When Trolls Meet Elves Part 2: The Build

Back in December, I showed off the WIP conversion of my Blood Bowl mini-diorama I'll be entering into a 'Duel' modelling competition at the NAF Championship in Nottingham in May.

The project started off purely on the premise that I happened to have lots of spare Elf catchers kicking around, as well as a lonely Troll. These two chaps in fact:

Blood Bowl 2nd edition Troll (Michael Perry) and Elf Catcher (Jes Goodwin), from 1988

Original Art - Part 3: Eldar Terrain & Cityscapes by Roberto Cirillo

After the purchase of artwork by Tony Hough and Des Hanley, it's safe to say that I was now in full on collecting mode. By instinct rather than design, I had sought out Eldar pieces, and it now struck me that this would be a nice collection to put together. The parameters were fairly broad - I would just see what pieces of Eldar artwork I could acquire by contacting ex-GW artists. Although the artwork in current publications now appears to be largely digital, even 5 or 6 years ago GW was still producing large quantities of traditional artwork.

My approach to tracking down the artists was simply to scan through GW publications, and try and make contact through any online presence. Through this process I came across Roberto Cirillo; if you're not familiar with Roberto as a GW artist, it's because he worked for GW, primarily as a concept artist for 3 years during the early 2000s. His output included Tau, Tyranid and Imperial Guard concepts, as well as the bulk of the design for the Warhammer 40k Cityfight scenery. You can see some of his excellent concept work at http://rcstudio.co.uk/

Given the nature of Roberto's role at GW, it is no surprise that the bulk of his output was never published (although you can see the outcomes in the models sculpted from his work). Roberto is also a skilled technical draughtsman, and you may recognise his highly detailed cityscapes and battlefield illustrations from the Warhammer 40k 'Cities of Death' (2006) and 'Apocalypse' (2007) supplements.

'Dhneb Capitalis' from Cities of Death (top), 'The Defence of Cyros Prime' from Apocalypse (bottom)

Warhammer Armies Book and the Art of Graphology

Last week I paid £38 for a copy of the 3rd edition Warhammer Armies book. This copy in fact:

Warhammer Armies. Average ebay price ~£15

You might (quite reasonably), ask why I paid £38 for a book (albeit in good condition), that normally sells for around £15. Well the answer was a little line in the item description:

"Signed at Games Day '89 by lots of then-GW staff - John Blanche, Tony Cottrell, Brian George, Bil, others whose names I can't decipher."

Stormbringer RPG 1987 - An Inexpert Review

I'll start this post off with a caveat. I'm not an experienced RPG player - in fact it's been 10 years since my last Dungeon crawl, and I think I've undertaken fewer than 10 quests ever.

So why, you may ask, am I writing a post about the Stormbringer RPG, based on Michael Moorcock's 'Elric' novels, jointly published in 1987 by Games Workshop and Chaosium Inc.?

Stormbringer. Cover art by Peter Jones

 

Original Art - Part 2: Craftworld Eldar by Des Hanley

Last month I showcased my three pieces of original art by Tony Hough. That iconic 'Eldar Broadside' piece was the first piece of GW artwork I bought. Today I'm going to share my second and third pieces, both by Des Hanley.

In 2011, I happened to spy a post on Frothers by Des Hanley. He had, he said, a selection of art from his time with GW, that he was looking to sell. Interested, I asked Des if he had any Eldar pieces. Happily he did:

Citadel Inks

For many years I used only two painting techniques; drybrushing and highlighting. In fact, red ink was the only Citadel Ink I had in my collection. When washes came out, these added a whole new element to the painting of my figures, but I always fancied going old school and using more inks, just like the 'Eavy Metal painters of yester-year.

The purpose of this very short post is simply to show off this little selection which arrived yesterday:

Citadel Ink colours 1-9 (two browns). Was there a #10?

The Eternal Champion Project - Personalities Acquired!

I wonder if there is a truly more wonderful sight than this to a collecter of ~30-year old little lead figurines:

EC05 Melnibonean Personalities. Complete.