St. George and the Dragon

It was a matter of pure coincidence, but I was looking for some other stuff over the net and I eventually found this:

 Oh, you can see how I had no option but to get it, right? It belongs to Reconquer Designs ranges, which have quite pretty interesting medieval stuff, mostly focused in Reconquista, but with some other generic models.

In fact I found it on my local shop's web, which has a 3D printing service, and it made the whole thing much easier. When I got the actual model I couldn't be more pleased. Absolutely delightful and just right like the pic above. The details are stunning and everything was lovely. So I couln't wait to throw some paint on it!

This is technically a Wyvern, but it will do

I thought of doing the dragon red, but in the end I went for a more classic green. In fact I gave it the same treatment as the Orc Warlord on Wyvern from a few weeks ago. I made some research on St. George and the Dragon representations in art through history and there are a lot of different interpretations and readings of both the knight and the beast. However, I think this is the first time I see St. George in this Norman style.

To be fitted later!

Apparently St. George was a Roman officer of Cappadocian Greek ascendance, a Praetorian to Diocletian, and who was sentenced to death for not abjuring his Christian faith. Wikipedia assists me by stating that the Diocletian Persecution of 303 was especifically aimed at Christians within the ranks of the professional soldiers of the Roman Army, and hence when George was caught. He was beheaded at Nicomedia on 23 April 303. So the tradition says.

It seems that the cult to St. George became popular in the following centuries. But what about the dragon? The legend doesn't come up until the 11th century, spreading through Europe during the 12th century.

Yeah, that guy is nothing without me!

 

(By the way, do you see that hole on the dragon's neck? It's designed so the spear can go through it when the model is assembled. Seriously top notch design work!)

Once upon a time... It is said that a dragon built its nest on a natural spring nearby the town of Silene, Lybia, and that the people gave two sheep each day to the beast so they could get water. But at some point there were no sheep enough, so they started to give the dragon human sacrifices, on a raffle basis. The system worked until one day the King's daughter was chosen. Only then people seemed to have a problem with the whole thing (Hello?? No one is making any kind of social criticism here? Ahem. Never mind...). Long story short, George faces the dragon, kills it and the citizens of the town became Christians. Woohooo.

Well, there are way better sources for the story than this blog. Go make some research.

Going back to the model, I had this little frame at home, and I thought it was perfect for this occasion:

Come on, dragon, go home, you're drunk

Some DAS putty to make it more 3D

I had some doubts when it came to painting St. George. There are as many representations as artists, I'd dare to say, so I didn't feel bound by specific colours. I couldn't make his clothes white, as that was the colour of the horse. I thought of green, but it was all too green alongside the dragon.

Besides, I'm getting a Rohirrim vibe here

So this was my final take:

It took me some time to get to this solution

In the meantime, I moved forward with the base:

Barren desert. But the dragon's lair was supposed to be close to a spring

So some vegetation is required

I took my chances with the black edge on the base, I thought it would look better this way, instead of using the whole base as part of the vignette, with land and grass.

This is the final result:

St. George seems to be quite popular all over Europe, being the patron of many countries and regions, revered from East to West, from Russia to England, spanning Ukraine, Hungary, much of the Mediterranean.. and outside that, even Ethiopia! As I googled him to write this post, I discover that Muslims also consider George as a prophetic figure in Islamic sources. I'm happy to display someone who brings together so many different people. We have too few of those.

Something old, something new, something red

Misleading title, I admit it ;)

Long story short, I've used my Secundaris Space Marines Method to build some Blood Angels. Let's get the pic first and the long, boring text later:

Why did I choose to do that, so suddenly? It's quite unexpected, isn't it? OK, a (not so) little digression...

My younger, who quite recently just turned 5, has been fiddling/toying/playing with my miniatures for some quite time now. He gets them from the shelves or drawers and just pew-pews with them or makes his own story, whatever. You know this kind of stuff, we all have done it. Needless to say, quite a significant number of minis end up on the workbench again for... extensive repairings. I don't really care. I believe it's more important that the kids enjoy and get familiar with dad's toys. I only keep the most fragile models away from them.

