Wee Free Men

“Crivens! Where are we noo?” Said Daft Wullie. “Aye, and why’re we all lookin’ like yellow mushrooms?” Rob Anybody added.  Tiffany looked down, and giggled. Every pictsie was wearing a Jolly Sailor outfit, with an oilskin coat and a huge yellow oilskin rain hat that covered most of their faces. They started to wander about, bumping into one another. (pg. 255)

The army list has an option for a named horde called Grogger’s Lugg Lads. They have slightly better stats but they perfectly fit the idea of more feegles but a little different from the rest.

This was a base I procrastinated on quite a lot. I have limited experience in the sculpting side of our hobby and this is where I really start to move into the parts of the project that intimidate me.

First thing was to find some reference images. Google provided a good few but between starting this research and actually starting the sculpting, I’ve picked up the Illustrated Wee Free Men. I didn’t know this book existed until I found a solitary copy in the library catalogue when I was working on a display for the Glorious 25th. As soon as I flicked through it I knew I was going to have to get a copy for my own bookcase. It’s been out of print for twenty odd years at this point so rather than the wee £15 price it cost new, the cheapest one I could find was £40. So I’m not done spending money on silly things for this army. 

It arrived in near mint condition and finding the chapter called The Lighthouse, I was greeted by this wonderful image

When I ordered the feegles, sorry, dwarf warriors from Magister there were in fact three other sculpts. They all had helmets on them, visible chain mail or other bits that didn’t work for my army. I cleaned them up and put them in a box for when I got to this part. 

• Green stuff was the weapon of choice, a couple of sculpting tools, some Vaseline for lubricant and several long podcasts to deal with the tedium. I had tested how many fit on the horde base and then separated them into their three different sculpts. I thought I would switch between them to keep things fresh but I actually found it better to just work through each type completely before moving on to the next. 
• Everyone got a hat that mostly covered their eyes and had a wee rim so it didn’t look entirely like a blob of green stuff shoved on.
• Bulking out the bodies to make it look like a formless Sou’wester wasn’t too difficult and each got a little line down the front and some button holes just to make them look less flat. A case of not being accurate but being the kind of thing your brain expects to see so hopefully won’t be too bothered by.
• Annoyingly two of the sculpts had bare arms which were a pain to cover but it made them look much better to do it
• After curing overnight, everyone got a wash to get rid of the Vaseline residue, glued to tongue depressors and then primed the same as the other have been to date; black from a spray can and then a heavy dry brush of white
• I painted the skin, weapons and any hair first before going round and touching up with white
• Yellow Contrast paint was applied liberally. I don’t love the finished result from this stage but the idea of going through and layering multiple thin coats of a traditional yellow acrylic convinces me they look fine!
• Then basing like the other footprints and here we have it, a horde of Jolly Sailors

Overall, I’m happy with how they turned out. Much as with Horace, they won’t every win awards for sculpting but they look enough like what they are meant to. With these done, the last of the multibased units is done, now we’re on to monsters and heroes.