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 Theophony wrote:
Good job with them. I Was initially put off by their dwarves, but over the years I’ve softened on them, but the preview of the dwarves from Oathmark and Wargames Atlantic are just miles ahead of them. If you can’t make these form up nicely the others are both decent price alternatives.

I got these guys dirt cheap, way back during the first KoW Kickstarter. I don't have quite enough for a full army, but I want to get the models I have on hand finished. After that, I think I'll try some other manufacturer's models.

 JoshInJapan wrote:

 Theophony wrote:
Good job with them. I Was initially put off by their dwarves, but over the years I’ve softened on them, but the preview of the dwarves from Oathmark and Wargames Atlantic are just miles ahead of them. If you can’t make these form up nicely the others are both decent price alternatives.

I got these guys dirt cheap, way back during the first KoW Kickstarter. I don't have quite enough for a full army, but I want to get the models I have on hand finished. After that, I think I'll try some other manufacturer's models.

Totally understand . Your a stronger willed person than me though .

Good and clean job on the dwarves, but I got to say compared to the berzerkers the sculpts are a little lacking. Hope you get them all out of the way soon and fill the ranks with Theo's suggestions

In the end how many dwarves will you have painted up in total when you finish?

Lovely. And crisp shield work!

Theophony wrote:

 JoshInJapan wrote:

 Theophony wrote:
Good job with them. I Was initially put off by their dwarves, but over the years I’ve softened on them, but the preview of the dwarves from Oathmark and Wargames Atlantic are just miles ahead of them. If you can’t make these form up nicely the others are both decent price alternatives.

I got these guys dirt cheap, way back during the first KoW Kickstarter. I don't have quite enough for a full army, but I want to get the models I have on hand finished. After that, I think I'll try some other manufacturer's models.

Totally understand . Your a stronger willed person than me though .

You wouldn't say that if you saw my Closet of Shame..

Viterbi wrote:Good and clean job on the dwarves, but I got to say compared to the berzerkers the sculpts are a little lacking. Hope you get them all out of the way soon and fill the ranks with Theo's suggestions

These are some of Mantic's oldest models,and they really do show their age. They look good enough at tabletop distances and all bunched up in a unit, so I can live with their slightly substandard quality.

Syro_ wrote:In the end how many dwarves will you have painted up in total when you finish?

About 100 or so. Not really enough for a full KoW army, but it's a start.

inmygravenimage wrote:Lovely. And crisp shield work!

Thanks. I'm copying the Mantic studio army, at least for the time being.

Covid-19 continues to spread, although not to the same degree as in the US, meaning that my wife and son's planned trip to visit her family has been called off. On the plus side,I won't lose my voice from not talking to anyone or leaving the house for ten days, but it also means that my plan to finish the dwarfs has been cut back to working on the dwarfs. That said, I have made some progress:



Only ten of these guys are new, but I spent a long time fitting them onto their movement trays and I don't want to take them off if I don't need to. Four more and I'llhave two regiments or one horde.



Only eight of these guys are new, but the unit is finished. The leader type was kitbashed from left over war machine crew parts.

I have a couple of heroes in the works for the current Dakka painting challenge, then eight more shieldcreakers (with double handed weapons), fifteen more HW/Shield dudes, and then five badger riders plus a badger rider hero. That is all that I have left of the Mantic dwarfs. I have a few miscellaneous models here and there that I plan to plug into units, and then I have to figure out what(if anything) I want to pick up to finish off the army.

Very nice, great faces there

Thanks for sharing Josh, it's fun seeing the full units together like that.

Nicely done sir , love the subtle tones of the different beards.

YES!
Finest warriors in all the lands!
I kinda want to get a group of them for me self now

inmygravenimage wrote:Very nice, great faces there

Thanks. The faces were remarkably easy to paint, being so craggy and exaggerated.

Syro_ wrote:Thanks for sharing Josh, it's fun seeing the full units together like that.

I agree, the models aren't that great individually, but they look good all ranked up. Seeing them in units reminds me why I got into WHFB in the first place, so many years ago.

