Wee Free Men

A shadow passed overhead. A buzzard was diving down from the sky towards the Nac Mac Feegle… The bird curved up at the bottom of its dive and as it climbed again a dot dropped from it. As it fell it seemed to grow two wings and start to spin like a sycamore bract, which slowed down the fall somewhat. It was a pictsie, still spinning madly when he hit the turf a few feet away, where he fell over. He got up, swearing loudly, and fell over again. The swearing continued. (Pg 112)

Morag and Hamish were one of the first elements that slipped into place when I was thinking about the army. The goblin list provided the perfect proxy in the Winggit.

Morag is a common buzzard but funnily enough there isn’t a big call for buzzard models. Thankfully in a past life I worked in retail and knew that the wide world of plastic animals would be my friend here. 

The size and pose would be the important things to get as close to scale as I could. After some failed attempts, I managed to find this:

• One of the nekkid feegles was chosen to be Hamish mostly because of the pose of his legs. Drilling his wee hands for the rope was a pain in the buzzard.
• The rope was made by winding thin florists wire in a drill. I could have done with making it a little tighter as I didn’t realise how much bending it to fit would begin to separate the threads again but overall, it is an excellent trick to get scale rope quickly.
• At the very end of the book, Hamish adopts a parachute made out of Tiffany’s underwear which were sculpted out of a green stuff/Milliput mix. I needed a little superglue to get them to stick to the toy plastic.
• Painting was a mix of Contrast paints and normal acrylics. Again the goal was the idea of the thing rather than an exact copy so while I used reference photos, including for the rosebud pattern fabric, I wasn’t slavish about it.
• The flight stand is 3mm clear acrylic rod from eBay. It is long enough to go right through the foam on the base to go through the mdf biscuit at the bottom. 

Looking back on the original model, I realise I’ve basically painted it the same as it originally was but hey-ho, she’s a buzzard now.

“I’m a toad, actually,” said the creature, which had been peering at Tiffany from between the paper flowers. “You’re very yellow for a toad.” “I’ve been a bit ill,” said the toad. “!And you talk,” said Tiffany. “You only have my word for it,” said the toad, disappearing into the paper flowers. “You can’t prove anything.” (Pg 32)

Several years ago, Trent from Miscast made a plague toad. It was cute but Plague Toad was its name. Last year a lovely lady who goes by Nerdygirlsdoitbetter made some available for sale in the UK. Knowing I was working on this army and given the inspiration from Trent in digging in and getting it done, it would have been rude not to pick one up. 

The toad also comes with a license to recast and modify it however you want. A plague of toads can be yours. I’ve never moulded and cast anything bigger than a bit of blue stuff and a leg or a head. It does feel in the spirit of the project to give it a try though so here we go…

Required:

1. Two part silicone mix from Amazon, with good reviews from other beginners
2. Plastic cups to mix in
3. A way to contain the mould; options include Lego, foam core, plastic cups. Anything basically that you can fit around the model and pour the silicone into 
4. A test model cos there’s no way I’m doing my first try on the £30 resin toad. In this case I used some terrain pieces I wanted more of for Legions Imperialis.
5. Patience… this might be the hardest thing to come by 
6. It went very well in terms of the mould making. So much so that I went straight into the toad shortly after. Perfect mould for a toad now are belong to me.

My main issue has actually been the resin I was using for the casts themselves. It is a bit old and not really suited for the purpose. It has a lot of bubbles which aren’t present in the mould. After two attempts, I’ve decided to just work with one of them for now. Getting good resin casts can wait until much further down the line (if ever, let’s be honest).

Painting was dabbling with wet blending normal acrylic model paints to look a mottled toad skin. Other than being a bit more yellow, he is just a toad. That can talk. And knows legalese.

“What happened to the toad?” Said Miss Tick, who did ask questions. “It’s gone to live with the Wee Free Men,” said Tiffany. “It turned out it used to be a lawyer.” “You’ve given a clan of the Nac Mac Feegle their own lawyer?” Said Mrs Ogg. “That’ll make the world tremble. Still, I always say the occasional tremble does you good.” (Pg 307)

The army needed some more named characters to really feel like the Chalk clan to me. A bit of a shorter (with no quotes) post for this one – I’m running up against my deadline for the project of next Wednesday and I really want to get to that finish line!

Described as being tall for a feegle (7 inches!), finding a 25mm model that would work was pretty quick work. I ordered three from this website because the photos were awful and the models only £1.20 each. This guy won in the end and was painted to match the rest of the army.

