Gamling the Old - Mithril LT5 (2002)

This is a nice little miniature, which has only one fault: it lacks a shield. The rest is both beautiful and fun to paint. Chris Tubb deserves a good praise for this 2002 sculpt.

Gamling is an interesting character in LotR: he is an old man, leader of the warriors Erkenbrand left as a garrison of Helm's Deep. He seems to be a veteran of considerable age, but if his body is weakened by senility, his mind and heart are still strong, as he shows in many occasions when he leads the defenders against the forces of Isengard. He survives the battle and nothing is said about his again, so we must assume he dies of old age. He is a minor character, but one of those memorable enough to deserve remembering.

Not many depictions exists of him. By far the best I know is from Angus McBride:

"If they come to bargain for our goods at Helm's Gate, they will pay a high price,"

Bakshi's animated movie ignores him as a character, and PJ's movies have him as a generic warrior guy:

"I'm actually fourty-five."

I liked the idea of Gamling being a sort of Castellan of Helm's Deep, a vicecomes to Erkenbrand, so he would have a nice uniform even though he would not be heavily armed. I painted him in green and red, with a black leather jerkin and a white cloak. Incidentally his cloak came out really nice, and it might well be the second coat I paint that I don't hate. Good stuff.

I think my Rohan force is coming up well. I might even be able to play a mini-skirmish sometimes.

"Forth, Helmingas!"

Khurasan Miniatures Manchu Horsemen

Digging into the bottom of the lead-pile here. These beauties came from over the pond something like 6 years ago, when I first got into the hobby. Khurasan is an excellent company and I did a sample order that sadly sits in a corner of my man-cave because most of it is 15mm and now I am more into 28mm.

Nonetheless, this Winter I returned to my passion for all things Manchu and decided to finish painting my bannermen, as members of the Bordered Yellow Banner. Here they are.

 

I could write a book about Manchus, and as a matter of fact I am. So I won't bore you with additional details. Just enjoy these armoured horse-archers spurring their steeds forward. 

Artizan Design Carolingian Milites

 I don't post much about historical miniatures. Truth is that those very miniatures got me into the hobby, as one of the first posts on this blog attests. I like historical miniatures very much but the problem is that I don't get much chance to play with them. Yet, every now and then I distract myself with a set of them.

Out of all history, my favourite period is the Iron Century, that dark age between 888, the death of the last Carolingian Emperor, and 961, the crowning of Otto the Great, in many ways the founder of the Holy Roman Empire. Few companies do Carolingians, and I decided to test one, Artizan Design, now a daughter company of North Star Figures which is one of the best miniature companies out there.

So without further ado, here's three milites, that is knights, from the period.

Gaidwald is a North Italian miles, most probably of Lombard origin. He wears a spangenhelm of rather old design, with a nasal guard, cheek-pieces and a crest.

Folcuin is a Frankish North-Italian miles. He wears a typical Carolingian kettle helm. I am particularly proud of the grey steed he rides - it was a tough job to stipple those spots, but in the end the result is ok.

Amalfred is a Frankish knight from the Rhein valley. He also wears a kettle helm and sports a very Frankish blonde moustache.

All in all, these miniatures are nice and were fun to paint. If you dig the period, I cannot recommend them enough. Will be buying more of this!

Haldir Rhovanion, Grey Elf Warden - MM383 (1998) conversion

This is a special mini for me, one of the rare conversions I do, designed to represent my favourite home-made character in Middle-earth. Born as the main character of a short story I wrote as a school assignment at 14, developed into a player character in a game of MERP, and again resurrected, updated and polished in many other stories and games.

Haldir son of Handir, also called Rhovanion, is an Elf of the Grey Havens. Like many inhabitants of Mithlond he has mixed heritage, claiming ancestors in Doriath, Gondolin and the Falas, but he identifies as Sinda. Originally a border warden, he left service in Mithlond after failing to prevent an Orc raid into Elf-lands that claimed many lives, among them his bethroted Aerin. After a period of wandering, overcome with sorrow and sense of failure, he was saved by a wandering company of Elves in the Shire and was directed to seek the counsel of Elrond Half-elven who could make sense of some obscure dreams and visions he had been having. The Lord of Imladris suggested that those dreams of the fall of Gondolin, and darkness, a sword shining of blue light meant that Haldir might yet have a destiny to fulfil in Middle-earth and invited him to enter his service as a warden.

