Topic: Le Pistolet's Monotonous Wissenland Log- Big Update 3/6/2011

[Le Pistolet]

Welcome one and all,

With the summer now only scant days away, I have begun my painting in earnest. Most of my models are from when I started in the 6th Edition, buying the starter set. I then chose some flashier armies and ignored the Empire, but now I'm coming back. I leapt at the chance a couple of years ago to buy a lot of models off my mate who left for Uni. Many of the models you will see are his models repainted. Other models come from ventures on eBay. Basically, I love the older models, so you won't see much from the 7th Edition or later here, unless they're really nice....

If you haven't read my background follow the link in my signature, the characters in there will be making their appearances in the blog.

Well actually two are here now 

Here is Grubart the Grey (based of another famous 'the Grey')



And here is Father Josef Schmidt



Now that the characters are out of the way, here is a grunt, the humble halberdier. He is a test for my colour scheme, what do you all think?



More to come when it comes.

[Immovable Object]

A really good start, Im looking forward to seeing your blog progress. I love that wizard figure and you've done him justice with a great paint job 

[Le Pistolet]

Wow, thanks for the praise, especially as he only took me an hour or so 

I've never really got compliments on my models before, perhaps I've got better somehow in the two years I haven't painted anything. 

I'll try and keep this regularly updated now. I've got another Wizard in the pipeline, the old Talisman Philosopher. But I'm still unsure how to paint his robes. I want him to be fairly generic so I can use him as a few roles, but not grey or white for obvious reasons. Purple could be good?

More halberdiers will follow once they've gone through their acid bath (mwuhahaha).

[Valetus]

Like the first two pictures but the halberdier looks quite unfinished

[Le Pistolet]

Unfinished in what way? What would you suggest?

Criticism is very welcome, I can only improve.

[Immovable Object]

I just signed up to follow your Sonnerfurt blog on blogger.com. Thats amazingly in depth fluff, good stuff. 

[Le Pistolet]

I just signed up to follow your Sonnerfurt blog on blogger.com. Thats amazingly in depth fluff, good stuff. 

Thanks, the fluff is my favourite part of the game, closely followed by modelling and painting. Gaming is just an added bonus for me.

I tried to correct the Halberdier, but I didn't really know what I was going for. I washed some areas and added some more highlights to make him look more finished. He is ultimately a test model so will be in the back ranks so I can keep experimenting on him, criticism would be brilliant.

[GamesPoet]

It seems like you are on the right track with the halberdier.  The white on his left leg looks a bit brighter in the 2nd picture than it did in the 1st.  My sense of the Wissenland color scheme is that the white needs to stick out a bit to contrast with the grey.

The wizard and the lector look very good.

[Generalbear]

Hmmmmm............Your priest mounted on a war alter styled machine................creative juices flowing!!......

Any way loving you work consider me a follower

[Valetus]

Yeah a more contrasting white would make the grey look better, it is a very hard scheme to pull off though

[Le Pistolet]

So do you think he looks any better now or do we think they would need stronger contrast? I'm gonna start on the rest pretty soon so I guess I need to sort him out once and for all.

[Le Pistolet]

Update time!

After I finished Latin forever today with my final A Level paper, I thought what better way to celebrate it than by painting up something slightly classical. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had the Talisman Philosopher waiting in the wings and I thought I'd paint him up 

As you can see, he is standing in the ruined forum, puzzling over his latest question...



I converted the model slightly from its original state, adding more to his robes so that he could be wearing a toga and look more like this image of Plato, but I kept the original mostly in tact. Although I was going to paint him entirely purple, I opted for just purple underclothes so that he would fit in better with his surroundings, whilst still sticking out enough.

He will count as a Wizard of probably Light or Heavens to contrast Grubart's Shadow magic. I have not yet written him into Sonnefurt's fluff as I wasn't going to need him until the buff to magic from 8th Edition. If anyone wants to suggest a name, I might just use it.

