Mayday! Mayday! - Goblin Wolf Riders

Hi all! By the skin of my teeth I've made it to the end of my project for the Middlehammer group's Mayday! Mayday! monthly painting them challenge. My Goblin Wolf Riders have been restored from the botched and broken state they were in when I bought them cheap from ebay to a reasonable tabletop standard (which is what I was aiming for with this project).

The initial stages of this project can be seen in my previous post. One of the things this project has pushed me to do is try a new modelling technique - press moulding.

There were a couple of missing tails and I din't have anything similar in my bits box so press moulding was the obvious answer. I'm using 'blue stuff' from Green Stuff World, and their Youtube channel has some useful tutorials.

One stick of blue stuff was enough for two small moulds, one for each 'half' of the tail.

This was the first attempt. I wasn't confident enough in my trimming and filing - but proof of concept had been achieved!

This was the second attempt and much crisper. If I hadn't been workign to a deadline I'd have made a few more and only used the best ones.

Another technique this project required was drilling and pinning. I've only done this once before so am very much a novice, but it was clear that a simple glue repair would not last very long on the broken banner pole so I clipped off a tiny bit of paperclip and got to work.

I realise now that I should have accepted a slight reduction in height of the banner pole and cut the two ends completely flat. They were slanted in a way that they still fit together pretty wel, so I thought it best to leave them as they were, but trying to drill into and angled service was more trouble than it was worth and I nearly went throug hand out the side of the gobbos hand. Lesson learned for next time.

You can just see the tiny nub of metal sticking out of the bottom half of the pole.

The join was pretty flush, so despite the near disater with the drilling I was happy with the end result, which didn't require any putty.

It turns out there was a missing arm too. A random stump had been included, but on closer inspection this was a right shoulder stump, so initial plans for some form of dubious goblin-made prosthetic using rusty metal work were scrapped.

I went back to one of the other models and snipped off an arm to be moulded. This was a very ropey bit of work, with only one half of teh arm press moulded and the other built up with some extra bits of putty once the cast had set. I knew that it was largely going ot be covered by a shield and wouldn't be very vsible once teh model was complete, so speed was the order of the day here, and the final result is passable enough.

Sorry for the crap photo, this was the only shot I had of the arm being moulded.

The whole unit had been initally been constructed in a way that annoyed me. There were 5 archers, which included a musician and bannerbearer, 3 spearmen, two with a shield, one holding a severed head. And two sword armed leader types, both riding armoured wolves. One had a shield and one had the same arm holding a severed head. For me they are neither one complete unit, nor two smaller ones. In the end I have gone for a unit of 5 archers, which includes the standard bearer and musician, and a unit of 5 armed with melee weapons which includes both leader types, but I've added a couple of shields (one of which I press moulded as it was going on the back of the model so didn't have to be perfect, adn I was getting carried awy with the milliput by then - the next scenic base I do is going to be covered in tiny putty mushrooms) from an earlier WFB orc and gobbo set, so at least all 5 have a shield. I also thought that one severed head was enough. Others may disagree.

 

The 5 Archers. No obvious bend in the repaired banner pole so I'm happy enough with that.

Only the banner bearer has a replacement tail. You can tell, but not so much that it is a problem.

The 5 with melee weapons. One thing that is alwasy going to annoy me about these is that they just don't rank up well

From behind you can tell which have the reaplacement tails (apologies for the wonky photo)

In an aerial shot you can really tell the difference between the earlier moulded tail (far left) and the last version (dead center).

Close up of the press moulded shield. a little ropey, but good enough for a first try at shields.

Again, I've really enjoyed the challenge of the monthly painting theme - this one has pushed me to try new techniques that should be the staple fair of any accomplished modeller, so I feel like I've got some important practice in re: press moulding and drilling and pinning. It has been quite time consuming though, I've not really got much else done this month, miniatures wise (although I have been very busy painting and reparing scenery). I'm looking forward to the next painting theme. There was a suggestion on the Middlehammer fb page it should be sports themed, given it is a Summer of Sport yet again this year, if that does get chosen then I've already got something in mind, but it will be a lot more straight forward and less time consuming than this bunch!

Before you leave, let's take one last look at the whole rabble enjoying a bank holiday ride in the Elven countryside. They've been busy scouting for the Forces of Evil (TM) in our ongoing WHFB4 campaign Crisis in Caledor! Hopefully you'll pop back for the next battle report in the series.

Thanks for stopping by!

Here they are all together, racing down the road looking forward to a trough full of Pedigree Chum.

These Gobbos have been scouting the area around this Elven watchtower. Luckily for them the Elves were all watching the tennis and not the road.