It was competition time again over at the Oldhammer Community. The friendly neighbourhood Jeany-Bap-Baps challenged hobbyists to paint miniatures sculpted by the great Bob Olley, and have them judged by the Lord our Bob himself. I couldn’t resist, and so I created this mini-diorama.

Bob Olley was one of the key contibutors to the nascent Warhammer 40,000 range, and he sculpted a huge portion of the Squat range that I’ve loved collecting, painting and gaming with through the years.

The Squat Berserker isn’t actually one of those original Rogue Trader miniatures, but a hyper-limited edition that Bob sculpted for a tiny indie manufacturer that’s since disappeared. I was hoping its extreme rarity would mean everyone who saw my painted casting would HAVE THEIR MINDS BLOWN with the novelty.

Only not. The first bloke I showed mine to simply said, “Yeah whatevs, looks like the one I did.” Screw you, Paul. Screw. You.

Not only that, but turns out his blogpost features loads of other cool indie manufacturers’ Squat miniatures that he also painted before I did mine. Sho3box is exactly the kind of person that turns up to cool parties wearing the same Decepticon logo shirt as you. And with the girl you were hoping to ask out already on his arm.

So I had to push further to ensure novelty, and modelled the Slayer standing over another Olley sculpt – an original Citadel Miniatures Genestealer Patriarch. I sawed that huge lead torso diagonally in half, and chopped apart and resculpted the limbs until I was satisfied the Patriarch was looking sufficiently collapsed, defeated, and bleeding out into the cold metal grille of the base.

It’s also the second Genestealer model I’ve painted recently, the first being a Locus for a wet-blended purple cloth tutorial for Patreon supporters. Check it out here!

Over forty people made it to the finishing line in the Oldhammer Community‘s Olley competition, and we wait with baited breath to see who Bob judges the best. (If it’s sho3box, I’ll explode.)

For two years now I’ve entered a turbo-niche Halloween painting competition where entrants have to paint one piece from Citadel Miniatures’ insanely characterful Night Horrors or Gothic Horror ranges – the two 1980s ranges designed to support Games Workshop’s Call of Cthulhu licence.  As last year I painted one half of the classic Citadel LE3 Gumshoe Detectives duo, Bogart, it seemed only right this year to paint his partner – Cagney.

Bogart and Cagney: 50% Bogart & Bacall, 50% Cagney & Lacey.

Bogart’s moody trenchcoat with upturned collar, one hand in pocket and nonchalant cigarette make him instantly recognisable as a noir detective.  However, Cagney was very much a a man in a plain suit (with a gun).  He could easily be a mistaken for wedding guest (with a gun), a 1970s newsreader (with a gun), or an estate agent (with a gun).  In order to align him with the contest’s theme of REAL ULTIMATE EVIL, I thought I’d plough some effort into the base.  (Actually, an estate agent is pretty close to REAL ULTIMATE EVIL, so maybe I should have gone in that direction.)

Newspapers are a shrinking industry.

The newspaper on the base is a rendition of the Sydney Morning Herald , with the he headline ALERT SUNK is a reference to the Call of Cthulhu story where Cthulhu gets his head rammed over by the steam yacht Alert.  (Thanks for coming up with that idea, Michal.)  I painted the headline as small as I could on a piece of thin card and then cut it out so I didn’t have to worry about the normal freehand space constraints.

With the newspaper done, I figured I’d model the base as Sydney harbourside.  The lapping waves effect were taken from sho3box’s Man O’War Nurgle fleet (thanks sho3y).  I added a Chaos Spawn tentacle to explain why Cagney’s drawn his gun.  With that done, I figure he’s firmly anchored in the lands of Call of Cthulhu investigator.

The dynamic duo at a harbourside warehouse rumoured to be focus of cult activity, while two totally normal stevedores go about their totally normal business.

The LE3 Gumshoe Detectives, while part of the Gothic Horror range, are also part of the numbered limited editions series that Citadel Miniatures pumped out in the late 1980s.  I’d like to paint up all twenty five of the codes, and am planning the LE1 Space Orc soon.

LE2 Space Marine and both LE3 Gumshoe Detectives.

Gotta think what to do for next year’s entry now. The Night Horrors range and Gothic Horrors are chockful of characterful one-off miniatures.  Both detectives were resculpted at least twice for rerelease later in the Gothic Horror range, so I’ll see if I can track down those.  I’m also obsessed by the Doctor Who miniatures that were slightly resculpted and released as Gothic Horror pieces too!  Roll on 2019’s competition!

Cagney came first in the competition, meaning I defended my title from last year.  Congratulations to the other entrants who got their pieces finished to the deadline, and thanks to Ashley for organised the contest – why not join the group on Facebook yourself?

In related news, I won a statuette at Golden Demon this weekend, and I’ll be publishing the stage-by-stage tutorial on Patreon later this week.

The Citadel Miniatures Chaos Thug range is melting pot of influences and ideas.  Unlike Games Workshop’s modern Chaos Marauders, who are uniformly bearded barbarians, the classic Thug range had odd chaps with mullets, Saracen-flavoured archers and even stray ninjas.

Hot as thuggery.

It makes the individual Thugs fun to paint, as they’re each full of unique details. The mullet man has a pair of horns poking out his hairstyle.  The archer has a leering face kneepad.  All three have plumped for asymmetrical trousers.

The ninja has a ninja throwing knife for stealth kills, but today he’s chosen to fight with the less subtle morning star.  Maybe he wields that stealthily too, assassinating targets with a silent swing of the massive spiky ball.

Pazyryk Banefire’s Thugs sacking the town of Æbbe’s Hill.

Having a single archer in the otherwise-melee unit slightly bothers me, but given the chaotic appearance of the the unit I can cope with it in games of Age of Sigmar and Dragon Rampant.  The mix of troop types also gives me a nice selection of models to pick for Frostgrave.  In time he will split off to found a Chaos Thug mob with bows, made up of a mix of the Battle Masters plastic Chaos Thug and the chunky punky Marauder Chaos Thug range from the early 1990s.