Fimm McCool's

 

As I have said before, I am big on Heroquest. Here's an interesting snippet from White Dwarf showing metal prototype ogres for the Ogre Horde supplement. Now, it is certain as can be that these models cannot be obtained... though you can always hope, but they do, to my eye, bear a very strong resemblance to the Marauder MB12 Giant Ogres which came out around the same time. A coincidence? Neither Trish Carden (or Mauaruder) nor Bob Naismith (who oversaw the Heroquest plastics development) remember any link between the two, but let's do a comparison courtesy of Stoffofdemons...

Those head styles, short legs and weapon options look very close. Even with the other Ogre Horde plastics whose metal prototypes (if there ever were any) aren't shown here. The construction of the model is also very, very similar. I'd be amazed if the two weren't linked in any way.

Against the METAL Horde!

Hi everyone, happy 2024! It seems mad but this year marks 10 years since Oakbound started out! Way back in the summer of 2013 I was building a Fimir army to join in the Oldhammer fun. Somebody on the forum (which still exists and is active by the way) asked if I would make the sculpts available for purchase and so my foray into the world of miniatures casting began. The Oakbound  website launched in February 2014 with the Myeri Marsh Demons as the first occupants. Above you can see a couple of the first iteration of sculpts, now in the possession of Scotia Grendel. Throughout Oakbound's history I have revisited the Myeri and last summer, 10 years after the first, I was working on the 4th iteration which will be coming out later this year.
 

The Coral Knights have been promised since 2016! Finally here are the 'on foot' versions, the mounted ones are in moulds and the mounts are being worked on at the moment. 

Here are seven new Losbastun in a more classic Fimir vein. Can you spot the inspiration behind each of these?

That's not a Goodwin... this is a Goodwin! :D The ltd ed 28mm chap is the best ever in my opinion, even given how great Nick Bibby's sculpting is.

Eight of the more heavily armoured sculpts to add to my Fianna Fimm.

Eight less-armoured models to add to the regular Fimm.

And here's all of them together with the original.

Happy New Fimir!

 

Yes, somehow it's been a whole year since the launch of the Oakbound Patreon Warbands project!

If you missed it the idea is simple- every year we start off in January with an idea chosen by the patrons. In monthly reports we follow the idea through research, development, concept art, sculpting, moulding, casting and painting to a finished set of models which are then sent to every patron. These are exclusive to Patreon supporters and won't be available generally, though if you'd like a set you can jump on the 2023 Patreon project and receive them instead or as well as next year's set.

The theme for this year was "The druid's last stand", inspired by accounts of the fight between Roman Legions and the remnants of British resistance holding out with the druids on Anglesey. A mish-mash rabble of bedraggled warriors are whipped into a frenzy by the 'furies' and supported by howled curses from the druids themselves.

The miniatures were based on concept art by Christian Schwager. Each supporter will have received their metal miniatures in a custom display/storage box along with a colour print of the artwork. 

Discussion is ongoing as to what next year's warband will be. A poll will be appearing next week for supporters to cast their vote so if you're interested in being involved in the 2023 warband project head on over and check out the conversation so far on THE OAKBOUND PATREON PAGE.

The first Oakbound Patreon draws to a close

 

Hobbits/halflings tend to be represented in miniature as fat, with short legs and big heads. There are some good reasons for this. One is that it's hard to make slender models that are very small and also detailed, another is that they have been interpreted as comical characters in many derivative versions of Tolkien's world. My own picture of Hobbits is based very firmly on Alan Lee's illustrations from The Hobbit- paunched but not 'fat' and with quite slender, proportionally long legs. I have tried to do similar. The result is that they are a bit taller than many manufacturers' halflings whilst still shorter than a regular 28mm human. Not entirely to scale as I envisage them but the best I could get them and still have them cast ok.

A kind of fellowship

The Dreamstone- Wave 1 sculpts

If you were quite young in the 80s and 90s you may remember these guys from one of my favourite kids cartoons, The Dreamstone. Airing in 1990 and running for four series, The Dreamstone is one of those engrossing fantasy worlds with rich characters and dark undertones. The very first episode opens with Zordrak, the Lord of Nightmares (the big dragony bloke in the top picture) feeding the captain of his army to the monstrous Fraznats that live in a pit by his throne.

What really makes the cartoon stand out in my view is that it is really about the bad guys, specifically the officious Sergeant Blob and his reluctant wingmen Frizz and Nug. Forced by their giant master to undertake missions to steal the ever-desired Dreamstone from the cutesy land of dreams, their life is made dangerous by the half-baked inventions of mad genius Urpgor. The overriding feeling is that they'd all rather be fishing in the sea of despair and leaving the goody-goodies well alone.

Just over a yar ago I had the mad idea of sculpting a couple of these characters and sending them to Martin Gates, the director of the production company that created The Dreamstone. After a long period of waiting for companies on either side of the world to talk to each other (British production company, Canadian merchandising, German rights-holders...) I'm excited to say that this is now happening:


The next few months will see a lot of sculpting! The plan is to Kickstart (or other crowd-funder) the range in March and aim for a September release to coincide with the 30th anniversary. There'll also be a simple miniatures game to accompany it which will likely be a freebie for crowd-funder backers. I'll post updates here and on the Facebook page as I have them.

Exciting cartoon times ahead!

The next kickstarter for The Woods is rolling out next week. I managed to splash some paint around on holiday and now have all the initial figures done.


