Showcase: the Many Faces of the Urdaggar

As promised, this week's showcase is more Urdaggar!  Ever since their release, this has been one of the most wildly popular freebands for DGS's fantasy skirmish game Freeblades.  Just looking at the models its easy to see why, each has a ton of character and a great sense of motion that typifies the Urdaggar's strategy of lightning-swift attacks.  I already showed off the first batch of Urdaggar that I painted a few weeks ago for  the DGS studio commission.  Shortly after, I received another commission from their owner Jon C. to paint up another batch.  This time I got even more models (eleven instead of eight) and many of them were the same sculpt (three slingers, five unproven, etc.) instead of one of each.  Since there aren't any alternate sculpts out for any of the Urdaggar yet, I knew this would be a great opportunity to see how much variation I could build between models with a little bit of green stuff, some super glue, and paint.

Let's take a look!

This is a model we've seen before, the boar warrior.  I didn't dig out the green stuff for this guy to give him his own unique character, but instead I focused on what I could do with my paint palette   Since my first experience painting this model I've started to hit my stride with what I wanted concerning the Urdaggar's tattoos.  For those members who hail from the boar clans, I employ a lot of curving, flowing designs with loops and crescents that mimic the curved tusks of a boar.  Another improvement over the first paint that I did has been made to the banding found on a warrior's arms.  The banding is a concentric spiral that continues unbroken around the arm and terminates where it is closes off by a loop that meets an interior section of the band.  This way a warrior's bands can grow with their achievements over time by extending the the outer band line and add interior designs before terminating it into its self again.  You can see this well in the banding on the boar warrior's arm above. 

One of the best sculpts that allows a painter/sculptor a lot of room for variation is the slinger.  I received three in this commission and decided I would do three different hair styles: the classic sculpt, long hair, and what I call the "sexy comb-over."  Here is the long hair variant which I did with raven-black hair.

The slinger sculpt is excellent for modification because its hairdo is so short to begin with.  The simple addition of a bit of green stuff and voila, you have a battle maiden with a flowing mane!

This is the style I dubbed "sexy comb-over."  Yet again, another green stuff add, no filing or cutting necessary.  I also positioned her arm in a wildly different posture that before, to add even more variation amongst the slingers.  

I also did this slinger's hair red, like the studio paint, but had special intentions of getting it just right.  The paint I did before was a little off from a true red head and I wanted this one to be more on the mark.

The final slinger received no special hair treatment, and kept her stock doo.  For this one I turned her aiming hand more to the side and brought the sling up further in its arc to emulate a moment captured a split-second before the bullet's release.  She also got a subtle add, a mole (or beauty mark if you will) to her left upper cheek.

And there you have it, three of the same model, painted a converted to be slightly different, but adding a great deal of variation to the squad!

Another model that I received multiples of was the unproven.  Since the model is quite static (a cool pose nonetheless) I stuck to my paints to give a bit of variety to the five I received.  

Of course each unproven got different tattoos, but they also got something a little less obvious, different facial hair!

It's not super obvious because the hair is painted on, but if you look closely you'll notice that each model has the stock goatee, but some have slightly different additions...

Sideburns perhaps..

And my personal favorite, the Chester Alan Arthur! (plus goatee of course)

The final two sculpts I received were the hunter and night hunter.  I was really pleased with how the last hunter turned out, so I decided to keep with the same themes of lightning bolts and eagle talons for tattoos.

I felt much the same about the night hunter.  I really enjoyed painted her last time and relished the opportunity to do so again.

I loved the one-eye-shut concentration on her face.

And her skinny rib showing torso (I imagine the Urdaggar would sometimes be on the ragged edge between hunger and desperation).

I even gave her two quivers to load her foes with arrow shafts.

I love painting night hunters and the great flesh tone coloration you can get on them, each ab popping out and individual ribs protruding from a taught torso.  It's a great sculpt and fun to bring to life, but one detail escaped me.  She was supposed to be wearing full body camo.  On the bright side, you can see how that looks later in May!

That's it for this week and our second look at the Urdaggar and all the variation you can build within the range.  Come back next week to see what I'm working on here at the Monster Lab!

See you then!