Theophony wrote:Nicely done sir , love the subtle tones of the different beards.

Thanks. That's about the only variation between models, so I'm glad the beards stand out.

Mothsniper wrote:YES!
Finest warriors in all the lands!
I kinda want to get a group of them for me self now

I'm painting these mostly for my son, so he can fight my orcs, but the little guys are growing on me.

Great stuff as always, Josh(e)!

Love those dwarves. I agree 100% about the Mantic models. They tend to look a lot better en masse, but for an army they look great!

Valete,

JohnS

_Really_ nice painting, and excellent choice for color scheme- it really pops. I miss the old Marauder Renaissance dwarves, but these Mantic ones are decent. Rock on!

Those dwarves look cool and like they won't hold a grudge for long... because the shoot you dead in an instant. Great work!

Absolutely loving your work on the Dwarves.

As they are older Mantic Sculpts for what ever reason I had to shelve them (Orcs i get on with, for some reason not there dwarves) as I just couldn't quite paint them to my liking but you've given them the paint job they deserve!

cygnnus wrote:Great stuff as always, Josh(e)!

Love those dwarves. I agree 100% about the Mantic models. They tend to look a lot better en masse, but for an army they look great!

Valete,

JohnS

I like a lot of their character models, but yeah, the troops work a lot better in a block.

Meer_Cat wrote:_Really_ nice painting, and excellent choice for color scheme- it really pops. I miss the old Marauder Renaissance dwarves, but these Mantic ones are decent. Rock on!

I've always been more of a wood elf guy, but I picked these guys up on a whim, and they are growing on me.

Viterbi wrote:Those dwarves look cool and like they won't hold a grudge for long... because the shoot you dead in an instant. Great work!

Thanks. Without the shields, the riflemen are a little plain, but I like to think that makes them more businesslike.

Dimebar23 wrote:Absolutely loving your work on the Dwarves.

As they are older Mantic Sculpts for what ever reason I had to shelve them (Orcs i get on with, for some reason not there dwarves) as I just couldn't quite paint them to my liking but you've given them the paint job they deserve!

As I wrote above, these models work a lot better en masse-- They are so short and stocky that you can't even see most of their feet.

After painting so many essentially identical models, I decided I needed a change:





Both of these models are from Dungeon Saga. The guy on the left if Gunn, dwarf engineer. He's resin, which is not my favorite medium to work with. He was supposed to holding a massive hammer in a gloved left hand, but the hand part broke off the resin "sprue," and I was forced to replace it with a hand and weapon from the Frostgrave barbarian sprue. The guy on the right is Legendary Rordin, who is one of the four heroes in the DS base game. I added a touch of red and yellow to tie them thematically to the rest of the dwarfs. I'll be entering these guys in the Dakka painting challenge for August, so feel free to vote for me there.

Next up, some Ironbreakers (dwarfs with double-handed weapons). As always, comments, criticism, and advice are more than welcome.

Nice change of pace, both look very cool. Wouldn't have guessed that the hammer is a replacement, good choice, it fits perfectly.

Echoing Viterbi's hammer comment. Excellent work.

These are the best Mantic dwarfs I've seen done this year, bar none. Congratulations!

And a dwarf horde is very hard to shift - almost as hard as it is to make them. Good luck with them on the table!

Viterbi wrote:Nice change of pace, both look very cool. Wouldn't have guessed that the hammer is a replacement, good choice, it fits perfectly.

These models were, indeed, a refreshing change from all the assembly-line painting I'd been doing.

DJJazzyJeff wrote:Echoing Viterbi's hammer comment. Excellent work.

Thanks. It wasn't a lot of work, per se, but I am happy with the results.

Wirecat wrote:These are the best Mantic dwarfs I've seen done this year, bar none. Congratulations!

And a dwarf horde is very hard to shift - almost as hard as it is to make them. Good luck with them on the table!

Thanks. I'm painting these more for my son than for myself, but I'm looking forward to seeing them on the tabletop sometime soon.

Dude...