Let's now address the elephant in the room - why am I using the miniature of a Man to represent an Elf? I'll answer with a controversial statement: although Chris Tubb is possibly my favourite miniature sculptor, his male Elves are dull. They are too feminine (mostly), they all have long hair (not my vision), and they are usually dressed either in long robes or very simple tunics. I needed a warden, the Elf equivalent of a Ranger, and here it is. Mithril Miniatures, can you make an Elf equipped for ranging? Thank you.

Fantasy Visuals: John Blanche - Part IV (the '10s)

Continues from Part III. 

John Blanche's art in the 2010s is not very much unlike that in the 2000s, except that the trends emerged in that period seem to take momentum and impact even more than before. In a nutshell: Blanche, having set up a studio that is able to work by itself, takes more and more distance from the Warhammer products, providing occasional pieces (mostly for the 6th edition of 40K) and a lot of concepts that, although not meant for publication, still make heir way into the Codexes and Army Books. There is, still, a passion that looks back at the '80 in a number of artworks, as if John was remembering old stuff and reworking it into his later art, a quality that is higher than anything in the past ten or fifteen years. 

Necrons (2011)

Nightmare (2011)

Vampire Counts (2011)

Zombie Dragon (2011)

Beast of Nurgle (2012)

Death World (2012)

Exterminatus (2012)

Hour of Darkness (2012)

Imperium (2012)

Keeper of Secrets (2012)

Plague Drones (2012)

Sanguinius (2012)

The Changeling (2012)

The Enemy Within (2012)

The feeling is that creativity is back along with experimentation.  There's less mandatory product sketches from marketing and more stuff that comes from the artist's own imagination. There is an old attention to detail that was almost forgotten after the mid 1990s, this time benefitting from the experience of a navigated artist. The result is amazing.

When Warhammer Fantasy is killed and Age of Sigmar takes its place, John Blanche is only involved in the concept: he will not officially work on it, as his semi-retirements starts.

Kairic Acolyte (2014) 

Nurglings (2016)

Kharadron Overlord (2017)

There is little to no published material of his in the 7th edition of 40K and none at all in the 8th. At this point John mostly draws for himself, for friends and for games he plays. Look at the art below and consider how much it looks like a direct update of the earlier art from the '80s.

 

"Let us dance" 2019

Tarot card (2019)

Innocentius (2019)

Unkown Title (2020)

These days he publishes his sketches through a Facebook page, and he gets involved in many fan projects along with other gamers. Blanche can be occasionally met at gaming conventions around Nottingham, where is often a guest of honour, one of them being BOYL in Newark.

Overall John Blanche is one of the most influential artists in British fantasy art, and certainly the most influential in the history of GW. Even if his art is polarizing and not for everyone, no one can deny that even today all of GW's art exists in his shadow. He is also the only artist that is going to get four posts in Fantasy Visuals on this blog - that was a long ride started a year and a half ago and it took me a long time to go through all his published works. But it was fun, and I learned to appreciate him even more than I did before. I hope you do too!

Leave a comment, if you like, and tell us about your favourite piece from John Blanche. Soon I'll post on a new artist from the '80s.

The Children of the Eight-legged Mother - WQ Silver Tower Grot Scuttlings (2016)

  

Every year around this time I feel guilty for buying Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower and never getting around to paint all of its miniatures. I usually promise myself to do that, start with something and then get distracted by something else. This year it was the Grott Scuttlings. What's funny is that I bought a lot of colourful Contrast Paints, with a plan to do them extra Tzeentch-y, and ended up with this Blanchitsu nightmare of mute colours covered in a variety of inks. This is what Bob Ross would call a happy mistake.

So here's the Children of the Eight-legged Mother: a band of mutant Goblins worshipping a Giant Spider, which they called "Mother". They haunt the forest and come out of dark nights to snatch children away and offer them to their Mother Goddess. Grimdark af.

 

For some reason, these yellowish-tan skinned Goblins give me a lot of 70s/early 80s vibes, something like Rodney Matthews meets the Dark Crystal. really dig that. Anyway, Happy New Year!