Orc Riding Beast

It has been a few years...

Since the first time I saw the riding beasts from Fraser Gray and Michael Immig in White Dwarf all these years ago I wanted to paint one of these fantasy war elephant iterations. Sadly the first two attempts failed due to ill planning in the painting department. That did´t stop me from hoarding all kind of bits for fantasy beasts, howdahs and vicious crew members.

When I finally came around to the the third attempt I had accumulated enough parts for three different beast and passengers. There was no failing this time and so of all the different parts I settled for that combination which held the biggest opportunity for failure- a crappily cast Prince August Myrmidon, a finceast gobbla that lived up to its reputation and an early 80s siege tower. All needed excessive sanding and resculpting as did the orc crew that had nasty mold lines running down their faces.

Finally paint got involved and the airbrush did for the beasts skin. I tried to go for a limited palette of colors with mostly yellow, black and reddish tones. A combination of colors that have turned out to be my favorite over the last two years since I picked up the brush again.

The times they are a changing...

WD 152; painted by Massimo Colombari

They don´t come like that anymore. While the technical brilliance that can be seen on CMON is staggering, to me it mostly blends into one dark and gritty mass where individual styles are hard to identfy. Sadly I couldn´t find anything else from Massimo Colombari (same as with Fraser Gray) :(

Fraser Gray tribute

When it comes to miniature painting the old saying that `if I have seen farther than other men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants` holds true to all contemporary painters. Without belttling their work or skill it was down to the painters of the 80s to apply the techniques used in 54mm painting to the then rather new 25mm fantasy miniatures that lay the foundation for todays pieces. While John Blanche, the most profilic giant of times past, is still influencing the world and imagery of GW´s core systems a lot of legends of old seem to not have stepped into the digital era. There are noteable exceptions like Steve Blunt (see the blog roll) but one of the painters whose work was so much ahead of his time seems to has vanished: Fraser Gray.

To get an impression of what we´re missing out today have a look at the clickable pics. Miniatures blended to perfection, sporting lucid color schems yet with a sense of realism and surreal shield and banner designs. Full froth on.



Concerning the mans techniques the small snippets in eavy metal state that he used alcohol based paints which partly explains the blendings. In addition he construcued his bases out of plasticene with bits stuck in and then coated this with epoxy glue with grit sprinkled on.





I cannot praise these highly enough. Whenever my motivation slips a glance at those pics makes me want to pick up the brush again. I hope that Mr. Gray is still fiddling with toy soldiers and turning them into pieces of art today. It would be even better if he could show them to us.