I am coming to the end of my Viking force for a little while, until I start adding more to it, another band of levies and another warrior unit, which will not be long as I have enjoyed doing these so much. So it is now for the Warlords for the Vikings as I have another unit of Levy archers, that I have not painted as yet as I won them from Stefan and they are nice as they are but I want to paint them up in my style to match the rest of my force.
But first up is Ragnar Hairypants or rather Ragnar Lothbrok, he who the TV series Vikings in based on and again this figure is from Gripping Beast. Now he is a lovely figure, a dream to paint and full of detail, with the hide cloak and fur trousers and a very characterful face. I simply love the figure and its pose, it just shouts HERO!. He is also a little larger than the average Gripping Beast figure, them being 28s he is Heroic 28, or 32mm scale, but as he is a hero he should be larger than life.
He is so full of detail and large flat surfaces so you can freehand some extra details to him. I went for a lovely deep blue colour for the tunic and added some fancy trim to base of it and around the neck. I added a golden sand colour for the under tunic and edged this with a blue and white trim. The rest I painted as fur. I really tried to go to town of the animal fur pelt and i am rather happy for the results.
With Ragnar but not in the set, actually Ragnar is a single figure, is his bannerman. Now I wanted to paint him as a more traditional Viking and when for a earthy tone for his Tunic and under tunic. I tried to keep this simple and only added trim to the tunic. I brighten this figure up by panting his trousers a bright blue with red stripes and finished him off with a traditional Viking helmet.
The horn I had fun with and tried to make it look like an animal horn topped with a gold band. I think this came out rather well. I also added a banner from LittleBigMen Studios of a dragon and I think this lifts this figure up and is my forces banner.
My other Warlord is from the plastic Viking hirdmen boxset and is a again a very nice figure. Stand with his raised sword and shield I think is fits the part of leader very well. I have gone for a bright red tunic to make him stand out and fitting of someone of his stand and trimmed it with a bright blue to make it stand out even more. The rest I gone for a more neutral tone to make the bright stand out even farther.
The boxset comes with a wolf pelt and this had to be his and I enjoyed painting this trying to bring out the wonderful details on this. I had to go with the dragon theme that the force has and this is shown on his shield, again a transfer from LittleBigMen Studios.
With him is his personal bodyguard which I had to do as a traditional Viking with a dirty big Dane Axe. I went for a rather natural tone palette on his tunic, but still it is a rich colour and a light colour trim. I wanted that typical Viking look and went for the the typical helmet with face guard and had this guard highlighted in gold. I rather like the look and might add some more figures like this to my force.
returns from Mexico with a new vision for making palm trees from scratch.
