Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Håkon Magnusson, Viking Warlord

And the Vikings came upon them likes wolves, devouring all before them. The heathens left no bed unturned looking for treasure and slaves to take back to their dark lands. They slaughtered any who stood in their way to slake their thirst for battle. At their head was a mighty lord with a giant dog at his side and the blasphemous raven banner aloft above him. 

I know I have been showing off a lot of Anglo-Danes for Saga. But I also have a stack of lovely Foundry Vikings. At this point I had only painted a unit of Berserkers but I've got a lot more to get done. And I figured it would be good time to knock out both my Anglo-Danish and Viking generals at the same time. Unfortunately, I screwed up the banner on the Anglo-Danes, so that one will be a bit longer before I can show it off.

The first problem I ran into with the Foundry standard bearer was that the pole was to short for the Little Big Men banner I had to use. But that wasn't too big of deal since I don't really like flimsy white metal banner poles anyway. They tend to bend and break.

So I cut the banner pole off at the top of the hand, and created a mini-jig to put two holes through the exiting pole. The first was to run a metal wire down the center and the a 3/64th inch hole to into the hand. I did this so I could paint the banner pole separately. One of the nice things about the K&S Metals' wires and tubes is that they are designed to be nesting. The larger hold was placed so the tube would slide into the hand and look more natural (and most importantly, not require any putty work!).


After the conversion was done, I painted each model separately before attaching them to the base. I've found that multi-basing is a pain in the ass if you have to paint models with no room to reach all the nooks and crannies.

The painting on these are pretty standard, with muted, natural tones. I did make sure to add little bits of "extravagance" to show off the fact that he's a Jarl and has the wealth that accompanies such status. As such, he's got red striped pants and gold thread trim on his shirt. His standard bearer also gets some red trim, benefiting his status as his lord's right hand man.

Finally, I really liked the idea of a large dog on his base. For some reason, I just imagine a viking warlord taking his hounds into battle to add to the ferocity of the viking horde.



7 comments:

  1. Mate, these figs look really good. Lovely centerpiece for your vikings.

    Wonder how the dog is able to go to the loo on those longships?

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    1. Vikings used to wawa their face in the same bowl someone else spit in. Not sure they'd be too bothered by some dog shit on the boat.

      Besides, are you going to complain to a Viking warlord about where his dog poops?

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  2. Andrew, I really love the composition of all three figures. It's just a stunning base. Top drawer work, mate.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! Those foundry Vikings are a blast to paint, which makes it easier to get a good composition 😀

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  3. I admire this article for the well-researched content and excellent wording. I got so involved in this material that I couldn’t stop reading. I am impressed with your work and skill. Thank you so much. viking shield

    ReplyDelete