Original
posted as an entry requirement for the Golden Toadstool Fungal Showdown on the Masterclass
Miniature Painters Yahoo group.
2002/2003 FUNGAL SHOWDOWN
Azhag the Slaughterer, Orc Warlord on Wyvern converted and painted
by Angela Imrie.
This is the result of 6 years of begging and cajoling by my spouse
to paint up a wyvern for his Warhammer Fantasy Orc army. I have been
putting it off so long due to the scale of the project, and my
dissatisfaction with the two wyverns from Games Workshop that we
already have. This was a large project for me. As big and complex as
my old Grom the Paunch chariot conversion.
This thing was a monster to assemble. 18 pins were used in
assembling and converting the wyvern alone. Not including pins for
the Orc or base.
The wyvern has a number of changes. A new larger set of twin horns
are a throwback to the old 3rd - 4rth edition wyvern. His neck has
been extended nearly an inch or 2cm. The right leg was hacked away
from the body and extended about 3/8 inch. The left leg was set back
further and lowered to compensate for the new body position. All
this involved resculpting muscle and scales in various areas. Oh!,
and the original gross drippy tailstinger was hacked off at the last
minute and replaced with, IMHO, a much more menacing one.
I am a bit of a stickler for models having some sort of harness or
reins to hang onto. The thought of hanging onto a flying creature
with no saddle or bridle seems somewhat unrealistic. Even for an
Orc. All the trappings are made from greenstuff or a
greenstuff/brownstuff mix. Some, like the saddle blanket, were added
before painting. Stuff like the reins, were added when the figure
was nearly complete.
The saddle blanket (red with checks) was put onto his fresh
resculpted scales (doh!). Then I added the saddlehorn and the
leather supports underneath. The rear portion of the saddle was a
result of the Orc continually falling off. Sick of this, I put a
huge gob of putty under his butt and squished him on. The epoxy
squirted out back underneath, and created an nice smooth saddle that
goes over the blanket and supports the Orc in a more raised position.
Azhag is a combination of the current wyvern's warlord, the old
Azhag, and the newer Gorfang (boar rider). There are also pieces
from the dark elf army and chaos bitz. His humungous sword is cut
from plastic-card.
The banner was sketched out with pencil, on the same stickers we use
for address labels. It's loosely based on some 3rd edition art in
the army list. It was painted and clearcoated in the same manner as
the rest of the model. The stickiness of the address label part made
it *almost* as easy as attaching those awful old GW sticker banners
(do they even make those anymore?). Unfortunately the painting made
the paper a bit weak, so I had to go back and repair and reinforce
some of the parts holding it to the pole with more paper label
strips, as they fell apart whilst putting it on.
I tried a new technique on this guy for metallics. Basically I
painted the whole thing in NMM. Even going so far as to use the same
colors as I do for the rest of my NMM stuff. But the blending is not
as careful, and the contrasts may be more obvious. Then using
metallics thinned to transparency, I lightly went over the rough NMM
underpaint. Using thinned coats of the usual Boltgun metal, right up
to Mithril silver, and eventually white iridescent paint from
Windsor and Newton. The gold was also completed in a similar
fashion. Except I only had Liquitex iridescent bright gold and the
white iridescent. During this process I also went back in-between
paint coats to shade the metallics with washes for both the gold and
silver. I think it worked out okay, despite the fact it took longer
than NMM alone.
The color scheme for the Orc is pretty typical of most of the rest
of the Orc army. But the wyvern is a bit different than the usual
scheme. Wyverns are throughout Fantasy literature represented as
ugly, flatulent dragon-kin whose colors range from brown to green.
So I settled on a green base for the stripes of Dark Angels Green.
The midtones and highlights are GW camo green. The "fleshy" part is
Scorched brown lightened by mixing in Vallejo Pale flesh. I also
used pale flesh and white to give him some spots. In my dazed,
almost hypnotic state of applying these little spots (took two
nights of work). I counted them. Weeeellll, actually I counted a
large section, and estimated the rest based on it. Total? about 3600
to 4000 spots per wing ,so we are guessing between 10000 and 12000
spots on the whole creature. And NO! I'm not doing that again. :P
The horse is a Brettonian horse casualty I picked up at the
forgeworld stand at our last Grand Tournament. It was a key
motivating factor in actually getting down and doing this thing. The
scared guy is an empire fellow from the newer giant that I also
picked up at the previous years GT. And I liked him so much at the
time I bought three too. :P
The story behind the scene with the snotlings is ; The wyvern has
just managed to stop a messenger bearing wanted signs of Azhag, as
he crossed into Orc territory. The rider kneels, cowering in front
of the wyvern, while two snots have crawled out of nowhere (they're
like vermin) to taunt and mock the puny human. One holds up the
wanted poster, whilst the other is in a boxing pose with his fists
raised.
The "Azhag wuz 'ere" sign is a piece of sprue stuck in
the
greenstuff on the base. The plank is a broken piece of a Starbucks
(used but licked clean :P) wooden coffee stir-stick. Lichen, dried
grasses and flowers are the vegetation ontop of the sand and
greenstuff/milliput mix base. The base is an oak bowl, hand finished
and vanished. The wyvern is on a legal game base that is attached to
the wooden display base with three powerful magnets to some screws
set flush in the wood.
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