[GamesPoet]

So do you think he looks any better now or do we think they would need stronger contrast? I'm gonna start on the rest pretty soon so I guess I need to sort him out once and for all.

Unless your photo isn't showing the contrast correctly, than it does seem to need more contrast between the white and grey, although I do see you made an effort to brighten the white.  I see his left leg has white on it, is his chest or right arm suppose to be white?

- - -

And that wizard definitely looks like he could pass as a light wizard, maybe even heavens.

Folks will surely let him be used for casual games (and if they don't that's lame), yet it might be difficult to use him in a regular GW tourney, if you are planning such.

[Le Pistolet]

I've had another bash at the Halberdier (and some of his buddies) this afternoon. I went for a different tract of basecoating Astronomican Grey, highlighting with white and then washing with very thin Adeptus Battlegrey. The contrast between the white and the dark grey is markedly different now and I think it should be a very easy scheme to sort out, I got 5 done in an hour. I will put up more pictures when good light returns sometime tomorrow afternoon.

I also touched up the Philosopher (with his permission of course  ) whilst I was doing the Halberdiers. I removed the really exaggerated highlights in favour of more natural ones, using more layers of Astronomican Grey highlighted up to white, and then giving an Astronomican wash at the end. He looks a better and again, pictures will come tomorrow.

Folks will surely let him be used for casual games (and if they don't that's lame), yet it might be difficult to use him in a regular GW tourney, if you are planning such.

He's a Citadel Miniature, why would GW disapprove?

[GamesPoet]

Ah, Citadel, wasn't aware of that, my apology, probably be ok.

[Le Pistolet]

Yeah, he comes from the Talisman 2nd Edition Expansion Set. I liked him so much I had to have him

[Le Pistolet]

What time is it?

Update o'clock!

I've spent the evening today finishing off a batch of 10 Halberdiers, but sadly, my static grass delivery doesn't come until tomorrow at least so I haven't taken any pictures of them. I also started by painting a couple of test figures for my Soll River Patrol Swordsmen. The Swordsmen are actually old Spearmen, my mate made them into Swordsmen out of the single pose Spearmen back when he played and Swordsmen were still the best choice. As not to undo his handiwork I am continuing to use them, and his conversions look pretty good. I think I have seen someone other do the same thing on here too.

Anyway, that update should come tomorrow. For now, I finished Philosopher as well this evening, making him appear to be greying and sorting out the white of his toga. I have also come up with some fluff for him, but as of yet I have no name. I want it to be Greek inspired, ending with -os or -es or something like that, but also have a classic GW tongue in cheek twist to it, so it is a cleverly disguised play on words. Can anyone help me out here?

Here is the model:



And here is the fluff:

[Insert Name Here] is a well renowned philosopher, playwright and teacher in Sonnefurt and is one of the Baroness' key advisors. He was recorded in the Barony in 2495, an immigrant from a small Border Prince far South of Sonnefurt.. He intended to only rest in the town on his journey to the University in Nuln, wanting to take some scrolls he had brought with him from his homeland to be translated. Before he could do this however he needed to regather his strength after the treacherous journey through the Black Mountains, and acquire a boat to take him down the River Soll. On the one night he intended to stay in Sonnefurt, however, he visited the Von Heisenberg Theatre. During the play he rudely began shouting at the actors, also from the Border Princes, in his native tongue, and according to most sources, telling them they were murdering one of his best plays.

This outburst, and the translation, caught the attention of Baron Max von Heisenberg, who shared his father's passion for great plays, and sought an audience with [Insert Name Here]. After offering hefty sums of money, Baron von Heisenberg comissioned [Insert Name Here] to write and direct many plays for the theatre, attracting audiences from all over Wissenland, and many even came from Nuln. Due to money beyond his dreams, [Insert Name Here] stayed in Sonnefurt for a couple of years more than he intended, putting off the importance of the scrolls. In that time, besides writing plays, he was also given a certain amount of freedom to develop his skills and his incredible mind, expanding it further than previous allowed as the court playwright for a despotic tyrant.

