven domains that people like yourself are crafting. There can't be Chaos Warriors everywhere, *all* the time.

    Have you thought about doing any Kobolds to go alongside these guys? How would you represent their similarities and differences on the models?

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    1. Thank you very much. :)

      I have thought about including Kobolds, and they would also use Fyreslayers as base models. Their version of these helms would have to be a bit more open, to accommodate their long noses and ears. My idea is to expand this faction with a box of Vulkite Berserkers turned into warriors of lower status (no fancy helms). This bunch would include both kobolds and dwarves. I ought to make a kobold hero or two. And my plan for the Shadespire orc warband is to turn them into half-dwarves (there is a story behind those, but all in good time).

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  8. Wonderful converting and painting, once again.
    I really like the way you imagine this universe...

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  9. These look amazing! :O
    Very nice work (so business as usual here^^).

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  10. Just wow! The big ring in the nose is my favorite detail (of many). Is it lonely up there? I mean - beeing the best? No, really: With the blackened armour and all, they say "fire" even more than the original models do. Great job!

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  11. So remendously impressive and evocative. Wow.

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