Pushing on

Well as predicted it's September before I have managed to get anything else done to my fimir. However, getting married and then going on a honeymoon is a bloody good way to spend your time. Everything about the wedding went exactly as we wanted it to, including the extra little surprises that we hadn't told anyone about - like the falconry display/have-a-go, the after-dinner pub quiz, and the lego cake!

By all accounts everyone enjoyed themselves, and loved those extra little touches. Plenty of people have said that the wedding was 'very us' - which I think was meant as a compliment!

And now we're back from our honeymoon in Denmark (which was lovely - a really great place to visit!), and virtually straight away we're into the new academic year. My wife (I'm still getting used to saying that, and it's all rather exciting!) is also a teacher and started back on Monday, whereas my school doesn't officially start until tomorrow (Wednesday), but I did a full day on Monday and a half day today to try and get myself organised for the new year having done less school work this summer than I perhaps needed to owing to the wedding festivities. However, I'm now feeling more or less prepared, so took the opportunity to catch up a little bit with the fimir project.

So far I have modelled five fimir warriors, three moor hounds and one base, but three of the fimir were still without their kilts so that needs to be rectified before I can move onto the painting stage. The other two cavalry bases and all five warrior bases also need doing. So I sat down this afternoon to make a start. It's nice to feel as though I'm making some progress again.

Though unfortunately my progress may continue to be rather slow as we are still trying to work our way through the 40k campaign that I'm playing my Black Templars in. And Space Marines are getting a new codex (due out on Saturday) so I will be spending a bit of time re-costing my Templars army and possibly purchasing a few units that are now newly available to me. However, I will not let the fimir get forgotten about - I'm genuinely quite excited by the prospect of what I can achieve with this army - a definite sense of pride!

The bells

Just a very quick note to apologise that there has not been any fimir update in ages. Firstly there was the end of the school year which is very busy and knackering as a teacher. Secondly I'm getting married in just under a fortnight's time so I'm busy getting the last few bits sorted for that. If I get a spare moment I want to get a few bits done, but to be honest I can't see me making any progress this side of September! Sorry!

The Hound of the Fimirvilles

Of course Fimir aren't the only things that live in the marshes:

"There are countless tales of massive black-haired hounds stalking the moors in search of prey. At least some of the stories are based on the daemonic hounds summoned by the fimir as trackers or as allies in battle." - extract from the fimir army book, courtesy of the Warhammer armies project.

GW chaos hound models are absolutely spot on for the moor hounds!

Getting a 'head' of the others

One thing that I have wanted to do was get a fimir model that had a helmet on. This could be used as a champion or suchlike, perhaps with some kind of magic item helmet, but however I use him I wanted him to be wearing quite an ornate and over the top helmet. The problem was that I didn't have a clue how to do it. My other warhammer army is dwarves (which you will definitely know by now if you have read the other blog posts) and I do have one or two spare helmets (with or without horns), but I didn't think that they really matched the aesthetic that I wanted, and they were the wrong size anyway.

Then I had an idea - one of the boxes of dwarves comes with a horn playing musician with two different heads for the horn, one being the classic bell funnel, the other being a stylised dragon head breathing fire. I really didn't like the dragon head on the horn, but I thought that it would work really rather nicely as a helmet for a fimir warrior. So I had a go at making another model (the fifth warrior now) and gave him the dragon head. It's not ideal as my sculpting skill to match it up is not good enough - to me it doesn't look like the fimir's head actually goes into the helmet. I still like the idea though. What do you guys think?

I also thought that I should pay some attention to the tails. Fimir tales often end in bony blades, clubs, maces, etc. The lizardmen tails end in a nice sharp point which I am happy with for some of the models, but I wanted to get a few club-like tails as well. Basically I just tried a blob of green stuff that I then teased some points out. I'm not sure about it at all to be honest, but I'll leave it and see what it looks like once painted (if I ever get around to that stage, mind you wedding prep is slightly more important at the moment - less than 50 days!)

The evening's standard

One day this week my fiancee was up in London so was going to be back late. Therefore I thought I'd take the opportunity to do a little bit more modelling. I already had a musician, but I thought it would be nice to do a standard bearer (especially as I'm not sure which one would be more useful in my Regiment of Renown). I've got used to the work required in sculpting the head and bulking up the stomach, and I knew that the main staff for the standard from the lizardmen box was perfect, but I really wasn't sure about what to actually use for the banner itself. Just as I was thinking of using more of my bandage supply to sculpt, I thought about the boxes of dwarfs I have for my other warhammer army. In that army I have used figure head type standards as opposed to the flapping banners (except my thane with my army standard). Therefore I pulled out a box and found a nice banner design - all it needed was taking off a few of the more dwarven features, like the ancestor heads. I think it works really nicely, though I'll do a bit more work to it as I'd quite like it to look a bit tattered and worn. The entire model needs a bit more work - kilt, greenstuff on the scales along the back, a banner top, etc.

I also had some fun with this guy's shield. Now that I have received the shields that I want to use - some old GW goblin shields that look like they are wicker/woven rushes or wood and hides - I can keep moving forward with the project. The wicker type ones have a brutal spike on them and I thought that it would look fantastic to have a skull impailed upon on. Again my friend who plays Tomb Kings is an absolute star, because she had previously supplied me with a bag of skulls that she didn't need, some of which have helmets on, like dead Brettonnians. I'm very happy with the result!

The naked truth

I've been looking at the three fimirs that I have sculpted so far, rather proud of what I have managed to achieve. But then it hit me, they have their belly shields, but other than that they are naked. Most fimir pictures have some sort of clothing, so how could I represent this?

I was thinking that some kind of fabric skirt or kilt would suit the style of the fimir quite nicely. Now I know that my green stuff skills are very basic and there is no way on earth that I was gong to be able to sculpt that. So instead I was thinking of getting some actual fabric and using that to drape around the figures, that way there'll be some nice material texture. Well, assuming that the material I get has a reasonably prominent texture so that it shows up!

So I had a momentary flash of inspiration and took a trip to the local supermarket and bought a cheap roll of bandage (got to love their smart price range). Soaked in PVA, moulded around the waist of the figure, cut to give some slits for easy movement (legs and tail), and with the belly shield glued back in place; well the idea is good.

And when I tried it - turns out pretty damn exactly as I wanted it!

I'm really looking forward to getting on and painting these!

Amidst the pools and sinking mud

I've done a bit more work on the modelling of the test base - a dry brushing (slightly heavier than I has originally intended), some tufts of scorched grass glued on, and some water effect added to the pools. Overall I'm really happy with the current result. If I can reproduce this on each of the other bases for the prospective army I'll be really bloody happy! I'm thinking of possibly adding in some bark pieces to represent fallen and decaying trees in the marshland, I think that would look quite cool and give another nice aspect to the scene.