"Under the Horse-Head Mask" - Lost Boy

Well here we come,

Innocent Friends

to ask leave

to ask leave

to ask leave to sing...

A common opening to the pwngco

Well here we go! Thanks for finding your way back to The Art of Caesura!

I hope you used the weekend to sample many lovely brews!

For those of you who have been here since the beginning, you’ll know that this blog kind of came out of making some New Year resolutions. I’ve been sharing with you the weekly miniatures that I have been completing, and over the past two weeks have described elements of my third resolution. In the future I’d like to be able to include you (via this blog) in my other happy hobbies like guitar, hiking, and SCUBA. But this week I’m looking forward to showing you the model that I’ve been working on…back to The World of Smog!

The Lost Boy

“Some have claimed that [The Lost Boy] is the fruit of the forbidden love between an important Member of Parliament and a soothsayer of the Wheel, taken at his birth by agents of the Cult to blackmail his illustrious father. Others have whispered how those necromancers, facing the tenacity of the nobleman, made the equestrian scarecrow to frighten his mother. Whatever the truth, all those spreading such rumours have disappeared. Nobody claims to know how the Black Pharaoh compelled the Shadow Master to become the guardian of this innocent victim of a power struggle among London’s secret organizations…”

                The World of Smog: On Her Majesty’s Service

When I first looked into backing this game on Kickstarter, The Lost Boy was one of the minis that really caught my attention. He’s a little boy in a sailor outfit with a horse skull for a head! And when you look at the artwork in the rule book, you can see that he’s actually riding a sort of maypole with his own human head skewered on the end of it! I've since realized that he might have been modeled after the Mari Lwyd tradition from Wales, which you can check out by clicking the link under the verse at the top of the page. 

One of the challenges here, was that I wanted to paint the sailor outfit white but, with the white of the skull I still wanted there to be some tonal diversity. I didn’t want the whole thing to be too light which might take away from the model’s ‘macabreness’. My solution to this was firstly to work up from a black basecoat (yes, many many thin layers of white!) and to not highlight the skull as much as, perhaps, I usually would.

As usual, here’s the recipe-guide:

Jerkin: literally just mixing more and more Scar White into the Chaos Black base coat. The layering didn’t show up so well in the photos, but I swear it’s there!

Skull: Doombull basecoat over black undercoat, mixed with increasing amounts of Ushabti Bone. The recesses got a spot wash of heavily watered down Gryphonne Sepia. The last few layers were back to Bone, mixed with Scar White and dry brushed sparingly to hopefully give the impression of dried bone. Let me know what you think.

Trim: Altdorf Guard Blue mixed with Chaos Black and Steel Legion Drab.

Eyes: I’ve seen other people paint them like real eyes, but they looked a little “googly” and cartoony for me, so I kept them black and gave them a gloss varnish for added creepiness.

I’ve got to say, I really like this guy! Looking at the photos closely though, I think I could go a bit lighter with the teeth. Maybe work up to a smoother white and hit it with a bit of a yellow wash to replicate stained enamel. Anyway please let me know what you think.

Having come from painting ranks and ranks of Orcs from Warhammer Fantasy, these minis are really delightful! Each one is so full of character and they are just the right size to finish in about a sitting and a half.

Anyway guys and girls, that’s it for this week on The Art of Caesura.

Listening: Please Mr. Kennedy – Inside Llewyn Davis Soundtrack

Drinking: Doom Bar – Sharp’s Brewery, Rock, Cornwall

Gaming: Marvel Contest of Champions - Kabam, 2014
Excited for: Vox VT 20+ Guitar Amp (just ordered this bad boy for a nice little practice amp)

Next Week:

A very important miniature from The World of Smog…