mardi 17 avril 2018

Musician of the month: Skeleton Horn Blower

What is fun with fantasy ? There is no limit, and you can create impossible things. This month's musician is not that original, since skeletons (including horn blowers) are classical figures today, thanks to the major manufacturers of Fantasy figures. Hard to believe that dead things can walk,  even slowly, or fight, or do anything but lie... but in Fantasy, everything's explained thanks to Magic, and especially dark Magic.

... So, a dark sorcerer came with forbidden spells, a gifted necromancer, and he began to raise the dead, lots of them... So many of them that they began difficult to control. He was compelled to use a general to rule them all, and he called a mighty vampire, but the skeletons were indisciplined, they didn't follow the orders, as if they were deaf to any signal... wait, of course they're deaf! The necromancer's spells couldn't make skeletons hear the orders, but there was one spell, a very ancient one, that allowed him to create Black music, the dreadful sound of an ancient horn blown by invisible lungs, yes! So he gave that horn to one of his most disciplined skeletons, and ordered him to blow again and again, and, because of this horrible dead sound, every skeleton began to walk West against the human kingdoms...

"Why West ? What if the humans settled in the South ?"
"Then, my apprentice, you will have to learn another spell, because this is the way of Black Magic. Go back to your books and don't ask foolish questions again!"

This month's musician is our skeleton hornblower. His horn is a very old instrument that remained in an ancient tomb for hundreds of years, so it is made of oxidized metal - green oxidation for brass, or verdigris. That's what I tried to represent on this mini, together with rust on the iron parts.

A few pictures:







The fierce skeleton proved good enough to be enrolled by the Vampire general, to summon the skeleton army to go West! Er... to go to the right, as we can see in the following pictures:



"Eh, come back, all of you! West is on the other side !!! Who gave me an army of unlateralized skeletons !!!"

22 commentaires:

  1. No lips, no tongue, no lungs, how does the horn blower make a sound?

    Great work!

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    1. Thank you Jonathan. Yes, I forgot lips and tones :)

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  2. Un peu de musique dans un monde de brute...Très chouette!

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    1. Pour le prochain, je bricole un trombone et je lui mets un chapeau melon, il pourra jouer dans un film de Tim Burton :)

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  3. La musique du mort et une dance macarbre peut etre?

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    1. Excellente idée Maudlin! Je vais chercher une représentation de danse macabre médiévale pour la reproduire au 1/72e. Merci!!

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    2. I forget to add, fantastic painting and converting!

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  4. Bonne idée, le cuivre usé est à tomber par terre.

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  5. Love it!. Great conversion with the horn and a fantastic story.

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  6. I had the same skeleton horn blower by my undead 2 years ago ! No longer unique figure hahaha!!!

    http://sceavusall172.blogspot.de/2016/03/undead-conversions-and-suggestions.html

    The story background is really good, I never imagined that music could be the right necromancic tool for moving big masses of dead warriors :) Altghough it seems that the chosen Black music was wrong this time! (fortunately for the living!!)

    congratulaitons for the Copper oxid effect (verdigris) , it is 100% accurate and goves the perfect looking for decayed/dead rosted bronze...





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    1. I've visited your blog and seen your skeleton, you even modified the horn in the manner of GW, very well done :)

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  7. Nice job. Makes me want to go back and repaint most of my more recent skeleton figures which turned out too white in color.

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    1. Thank you Eric. For what it is worth, you may try to wash one of them with a yellow wash such as Seraphin Sepia from GW, or a mix of yellow and brown wash, or even two separate layers, you may get the expected result.

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  8. Hi!
    Is everything OK?
    You haven't posted in a while.

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    1. Hi Peter, thank you for asking, it's very kind of you. Yes everything's alright, just an enormous quantity of work (I'm working in the railways) before summer, and now I am enjoying holidays in southern Italy (not far from the famous Cannae battlefield, which I didn't visit :)), I keep on taken pictures and writing in a blog, but in french this time, if you want to have a look: https://les-gones-en-voyage.blogspot.com/

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