That Guys Darklands stuff
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2016 8:53 pm
Hey all,
Dan Pratt has been pestering me to post some of the paint I've been working on so here we go.
When I learned about Darklands I immediately gravitated to Angelcynn; monsters and trolls are all well and good but I have a soft place in my heart for real world critters and their anthropomorphic incarnations in fantasy. So, wolves and bears??? Yep, sign me up.
One of the most attractive aspects of Darklands, for me, is the idea that we're looking at historically realistic guys in the "what if scenario" of "Holy crap, those stories were true and they fought alongside the stuff of legends. So when I started picking colors I wanted at least a dash of dirty realism in the paint schemes and not the kind of bright craziness I'm usually tempted to do with other table top games. That being said I went full nerd and did a little bit of research and even traded some emails with these guys:
http://www.ealdfaeder.org/v03/home.html
They were very helpful and cool to talk to and I quickly realized that even though I wanted to hint at realism my skills werent up to snuff to do full on historical accuracy. At the end of the day what I came away with were some very simple guidelines.
1. No red or black cloth (from what I gathered was that both of these colors were possible to dye in 7th century England but would fade very quickly to pink and gray)
2. Light blue would be the color to put on banners, and important dudes as a there sort of "national color".( I wasnt excited about blue but the earliest flag I found was this and I wanted to pay tribute to it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercia
3. Avoid a uniform. (As I understand it,in most cases the warriors of these forces would have an arm ring or some kind of trinket to show their allegience, a fully dyed head to toe unform for every warrior that shows up to fight for you just wasnt happening back in those days)
So heres the disclaimer. Those were my rules and I break them when I see fit. Also I think my painting is in the "OK" category but I've got a long way to go before I'm content with my skills.
this is one of my favorite models of all time and my hosts Forthegn every time we take the field. Eadric is a stud and the sculpt is awesome.
Here is the duguth. I definately didnt want these guys to look like they were wearing uniforms so I tried to give them individual colors. Splashes of the blue in attempt to tie it together. From what I was able to find out none of these wooden shields survived the ages well enough to know what they would have been painted and decorated as. I figured since these shields would have been abused and not likely to surveive very long, it was my chance to throw in red. There seems to be some paralells between norse mythology and what we know of Angelcynn so I went ahead and looked to norse runes and such for some inspiration.
Here are 4 Gesith (7 still waiting on paint). I figure if anybody is gonna wear a "uniform" it would be the Forthegns inner circle of drinkin/fightin buddies.So blue tunics and linen pants all around. (I absolutely adore how these guys work in conjunction with Duguth on the table top. Spears make me happy, thank you Mierce Miniatures, for representing a spear properly in gameplay!)
Sleanbera. I actually dont plan on running much Beornica stuff, I like the swift sneaky swarms of wolves, but bears are cool and I had to have this guy. I mean, how do you pass that up? Its a bear in a diaper with an monsterous axe. Its too cool.
Last but not least, Creoda. Admittedly the pictures on the website made Creoda one of my least favorite models I knew I'd end up buying, but as soon as I held the actual model in my hands and looked it ove, I was sold. Its such a subtle and well sculpted piece of awesome that I've flipped 180 on my opinion of the guthwulf.
When I painted him I did a little digging and found out Creoda was one of the first kings of Mercia, and as I understand the fluff, he is quite old by time Penda comes to power, and has spent a long time devolving into this giant crazy wolf (please correct me where I'm wrong). So I wanted to have some fleshy tones where his fur was thin or non-existant to attempt to show there was a guy in there somewhere. I dont know if I achieved that effect but I like it anyway.
Again, please correct me where I'm wrong, I'm interested in this stuff but not a historian by any means. And I realize how crappy these pictures turned out, I will strive to do better in the future.
Dan Pratt has been pestering me to post some of the paint I've been working on so here we go.
When I learned about Darklands I immediately gravitated to Angelcynn; monsters and trolls are all well and good but I have a soft place in my heart for real world critters and their anthropomorphic incarnations in fantasy. So, wolves and bears??? Yep, sign me up.
One of the most attractive aspects of Darklands, for me, is the idea that we're looking at historically realistic guys in the "what if scenario" of "Holy crap, those stories were true and they fought alongside the stuff of legends. So when I started picking colors I wanted at least a dash of dirty realism in the paint schemes and not the kind of bright craziness I'm usually tempted to do with other table top games. That being said I went full nerd and did a little bit of research and even traded some emails with these guys:
http://www.ealdfaeder.org/v03/home.html
They were very helpful and cool to talk to and I quickly realized that even though I wanted to hint at realism my skills werent up to snuff to do full on historical accuracy. At the end of the day what I came away with were some very simple guidelines.
1. No red or black cloth (from what I gathered was that both of these colors were possible to dye in 7th century England but would fade very quickly to pink and gray)
2. Light blue would be the color to put on banners, and important dudes as a there sort of "national color".( I wasnt excited about blue but the earliest flag I found was this and I wanted to pay tribute to it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercia
3. Avoid a uniform. (As I understand it,in most cases the warriors of these forces would have an arm ring or some kind of trinket to show their allegience, a fully dyed head to toe unform for every warrior that shows up to fight for you just wasnt happening back in those days)
So heres the disclaimer. Those were my rules and I break them when I see fit. Also I think my painting is in the "OK" category but I've got a long way to go before I'm content with my skills.
this is one of my favorite models of all time and my hosts Forthegn every time we take the field. Eadric is a stud and the sculpt is awesome.
Here is the duguth. I definately didnt want these guys to look like they were wearing uniforms so I tried to give them individual colors. Splashes of the blue in attempt to tie it together. From what I was able to find out none of these wooden shields survived the ages well enough to know what they would have been painted and decorated as. I figured since these shields would have been abused and not likely to surveive very long, it was my chance to throw in red. There seems to be some paralells between norse mythology and what we know of Angelcynn so I went ahead and looked to norse runes and such for some inspiration.
Here are 4 Gesith (7 still waiting on paint). I figure if anybody is gonna wear a "uniform" it would be the Forthegns inner circle of drinkin/fightin buddies.So blue tunics and linen pants all around. (I absolutely adore how these guys work in conjunction with Duguth on the table top. Spears make me happy, thank you Mierce Miniatures, for representing a spear properly in gameplay!)
Sleanbera. I actually dont plan on running much Beornica stuff, I like the swift sneaky swarms of wolves, but bears are cool and I had to have this guy. I mean, how do you pass that up? Its a bear in a diaper with an monsterous axe. Its too cool.
Last but not least, Creoda. Admittedly the pictures on the website made Creoda one of my least favorite models I knew I'd end up buying, but as soon as I held the actual model in my hands and looked it ove, I was sold. Its such a subtle and well sculpted piece of awesome that I've flipped 180 on my opinion of the guthwulf.
When I painted him I did a little digging and found out Creoda was one of the first kings of Mercia, and as I understand the fluff, he is quite old by time Penda comes to power, and has spent a long time devolving into this giant crazy wolf (please correct me where I'm wrong). So I wanted to have some fleshy tones where his fur was thin or non-existant to attempt to show there was a guy in there somewhere. I dont know if I achieved that effect but I like it anyway.
Again, please correct me where I'm wrong, I'm interested in this stuff but not a historian by any means. And I realize how crappy these pictures turned out, I will strive to do better in the future.