One thing I enjoy about my little aside into fantasy miniatures is that I can just use whatever colors I want, with no worries about historical uniforms. One thing I completely dislike about painting fantasy miniatures is not having historical uniforms to reference!
For my orcs (or orks?), I went with pretty simple brown furs and hides, gunmetal/silver and brass/gold armor.
They were finished last Friday, but I discovered that I had run out of the 30mm bases I've been using for my 28mm fantasy figures. That was a shock to me, as I had over 50 when I started, but then I recalled I had used many of them for my Christmas games.
The bases arrived yesterday and they were quickly glued and flocked.
This brings my greenskins up to four figures, and I still have two more on the paint table. I have quite a few Reaper Bones goblins, and while I long ago painted three or four with bright yellow, I'll paint a few in green to act as toadies for this orc warband.
For both fantasy and Weird World War I games, I knocked out a pair of beetles (the insects, not the car).
I thought about doing stripes but I like the dots better. And they are easier to paint!
While they can stand in for most giant beetles in an RPG, for WWWI, like the swarms, they will function as blinds
In addition to the two orcs, I have a few more swarms, a mummy, and some rats on the paint table in progress. There are two WWI Italian riflemen waiting patiently to complete the 4th unit of 32, and there are a few lancieri head swaps, too.
I dread painting horses, so those lancieri will probably take me the rest of 2023!
The beetles look great John! They remind me of my "Hamilton's Invaders Beetle," he has dots too and looks awesome!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Brad! I was not familiar with Hamilton's Invaders Beetles - they look like so much fun!
DeleteSurely spiders, not beetles?
ReplyDeleteReaper is a good source of orcs for 54mm. The spelling convention, as established by GW, seems to be Space orks and fantasy orcs with 'orcs' being the general, traditional spelling.
Eureka Miniatures did a range of orcs for small scale but with oversized heads suitable for 54mm. I have used the heads on various human figures to make 54mm orcs.
I was torn on the bug's identification - the pair in front of the face look like mandibles under my magnifying googles but they seem kind of long not be legs. Speetles? Biders? Included in that bundle of figs from Reaper Bones are some very clearly giant spiders which was another factor in my decision making.
DeleteThank you for the orc/ork explanation - that makes sense.
Sadly the Reaper heads are unsuitable for 54mm bodies - although i think they'd be fine on 1/35.