mardi 17 avril 2018

Musician of the month: Skeleton Horn Blower

What is fun with fantasy ? There is no limit, and you can create impossible things. This month's musician is not that original, since skeletons (including horn blowers) are classical figures today, thanks to the major manufacturers of Fantasy figures. Hard to believe that dead things can walk,  even slowly, or fight, or do anything but lie... but in Fantasy, everything's explained thanks to Magic, and especially dark Magic.

... So, a dark sorcerer came with forbidden spells, a gifted necromancer, and he began to raise the dead, lots of them... So many of them that they began difficult to control. He was compelled to use a general to rule them all, and he called a mighty vampire, but the skeletons were indisciplined, they didn't follow the orders, as if they were deaf to any signal... wait, of course they're deaf! The necromancer's spells couldn't make skeletons hear the orders, but there was one spell, a very ancient one, that allowed him to create Black music, the dreadful sound of an ancient horn blown by invisible lungs, yes! So he gave that horn to one of his most disciplined skeletons, and ordered him to blow again and again, and, because of this horrible dead sound, every skeleton began to walk West against the human kingdoms...

"Why West ? What if the humans settled in the South ?"
"Then, my apprentice, you will have to learn another spell, because this is the way of Black Magic. Go back to your books and don't ask foolish questions again!"

This month's musician is our skeleton hornblower. His horn is a very old instrument that remained in an ancient tomb for hundreds of years, so it is made of oxidized metal - green oxidation for brass, or verdigris. That's what I tried to represent on this mini, together with rust on the iron parts.

A few pictures:







The fierce skeleton proved good enough to be enrolled by the Vampire general, to summon the skeleton army to go West! Er... to go to the right, as we can see in the following pictures:



"Eh, come back, all of you! West is on the other side !!! Who gave me an army of unlateralized skeletons !!!"

samedi 14 avril 2018

Mousquetaire du Roy

Just a test shot today, my first attempt at painting a French King's musketeer in Louis XIII's service.
You can see him standing in front of an inn, with a bottle of wine in his hand, ready to fight nevertheless.


Some closer pictures:



This guy comes from Ultima Ratio set UR011 Musketeers of the King of France. He proved very interesting to paint, and I tried to represent the different materials as well as possible: leather, metal,  feather, glass bottle...
I will try to paint his friends and opponents in the next days.

Hope you like him :)