Hippolyta's Tiny Footsteps

The final wizard is a Shaman of the Amber Order, a college whose members deal with the raw power of the Wild and understanding the ways of the many savage beasts and wild creatures that inhabit the natural world. Amber wizards live apart from other humans, drawing their powers from their innate understanding of every aspect of the wild world.

This is the only figure that I've added something to not included on the wizard sprues. I've taken an animal skin cloak from a Victrix Roman legionary sprue to emphasise this shaman's attachment to wild beasts. His owl is his constant companion.

So, finally, the nest two photos show the eight representatives of the Imperial Colleges of Magic assembled together. Overall, I am really pleased with how this project turned out in the end.

 

Wizard's five and six represent two very different approaches to the Art of Magic in the Warhammer Fantasy world. First, an Amethyst Wizard, a practitioner of magic that deals with Death, the spirits of the Dead and the ability to deal Death upon the enemies of the Empire. 

Such magical powers are deadly and dangerous, bordering on such Dart Arts as necromancy and the raising of the dead for evil purposes.

The sixth wizard is the opposite of all that Darkness, being a White Wizard of the College of Light.

White or Light Wizards are healers, discoverers of truth and bearers of the holy light that banishes darkness and the denizens of the dark. Their skills can be used to exorcise the possessed and to combat the forces of Chaos.

Of the two figures, I think I did a better job with the Amethyst wizard, because at this magnification I can see all manner of things wrong with the face of the Light wizard, which is a shame because I really like his robes, staff and Orb of Light. Still, he looks OK to the naked eye, which is what really matters.

Well, yesterday we had the first two Frostgrave Wizards painted as members of the Warhammer Empire Colleges of Magic and here are the next two.

First, a Celestial Wizard, a practitioner of the Magical Arts pertaining to the stars, the skies, the atmosphere and the weather.

I had to photograph this guy twice, the first time I noticed too many things wrong with him, but I'm reasonably happy with him now. He certainly passes the one metre rule. A couple of things I do like are his Orb, which I wanted to really stand out, so I drybrushed it in various blue shades and finally silver and his head, which, for once looks reasonable. I don't really "do" faces very well, but he manages to look both serene and determined. Once the whole figure was matt varnished, I went over the orb in gloss varnish to make it stand out. I#m also quite pleased with his simple two shade of blue robes. 

The second wizard represents the Gold Order, a college of alchemy, forging and transforming metals and scientific experimentation.

Once varnished, I went over his staff and cap badge with gloss varnish. Overall, I am reasonably happy with him, apart from the blue trim on his robes. At this magnification it looks messy, and I can also see tiny blemishes that don't show up to the naked eye.

So, that is four of the Eight Colleges. I'll post the rest tomorrow and Saturday and add in a couple of pictures of all eight together.

I've spent a fair amount of time on this project and have now completed wizards for each of the eight Colleges of Magic, which I have now photographed. Here are the first two. 

Firstly a Grey Wizard;

OK, he isn't that dissimilar to a well-known wanderer of Middle Earth, but I suspect that Gandalf might have been part of the inspiration for GW's original Warhammer Fantasy Grey Order, a College whose members practice deception, illusion, suggestion and other secretive and subtle magics.

The second wizard is a representative of the Jade Order, a wizard involved with the natural world;

I've chosen him because he and his Grey colleague are the only wizards I've made with swords in their hands. The others will all be doing more magical things. Also, according to Warhammer lore, wizards of both these Colleges tend to to avoid cities and wander around from place to place.

As an aside, looking at the Grey Wizard I can see that I need to touch up the metal head of his staff. With the second figure, up close I can also see things that stand out as obvious painting errors. Sadly, that is the risk you take when using a high definition lens with a macro facility and a DSLR with a 24 megapixel sensor - all the tiny mistakes are magnified. At least they aren't really that visible to the naked eye on a gaming table.
 

This is going to be a bit of fun, I hope. I am planning a Renaissance 28mm fantasy army based upon the Warhammer Fantasy Imperial Electoral Province of Averland for Midgard and other sets of rules (e.g. Sword and Spear Fantasy) based on the Wargames Atlantic Conquistadors, Landsknechts Ogres and Renaissance Cavalry sets and I thought that a couple of wizards would be a good idea. My original plan was to get a single sprue of the Frostgrave Wizards I set but then, I realised that the whole box would give me eight bodies which could come in handy in the future. 

I then got to thinking that the Warhammer Fantasy Empire used to have Eight Colleges of Magic and I now had eight wizard figures. Therefore I knew that I'd have to make up eight wizards who could be painted up to represent each of the eight colleges. I assembled all eight figures and have now undercoated them.

