Goblin – Grimmleigh's Lab

Warhammer Underworlds: Getting Trapped-up in Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers

When that crystal-clear moment of honesty hits me full on the face, I have to admit to my decades-long love/loath relationship with Games Workshop. They make some good games, and a whole ton of just… okay games. They have some really petty policies when it comes to Indy game stores, because they know full well those stores absolutely rely on geedubs to make the rent every month.

The other thing about honesty, though? I have to admit that they have stepped up a ton when it comes to their sculpts, especially when it comes to fantasy offerings. Warcry has some gorgeous stuff, but Warhammer: Underworlds, especially Beastgrave, has been taking the cake.

Look at Hrothgorn here. He’s a giant slab of ogre, who has a giant bear trap mounted to his harpoon gun. I’m sure the thing gets about ten feet before wind resistance off that trap drops the spear to the ground, but it looks cool.

He comes with a couple of idiot grots, here’s Luggit and Thwak, who double up to try and hit new heights of awesomeness:

Quiv is literally a walking quiver. He carries extra bolts for the boss:

Then there is Bushwakka, he’s the real brain trust of the bunch:

Thrafnir rounds out the warband, and just happens to be a giant kitty. Meow.

The minis are a blast to paint, the gnobblars in particular took about 10 minutes each with Contrast paint, and you can tell. Up close it’s a pretty slap-dash job, but they look fine from over a foot away. I took a little extra time on Hrothgorn and Kitty, and they’re a lot of fun to look at as I wait for quarantine to end so I can get down to Shiv and get a game in.

That’s a joke. I pretend to play games. I really go to Shiv Games to hang out with my friends. I’m a rabid painter at heart, the games that I occasionally get in are just a perk!

monsters, Theater Macabre

The Wax Statue

During the earlier part of November I was able to fulfill a long-standing, bucket-list level personal wish and spend a few hours wandering through Guillermo Del Toro’s collection of monster and comic book ephemera. It was, to put it mildly, a life changing experience.

We arrived at the LACMA early on a Saturday morning, and were greeted by a statue of this fellow:

death-deltoro

That was just the beginning. A whole wing of the museum had been set aside to showcase the collection of my absolute favorite director. I saw props from movies going back to the beginning of the art form. Wax statues wearing actual costumes from movies like the Bride of Frankenstein, Crimson Peak, and Hellboy.

frank

I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. It was like something was following me around the building, but I couldn’t put my finger on it…

mother

There where original pages from comic books going back to the 1960’s, and statues of genre giants like Ray Harryhausen, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Allan Poe. The Poe statue was pretty cool, and the room he was in was full of Victoriana. And a really weird wax of someone I couldn’t place. He was propped up against the wall, like some sort of diminutive, vaguely Asian Tor Johnson wannabe. He was also one of the few standing waxes, and the only one propped against a wall.

poe-wax

I got a little closer to the Poe, trying to figure out who the dude against the wall was. I needed to be a little sneaky, since there were super cool film nerds all over the place, and the last thing I wanted to do was let on that I didn’t know who this guy was. Just look at him, though: He had to be someone…

poe-wax-2

I got closer to the guy, and right when I was about 5 inches away, he reached up, scratched his nose, and went back to sleep. I choked back a scream, and tried to act like my sudden ability to levitate was perfectly natural.

My wife pointed out his ID badge, and really, it should have been a pretty strong clue to his being a real, live human being. Then again, he looks like a freaking wax statue, and if there is anything I have learned from Westworld, I really shouldn’t take any chances, right?

Regardless, it was the visit of a lifetime. I wish we had more time, and that the building had been empty. It was really hard to stand and gawk at everything for the appropriate amount of time. I could have spent an hour looking at these guys alone:

toothsome

Workbench

Workbench Wednesday: Sewer Edition

Odin’s Day again? Time for another look at what’s on the workbench!

Work on Morbid Stories for Dreadful Children continues, with Volume One: The Miller’s Daughters about two-thirds finished. Here are the pencils for page 23:

I am laying in digital inks now, and will feature a time-lapse film of the finished art on Friday! For a look at the scripted breakdown of page 23, take a look here!

The next coloring book is underway as well, with pencil concepts making way for some background art. First up, a Nosferatu who has the unfortunate job of Sewer Inspector:

Here’s the finished inks for the sewer:

Rough concept for the Phantom of the Opera, who landed a terrible gig as a Karaoke DJ:

These will be featured in Grimmleigh’s Classic Monsters (with terrible jobs), which I am expecting to have available in late September!

And these two are super rough speed sketches that I put together while watching old Hammer Horror movies the other night. The tree scene will probably be used with a vampire or in one of the fairy tales, and the graveyard will be for a Slavic grave goblin:

I really am drawn to floating apparitions in the woods…

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Have a great one!