In 2497, Baroness Katarina was born. Baron Max von Heisenberg was quick to offer [Insert Name Here] the job of her personal tutor. For the first 18 years of her life, he taught her the art of poetry, philosophy, world history, politics, economics; everything she would need as the next ruler of the Barony.

A few years after she had established power, [Insert Name Here] decided it was time to translate the scrolls he had brought with him over 20 years before. With the help of his vast sums of money, he finally travelled to Nuln and used his finances to acquire the appropriate books. After two years of research, he discovered the scrolls were ancient incantations from a race that lived in the Border Princes before the dawn of civilisation. When read with the appropriate tongue, which he quickly learned, the words began to glow and depending on the inflection and the way of pronouncing the words, great power could be drawn from the texts. With this knowledge acquired [Insert Name Here] returned to Sonnefurt, which he now considers his home. He plays a key role in their politics, being a trusted advisor of the Baroness and also takes to the battlefield, using his knowledge of his scrolls the great affect, destroying the foes of the Barony with their ancient power.

If anyone's interested by this fluff, their is more of it in my topic The Barony of Sonnefurt

I will be updating all my character profiles to come more in line with the detail of this guy in the near future.

[Le Pistolet]

Stop. It's update time.

As promised, I have taken pictures of the first ten Halberdiers. I tried to break up the grey and white scheme by adding red bands like in the back of the Empire book and I definitely think it improves the overall look.

Here are the Thalfang and Ostrach Coalition Militia Patrol out scouting the Martinswald for trouble, very near to the source of the River Martin, about 5 miles from Morr's Chasm.



After several hours of patrolling, they are ambushed by ancient dwellers of these woodlands. After a brief skirmish, they are fortunately victorious.

[GamesPoet]

Perhaps because of the lighting, or perhaps because of your technique, or perhaps both, yet which ever, your contast between the white and grey is looking bettter.

[Cannonofdoom]

This blog is Monotonous (haha I get your pun!  )

Very nice. Keep them coming. 

[Valetus]

looking pretty good from those latest photos.

[Le Pistolet]

So progress on this log has slowed what with being abroad and trying to pass a driving test, but let's rectify that 

I have finally got round to finishing my first unit! Thanks to 8th Edition being all about the big units, this task has taken me longer than I thought it would. However, collectively the unit was finished in about 11 hours over about 4 days (I get bored after 3 hours) so still pretty speedy per model I guess. It was a huge relief to finish them off but then I saw all the work I still have left. I still have another unit of 35 Swordsmen, 30 Militia, 20 Missile Troops, 15 Horsemen and 20 Greatswords. It's a mammoth task but hopefully it will be done by September (so I can start playing games once I have the small rulebook from the boxed game, I can't afford the big book right now).

I think I'll be taking a break from infantry, or at least uniform infantry, for now, so in the next update you will see either Cavalry or Militia.

Anyway, we're still on this update, and the reason you've all come looking is for pictures, so I won't disappoint you. (the pictures themselves on the other hand...  )

In these pictures the men, under the guidance and magical protection of Grubart the Grey, are scouting a recently destroyed wood cutter's house and farm for signs of any remaining Ogres from the band who devastated the small community of Bezeinhof.









And the personal symbol of Katrina von Heisenberg, the Rose and Briars.

[GamesPoet]

Cool symbol, somehow or other seemingly approrpiate. 

[Le Pistolet]

Phew, that's lucky, it's the only symbol I can freehand 

I could have tried the Lion of Wissenland, or some grimdark Skull or something but I think the Rose is perfect for the Baroness, surrounded by men and particularly Sollanders, she is literally the rose amongst the thorns.

[Orion]

I like the unit! that banner sure looks perfect on the table.

And bases are very good, I think they are 40% of a mini.