Tuesday 12 May 2015

Evil space dorfs - punkish squats for Rogue Trader

Xic, Cyke and ... Billy

They're as small as they're mean, their stench is as foul as the colours they wear hurt the eyes... Who are they ? The evil dorfs.
After painting some of Diego's models, I felt like keeping on the community sculpts with these little guys. They are a sub-range of Oakbound miniatures and are designed with the supervision of Chico "not without my bacon" Danks from Oldhammer on a budget.
Together these 2 fellows have designed a growing range of space dwarves (or dorfs) which are evil but not in a chaotic way. This is a very intersting path to explore as chaotic dwarves, however cool they can ben are a known subject whereas mean and bad ones are far more exotic. These Evil dorfs are the kind to cross streets outside zebras, to add beer in their wine and to shoot in the privates.


After buying the 2 sets available, I decided to keep one of the models for later (I have a particular project for it...) which left me with the 2 dorfs and the cyber goat.

It doesn't cost anything to make a simple package awesome...
Painting wise, I decided very early I'd use very bright colours with these (that's my bias for having been born in 81) and that I would even get that pot of turquoise hawk used after some 18 years or so...

I'm not that used to painting with bright colourful schemes (well I am but it's just always the same patterns really) so I tied to get inspiration form those who do it right like Colin over the Leadpile.

The result is probably not exactly up to the reference but I believe if I get to add new members to the crew, it will look just fine. I have to admit being puzzled by 'how to paint what' at the beginning, a feeling I'd only had with Bob Olley's model so far. Being of a pavlovian type, I just did as I usually do with Bob Olley models and just painted until I knew what I was doing ! That's the explanation for the rather peculiar colour schemes but after all you can't expect any sort of class or taste from squat punks !
To tie my models with some punk iconography, I used the Anarchy symbol and the "No future" slogan on Xic (dorf on the left) and some tartan on Cyke (dorf on the right). Billy the goat was painted in black as befits an evil cyber goat.
For the record, the cyber goat was a painted in under 20 minutes from prime to finish (in case some of you are looking for models for a speed painting challenge...).



"Xic and Cyke are members of 'the badgers', a group of marginals, all composed of squats that have adopted a life of punkish mischief and mayhem. They're renowned for being extremely nasty and offensive in their attittude, smell and outfits. Rumours say they also have a rather "open minded" sexuality and the numerous cybernetically augmented pets they're seen with don't really help to kill those rumours...
Most of teh time The badgers will be dealing narcotics, serving as mercenaries and driving ridiculously overpowered vehicles in a careless fashion."


I know it's bad to turn your back to people but that enables them to read what you have to say...

While I was at it, I thought I'd share a little scale shot of the dorfs along some other squats just to give an idea...
From left to right you have Irn Bounce (aka first squat by citadel ever), a Perry squat, an Iron claw (Bob Olley) squat, Geoff's dorfs and the space white dwarf (aka last squat by GW so far) 


What next ? Well with the "Bring Out Your Lead" event on the horizon this summer, I'd better get ready and focus a little on what I'll need for the occasion... That means confrontation goodness (I know it's been a while I haven't talked about confrontation) and probably the Chaos Grav-attack who's been waiting for sooooo long.

21 comments:

  1. Excellent painting, they look great. Might have to get distracted by a Chaos Squat project now :)

    I like the punk painting details you've added, the tartan and the 'no future' and anarchy symbol add that 1980's touch, as do the pastel brights colours.

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    1. Cheers Lee, I thought there would be no better occasion to make all my highlights with white and to paint such a colour nonsense so I used heavy clichés here. Glad you appreciate !
      I seem to remember you already had some chaos dwarves in thr tubes at some point didn't you ?

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    2. You're right, good to paint 1980's miniatures with a 1980's feel!

      Yes, I have a few Chaos Squats, but I hadn't really planned on doing anything with them. however, seeing these I might give the idea a second look.

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    3. Well those are totally 2015 sculpts but I guess it's all in the intent right ? ^^

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    4. LOL I meant 1980's style/inspired miniatures, in 1980's colours.
      They do look very nice, and with the new Max Max film out soon perhaps road warrior biker punk will back in? :)

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    5. I know, just teasing ^^

      Madmax, of course, that's something we'll have to care of (watching the film and making models inspired by it will be a start)

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  2. Great job JB! I really like the clever use of colours - the turquoise and pink really pop against the more muted black and mustard yellow. Very nice to see a different take on the dorfs :)

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    1. Believe me, this was a total fluke ! I knew I wanted bright colours like Colin does so I took out th epots but I was lost when I started, I stopped using some and switched to black and a neutral grey. It seems I stoped at the right time so I'll learn from that for potential others !

      Thanks !

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  3. You did a top job on these JB. Other than the more modern sharpness of style, they could be miniatures painted in the 80s. Its an interesting range, Im looking forward to painting mine all the more now.

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    1. Well, as I'm still not able to fully assume using bright colours, I thought I'd highlight them with white which kinda gave that oldschool look to them (the complete disregarding of any colour theory also being a major point).
      I believe your painting style would probably one to bring the best of those sculpts as like some older referencesn they require some contrasting to work (imho).

      Thanks a lot Paul.

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  4. Good job fella, good to see some of these painted up :) I love the No Future and Anarchy symbol so smooth and neat. Heh though now I have to make Fimm do a Cyber Piggy just to keep there lust under control.

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    1. Cheers Chico, glad you like them !
      Oh my, a cyber pig really ? Ew, that will be nasty ! Grand !
      I'll gladly add more when the time comes anyway, very nice concept you've come up with, guys !

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  5. Well done ! J'adore cette photo de famille de toutes époques, l'unité fonctionne et apporte une joyeuse diversité. Le soin que tu apportes à tes rendus de textures et motifs sont la cerise sur le gâteau. ;)

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    1. Merci ! Je t'avoue que n'avais pas pensé les mettre ensemble autrement que pour l'échelle mais c'est vrai qu'ils collent pas mal; en plus leur différence de taille rajoute un peu de charme je trouve, je suis toujours sidéré qu'il n'y ai pas plus de diversité ethnique ou morphologique dans les figurines fantastiques !

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  6. Nice cyber goat JB! There's not enough RT inspired farm animal's, but I suppose you can easily convert some toy one's?

    You've achieved a smooth pastel finish on the Dorf's, which suits them.

    Great work as always JB :)

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    1. Cheers ! I suppose you're right, we need more bionic hens and cyberpigs in our lives !
      The pastel finish seems to get people's fancy so I'll try to use a bit more in the future, it does look cool I agree and can offer some contrats with more flashy parts.

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  7. One of my favourite colour to paint being pink (je m'assume) I approve of the colour schemes, very cool. The "anarchy" logo is also a nice touch.

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    1. Nothing wrong with liking pink... I guess.

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    2. Pink to make the boys wink as the saying goes :)

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  8. They look gorgeous, the colour combination works perfectly and those lil buggers are really charming!!

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    1. Didn't know where I wanted to go with them but it turned out quite pleasantly ! I'm usually the "think before doing" kind of guy but this time I just started painting and it saved time and was fun !

      thanks a lot.

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