Due to life stuff, I missed last year's Golden Gobbo painting competition, over on the Oldhammer Forum. I've got in early this year just in case. It's a fun opportunity to paint something just for the hell of it. I recently picked up a few Citadel pre-slotta chaos warriors on a whim and had already decided that I'd paint one of them for GG '25. So, without further ado...
Rechgrindle - Warrior Maiden of Dim Ponn the Unholy Grimace from Specialty Set SS3 (v2) The Knights of Chaos (1983).
 |
 |
 |
I smashed this one out over a couple of evenings, which is incredibly quick for me. She's not going to win (there are some awesome painters over on the forum), but I'm really pleased with how she turned out, especially the pallid flesh. Remember kids: Chaos worship is bad for your health!
The Knights of Chaos set was sculpted from designs by John Blanche. Although the sculptor/s aren't credited, I've been told that the majority of boxed sets from this era were sculpted by the Perry twins. Having handled a fair few from this set, they certainly look like Perry sculpts to me.
 |
| Big John's designs for the SS3 crew. Rechgrindle is top right. From Heroes for Wargames (Paper Tiger, 1986) |
The boxed set came with an insert, penned by Rick Priestly, which gave fluff for each of the knights, the chaos gods they followed and rules for using them in Warhammer 1st ed. The extract below is borrowed from a scan of the insert from the Eldritch Epistles blog.
That’s a cool looking figure, I don’t think I have seen her anywhere before! There were so many quirky models back in the early days. Your paint job suits the model well and that shield is outstanding!
ReplyDeleteHey Pat. Thanks man. The face on the shield is part of the sculpt, which is why it looks better than the usual nonsense. ;)
DeleteI've picked up a few of these guys now and they're lovely sculpts. No one knew what a chaos warrior 'should' look like, so there's all sorts of mad ideas that have been thrown into the mix. They're quite liberating to paint (I can just do whatever takes my fancy). The chaos side quest has been a welcome break from painting everything orange, although I will return to the hobs before too long I'm sure.
That is proper nice, the pale flesh is a good touch too.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason I am getting Conan vibes, Robert E Howard not Mamoa new crud vibes.
"She's not going to win (there are some awesome painters over on the forum),"
Hey, if I can win with a boring old farmer this can surely win!!
Depends if you enter again, Mike. ;)
DeleteI was really pleased with the pale/sickly flesh idea. The mini is obviously of its time, even if Rechgrindle is wearing more clothes than the average early '80s female sculpt. I wanted to try and side step 'sexy barbarian lady' and I hope this gives the impression of something about the character being 'off', a visual cue for the corruption spreading within her. In my head canon the red hair is a wig, a bit like in Roald Dahl's 'The Witches'.
As for a Howard influence - absolutely (love me some Hyborian action). There's a fair bit of Moorcockian influence across the range too. I also love Big John's 'Aztec/Mesopotamian mash up with spikey bits' in the concept drawings. They look so distinct from the chaos warriors they came later.