The Ghoul

Taking a break from piracy, I shortly went back to the original Talisman Project and did one more character, an all time favourite, the Ghoul:

The Master-At-Arms

Robert "Prince of Whales" Morfil had a career as a successful whaler until his crew sighted a pale whale of enormous proportions. The attempt to kill the beast ended badly, costing several crew members their lives and captain Morfil his right leg. Mutilated by the giant of the seas, Rob Morfil said "Sod this!" and retired to raise alligators with his brother and sister-in-law for the reptiles' hides and tasty tail meat.

The business was good, until one day, when Robert's brother, after sipping rum since breakfast as he was often prone do, fell into the alligator pen and was quickly devoured. After that, the farm didn't feel quite as homey, and when the pirate captain Red João's cook came by to stock up on alligator meat, Robert and his sister-in-law Elaine decided to sign up on João's crew.

Rob now holds the position of master-at-arms, charged with keeping the peace aboard the ship. He does this very effectively, throwing his considerable weight around as needed, as well as keeping his two pet alligators, Sebek and Nefernefer close by, which is usually quite enough for troublemakers to see the benefits of finding a peaceful solution to quarrels.

A giant of a pirate from Reaper by Gene van Horne. Very fun to paint because there was a lot of skin to put tattoos on. The reptiles are from Foundry's African animals range, so they are actually crocodiles, but don't tell them.

Tangentially inspired by: Moby-Dick

Another Mule

Mule number two, "Louie".

That's the pack animals done for the package train.

A Mule

Another beast of burden for the package train. She shall be called Bessy.

 

Sharpshooters

I've been on an hiatus being a bit busy lately. But I've got some painting done now and I'm back with the pirates!

A group of sharpshooters, messieurs Frederique Enriqueson, Armando Camisaroja, Wyllyam Whyte, Kristophus "El Grego" Grego and John Smith.

The Flight Of The Deathsquealer!

The eight and final of my space penguins is another heavily armoured warrior bird. Combined with one of the flying space swine the combination is just..just.. just press play and scroll down.

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Again, some WIP pics.

And finally, a group show that concludes My Penguin Project. But my love affair with Spelljammer is far from over. I am working on DMing a 2e AD&D Spelljammer campaign which will take up quite a lot of my hobby time, which hasn't been too plentiful lately anyway. But there might be some spillover into miniatures down that path..

The President

Dohwar higher up in the space penguin hierarchy have titles like manager and executive board member, with the president running a cartel of dohwar. These management level birds tend to have magical powers as demonstrated by this normally flightless feathery fellow levitating here.

And again some greenstuff-stage pics. This guy was the other sliding-on-their-bellies pose.

Stay tuned for the final, exciting episode of My Penguin Project, titled "The Flight Of The Deathsquealer!"

The Shadow Warrior

Rumours tell of a dohwar ship that made an emergency landing on the top of the hidden mountain of Hiketsuyama in the island nation of Wa on the world of Toril. There the beleagured space penguins found refuge in a temple of Chisaru, the goddess of stealth. There, under the guidance of the monks, the previously mercilessly mercantile birds found enlightenment and learned the ancient secrets of the temple.

Now these legendary birds, bound by a strict code of honor, are highly sought after for missions requiring their mastery of espionage, infiltration and hand-to-beak combat.

Pictured below is one of these shinobi-no-tori, leaping to attack with a sword in  their beak.

Some WIP pics. In the pack of 8 penguins there were two posed sliding on their bellies. After a bit of thinking about what to make of them, this was one of the possibilities that sprang to my mind.

The Freebooters

As with any race and species, there are always the misfits who don't follow the expectations in career choice. So too, the space penguin race of dohwar have their share of black sheep. (Or should that be white sheep? Polychrome sheep?) Here are two such individuals who, instead of trying to make a profit through trade have chosen the life of an adventurer and treasure hunter. This is evident in their adoption of clothes and equipment popular among spacefaring humans.

Some WIP shots in greenstuff.

Next time, the shadow warrior..

The Protector

The Monstrous Compendium describes the dohwar as being either businessmen (businessbirds), with higher hit die waddlers sometimes having wizardly or priestly powers, or protectors, professional soldiers clad in cumbersome armour, wielding lances and beak-held swords called "weega".

This is not the whole picture of space penguin career choices, as I shall demonstrate in upcoming posts. But this time, a winged, yet flightless warrior:

I scratched my head a bit in choosing the heraldic animal for the flag. I got to thinking that humans are fond of lions and bears, so a fierce, penguin-eating sea leopard seemed perfect.

Finally, a WIP shot of the green stuffed mini next to the original. There so much putty, I might as well have built the guy from scratch. But then I probably would have messed up the proportions.

Space Swine

What do entrepreneurial space penguins raise for livestock? Boars with pigeon wings of course. I had to do some them as well.

Wargames Foundry has a nice selection of wild life, including wild boars which I used.

So here we have a finished space sow and a space piglet flapping about:

A note on the bases: I felt that the subject matter of Weird Fantasy Space required some glowing crystals / odd space flora, so that's what the blue blobs are supposed to be.

The Dohwar

Space, the final frontier? Not in the Spelljammer setting. Beyond space there is the crystal shell surrounding the solar system, outside which is the swirling and glowing Phlogiston in which other Crystal Spheres containing suns and planets and weirder things float.

Going through my old RPG books I came across the AD&D Spelljammer stuff, a true fantasy space setting where anything resembling our laws of physics need not apply, thank you very much. I love the over the top weirdness of Spelljammer and the fact that it doesn't even try to be realistic in any sense. Anything big enough to fly at the speed of magic also generates an Earth-standard gravity field that brings along a bubble of air that lasts for months. That way your half-elf multi-class paladin-bard can walk on the deck of their pirate ship in space quite comfortably. Why? That's just the way the world is built. Just about any fantasy or sci-fi idea could be used in Spelljammer, with humans, elves, illithids, beholders and stranger things swashing their bucklers and flying around between planets in ships shaped like fish, octopuses (octopi?), butterflies or, well, ships.

Copyright TSR 1989, used without permission for educative purposes.

Among the spacefaring races there are the dohwar, a race of intelligence, telepathic penguin merchants. After seeing that Copplestone Castings provides penguins in their arctic adventures range, I just had to show the bird folk some love and start converting.

So, dear reader, if like me you have been saddened by the lack of trippy space penguin content in 28mm on the Blogosphere of today, you have surely come to the right place! For today I kick off the chronicles of:

(The penguin stands for "penguin".)

Antarctic avians after acquiring appropriate accoutrements.

Plutocratic penguin people painstakingly painted.

Scale shot of a synchronized sales speech.

Next up: Pigs will fly .. IN SPACE!