Thursday 6 August 2015

Enter House Ulanti

Earlier, I took the opportunity to take some better photos of my winning entry into the BOYL 15 painting competition from the weekend.

I've showcased all the figures previously - they comprise Lord Greiss, Lady Greiss, bodyuard Eduardo Murat, Professor Barossus and Lope, the household huntsman. Although the models were linked through a common colour scheme, I wanted to tie them together with a display base. I decided on a very simple narrative of Lord and Lady Greiss leaving a doorway, accompanied by retainers.

Enter House Ulanti.


I wanted the base to frame the models, rather than distract from them. To that end, I added an archway behind the figures and a small half-buried barrel as a counterpoint in the foreground. Other than that, it was pretty much a case of adding texture and some patches of grass and flowers.



The display base was made from a cheap oval plinth I bought from ebay. For the textured element, I used an oval MDF movement tray. I sawed a sci-fi barrel in half, then textured the whole base with sand.


The doorway was made from a cheap arch from a construction kit called Bayko. I added a lintel to the top, and a small entry keypad which was nabbed from the RTB01 plastic Space Marine kit.



To give a hint of the sense of an interior behind the archway, I cut a piece of plasticard to shape and scored the outline of chequered tiles.





Overall, I think it does its job pretty nicely - reinforcing the link between the figures and making them stand out as a nice group.

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I was away in a hotel for a couple of nights with work earlier in the week. Once again I took paints and a figure to try and make good use of the time. This time I painted up another figure for my Inquisitorial warband, a rather humourless chap named Advard Munk. As a character, Advard, armed with a multi-laser, has been playing in my Inquisimunda campaign for a few weeks, having been represented by a stand-in.



He's made from an Eldar Harlequin Death Jester, with the gun barrel from an Epic-scale Warhound scout titan, and the head from a Marauder Empire champion. I appear to have inadvertently made some sort of flamboyant space-Quaker as a result!


Hopefully Advard will be reaping some kills in due course.

22 comments:

  1. Flamboyant Space-Quaker is my prog band name.

    Great work on these figures!

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  2. Advard is great - a really interesting mix of pieces I'd never have thought of.

    I've never made a display base for any of my minis before, but seeing yours gives me a thought to try my hand at it.

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    1. Thanks Odie. I've only made a couple of display bases before, primarily for my Blood Bowl teams. I don't think they necessarily need to be complicated, and using pre-cut movement trays makes it really simple!

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  3. Having seen it at BOYL your display piece is even more impressive in the flesh.

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  4. A superb pastel colour scheme ... my favourite kind. Well executed too.

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    1. Thanks! I usually favour bold and brash, but delicate pastels sometimes appear ;)

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  5. Beautiful display. Simple but elegant. And once again your conversion work is wonderful. I could have never imagined that combination for Advard! Cool!

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    1. Thanks Suber! To be honest, it's largely down to having a big box of figures to root through :)

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  6. Lovely work on the display base and Space Quaker.

    W

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  7. That Death Jester conversion is great Axiom! You really nailed the head choice too. I reckon trying to convert an elf/eldar into a human is quite difficult...proportion wise.

    Cool!

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    1. The death jester isn't quite as slight as normal Eldar, so I think that helps with this one I think!

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  8. Lovely work. Really like the Death Jester Conversion. Great stuff!

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  9. The Flamboyant Space Quaker (the miniature, not the band) is a very well conceived conversion, it really looks the part.

    The display base is lovely. I have never made a display base in my almost thirty years of toy soldiery. I don't know if I ever will either, even though yours looks fab. I'm not sure that it's a road that I want to go down, if you know what I mean.

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    1. Thanks Paul. Munk really came from a paucity of RT human figures with heavy weapons. I eliminated the idea of using a chainsaw warrior figure as he was too chunky. The death jester was pretty much the only alternative!

      I think the odd display base is fine, but I certainly don't want dozens for each sub-set of the collection ;)

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  11. Beautiful colour scheme and a fantastic base/display. Seeing bases such as yours is a frequent reminder to myself to start painting proper bases. :)

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    1. Heh heh ... I couldn't resist another comment. I like that base.

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    2. Another comment to my 6th August one that is ... oh my ... I'm so long winded. XD

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