Too Many Indians, Not Enough Orcs
In announcing my intention to have am orcs versus Bogavania battle I did over-estimate just how many orcs (54 mm) I have, about four units of infantry. Now I am making more but it is only going to add a few here and there so I'll be padding out that army with various mutants and two or four big beasties.
Which brings me to American Indians. I have squillians and I love them but I have more than I need for their original purpose so every now and then some get hauled out and turned into ancients, Aztecs or Martians. And occasionally, orcs.
There is a significant variation on depictions of orc shape and colour. The Lord of the Rings seem to be a grey- brown or sickly greenish pink flesh colour. Warhammer orcs tend to be green, As for stature, the Lord of the Rings ones have a quite human stature, which is handy when actors are putting on their makeup and no-one has to bend their spines or rearrange the position of their heads. (The same thing happened in Planet of the Apes - the apes looked more like hominids). The Warhammer orcs, by contrast, have gorilla like features with squat necks sticking out at very un-human angles, short bandy legs and immense, hugely muscled arms. I like the Warhammer version, not least because I have painted many hundreds of these 28mm scale figures.
My 1/32 scale orcs include orcs from Russia which are more in the Warhammer proportions. Others are conversions from all sorts of things but the easiest have just been head changes on knights and American Indians. The orcs tend to be not as thoroughly armoured as knights so I delved into the Indians. I prefer some chunky ones. Among my mass acquisitions are a number of Crescent and Lone Star figures in various states of scuffiness and lost weapons. Sometimes I 'restore' them but they are cheaply aquired and plentiful so sometimes I make them into something entirely different. Of course, these orcs will have human proportions, but, well, they are just another variety of orc.
What does unite my orcs, so far, is that they have green skin. It is their distinctive signature.
Left to right: 1/ 28mm scale troll or similar, a hard plastic clip together one from a game, possibly old Games Workshop. The figure is bigger than 28mm due to its species but still a midget at 1/32 so he would be a dwarf orc! 2/ A 60mm barbarian fantasy figure with head from a troll from the previously mentioned set and DSG medieval club. 3? Cresent Indian with DSG mace, Eureka Miniatures head, fringe cut from leggings and details carved from shield. 3/ Hong Kong copy of Britains Detail Saracen rider given a Eureka head. He will be riding a squigoth. 4/ Warhammer ogre with hand held cannon. He has had his shoes sawed off and re-attached with copper wire; I have to pad out the wire to make new legs (I got this idea from converter, writer and wargamer, Mike Blake). 5? This is my favourite. I used a Chinese copy of a Jean Indian which had previously seen a lot of wargames as someone had even written on his base that he was Arapaho and gave him a name. I carved off the fringe from the legs and attached with pinning and Araldite glue the top half of a fantasy figure. This latter had pathetic little legs you can see in the foreground. I think he might have been a Hero click figure which is a smaller scale but which includes larger figures that are bulkier than humans. He also had nice little horns which I still cut off as orcs are not known for such things. Now he has DSG shield and double headed axe. I like the look of these double headed axes, although in reality they would have been ridiculously unweildly and impractical.
The left over bits will go back to the spares boxes for a rainy day. (A landscaper friend of mine used to call me 'The Doc' after Doctor Frankenstein! I hope you are reading this Dave.
The camera ran out of battery before I could take more pictures but I'll update when I have made more progress.
By the way, after about fifteen years I have just about used up my supply of card sheets I used for cutting into bases. I bought 100 or so of card sheets with chess designs, probably meant to be cut out. I would have got 100 or so bases from each sheet. You can see the orange and purple coloured chess men on the bases. They were not my only source of bases so in 15 years 10,000 figures. I just recalculated that, no it couldn't have been that many, quite. The horse bases took up twice the space. Whatever, it was a Hell of a lot of figures. So now I need a new source of card.
Which brings me to American Indians. I have squillians and I love them but I have more than I need for their original purpose so every now and then some get hauled out and turned into ancients, Aztecs or Martians. And occasionally, orcs.
There is a significant variation on depictions of orc shape and colour. The Lord of the Rings seem to be a grey- brown or sickly greenish pink flesh colour. Warhammer orcs tend to be green, As for stature, the Lord of the Rings ones have a quite human stature, which is handy when actors are putting on their makeup and no-one has to bend their spines or rearrange the position of their heads. (The same thing happened in Planet of the Apes - the apes looked more like hominids). The Warhammer orcs, by contrast, have gorilla like features with squat necks sticking out at very un-human angles, short bandy legs and immense, hugely muscled arms. I like the Warhammer version, not least because I have painted many hundreds of these 28mm scale figures.
My 1/32 scale orcs include orcs from Russia which are more in the Warhammer proportions. Others are conversions from all sorts of things but the easiest have just been head changes on knights and American Indians. The orcs tend to be not as thoroughly armoured as knights so I delved into the Indians. I prefer some chunky ones. Among my mass acquisitions are a number of Crescent and Lone Star figures in various states of scuffiness and lost weapons. Sometimes I 'restore' them but they are cheaply aquired and plentiful so sometimes I make them into something entirely different. Of course, these orcs will have human proportions, but, well, they are just another variety of orc.
What does unite my orcs, so far, is that they have green skin. It is their distinctive signature.
Left to right: 1/ 28mm scale troll or similar, a hard plastic clip together one from a game, possibly old Games Workshop. The figure is bigger than 28mm due to its species but still a midget at 1/32 so he would be a dwarf orc! 2/ A 60mm barbarian fantasy figure with head from a troll from the previously mentioned set and DSG medieval club. 3? Cresent Indian with DSG mace, Eureka Miniatures head, fringe cut from leggings and details carved from shield. 3/ Hong Kong copy of Britains Detail Saracen rider given a Eureka head. He will be riding a squigoth. 4/ Warhammer ogre with hand held cannon. He has had his shoes sawed off and re-attached with copper wire; I have to pad out the wire to make new legs (I got this idea from converter, writer and wargamer, Mike Blake). 5? This is my favourite. I used a Chinese copy of a Jean Indian which had previously seen a lot of wargames as someone had even written on his base that he was Arapaho and gave him a name. I carved off the fringe from the legs and attached with pinning and Araldite glue the top half of a fantasy figure. This latter had pathetic little legs you can see in the foreground. I think he might have been a Hero click figure which is a smaller scale but which includes larger figures that are bulkier than humans. He also had nice little horns which I still cut off as orcs are not known for such things. Now he has DSG shield and double headed axe. I like the look of these double headed axes, although in reality they would have been ridiculously unweildly and impractical.
The left over bits will go back to the spares boxes for a rainy day. (A landscaper friend of mine used to call me 'The Doc' after Doctor Frankenstein! I hope you are reading this Dave.
By the way, after about fifteen years I have just about used up my supply of card sheets I used for cutting into bases. I bought 100 or so of card sheets with chess designs, probably meant to be cut out. I would have got 100 or so bases from each sheet. You can see the orange and purple coloured chess men on the bases. They were not my only source of bases so in 15 years 10,000 figures. I just recalculated that, no it couldn't have been that many, quite. The horse bases took up twice the space. Whatever, it was a Hell of a lot of figures. So now I need a new source of card.
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