Named for the worst poet the world, or certainly Scotland, has ever seen. William the Gonnagle is the musician in the army. Except instead of inspiring his side, he plays dirges on the mousepipes so terrible that they dishearten the opposition. The original army list doesn’t have musicians but if that doesn’t scream goblin wizard, I don’t know what does.

The model itself is one of the sculpts used for the Jolly Sailors. Repositioning the arms wasn’t possible but a bit of green stuff, some floral wire and a lot of swearing and we have an approximation of bagpipes made from a mouse. Or maybe we don’t. Either way, I’m not going near that thing again.

Rob is the big man of the clan. The chief. The one who can write, sort of. He’s also the only nod to 3D printing in the army. He is a free stl from here. I felt he needed to look different from the rest of the army but none of the command options I’d got worked. This stl had a kilt, a bit two handed weapon and wasn’t wearing armour, he’ll do.

And with that, everything in the army is done except the part that has scared me the most. Tiffany. Better to do a thing than live with the fear of it, right?

This is Tiffany, walking back home. Start with the boots. They are big and heavy boots, much repaired by her father and they’d belonged to various sisters before her; she wore several pairs of socks to keep them on. They are big. Tiffany sometimes feels she is nothing more than a way of moving boots around. Then there is the dress. It has been owned by many sisters before her and has been taken up, taken out, taken down and taken in by her mother so many times that it really ought to have been taken away. But Tiffany rather likes it. It comes down to her ankles and, whatever colour it has been to start with, is now a milky blue which is, incidentally, exactly the same colour as the butterflies skittering beside the path. Then there is Tiffany’s face. Light pink, with brown eyes and brown hair. Nothing special. Her head might strike anyone watching – in a sauce of black water, for example – as being just slightly too big for the rest of her, but perhaps she’d grow into it. (Pg14-15)

The starting point for the whole army became the final piece to finish it. Not out of some sense of deliberate planning, storytelling or the conceit of a finale. 

She is the final piece because she is the one I have been most scared of messing up. If you mess up a Feegle, no one will really notice, especially not when they are 17mm high. But a human that is 170mm tall? There are fewer places to hide.

The base model has been this beaten up Mantic Giant that I got second hand several years ago for a tenner off eBay. Way back in the first or second post in this project, I showed how the whole army is scaled to this one model. Obviously to make it look like a nine year old girl was going to take some effort.

I started with a simple, albeit time consuming, task which was taking off excess details and smoothing out the model for the green stuff to go down.

I’d hoped that working through the sculpting over the rest of the army would build a confidence for this one but did it? I guess in terms of playing around with different sculpting materials and tools. I don’t think I’d say I came in feeling super confident though. 

With that in mind, I realised I needed to focus less on the whole. How do you eat an elephant? One clompy old boot at a time.

This was the point that my supply of green stuff ended. I don’t know why I thought a single 12” strip would be enough given how big the model is and the sheer amount of work needing done. An overnight order from our Bezosian overlords was in a necessity as none of my usual hobby shops had any in stock.

With new green stuff clutched in my sweaty little hand and the UKGE coverage to keep me entertained, it was time to crack into day two.

I finished the dress, gave her an apron and then worked on some details. Working on such a big model with so much green stuff, one of the biggest challenges is not squishing the parts I’ve just finished. The whole thing is going to need some work to get rid of cured in fingerprints but that is a future me problem.

Next up it was time to start on her frying pan. To help with the strength of it, I trimmed down the existing weapon but kept most of it as the backbone. The first attempt was far too big once I held it up to the rest of the model so I ripped it out and started over. I was working with a circle drawn on paper and put under some clear plastic so I could have a rough template. This is where I stopped for the night to allow my work to cure and to think about the arms.

The arms were going to differ from the reference art because I had realised early on in cutting off the extra details that I would struggle to get them to look like normal bare arms. Full sleeves it was then and the best way to do those would be to attach the arms first. Super glue and a power drill for the pins was an excellent start to a Sunday morning.

Over the course of the final day of UKGE coverage, I managed to get the arms done while being tempted into Battletech by John and the chat. Not spending money is hard when the entire community are enablers.

The head was the final piece of the model and the one I hummed and ha-ed over the most.

Should I just try sculpting one from scratch and making it as much like the art as I could? 

Probably yes, I should.

Did I?

No.

I decided from some unknown reason to greenstuff over the existing heads (yes, both of them) to see if I could make one that I didn’t hate. I think it looks funny (as in haha) but I’m not sure it’ll be right in the final army. I have a feeling that I need a bit of distance from the project to really get a grasp on how much I like it though. If needs be in the future I can always pry it off and start again but that won’t be before the end of the Spring Clean Challenge.

I now have three days to paint her up. Oh, and prepare for my first trip out of the country in nearly seven years… but mostly painting a giant.

