dimanche 18 février 2018

Some more info about Wolfens

In the previous post, I showed a conversion of a Wolfen in 1/72, and asked everyone to guess how I did it.
Only a few minutes later, Paul from Paul's Bods gave the right answer:
"The Body is a Caesar Orc, and the head, one of those Zombie dogs you painted a while back".
The knowledge of Paul concerning minis or history is phenomenal ! Game over :)

1. The conversion

Here are the basic elements of this simple conversion:


orc + zombie dog + green stuff


The minis, before priming:




And after:





You will note that dog head still look like the zombie he was, because at that moment, I didn't know whether I would paint a living or a zombie Wolfen, or some sort of demon... one of my future projects would be to paint a demon army inspired by the art of Wayne Barlowe... but that's another story).

I eventually made a decision, and here is the result:




2. The original Wolfens

The Wolfens are a creation by Rackham, a French miniature and games production company that was active between 1997 and 2010. Their main miniature game was Confrontation, a skirmish game in a fantasy world called Aarklash, in which several people fought and allied with one another. One of these factions are the Wolfen, giant half-wolf half-human creatures.

Here are some artworks representing Wolfens:

Artist: Paul Bonner

Artist: Paul Bonner

And some of the minis, painted by the Rackham studio:




The minis I converted are rather different from the original: they are much smaller, compared to humans figures in the same scale, they wear boots, they have no tail (I am definitely not a sculptor), they are not as dynamic... but it was fun to do, and to paint :) The only think I will change on the next one will be the painting of the eyes, because the pupil on my mini is too round and too big.

Some more photos to compare the sizes:
 
Left:1/72 man from the Redbox Landsknechts, right: converted Wolfen

Left: 32mm man of Alahan, right: Wolfen of Ilyia



If you are curious about the Rackham miniatures range and want to know more, you will find below a link to a blog that has collected many pictures of Confrontation figures, ordered by faction:

http://underthemountainblog.com/athenaeum/aarklash-archive/factions/

 Thanks for reading :)



19 commentaires:

  1. Great work Phil. Your wolfen are very effective. Where do the zombie dogs come from?

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    1. Thank you. The zombie dogs come from the Zombie!!! boardgames, released some years ago. I bought a "bag'o'dogs" full of minis designed for this game. You can still get them in some online shops, or have a look at ebay, for instance: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bag-O-Zombie-Dogs-/272428428080

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    2. Some amazing sculpting and painting at the under the mountain blog!

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  2. That bag o dogs is really useful,
    Nice and colourful post Phil. I suggest you to go on with the green stuff and add tails to the Wolfen, it may be an easy business :) !b

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  3. Recreating the poses of the Rackham minis in 1:72 would be impossible but you have done a great job capturing their character. The use of the zombie dog head is a great choice

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    1. Thank you Sprinks. Of course I don't even want to copy, just catch an idea.

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  4. Just had a look at the Wolfen on the link...The sculpts are georgeous. The anatomy is top class as is the brush work added to them.

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  5. Oh yes, the Confrontation range was the best at that period.

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  6. Clever idea for a conversion! You could just pin the zombie dog tails to the orc bods if you want tails, sort of like I did for my gnoll project: http://cheapfantasyminis.blogspot.com/2014/12/noeltide-gnoll-tide.html

    You can also create halfway decent paws out of boots with just paint and a little bit of crude knifework, cutting the boot toe into separate toes and scraping off the laces.

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    1. Hi 1Mac, nice to read you! I've that idea, use the tails of the zombie dogs, but they are so small, and look so dead :D But I will consider it and add some greenstuff for the hair.
      For the feet, you're right, it sounds feasible.

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  7. Réponses
    1. Thank you so much, Nick ! You own conversions are a great source of inspiration.

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