Building a Dwarf Army Pt.4

As I mentioned in my previous ‘building a dwarf army post’ – my (revised) plan was to try and get this entire army done within the space of a month… and I almost did it.

At the end of the last post I shared a picture of all the core troops done… so all that was left was the various command models.

Well, here they are:

The two guys on the left are conversions (using the EM4 miniatures as the base model), and the two guys on the right are metal models from Black Tree Design (though both were originally holding hammers, so the spear guy is another conversion).

However, that does leave one more mini to go before I can call the army complete… and that’s this fella:

...and I’ve been putting off painting it as I’m not sure how to tackle the banner.

Some thoughts I had were to simply ‘quarter it’ and call it done (this is supposed to be a quickly painted project after all), or I could buy some decals (though that makes it more expensive), or I could try to sculpt something onto the banner itself (a large rune for example) in greenstuff (as that would probably be a bit easier for me to achieve than trying to freehand a design).

But I’m still not 100% sure about what to do yet – so I’ve put him to one side for now.

That being said, I’ve still been splashing a bit of paint around… as I want to paint up some orcs next. However, the plan for these is to take one sprue of the various orc and goblin kits that have a vaguely Tolkienesque look about them…

(Oathmark orcs and goblins, Wargames Atlantic goblins, and Warlord Games orcs)

...and see what kind of warband I can make with them.

This will also give me A LOT of spare heads when I’m done – so the plan is to see if I can use some of those to convert some of the EM4 orcs that I have as well.

But, as you can see, I’ve not assembled any of these yet, and what I’ve been doing instead is having a go at painting some of the existing (mostly metal) models that I have in my collection – to see if I can work out a colour scheme that I like (mainly for the skin tones).

So, with that in mind, here’s the first two tests on some old Ral Partha orcs…

...which don’t look too bad – but not 100% how I want them (though the guy on the left isn’t too far off).

I’m also considering using these ‘test models’ as a little warband in their own right for a couple of games of Deep Below (a Five Leagues from the Borderlands spin-off) – as I’m probably going to do a few more test models before I’m done… and it would be good to have something in mind for the models (other than them being just tests).

Anyway, as far as the dwarves go, they’re pretty much done (save for the banner bearer)… and it did take around a month to finish them (the first primer was applied on the 22nd September, and the last varnish went on on the 21st October) – and I even had days (almost a week at one point) where I didn’t do anything at all.

So, all in all, I think that’s pretty good going for someone like me :)