The Good Professor

Here is one more of my sculpts painted up. Professor Emil debuted on the blog quite some time ago. He actually has a back story worked out in my Steamworks setting but for now I'm just going to use him as a pretty standard mad scientist.

With him done I think I only have two of my sculpts still to paint. However, I've just started work on sculpting some new ones so that tally might not last too long.

I tried giving him a patterned scarf but I'm not sure how well it came out. Painting plaid in 15mm is some what challenging!

I made sure his lab coat had the required dirt and grime stains from previous experiments.

Here are my favorites so far that I have sculpted. All together they kind of look like they should be in a League of More or Less Ordinary Gentleman.

I doubt that I've ever mentioned this on here before but my wife and I have both recently taken up bird watching. She has decided to start a new blog chronicling our misadventures of trying to see the local wildlife an hopefully take their picture. If you would like to read what we've been up to please visit or you can just stop by and take a look at all of the nice pictures she takes of birds, bugs, and the rest of nature. You can find it here: A Bird on a Blog is Worth Two in a Bush.

The Prussian Warmachine

Of particular concern to us was the preparedness of the Prussian forces. Why was the the XI Army Korps on maneuvers at that time and ready to cross over to Belgium so quickly? And given the fact that it took a rush effort to equip even a portion of our expeditionary force with proper gas-masks and suits, how was it that the Prussian were so well equipped with gas-masks? One begins to question if the Prussians had some foreknowledge of the events in Liege, or even had a hand in instigating them?
-The Right Honorable Earl of Shaftesbury Lord Ashley

Prussian Infantry from Fusilier Regiment Nr 34.

I've been working on a small Prussian force. The infantry are from Black Hat and are really rather nice. Their kit is nicely detailed. I have some more of these and a squad of clockwork soldiers as well which I'm thinking of painting up in green uniforms as Jaegers, maybe I'll sculpt the characteristic tshakos on them as well. I'll have to take a second look at the figures.

Grand Duke Class Colossus from 31st Division

The Colossus is a war machine Khador heavy war jack. I left the weapon armaments interchangeable with a simple pin system so I can mix and match. If I actually start doing regular gaming with them I'll think about swapping them out with magnetics. Otherwise the other main modification was to cut all of the spikes off of it. I just couldn't see the engineers at Krupp saying " You know what it needs? Some giant spikes on the edges! Those will only weigh a couple of tons each!" I'm not completely satisfied with the paint job, but I've rather run out of steam and ideas for painting him for now. I expect I'll revisit it and put some more weathering and details on it.

Prussian Colossus Grand Duke Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg

I'd like to find something to use as smaller colossi as well. Unfortunately, Khador doesn't have any light warjacks so I'm going to have to look elsewhere or try to convert something. I'm considering some of the mercenary jacks maybe with a rebuilt carapace and one of the spare heads from the Juggernaut I have.

"Grosser Karl" watches as a squad clears a ruined building in the outskirts of Liege.

"The Next Step for Man"

"Man has always looked to the greater creatures for his inspiration. The nobility of the eagle, the strength of the bear, and the majesty of the lion. But in a time when bears are taught to balance on balls for our amusement, we build machines to soar like the eagle, and we shoot lions for sport, we should instead look to the so called lower creatures for our inspiration.

Man is now the greatest threat to man. Would it not be better to look to an organism that exists peacefully with all others instead of one that preys upon them. The humble fungus lives in perfect harmony with the rest of nature. Should we not try to emulate how it lives in our modern world?"
       - Professor Emil just before being expelled from the Universiteit Gent for experiments against     God and Nature

The intermediary step of the fungoid evolution a horrible human/fungus hybrid.

Another fungoid this time in the early stages of transformation. So far these guys have been really fun to sculpt and I have ideas for several more. I want them all to be different looking as the transformation process is chaotic and no two end up exactly the same. Since they are basically zombie like creatures I'm going to borrow a lot of zombie archetypes from videogames and what not to flesh out their ranks. I already have a big juggernaut guy, need one that blows up, and the fast and deadly female one. Also coming up are the mysterious fungoid slavers, the puppet masters behind the scenes.

"As under a green sea"

  To begin with the Walloon Jacquerie was only remarkable in the speed and quantity in which the anarchists and workmen assembled and marched on Liège. Although contact was lost with the troops sent to guard the colossi foundries this was not noticed until much later and at first the attention of the Belgium command was focused on dispersing the rioters. This proved more difficult then first expected due to them being remarkably well armed. Nevertheless, the discipline and drill of the Belgium troops soon led to them having the upper-hand and they were shortly hunting down the scattered pockets of die hard revolutionaries. 

  It was at this point that many believe Professor Emil offered his services and research to the desperate hold outs. It is unlikely they understood what exactly he was offering but grasped at any possibility to turn the situation around. As the Belgium troops were storming the last stronghold of the revolutionaries that the spore clouds were first encountered. In the alleyways between the worker's tenements it was described as a "green-yellow fog" and like moving "as under a green sea, small particles darting about like minuscule fish." 

  At first the troops merely coughed and gagged on the spores, but as soon as they made it into the last hideout the source was revealed. The interior of the house was coated in a thick layer of fungus and great mounds pumped out the spores like bellows. Amongst the fungi shambled great heaps that once were men but now had become something else. And even as the figures lurched forward streams of spores blew out from gill like vents along their body. The soldiers did not know it then but soon the spores they inhaled would transform them the same way and much of Liège would resemble those small, mold covered rooms. 
                                                                                                         - A History of the Liège Incident

The first of what will probably be many fungal creatures is done. Here are a few fun fungus facts. Fungus are more closely related to animals than plants. Some of the largest known organisms on earth are fungus colonies. One covers 8.9 square kilometers and is estimated to be 2400 years old. No wonder Professor Emil is so obsessed with fungi!

Scale Comparison