The idea was to take the venetian/renaissance aesthetic I'd set for the fae and use it to put out some figures that would have other uses in other places. I was fortunate enough to be able to pick up some lady pirates from Charlie Earl which have formed the bulk of the nobles (with addition of masks, variant poses and assembling them into single-piece castings). The fae martial I scaled to fit in with 4th ed Empire halberdiers which I'm told are curiously hard to come by. I'll almost certainly be getting a unit of them cast up for a certain birthday game.


The donkey-headed Hobyah (a-la Puck from midsummer Night's Dream) are dual-purpose. I've sculpted some axe heads which may supplied as separate pieces to make single or double-headed axes for them. In this form though they make up the bearers for a faerie palanquin which I'm hoping to get some paint on over the weekend.
Also in the sculpted but not cast pile are three faerie commanders which can either be mounted or on foot. The horses have been built onto the old sidhe horse that featured in the first Oakbound kickstarter. I'm toying with whether to have the commanders' torsos separate so they can be glued to standing or riding legs or whether to make up a full standing and riding figure for each option. I think probably the second, nobody likes having spare legs lying around.
 For anyone interested the kickstarter is going to officially launch on Saturday 14th after earlybird pledges open on Friday 13th. There's only one pledge level and essentially everything is an add-on so you can make up whatever combo you like. Earlybirds get you an extra 10% free to spend on miniatures. The campaign will run until Sunday 29th.

Intrigue in the courts of Annwyn

Last, but by no means least, I have some very cool sculpting commissions on the go right now. The See Thirty Amazons are back on track after a long hiatus, a couple of political characters from the past year are getting miniature representation and I finally get to tackle some Realm Of Chaos stuff! It's going to be a fun few months!

New art and forthcoming posts

Back in 2012 the story of Factious Waste began. It's been a long haul, with groups from across the world playtesting and feeding back on their experiences, but the final push to get this near-future dystopian miniature RPG to release is upon us! My to-do list has got pretty short now, with sculpting all but finished and final pe-launch costings done. So let's have a look at how the Kickstarter is shaping up.


It would be fair to say that I am a bit... apprehensive? Nervous? about the campaign. Necromunda is on the horizon and the Ramshackle Games Mini Gangs project has launched late- sci-fi skirmish fans have plenty to choose from and this will be the largest project we've done to date with a boxed set, big sourcebook (calling it a rulebook seems unfair, only a fraction is actually rules) and 50 sculpts plus templates, dice etc.

That being said, Factious Waste has attracted a lot of interest from games shows we've taken it to. Miniature Wargames and Wargames Illustrated both offered to cover it, the Golden D6 is plugging it and the engagement on social media seems high.



In terms of content I have largely finished the layouts for the rulebook and testing of the campaign system is well advanced. My initial plan to have the whole thing read as a graphic novel has gone by the wayside (sadly) due to art costs, but I'm delighted that we have some amazing artists on board who have captured the comic vibe perfectly. Simon Lee Tranter and Mike Tenebrae may be less familiar to you than our own Tony Yates (check out their websites- they do stunning artwork!) but I'm sure you'll all be aware of the work of Dark Future, 2000AD and Thrud artist Carl Critchlow who is lined up to produce the cover. Working with these guys over the last year has been an amazing experience and the world has grown in richness and sprouted out in fun and exciting new directions as a result of their concepts.


Inside the 200-page rulebook there's a load of background on outworld and the 7 main factions which inhabit it, the SystemMech rules with setting-specific Action Tables, a simple 3-step posse creation system, skills tables, traits, comprehensive equipment lists and rules for using and customising vehicles, location activities for some commonly-frequented settlements, a guide to narrative gaming and 25 objective-based scenarios. Definitely the work of 5 years' development!


The miniatures are divided into 5 sets, one for the boxed game and 4 'faction packs'. The boxed game "War for 1984" contains 10 models and lists for using them as 2 pre-generated posses. They are all tributes to classic action movies of the 80s as a clear indicator of where the game draws its inspiration. There is no prize for listing them all! The faction packs are "Enforcers" (GenCorps and Doughnutters), "Reprocessors" (ReFrat and Trash Runenrs), "Wastelanders" (NeoPrimitives and Artisans) and "Workers" (Luddites and other boiler-suited types suitable for use as civilians). So even if you don't end up playing Factious Waste you should be able to find a use for one or more of these packs in your games, be it Arbites, pulp gangsters, wasteland tribespeople or civilians for a dystopian future.


Over the course of the campaign I'm going to be stepping out into the world of videos, with streaming Q&A sessions and how-to-play videos (the first of which is below, comments and suggestions welcome!



Then there are the all-important add-ons. We've had great support from several companies who have offered casting services, bespoke items and discounts on their own product lines for kickstarter backers. I'm particularly grateful to Fogou Models (who also do wonderful Dark Age stuff) for making exclusive trash piles and barricades for the kickstarter and to Scotia Grendel who have put up some resin scenery as stretch goals and add-ons. There'll also be custom dice, counter sets and once again the opportunity to have yourself sculpted into the range so you can lead your posse in person!




Cost will, of course, be an important factor. I have done very detailed spreadsheets to keep prices as low as possible. Despite my efforts to keep the boxed game under £50 it has ended up at £55, but balancing budget and content I think you'll be happy to spend the extra £5 for the bonus bits that will be going in! Faction packs are coming in at £25 each (£2.50 a model plus extras). There will be a limited opportunity to pick up the whole lot for £125 (saving £30) and offers for traders and clubs (contact geoff@propworkshop.co.uk if interested).



The kickstarter goes live on the 7th October and we'll be having a launch event at Blast-Tastic Bristol. It runs for two weeks, ending on the 21st. Please spread the word and let's make amazing things happen!

Factious Waste Kickstarter previews