The Maniac Also Paints- Kings of War Shieldbreakers

On my visit at the Mantic towers during their open day I picked up some dwarf sprues. I already had some elves and undead, and I wanted to see the dwarves in person as well.
Only paying 40 pence per model made the decision much easier.

Now I finally came around to build and paint a unit of shieldbreakers, dwarfs with two-handed weapons.
I did not use the bases the models come with, but glued the models directly to their regiment base. This allows for a bit more dynamic posing ,as well as saving a few models per unit (yeah, I´m cheap).

Building the models was good fun. The low amount of parts per model means fewer details, but also less work in building and painting the buggers. "Bigger armies" indeed- these models beg to be fielded in mass.

The paintjob is simple, mostly only one solid colour and a wash for shading, with the faces being the only exception to this. After all, these models are meant to be played with, and an army in Kings of War tends to be rather large.

I think the Mantic dwarfs look best when seen in units, rather than as single models. The weaknesses in the sculpts are blurred away, and the stocky proportions of the models come to the fore.

All in all I recommed the models! They look fine as single model and great as a unit. And they are inexpensive, the above unit comes in at 3,20 GBP!

I did not intend to build an entire army of these fellows, since I already have a humongous dwarf army (mostly GW models), but I enjoyed painting the shieldbreakers and I like the look of the finished unit... we´ll see whether I´ll give in and get even more dwarfs.

Also, check out Kings of War! It´s a great wargame, it´s easy to learn, open for all miniatures and free to download on the Mantic website.

WIP Barbarian Update

The hands and boots are done, and his mighty axe well underway.

Also included: A size comparison shot with the dwarf lord and a mugshot.

WIP Barbarian

So far I did not sculpt any fur or muscles. The dwarf lord also sports the first face I ever sculpted, so I decided I need a bit more practice.

Why a barbarian? Well, I like the imagery of ridiculously overmuscled warriors clad in fur and leather, it is delightfully cheesy and silly. And it allows me to practice musculature, faces, fur and hair.

The body is sculpted out of FIMO, over a wire/green stuff armature, while the hair and fur is done in super sculpey. I just got my sculpey today and had to test it, and I must admit, it is a great putty. FIMO is not bad and is easily available in almost any crafts-store, but super sculpey takes the cake.

Next on the to-do list are his boots, hands and weapon, as well as some jewelery here and there, maybe a necklace or wristbands, tht kind of thing. Oh, and he´ll need a drinking horn, obviously.