Creating The Twisted Fomorians

Recently I have been playing with the idea of starting a new fantasy era, that of ancient Ireland. The invasion mythology sounds like great fun to game and is very rich in fantastic characters and monsters. I also like the magical fey aspect to a lot of the races involved, should be fun to model.

The problem is when starting any new period, there is so much to learn. I have been watching hours of YouTube and cramming in sessions on the internet. I think I have a handle on the cultures and participants now. 

Alternative Armies do a nice range of figures so I have started there. Although I have also been trying to work out cheaper options to create armies, as a new army in 28mm fantasy is expensive. That in mind, I have been playing around with trying to create Fonorians from various plastic kits. I want them to match the Alternative Armies sculpts that were based on the ones from Slaine in 2000AD, so I can mix them in.

I started these mock ups by buying a sprue of Snakemen off eBay and mixing them with GW goblin heads. These look better with the long nose cut off to match the AA sculpts. Fomorians are twisted sea devils really that crawled from the cold waters of the North Sea to colonise Ireland. The older the are the bigger they grow, some are monstrous giants and very powerful. This gives me quite a few choices of figures, with other ranges of ‘water’ trolls fitting straight in with my idea of a North Sea army. Reaper miniatures do some fantastic swamp trolls that are perfect for aquatic mid sized giants.

Nothing says sea devil to me better than wet straggly hair hanging across the face. ‘Come to Meg…’

I noticed that one of the AA sculpts has a seaweed looking cloak on, so I used this as inspiration for my mock ups. I suppose it could also double as fish skin, either way it says North Sea warrior to me. This type of effect is very easy to do with green stuff so I could have quite a few cloaks by the end.

I like the weapons the Snakemen have, very weird and wonderful. 

To re-enforce the sea theme for this army I have put barnacles on their equipment. Fomorians were once a powerful, beautiful race. They loved beautiful things but they were greedy and planned to enslave the other members of the Fey world. The other Fey creatures came together and put a powerful curse on the Fomori, changing them as hideous and twisted as their cruel hearts. They are now deformed and lust for nothing but chaos and war. Although they are not beautiful anymore, they still covert beautiful things like clothes and armour. 

This looks better and more in keeping with the AA sculpts with the nose cut off. Again, the Snakeman spear looks just the part for a sea faring race. 

The other good thing about collecting a Fomorian army; is as long as it looks ‘ fishy’ it should fit right in. This is a toad warrior from Ral Parthia. It’s a nice excuse for collecting some different and interesting figures.

This could be a nice skin colour for the army. I have been thinking of a dark black/blue with bright highlights. We’ll have to see after some tests. I do like the pale milky eyes though, I might use that.

There will be lots of bronze colours going on in the armour as it is from the ancient past. Even the weapons will be bronze, should make for an interesting change.

I left the green stuff for 15 minutes before sculpting with it, much less tacky that way.

 

I had a bit of green stuff left over so gave the toad man a aquatic looking cloak, help tie him into the group. I also had enough to do barnacles on some more shields.

The Fomorians go to war against the Sedhe with their nasty, cruel looking weapons.

The finishing dank hair gets put onto this guy, the trick to this sculpting malarky, is to learn patience. Do each bit at a time and give it time to dry before tackling the next bit. This is very hard to do but the patience does pay off. There’s nothing worse than rushing on and putting a huge finger print in a nice cloak. I left these cloaks for about two hours before doing the hair. 

Orc spear unit WIP

I tried something a little different with this new unit. I dry brushed the black undercoat silver and used a load of washes to make it look rusty. However, I stippled another layer of silver over this rust layer to simulate the metal ageing. It seemed to work and gave the armour a very old look.

I had to add some Terps to the Dip again but it didn’t seem to change the effect. I also added some orange rust patches to these guys to add a bit of colour.

Six down…a million to go.

I found painting them in groups of six was best, that way you get to finish a batch in a night. Dipping them in Dark tone is a nice cherry on the cake to look forward to a the end of a session.

 

Green stuff Day!

I’ve finally found time to slap some green stuff on these nasty little creatures. Many of them were fine with no cracks or gaps, in which case I just gave them some hair down their backs. I wanted to make some of the tidy Dwarf torsos a bit more orcy, so animal hides and fur cloaks were added.

Quite quick sculpts really but the results are quite pleasing and should look very ‘orc’ when painted.

I pushed myself a little bit and tried to something else apart from my go to fur cloaks. I tried my hand at rough leather work, we’ll have to wait to after painting to see if these were successful.

Gundabad orcs.

I also added some simple armour to shoulders. These can be filed once dry to create hard edges to help with the armour look. I might paint some as dark leather as well.

A fun morning all in all, I have been putting it off for a week. 

My ‘troll skin’ pencil came out again to create a bit of variety in the horde.

 

Gundabad orcs

Another update on my spear armed orcs. I’ve been experimenting with new ideas and sticking extra bits on the weapons. A blade here and there really gives them a more orcy look and feel. To my surprise they are quite firmly stuck too with the plastic glue, so shouldn’t snap off easily.

Also, I’ve tried using the old warlord games orc arms. They are tricky to do with their open hands but they do pay off when you get it right. The arms are nice and long and look very orc like when put on a Dwarf body with short legs.

I found some of these shields from a seller on eBay.

An orc officer was made from a human torso from Fire Forge. The head of a Halfling from Wargames Atlantic. Shield from eBay again. The face is covered with armour from a Frostgrave Demon sprue.

The officer’s armour is quite large scale mail so should look good covered in rusty orc filth. 

These Dwarf spears are great, they are long and imposing. I have stuck extra bits to this one from an orc sprue.

 

Orcs with nasty looking pole arms.