The Inner Geek
Member
I'm posting this on another forum that I frequent, but as membership doesn't seem to have a lot of cross-over, I thought I'd share the project here as well. You guys might even be able to appreciate it more!
So to start here is a story with a couple of pictures near the end...
Way back around 1991 I fell in love with GW's Dragon Ogres... not the misshapen ones of more recent times, the originals by Nick Bibby. Back in the old'n days you couldn't run to your nearby game store and just grab some GW products. And you dang sure couldn't buy them on the internet as Al Gore had just invented it and no one had access to it yet except maybe your nerdiest friend and he had to pay long distance fees on top of his dial up to use it.... where was I??? Oh yea, buying them. I went to a FLGS and asked the owner if he could special order them for me, and said he could. Back then the distributor for GW in the US was Chessex (I think)... or Armory... who remembers that far back?!? Anyway, he placed the order for two and told me to check back in a week. Everything took a week back then. So when I came back the next weekend the package was there but it had some other minis in it. So, he placed the order again, double checking the code in the catalog. Next week, same thing... even the same wrong miniatures (I don't remember what they were). So while I was there, we got on the phone with someone at the distributor who connected us directly to someone on the warehouse floor. We explained the problem and he went and checked the bin for that catalog number... sure enough, it was not Dragon Ogres. So we talked him through what one should look like and this guy actually looked around for almost thirty minutes while we were on the phone until he figured out the correct catalog number for Dragon Ogres. Apparently the number in that years catalog did not coincide with the number on the Dragon Ogres package! He pulled two and that next week was the longest of the three as I knew there was a Dragon Ogre (or two) at the end of the rainbow... a double Dragon Ogre rainbow.
I was inspired by some pictures in a White Dwarf magazine of a converted Dragon Ogre leading a Chaos Warband. So one was to be converted, and the other done to factory specs. This was accomplished about 22 years ago! It was some of my best work, and in some ways still is. They were done with all Polly S paints and the converted one had some sort of Ral Partha Dragon Scale Cream metallic rub-on wax sort of stuff in a red tone. As these are some of my all time favorite minis and I spent the whole day reading Oldhammer blogs I decided it was time to show these minis some love again with a redeux.
This is the standard build in all his glory today...
And for comparison, here is the converted one. Note the scratch built shoulder armor and re-positioned left arm.... and missing fist... life loose in a box for 20+ years has not been kind. The arm will eventually end in a fist holding a banner... I think.
While seventeen year old Inner Geek was pretty proud of himself over these, thirty-nine year old Inner Geek would like to try and improve on them!
On a side note, some time in the mid to late 1990's I had a chance to grab one more of these, so I did!
This one needs work as well! The plan is to make a group of three. At least two and maybe all three will be converted to some extent. I'd like to try to do full barding on one, maybe put a keg of ale strapped to another, and some weapon swaps so they don't all have the same ax. I might even see if some dragon wings might look reasonable on one of them? It will be an adventure for sure!
After cleaning them last night, I did find that some bits have a different hue or sheen to them. I was afraid of lead rot! But, after some research it doesn't seem like that's what this is. I'll post up pictures if I can get good ones that demonstrate what I'm seeing. I've scrubbed the minis clean and even worked them over with baking soda and a toothbrush. It's all very strange and on the one that was not already painted, it seems more pronounced on one piece after the Simple Green bath. The Simple Green was mainly to strip old paint from the other two, but I threw the third in there too for the sake of completeness.
Since I was cleaning minis anyway I thought I'd toss this guy/gal in too!
So to start here is a story with a couple of pictures near the end...
Way back around 1991 I fell in love with GW's Dragon Ogres... not the misshapen ones of more recent times, the originals by Nick Bibby. Back in the old'n days you couldn't run to your nearby game store and just grab some GW products. And you dang sure couldn't buy them on the internet as Al Gore had just invented it and no one had access to it yet except maybe your nerdiest friend and he had to pay long distance fees on top of his dial up to use it.... where was I??? Oh yea, buying them. I went to a FLGS and asked the owner if he could special order them for me, and said he could. Back then the distributor for GW in the US was Chessex (I think)... or Armory... who remembers that far back?!? Anyway, he placed the order for two and told me to check back in a week. Everything took a week back then. So when I came back the next weekend the package was there but it had some other minis in it. So, he placed the order again, double checking the code in the catalog. Next week, same thing... even the same wrong miniatures (I don't remember what they were). So while I was there, we got on the phone with someone at the distributor who connected us directly to someone on the warehouse floor. We explained the problem and he went and checked the bin for that catalog number... sure enough, it was not Dragon Ogres. So we talked him through what one should look like and this guy actually looked around for almost thirty minutes while we were on the phone until he figured out the correct catalog number for Dragon Ogres. Apparently the number in that years catalog did not coincide with the number on the Dragon Ogres package! He pulled two and that next week was the longest of the three as I knew there was a Dragon Ogre (or two) at the end of the rainbow... a double Dragon Ogre rainbow.
I was inspired by some pictures in a White Dwarf magazine of a converted Dragon Ogre leading a Chaos Warband. So one was to be converted, and the other done to factory specs. This was accomplished about 22 years ago! It was some of my best work, and in some ways still is. They were done with all Polly S paints and the converted one had some sort of Ral Partha Dragon Scale Cream metallic rub-on wax sort of stuff in a red tone. As these are some of my all time favorite minis and I spent the whole day reading Oldhammer blogs I decided it was time to show these minis some love again with a redeux.
This is the standard build in all his glory today...
And for comparison, here is the converted one. Note the scratch built shoulder armor and re-positioned left arm.... and missing fist... life loose in a box for 20+ years has not been kind. The arm will eventually end in a fist holding a banner... I think.
While seventeen year old Inner Geek was pretty proud of himself over these, thirty-nine year old Inner Geek would like to try and improve on them!
On a side note, some time in the mid to late 1990's I had a chance to grab one more of these, so I did!
This one needs work as well! The plan is to make a group of three. At least two and maybe all three will be converted to some extent. I'd like to try to do full barding on one, maybe put a keg of ale strapped to another, and some weapon swaps so they don't all have the same ax. I might even see if some dragon wings might look reasonable on one of them? It will be an adventure for sure!
After cleaning them last night, I did find that some bits have a different hue or sheen to them. I was afraid of lead rot! But, after some research it doesn't seem like that's what this is. I'll post up pictures if I can get good ones that demonstrate what I'm seeing. I've scrubbed the minis clean and even worked them over with baking soda and a toothbrush. It's all very strange and on the one that was not already painted, it seems more pronounced on one piece after the Simple Green bath. The Simple Green was mainly to strip old paint from the other two, but I threw the third in there too for the sake of completeness.
Since I was cleaning minis anyway I thought I'd toss this guy/gal in too!
