Empire Marienburg Halberdier Update - Hero & Drummer

 Got him at last! After hacking mine up for an unsuccessful conversion years ago, I have managed to get my hand on this brilliant Empire Hero fig. No sooner had he arrived in the post; he was spray primered and ready for painting. Arguably my favourite Empire fig (along with the standard bear in this same unit), he is your archetypal battle hardened veteran; an old campaigner.
 Accompanying him into my Marienburg halberdier unit is an Empire Drummer; another beautiful Perry sculpt.

Marienburg Hero

 Empire Drummer

Marienburg Halberdier Command

The Halberdier Unit so far

Empire Marienburg Halberdier Update

 A quick post for now; here is another Halberdier (third from left) to add to my slowly increasing Marienburg unit. Still requiring a few more purchases to target a unit of 15.

I still haven't sorted out a banner for the standard bearer yet but I have pencilled in a few ideas.

Tilean Adventurer riding Culchan

 I have continued to make an effort to gradually reduce the pile of half finished figures on my work desk. This latest offering has been kicking about either on the desk in a box of other started projects for about 8 years and I've finally chalked it off the list.

 For many years I have wanted to paint a character riding a culchan after seeing two such examples in the 1988 Golden Demon Fantasy Miniatures book back when I was a kid. They are both radically different styles; a rather typically vivid and chaotic ensemble by Graham Pritchard and a more conventional example from Brian Moore. Both I admire a great deal and have inspired me to produce this piece of mine.

 The character is originally a Lord of the Rings Rohirrim figure which I hope I have managed to detract it from its former identity just by giving him a brighter colour scheme rather than any conversion work. The culchan, a fantastic fig designed by Nick Bibby is, I believe somewhat quite sought after these days. In addition, I have built a fur throw, saddle cloth and saddle bag out of green stuff and added a pair of Orc head trophies (orginally extras from the Elf Mounted Characters range) and an extra spear and bag; I don't even know if they are Citadel or not. I can't even remember where I acquired it.

Tilean Adventurer, Orlando De Chiaro

A close up of the brace of severed Orc heads

Belial, Champion of Khorne

 Whilst plodding on through painting Empire troops, I decided to wander off on a slight tangent and make plans on yet another Chaos Warrior unit.
 After shortlisting several Chaos Champions I opted for this one; he's not my favourite of the range to be honest nor is he the most satisfying paint job I'm ever going churn out - but hey, he'll do.

So here is the first of what will be a fairly small sized unit; Belial the Unruly.

As usual I have gone for one of the classic SH1 metal shield range.

Empire Standard Bearer....but what banner to use?

 Continuing my Empire Halbardiers unit, I have added a standard bearer. Although I am personally happy with the way he is already, I feel he could do with an actual banner.
 I'm a bit undecided on what to go for at the moment. An issue I do have with banners is that they can obscure part of the figure or even large areas of surrounding ones when assembled in a unit when regarding display purposes.

Help!

Empire Marienburg Halberdiers

 Sticking with the Empire theme for the moment, I have made an attempt to start a Halberdier unit. This pair are both sculpts from Aly Morrison; the one on the left being from the Marauder Miniatures MM60 Fighters range and the the fellow on the right from the F2 Dogs of War series.
 The rest of the unit are likely to be Perry sculpts but should all fit in together regardless. I've gone for a Marienburg colour scheme (not blue as such) but keeping with orange and sticking to a generally bright uniform.

Emperor Karl Franz

 It's been exactly a month since my last post. Over the Christmas period, I had intended to get plenty of painting done, especially as I decided to break up from work early as well. It didn't exactly pan out like that, however, with a combination of not having decided on what to work on as I wait on purchasing some more Elves and the usual festive distractions.
 Anyway, I finally decided on having a crack at this guy. I've always been a big fan of this figure and I think his face is one of the best ever sculpted but he is challenging and I have attempted him a few times in the past and not been happy with it.

 I have to say that the griffin was mind numbingly boring to paint. I decided to go for a lot of neutral colours to contrast against Emperor Karl; not that he looks very brightly coloured in these photos.

I also opted out on painting its skin in a tiger pattern like a lot of other painted versions out there as it didn't seem to go with the shade of fur I'd already given it. Well that's my excuse!