Rumbling along

I've spent a fair bit of time working on my Empire-themed Ogres over the last week or more, and I'm making steady progress. I've constructed 3 Leadbelchers, and I've now built and painted an additional 4 Swordsmen (regular Ogres), which pushes the unit up to 7. My rough planning suggested I was around 15 models short at the start of this effort, so assuming that I end up using all these models, I'm almost halfway there.

My workbench as it currently stands. Some Ogres painted, and some in the early stages.

This was how the latest batch of conversions looked before undercoat. 2 Leadbelchers (including musician) and a standard for the Swordsmen.

This guy uses genuine Leadbelcher arms, which were just chopped and greenstuffed to work with the rest of the model.

This guy will be the unit musician. It turns out that horns are not the easiest thing to sculpt. I will need practice there. Fortunately my standards are very low. This guy holds a proper Empire Great Cannon barrel.

The Swordsmen standard bearer stole an old second-hand flag from my Empire bits pile. And he's got a Steam Tank exhaust pipe end for the icon on the top.

Here is is with some paint. 

As usual, I have deferred the painting of anything exciting like a picture on the banner. I'm aiming for tabletop-ready - nothing more.

None of these guys has much of anything going on at the back of the model. I tend to keep them simple.

I made a new "cleaver-style" sword to add a bit of variety to the unit as it grew. The first 3 guys I made over a year ago all have identical swords.

This guy is the unit champion. He's the first fully-armoured Ogre on foot that I've attempted. Bit rough, but it's clear what he's meant to be.

The head is meant to be the Ogre equivalent of the style of one of the old Voland's Venators models.

He's a bit battered about. I figure there is no point trying to clean up the finish on things like this. He's just battle-worn. He also got knocked off the painting table, onto a wooden floor. It's amazing he didn't break, really. 

I decided to give him a glowing sword to help make him stand out, and to break up the unrelenting amount of metal on the model.

He's stolen one of the little bannery things from the Steam Tank kit. Hopefully my Ironblaster driver doesn't mind.

I went for a different pose on this guy, to add some variety to the unit. Unfortunately he's one of the reasons the unit doesn't rank up all that well. But then, nobody can accuse me of having planned any of this super-well.

The first few Swordsmen I painted have entirely purple arms and legs. Not sure why I went that way, but this time I went for a halved scheme which is more like the proper Empire models they're meant to work alongside.

I had to carve back the moulded arm a fair bit to try to make it work in this pose. It's meant to be holding the weapon aloft, and looked too bulky when I rotated it like this.

The final addition to the Swordsman unit.

Clearly he is on the move. He's actually really hunched over. I'm not sure I really noticed that during assembly.

I need to work on cleaning up my style for painting white. It's barely adequate in real life, but looks atrocious in these photos.

One last shot of this guy from the other side. Might be nice to go back and put something on their shields one day. If I can also bear the thought of updating all the Empire Swordsmen they're meant to match...

The completed rank of Swordsmen. Including most of the command I need, except a musician who somehow missed the planning stage. Or maybe highlighted the need for a planning stage by being missed.

All 7 of the guys together. Looks like my purple finish has changed slightly over time. That's interesting. It's subtle enough that I'm not bothered about it.

Next up will probably be those Leadbelchers, and then I suspect I really need to knuckle down and finish off that Ironblaster.