No one knows who they were, or what they were doing...

Painted: Druids of Orboros

Manufacturer: Privateer Press
Line: Hordes
Faction: Circle Orboros
Set: 72015 Druids of Orboros
Release date: 2006
Date painted: 2008

More of my Circle Orboros force to share with you today. I think these guys are pretty cool overall and they were an obvious choice for inclusion.

Conversions

I just really didn't care for the heads, which are way too round and way, way too large. That and PP couldn't even be arsed to foot the bill for six different ones. The heads are separate except for the leader, which is convenient in a way as you don't have to saw off the old ones, on the flip side the head pieces also include a fair bit of neck and even part of the cloak, so I had to fill in a fair bit and sculpt a few details. Below you can see the conversions. The black mist is because I was in a rush to prime these in the fading afternoon after getting home, and remembered just a second too late that I had wanted to get pics first. In addition to hoods and facial hair I also gave the old guy a bit of a paunch to set him apart from the skinny guy with the busted lip, and this meant redoing his oversized belt-buckle-armor-thing. I gave the leader a beard that juts out a bit like Leonidas is portrayed in the 300 graphic novel. The yelling guy turned out even better than I hoped, I really get the sense he drawing down the power from the heavens and eyes rolling back in his head he barely has it contained. Overall I'm really pleased with these, especially how they each have their own personality now—very unlike the originals!

Painting

I've already said some things about how I approached the painting of this force and these were done in the same way. When it comes to black, I recommend thinking about what material is represented and how it reflects light in real life. A rough black cloak is reflects a fair degree of light and appears fairly dull and light under the sun. I made the highlights fairly neutral but a bit on the warm side, giving them a more natural feel than the comic-book blue-for-black style Privateer made popular. The armor was meant to look burnished in a way similar to Celtic charms and trinkets I've seen in real life, and was done with the P3 Blighted Gold as a base, which is a dark green-gold and a unique color you'd be hard-pressed to get another way. The weapons and flesh were given a number of very thin glazes of brown ink with matte medium to really saturate/enrich the color.

Also I just want to throw this in somewhere that I much prefer the way the armor detail was sculpted on these figures than what became the set way later on in the range. Also, these are about as layered and encumbered as anyone can be expected to believe, but the later range kept weighing the druids down with silly stone things, glass baubles and weighty garb. Oh well.

For those interested there are many more individual shots in the flickr.

P.s. pardon me for the Spinal Tap reference, I couldn't help it, and anyway he did it first.