Those are spectacular little buggers! Lovely natural palate and those skin tones are spot on.

Great stuff as always!

Valete,

JohnS

Love the lantern Dwarf Josh

cygnnus wrote:Dude...

Those are spectacular little buggers! Lovely natural palate and those skin tones are spot on.

Great stuff as always!

Valete,

JohnS

Thanks. It helps a lot that these models have such grotesquely exaggerated features-- one can't help but to highlight them successfully.

JoeRugby wrote:Love the lantern Dwarf Josh

Thanks. I was seriously debating adding some glowy effects to his face and hand, but decided against doing so because I'm not really good at it. I'll have to pull out some of the Bones models that I'll never paint otherwise for practice.

The lightbox I've been using for photographing miniatures came with a LED lightstrip on the top, which made some deep shadows on the lower portions of anything took pictures of. I ordered and attached a second LED strip for another source of light, but I think it's either too bright or too blue. I'll have to play around either with photo editing or else some sort of filter on the lights themselves. In the meantime, some more dwarfs:




Five sprues worth of Shieldbreakers, giving me ten essentially identical models. As always with these older Mantic plastics, they're chunky and have some weird blobby parts here and there that look kind of ugly when you look at them up close. Of course, they weren't deisigned to be looked at up close, but rather as part of a unit:



...for which they work just fine. I also cranked out this battle drill:



Next up, I have a Berzerker lord riding a giant angry badger, with a dwarf heroine from Bad Squiddo after that. At the same time, I'll be working on my entry for the September Dakka painting contest-- I'll post some photos of that later today.

That battle drill is adorable. Like he's pushing a vicious little lawnmower

That angry little dog in the ranks of dwarves cracked me up. Nice work on the newest set of dwarves, Josh. I hope the lighting sorts itself out.

The light really does look wonky. I think I like your previous lighting, dark shadows or not. But the Dwarves continue to look good. I’m with you on the Mantic models. Not a fan of single models, but ranked up they look decent. And your unit o Shieldbreakers, I think, proves the point. Very nice!

I tend to see the Battle Drill as the world’s most dangerous plowshare. But good on the Dwarves to plow the field before fertilizing it with goblin blood! Tonight we spice our meat with Goblin blood!

Anyway, great looking work as always. I’ll admit I’m really not a fan of Mantic’s Brock Rider models. There are some other nice Dwarven Cavalry out there (Scibor’s come to mind immediately) that I like a lot more, but they tend to be freakishly expensive (ditto).

I’ll see if I can’t pop a (Somewhat) related surprise on my P&M Blog over the weekend.

Anyway, keep up the great work!

Valete,

JohnS

amazingturtles wrote:That battle drill is adorable. Like he's pushing a vicious little lawnmower

I love how hunched over the driver is-- he looks like he's been pushing that thing for hours.

Syro_ wrote:That angry little dog in the ranks of dwarves cracked me up. Nice work on the newest set of dwarves, Josh. I hope the lighting sorts itself out.

Each sprue of dwarf infantry comes with a throwing mastiff, which are proving invalluable in ranking these guys up.

cygnnus wrote:The light really does look wonky. I think I like your previous lighting, dark shadows or not. But the Dwarves continue to look good. I’m with you on the Mantic models. Not a fan of single models, but ranked up they look decent. And your unit o Shieldbreakers, I think, proves the point. Very nice!

I tend to see the Battle Drill as the world’s most dangerous plowshare. But good on the Dwarves to plow the field before fertilizing it with goblin blood! Tonight we spice our meat with Goblin blood!

Anyway, great looking work as always. I’ll admit I’m really not a fan of Mantic’s Brock Rider models. There are some other nice Dwarven Cavalry out there (Scibor’s come to mind immediately) that I like a lot more, but they tend to be freakishly expensive (ditto).

The latest plastics from Mantic are much better all around, but these guys work fine for what they are.

I’ll see if I can’t pop a (Somewhat) related surprise on my P&M Blog over the weekend.

Anyway, keep up the great work!

Valete,

JohnS