I have a feeling that I need a bit of distance from the project to really get a grasp on how much I like it though. – Me, last post

It took less than 14 hours and only the distance of making to my bed for sleep to hit home much I hated the head. I’ve spent years picturing and hundreds of hours working on this army, to leave that monstrosity at its front? I don’t think so.

I left it on for priming and while I painted the body up as a useful finger rest. Then it was off with her head!

I picked up some Sculpey to make a replacement because it is easier to work with. It is 36 hours until I leave the country for ten days so let’s not expect miracles. However with the just the head to do, it should be possible to finish the whole thing in the few evenings after I get back.

One ten day holiday later and with only two nights to work on the head before the Spring Clean Challenge ends, it’s time to get cracking. After my last post, Scribbs suggested finding a doll’s head to act as a base for Tiff. I struggled to find one in a charity shop however I mentioned it to a friend with a child-thing. She gave me a small Barbie that wouldn’t be missed.

I forgot to take photos of the start of the process but all her hair was cut and burnt off her hair. I primed it to get a better idea of how the face might look. At this point I wasn’t sure I liked it. So I tried doing my own with the Sculpey. That lasted an hour and then I came back, grovelling to get to use the bald Barbie.

Some green stuffed hair and eyebrows later and she looks not too bad. I blutac-ed the head into the body after putting some Vaseline down the back – the idea was to let the green stuff dry lying in place to the hair would sit properly but not stick to the existing paint job. I’m turning into my own worst enemy at this point chasing a perfection I’m not currently capable of doing. I’ve never done any sculpting before this project and the idea that I was going to manage a reasonable human face was always overly ambitious. In the spirit of “done, not perfect” the doll’s head is fine.

Leaving the green stuff to dry overnight, an early morning prime and paint before work. The eyes are… disturbing and I need to go in and do a little gap filling on the neck but on the 19th of June, at 10.09 am I can officially call her (and the army) finished.

Nearly seven years ago, I reread the Wee Free Men and a germ of an idea began. I’ve spent hundreds of hours thinking about this army; planning, researching and problem solving. I took a week or so to buy the first model. I took several more years to buy the rest. I’ve been giddy to get it started and terrified to get it done. 

Could it possibly live up to the vision in my head?

Absolutely. It might not be exactly as I saw it all those years ago but dear goodness, it might be better. It is something that I’m immensely proud of. I knew it would spend most of its life in the glass cabinet and walking past it every day on the way to the kitchen, I smile every time despite its imperfections. I probably won’t ever put this much of myself into an army again but the emotions that finishing it have brought is a wonderful reminder that this hobby is very special. 

I hope you’ve enjoyed watching the army progress. The chat both in the comments here and on the UHH about it have been great motivators to keep going; reassurance that I’m not the only dork who thought this was a fun idea. 

The Chalk Clan go into battle for the first time on the 30th of June but that’s a story for another time. For right now, this is a completed project. All hail the joy of the Spring Clean Challenge.

The club closest to my flat meet every Thursday evening but they also have a longer gaming session every second Sunday. Woodstock and I arranged to have a 1500 point game this past weekend; her beautiful ogres vs the wee free men.

The lighting was terrible and my memory is garbage but I promised photos so here you have it. We rolled the Plunder scenario so there were five objectives down the centre line worth 2, 2, 1, 1, 1 points.

There wasn’t a lot of LOS blocking terrain but there doesn’t need to be in this match up – the feegles have no ranged other than Morag and the ogres only have a 12″ range in their current list. First turn movement was massive – the ogres with their 6″ move could get to objectives with a double move while the feegles look on enviously, at a distance.

Now, even for elite goblins, these goblins are squishy lads. The Jolly Sailors really didn’t stand a chance being charged by four units before they got to roll a single attack. Once they were removed, Rob, being the Big Man of the Clan, took on the giant by himself. This flank was abandoned largely at this point.

Then the two armies pretty much crashed into each other for funsies. The flank with Tiffany flipped the line of battle to run 90 degrees to its original. The Brew of Haste feegles joined Tiffany in crushing some goblins and some boomers. Blessing of the Shepherdess feegles got a lucky snake eyes on a nerve check to frustrate the ogres.

Horace terrified anyone he came into contact with. The Toad entered into negotiations with a goblin riding a mawbeast. Eventually the giants faced off and the Toad became the sole surviving member of the Clan on turn five. We agreed to call it a draw. *koff*

The game was great fun and the sheer amount of giggling from both side of the table whenever the feegles did anything made it worth the hundreds of hours it took. Every time I play KoW I realise how much more I would enjoy it if I played it more. My sense of positioning and movement causes me suffering every time.