"Gone Fishing!" - Slop

No wise fish would go anywhere 

without a porpoise 

Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland

Welcome back to The Art of Caesura!

Before we really get cracking, I just want to send out a big congrats to my friend Podge, and his beautiful wife Liz who, by the time this gets posted will just be getting married!

This week we're looking at the big baddie from Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower's slippery little compadre: Slop. 

Two weeks ago we perused the pages of another quirky little familiar from this game, a book with legs, this week it's a bipedal fish! I'm really liking the zaniness of these little critters. 

The nice thing about many of the models in the Silver Tower box is that there are at least doubles of all of them (except the heroes) so you can try different ideas with each figure without having to paint a whole army of the same thing. 

My first effort with Slop was based on one of my early childhood memories: going fishing with my dad. When I was young we used to get up early strap my dad's little rowboat "The Mighty Vagabond" to the roof rack and drive through the misty morning to Durrance or Prospect Lake. We would try to match our fly bate with whichever kind of flies were flitting around at the time. I would peer over the side of the boat and drop fake fish eggs, greasy and bright orange, watching them sink down out of sight. 

And then I caught one! My rod almost jerked out of my six-year old hands and I carefully reeled it in. It was like magic when my dad pulled this beautiful little fish on board. Even its name sounded mystical: a Rainbow Trout. I still remember it's colourful iridescent body piercing the muted greens and browns of the boat, lake and forest around us just as it's agitation stirred up the stillness. 

Anyway, as always when we went fishing, we let it go. And I fretted that I had hurt its mouth with my hook. But even as a child it was invigorating holding such vibrant and strange life in my hands. 

That memory inspired me to paint one of my Slops like a rainbow trout. Looking back at him now, I've kind of used a more Tuna colouring (the silvery blue instead of the greens and browns) but I tried to keep some of the purples and greens. 

For my other Slop I wanted to do something very different. I was going to use some horrific deep sea fish for inspiration, the likes of:

But then I was watching Kris over at Miniwargaming and really like how he painted his koi Slop so I followed suit. I just kept the "creepy deep-sea eyes". I think he ended up looking a bit "Dr. Seussesque" which is fine with me! 

Anyway, that was fun little fishing trip down memory lane. Thanks, as always, for joining me on The Art of Caesura.


Watching: Game of Thrones Season 6
Playing: The World of Smog On Her Majesty's Service
Reading: Dracula - Bram Stoker (for the 3rd time!)


Next Week:
Through the Victorian gloom...