Pirate Ogre Fisherman, the Idea - Part 1 of 6

This is the penultimate pirate ogre I've made for my mate Ade (WargamingForFun) and one of my personal favourites. The idea for this particular model actually came from Ade when we were looking at his (Games Workshop) Ogre Kingdom army. I've already made several models on the pirate ogre theme but I still had a couple more ideas rattling around my brain.

Basic Ogre body
Front View

With this series of posts I hope to demonstrate the step-by-step progress of making, converting and painting a miniature ogre. Apparently the Games Workshop minimum (i.e. tournament standard) to paint and play with a miniature is to use three colours. However with just a bit more time and effort the paint job can be improved enormously using very simple and effective techniques. For instance the model detailed in these posts have, including the base, been painted with just eight basic colours. Hopefully it will also encourage a few more people to have a go at modifying their figures.

I'm not a great painter. I'd like to point out that this isn't false modesty or an attempt at fishing (no pun intended) for compliments. All the figures shown on this blog have been produced using the following relatively simple technique of the 'Block, Wash & Highlight' method (a.k.a. 'Main, Shade & Light'). Don't tell anyone but I actually find painting quite boring. So much so that I have a substantial lead (and plastic) mountain primed and just waiting to be painted. I'd much rather make, modify and scratch-build models and figures etc.

All the parts for this figure came from Ade's bountiful ogre spares box (a modeller's dream). If you need to know precisely what they are, please ask and I'll try and find out.

Once the figure has been cleaned up, mould lines removed etc. the figure was pinned to the base. The belly plate and helmet headpiece were chosen because they reminded me of the 'Tigris of Gaul' character from the 2000 film 'Gladiator' (the one fighting Russell Crowe when he nearly gets eaten by the tiger).

Basic Ogre body
Rear View

As this chap was supposed to be a fisher(man/ogre) I thought he needed to have a few fishy aspects about him. I removed the bones sticking out off the bag and replaced them with a fishtail. I had considered a fish head but, to be perfectly honest, thought tails would be easier to model. Later on I added another tail, mainly because I had left over greenstuff and I didn't want to waste it. Also note the bag still hasn't been glued into place at this stage, just fixed into position with Blu-Tac.

This is a how the bag looks normally

Originally the bag also has a rip with a skull poking through. I cut and sanded this off and smoothed the plastic with liquid poly cement (the type applied with the brush mounted in the cap).