Cap'n Ogre Avery - Champion (Crusher), Part 2 of 5

Modifications: Naval style headwear, musket, telescope and parrot.

In order to make this ogre champion stand out I decided to give him a distinguishing head piece. Familiar to anyone who's watched a period British navy film the distinct bicorn hat was made first by giving the figure a basic skull cap made from greenstuff. Once this was cured I made the two halves of the hat by simply making a flat circular disk, dividing it into two equal parts; then moulding it around the skull cap at a jaunty angle. Well he is a pirate champion after all. As a finishing touch, I added a cockade and ribbon.

The musket was taken from the Warhammer Empire Militia set. The hands and arm were removed, then cut and shunted onto the right hand ogre part which was itself a standard piece holding the club (from the ogre box set); the top and bottom parts of the club being simply cut away.

The telescope was from a handful of spares that I 'borrowed' from Ade taken from, I believe, another ogre set. I removed a section of the telescope's barrel and did a 'cut and shunt' job with a spare left ogre hand part. 

"This parrot was deceased." (apologies to any Monty Python fans)

 The idea for the parrot came very late; I was literally ready to prime all the figures when I saw in a Sunday newspaper a picture of Eddie Izzard starring in a television version of Treasure Island. Sitting on his shoulder was a beautiful multi-coloured parrot. Ping, light bulb moment! All pirate themed ogres should have at least one dodgy looking bird crew member.

I initially contemplated making a bird from scratch but being a lazy bugger I wondered if I could utilise something else. In the dark, dim recesses of my mind I recalled seeing some type of bird being supplied with a set of Games Workshop figures. It took a while to remember where this was but it finally dawned on me. It was in the Warhammer Empire Archers set. However once I'd located the box and had a look, the bird wasn't a hawk or a similarly suitable model, it was a dead pheasant being held aloft by one of the archers, pierced by an arrow. Fudge cakes!

After a deep breath I carefully removed the archer's hand and arm, the arrow and the legs. Feathers were cut back into the plastic using a scribe and a scalpel. The head wasn't in the correct position so I chopped it off, cut the neck at an angle and repositioned it in a more natural looking position. However it still looked like a pheasant. So out came the greenstuff and I tried to bulk out the head and neck. The greenstuff would also help secure the head onto the body. I'm not entirely happy with the final result (I personally think it still looks like a deceased pheasant) but it's close enough.

Dirty Bird

The parrot's legs were replaced with two pieces of brass rod. I used these to pin the parrot into the ogre's shoulder. Once fixed in place, I used greenstuff to fill in any gaps and created claws from thin rolls of greenstuff. All this helped to secure the parrot on to the model.