The White Serpent calls the dark things of the earth unto it ...

Three more ...

Another couple of White Serpent orcs

The spearman was converted almost five years ago; the maceman the other day. The spear looks a lot straighter to the naked eye!

Yet more Orcs of the White Serpent

A couple more conversions and kitbashes. For my thoughts on animal-headed goblins, see here!

Two more White Serpent orcs ...

A gunner and an axeman join the tribe. These were two unpainted ones; I plunged a few of the half-painted batch into the Biostrip this evening (and converted another couple).

The Orcs of the White Serpent raid again!

Almost five years ago, I got back into miniature painting to paint up a big batch for my son's sixth birthday (to go with the Song of Blades rules: the most enduring birthday present so far!).

I got about 60 done for the big day, but many were uncompleted - including most of the "Orcs of the White Serpent": some heavily kitbashed Mantic orcs. I managed to complete just three, kitted out in red armour.  Those were the only ones built straight; the converted ones were started, for the most part, but only about half-completed. They've languished in a drawer ever since.

I've decided to strip them down and give them moodier, rougher (and quicker) paintjobs. This fellow, who was one of an unpainted trio, is a test. He's rough, ready and pretty messy, but that's all I'm aiming for with these (the Mantic bodies are quite hard to make sense of, given all the overlapping clothing, armour and leather).

Here he is with his three completed predecessors. I might leave these as are, but the half-painted ones are destined for the Biostrip.

These are some of the half-finished ones, waiting to rise (and raid) again:

A quick broo

A palate-cleanser after the gnolls (though broos are hardly cleaner ...). Just drybrushing and washes over base colours. No dung was rubbed into his hair, but I'm sure he'll take care of that himself.

Gnolls!

I assembled my last remaining Frostgrave gnolls last night and gave them a very quick bash with the brushes, along with a big Reaper gnoll to act as a matriarch.

I've tried various hyena-like schemes on gnolls before, but here I went with the Monster Manual's prescription:

Gnolls have greenish gray skins, darker near the muzzle, with reddish gray to dull yellow mane. 

 That's probably just a Gygaxian attempt to describe hyena colouring, but it gives a distinctive template for underworld monsters, so I went with it.

I painted these fellows very quickly, though I used a three-stage process on the armour and weapons to get them good and rusty. Everything else was just blocked in, drybrushed with silver-grey and then washed with an appropriate colour. Then I used some silver-grey to highlight the odd edge or spot here and there.

The Reaper gnoll is much, much bigger, but makes a suitably sizeable matriarch; I like to assume that gnolls have the same sort of sexual dimorphism as hyenas.