The thing is that he's been playing with my Carcharodons, making them fight against almost anything else around. All kind of beasts, space lizards or whatever. So it's all I like these knights, pew pew. A few weeks ago he plainly asked me if I could make some knights like those for him, but in red. That's important, as it's his favourite colour. He was tired of using those boring, dark grey space knights.

So I got this unexpected commission, one I could never refuse! These were the essential guidelines:

1. They had to be red. My first idea was not to do a mainstream Chapter (spoiler: I changed my mind later), I thought it would be nice to do a different thing, something more characterful. Well, of course I couldn't do something as vanilla as, let's say Genesis Chapter. What kind of dad does that to their own child. In the future it would be something like "-Hey, how did your old man got you into Warhammer?" "-He painted me some Genesis Chapter Marines" "-Uuuuugg". Ahem. I seriously considered the Exorcists, as I've done other Chapters involved in the Badab War in the past. In fact I even started painting them with this idea in mind, as you'll see later. However, this involved the future problem of explaining to my kid the weird stuff surrounding this Chapter, such as daemonic possessions, the Puritans vs the Radicals within the Inquisition... the Inquisition itself... well, you know. Anyway, while I was on the early stages, he saw a pic on my computer of Blood Angels and he asked "-Are those my red knights?" "-Well, son, not particularly these, but..." "-But I like these. I want these." "-Ooookay". No more questions, your Honor. Blood Angels it is. In fact I honestly think that in the end it was the right choice. If he's ever to play WH40K on his own in the future I guess it's better to start with something better known, such as this Chapter. Blood Angels then!
2. They had to be, I wouldn't dare to say sturdy, but at least a little bit resistant. Their primary use is not precisely going to be on a gaming board by adults, but by a 5 y/o. For that reason I didn't even consider metal miniatures. It needed them to be plastic, and with the least possible number of pieces involved. I had a few spare Primaris Marines on their sprues, so they seemed like the obvious choice.
3. Once I was on this course of action, I wanted visual coherence with my other stuff, i.e., my realscale Carcharodons. Please be aware that all this stupid fanfic from 10th Edition, such as the Primaris Marines, the resurrected Primarchs and other nonsense simply doesn't exist in the Suberverse. Don't even bother to mention it. I have large, towering Space Marines, and that's it. That's why I used regular Space Marines helmets. But, as said above, I wouldn't dare to make just but the minimal, essential conversions. I don't want a hundred pieces all over everyday.
4. I can't believe you just read all that. Let's see the pictures!

Raw Materials

You can see that I originally intended to add a Captain, but in the end I dropped it out of the project. It could make sense as an Exorcist Space Marine Captain, but not that much as a Blood Angels Captain.

I even started to paint it!

I'm not a fan of the new large bolters, but I can live with them. I shortened them for my Carcharodons, but I kept them for these Marines, as I feared little broken bits all over the place. However, I shortened the plasma gun, that was too much for me!

I hadn't painted this amount of red in quite some time!

Both my kids helped in the early stages with the base colour. It was one of their first contacts with the brushes and we worked on some of the basics, it was a pretty cool experience :)

As Old School as I could get them

 I went for a Second Edition aesthetics (well of course!), and I must confess that I thoroughly enjoyed the process. The vibrant red, the breast plate eagles in yellow, that kind of stuff... ohh, I felt like thirty years ago, in the middle of the Red Era. This was the kind of work I would have liked to do then but lacked the skills to achieve, so I can say that these five Space Marines have been a total second chance for me!

Here you have them, one by one.

The mohawk helped with the oldschool vibe

As I see this pic now I notice I haven't finished the checkers on the kneepad! :O

I didn't think of the Croatian Marine until I had it finished

The bolter and pistol pose is quite Second Edition too

It can't be retro if you don't use a beakie head

I'm displeased with the decals. I only used the Blood Angels symbol on the left shoulderpads, but I think it won't be that long until I tear them apart and paint them. For now, here you have the final result:

The best thing of all this is that my kid is happy with his new red warriors, and that's invaluable for me.

Oh, but now the elder brother (8), has just asked if he could also get some minis for him! I've proudly answered that for sure, what would you like, kiddo? And I didn't expect the answer... Marvel Superheroes minis. Wow.

Well, I guess I'm looking for the Crisis Protocol stuff now...