Monday 5 October 2015

Rogue Quest Level Three : The Wizard


First of all, let me suggest a suitable soundtrack for this post with either a classic :



OR a suitably grim dark tune :




So here we are, already at the third level of the Rogue Quest ! After starting with my fighter for level 1 and after Jon/Axiom's barbarian for level 2 here is my entry for level 3 : The wizard !


The obvious way to represent a wizard in warhammer 40k is probably to use a psyker of any sort so I decided to pick one of the few I have. I'm lucky to have a good load of eldar psykers of all sorts but I have relatively few human psykers and the only one I had which looked heroic enough was this charming psyker from Bob Olley.
As you may know, I've become very fond of his models over the years for they often prove to be unexpectedly pleasant to paint. When I say unexpectedly, I mean I often struggle to understand what's what when it's unpainted but I usually discover the model as I paint. This makes the process very organic and enjoyable, something I've one-sidedly decided to call the "Bob Olley effect". I'm pretty sure most people who are not keen on his sculpts would change their minds the minute they actually paint one.

Since this model is meant to represent my wizard in cyber dungeon crawling stories, I wanted him to look a little different from the usual imperial psykers.

The wizard in a group is often stereotyped and amongst all the usually associated images, this kind of fellow was something I wanted to suggest in a discrete way :


Mighty and wise as Gandalf (perhaps the most evocative wizard with Merlin), that was something I could use. The model comes with very peculiar facial traits :
- The nose is almost inexistent
- The ears are different from one another (one is pointy à la Spock and the other human like...)
- the chin and cheeks are surrounded by a crest that doesn't look like how Bob usually sculpts beards so I suppose it's meant to represent mutations...
- The head is obviously enormous but that's the distinctive sign of psykers once they've reached a certain level it seems (though you don't see this on Marine psykers...)

I decided to ignore the first point to focus on the others. I painted the strange crest as a beard to echo the traditional wizard's beard and I gave him blue glowing eyes to contrast with the dark skin tone.

Wrinkles and more wrinkles, that's how I love my Olley! (just try and paint freehand on that cape now)

The rest of the painting was also an attempt at using different colours from my usual palette of blues, whites and reds. I wasn't sure about the orange/green combo but I wanted to try it anyway. To avoid it to be too painful for the eyes, I desaturated the green and kept the orange on a few parts only, leaving most of the model in shades of grey. A slight glaze of blue was thrown on the darkest grey to give it a bit more vibrance and to contrast with the warm orange. I think it worked quite well and I'll probably taint my blacks and greys in the future to add a little something when I can.
The colours do give him a sort of superhero (or supervillain) look but I quite fancy it !


I'm happy to finally have a psyker to oppose to my favourite witch hunting bounty hunters ! Now I have one third of the complete group, I should probably be thinking about the rules and scenery a little more...



For the time being, I invite you to wait for the 4th level of this little journey at Magpie and Old lead !

And if you don't have enough of Rogue Quest, you can follow Alex's Excellent Lead Balloony. It seems he was enthusiastic enough about our project to have a go at it himself !

Go check his blog and get 50% more Rogue Quest !



Next post, I'll come back on some of the models I painted for last WE's rogue trader game. I finished them just before the game and couldn't blog so you'll get to see them after they've actuall y had some action for once ! ;)

22 comments:

  1. Spot on JB! You've spurned the usual pale skin seen on most psykers, and painted something very striking instead.

    I love the contrast between beard / eyes and the flesh tone. The orange and green really is an unexpected set of colours, but looks fab :)

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    1. Cheers, I really wanted to use bright colours to make him pop but didn't want to turn him into a rainbow as the 2nd ed psykers !
      Using striking colours and lots of neighnouring grey areas was a little audacious but I think it turned out OK.

      Delete
  2. Sweet! Your renewed palette works strikingly good on this one, I like your take on the mini. You're gettig quite a colourful group!

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    1. Yeah, don't worry, I'll get back to my usual red and off white with blue !
      Joke aside I really like the colours on this one so I'll try to be daring a little more often in the future.

      Thanks !

      Delete
  3. Great music and a great read. I like your idea of sci-fi dungeon raiders

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    1. Glad you loved the music too, it's an important part of the process I find !

      Delete
  4. Wow! I absolutely love him! Nice to see a different take on this fig. His red details contrast so well with that excellent green cloak of his.

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    1. Cheers Edward, I think he looks a bit different from the fighter who is all weathered and dark but it does bring him more character which is what's needed for such a project I believe.

      Delete
  5. Nice work. The bright gloves and cape really give it an authentic Heroquest flavour.

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    1. Cool, I'm taking any sign of approval from those who like you know how to handle brighter colours !

      Delete
  6. Lovely job JB, I love the colour choice, and the skin tone is really cool - takes this classic in a whole new direction and manages to look cool and sinister at the same time! Love it :-)

    Thanks for the mention too dude, funny you went for the magic user, I'm working on my mage at the moment as well, though I've taken a somewhat different approach ;-)

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    1. Cool and sinister, I'm good with those. The sculpt could very easily lead to "funny" and I wanted to avoid that at all costs. I think he really looks serious but with his own sense of cool !
      I'm looking forward to your next post, different approaches is all I like so surprise us !

      Delete
  7. Gandalf and Merlin do have competition from the far future. I like the skin tone and the colors of the clothes. They do interact in a fine way to give your character a perfect adventurer look. Seems like he'll be a perfect mate for your fighter ! Oh and great choice with Bakshi's movie poster !

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  8. JB, that chap is a credit to you. Bob Olley sculpts just cry out for paint. I haven't touched a 40k figures in quite some time.

    I'm really looking forward to this dungeon rogue trader game - how are you planning on doing terrain?

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    1. I'm a bit torn for teh scenery, I could either use old tiles from Space Hulk/Space crusade or I could do them myself. The latter is far more probable but thereare different ways to do this so i'l be loking at the most cost-effective. I'm still investigating for now but the result of my thoughts will be presented to your judgement for sure.
      Thanks for the kind words and do treat yourself with an Olley, sometimes , there's nothing like a stand alone model just for a change to boost your motivation I find.

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  9. Echo everyone else on applauding the skin tone, I think this is the first black 40K psyker I've seen. It's sure to be the first of many. I have this guy and had never noticed the, "Beard", though the choice to do it wizard white was the right one. Really impressive.

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    1. Cheers, I find it's all about breaking the codes and using them at once with this group. I want the wizard to say "wizard" but I don't want to give a pointy hat to a 40k model or a bionic eye to a fantasy one to do so if you see what I mean.
      I'm really eager to see Jon's next entry and to work on the models I have left !

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  10. Those eyes are fantastic: very unsettling. Nice soundtrack too. I've actually only got the first two 'Wizard albums, although I know Dopethrone is supposed to be their best. Have you checked out Cough?

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    1. Cheers ! I quite like Dopethrone too yes. I've actually only known electric wizard for a couple of years (thanks to Matt Darrow) and have to check Cough now !

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  11. You've really outdone yourself, rarely do I see anything other than Caucasian skin (unless we're talking orcs and other beasties), his skin tone lends to the contrast between orange and green, the cape looks phenomenal as do his his eyes, you do great justice to bob olley.

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    1. I always consider giving some form of diversity to the models when the sculpt allows it, I suppose in the future, ethinicities will be blended even more than they are now. I'm really fond of how this one turned out in the end.
      Cheers !

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