So, across the back line in the photo above, I have a Jade Wizard, a Bright Wizard, a Gold Wizard and an Amber Wizard and in front there are a Grey Wizard, an Amethyst Wizard, a Wizard of Light and a Celestial Wizard Obviously, I've chosen an undercoat of primer that will work well as a base for the various colours I'll be using for each Wizard.

As I said at the beginning, I see this pretty much as a fun project. I'll do a separate post for each Wizard as I finish him.

All armies need leaders, and in fantasy armies they need heroes and wizards too. So, here are a few I've completed.

Above are two generals for my army, once again from Alternative Armies. The figure on the left could quite easily be the Emperor Karl Franz and the other just has to be an Elector Count. Both are accompanied by standard bearers

Next, some Imperial Battle Wizards;

The two on the left are mounted and dismounted versions of Leonardo Da Vinci and the right-hand pair are Niccolo Machiavelli, from the Alternative Armies renaissance collection but I think that these are great as wizards. In Sword and Spear Fantasy, wizards don't really dominate games, I find them most useful to either bolster units in combat or to try and remove hits on units at the end of game turns.

I've given the mounted Leonardo figure a barded horse, to mark him out as a wizard of great power and repute.

I like wizards in purple, it seems a good colour for the Hermetic Arts and the Occult.

Finally, what self-respecting Empire army would be without a Hero on a Gryphon? Well, certainly not mine.

One of the things I like about Alternative Armies' figure ranges is that you can buy mounted figures and mounts separately, as seen here. The Hero is a man-at-arms from the Renaissance range and the Gryphon is from their 15mm Fantasy range. I think he will look pretty impressive on the table.

 

Back in February, Nick Eyre at North Star announced a painting competition. The objective was to paint the new Frostgrave Necromancer figure. Of course, I had to give it a go. I bought the figure, who comes with a nice (well, nice if you exclude all the necromancy stuff) apprentice. They arrived, I prepped and undercoated them and then I caught Covid and didn't feel much like painting for a few weeks. Finally, I got back to painting and today I finally finished them and even got them varnished, because it stopped raining and the sun came out. Here are my finished efforts; Necromancer front and back, ditto for the apprentice and then both of them together.

He is a pretty dynamic figure and, being a resin cast is beautifully crisp. I decided to do a fairly simple base to portray a blasted heath with clumps of dead grass. The tufts are by Gamer's Grass. Overall, I think he looks OK.

 Over the last week, I've managed to finish off two wizards and a pair of sorcerer's apprentices. First the apprentices;

The one on the left appears to have been inspired by a certain literary schoolboy wizard who has become a star of the silver screen and the older one on the right looks as though he might take a darker path if given the chance. On the other hand, he could just be harbouring Hamlet tendencies.

Like the wizards below, the apprentices are by Mark Copplestone and they are really nice minis. The wizards, however, are even better, really superb sculpts.

The taller, more threatening-looking wizard definitely has a strong resemblance to a very famous Grey Wizard, variously known as Olórin, Tharkûn, Incánus, Mithrandir, Stormcrow, Láthspell and, to most of us, Gandalf. In the Fellowship of the Ring, when confronting the Balrog in the deep places of Moria, Gandalf described himself as "a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor". He is probably even more famous than the schoolboy wizard above, well he certainly ought to be. 

His companion is a charming figure, a wise old chap with a book of spells, clearly about to wreak havoc upon some unruly and dangerous opponents, or maybe just lecturing a class of apprentices at Wizard School. Perhaps he is one of the Istari of Middle Earth, most likely one of the two Blue Wizards, Alatar and Pallando, who Tolkien also called Morinehtar and Rómestámo elsewhere in his Unfinished Tales. Who knows? These two wizards are only mentioned in passing in the Lord of the Rings books, suggesting that they travelled far into the unknown East of Middle Earth.

Of course, all four figures have a lot of possibilities; Frostgrave, Rangers of Shadowdeep, Saga Age of Magic, Dragon Rampant, 7TV Fantasy etc

These are from Bad Squiddo Games and are by Otherworld Miniatures. The figure on the left is my first female wizard and the one on the right, actually a female barbarian adventurer, is her apprentice.

I chose to give them a dark colour scheme as I decided that they would be followers of the dark art of Necromancy. I think that this is in keeping with the overall dark nature of my initial set of warband figures.

They are both carrying torches. I thought that it would be a nice touch for the senior necromancer to have her torch producing magical blue illumination.

The other thing I've been working on is a set of 28mm resin Jump-Off Points for Chain of Command. When I bought the rules, I took the opportunity to buy the Full Bundle, which included these JOP markers. As I am working on using 15mm figures for my CoC project, I didn't really need these, but I thought that they would be a nice thing to paint and I could always sell them on eBay once they were finished.