Eastern Viking, Best Soldiers, bust

[nicusi]

Hi everyone!



This is a wonderfull bust released last year by Marco Ganghini, the owner of Bestsoldiers brand and of the online store under the same name:http://shop.bestsoldiershop.com/

Here is the bust: shop.bestsoldiershop.com/epages/14739.sf/it_IT/?ObjectPath=/Shops/14739/Products/BEST_BU006
with the box art made by very talented artist Serghey Popovichenko.
Unfortunately, as I don't dispose anymore of time for painting, it's very hard for me to come back at my workbench. I took advantage of a special invitation, a Romanian modellers show organized at a mall in Bucharest, beginning of December, in order to make something new. Here some photos. As usually, Scale 75 acryllics and Vallejo inks and some colours from Model Colour series.


Cheers,

Nicolae

[tobias5555]

Nice one

[Leon]

Nice work Nic!

[TRM]

Well done Nic! Loving the work on the leather belt especially! Thanks for sharing!

[deafpanzer]

Good having your back... love the bust! Looks forward to more posts!

[nicusi]

Thank you, Andy, unfortunately I became a "rara avis", I know. Too much work!
So satisfied when I still manage to grab my brushes!
Cheers,
Nicolae

[nicusi]

Some more steps, the fur need more textures and small details. I change to colour of the tunic and I'll come back to the face, some rework is necessary. Everything with Scale 75 and Vallejo acryllics.
Have fun and inspiration with your projects!
Nicolae

[moramarth]

Just a little background information.  The Eastern Vikings are also known as  Varangians, Varyags or Variags, a name which seems to have its roots in an Old Norse word which indicates their original function as mercenaries for various groups in eastern Europe and western Russia - which itself derives it's name from one particular group of these Norse, the Rus.  This has given rise to the use of "Varayag" as a ship name in the Russian navy, the most recent being the aircraft carrier which is now the Chinese "Liaoning" and the currently serving "Slava"-class cruiser which was formerly known as the "Chervona Ukrayina".
The "Variags" also crop up in "The Lord of the Rings" as the inhabitants of Khand; they are to be identified with the "Men of a new sort.... Not tall, but broad and grim, bearded like dwarves, wielding great axes. Out of some savage land in the wide East they come....".
Tolkien was a philologist, and would have been familiar with the Byzantines "Axe-bearing Varangians", mercenaries and guardsmen in the service of Constantinople, especially as one generation of these were his beloved Anglo-Saxons.  These were the the English Varangian Guard who perished at the Battle of Dyrrhachium in 1081, refugees from the rule of William the Bastard (a better sobriquet than "Conqueror").  Due Khand being stuck under the right armpit of Mordor on map of Middle Earth instead of somewhere East of Rhun, and to Pauline Baynes decorating the area (actually Near Harad) with a Camel on her poster-map, this obvious association has been overlooked, and the Middle-Earth Variags depicted as everything up to Far Easterners and Arabs!

Regards,

M

[nicusi]

Many thanks for the historical details, Moramarth!

[dennis]

Great to see you back Nicusi, I hope you fit more desk time in next year my friend as you have not lost your art, well done mate. Incidentally you can still see in that huge beautifull Mosque in Istanbull the carved name of a Viking guardsman who must have been bored indeed.
Dennis

[nicusi]

Warm thanks, Dennis! So kind from you to tell me such a detail, I didn't know. If I'll have the occasion to visit Istanbul, I'll keep it in my mind.
Unfortunately,I'm still very busy, but I tried to make some progress with this and I started also another project.

[Leon]

Great work Nic! I completely forgot about this.

[TRM]

Looking good Nic!! Nice to see you blocking out some more color on this one!

[deafpanzer]

Like the work on the fur!

[nicusi]

Thank you, bros, for your kind words!
Nicolae

[deafpanzer]

Your FAULT! I end up buying two Viking busts at the model show last Saturday. Perhaps I should make you pay for them... they were not cheap! LOL

[nicusi]

My God, Andy, from now I'll give up show new viking painting work in order to avoid any unpleasant and expensive vikingomania!
Seriously now, did you have any chance to find this Viking produced by Best Soldiers?
Nicolae

[dennis]

Lovely lovely work Nicolae, glad to see you getting some brush time. Poor Andy he is on the slippery Viking slope, influenced by this wonderful bust.
Dennis

[deafpanzer]

Mar 13, 2018 10:38:40 GMT -5 dennis said:

Lovely lovely work Nicolae, glad to see you getting some brush time. Poor Andy he is on the slippery Viking slope, influenced by this wonderful bust.

NO NO NO! Just two!!!! LOL I will post the pics when I have the chance. I haven't been to my man cave for a while.

[nicusi]

Warm thanks, Dennis, for your kind words. Andy, we are waiting for the photos!

[moramarth]

Never mind, Andy, if you like sticking bits of plastic together and hairy Norsemen you need to come over to the Dark Side - 28mm!
This should slake your thirst:
www.grippingbeast.co.uk/GBP01_Plastic_Viking_Hirdmen--product--2789.html



M

[deafpanzer]

Mar 13, 2018 21:16:15 GMT -5 moramarth said:

Never mind, Andy, if you like sticking bits of plastic together and hairy Norsemen you need to come over to the Dark Side - 28mm!
This should slake your thirst:
www.grippingbeast.co.uk/GBP01_Plastic_Viking_Hirdmen--product--2789.html

You re really trying hard to tempt me! LOL

Here's two busts I had to get... hope I have your approval? 

[406 Silverado]

Nice painting. Man he looks pissed off lol

[moramarth]

Here's two busts I had to get... hope I have your approval?

Indeed you do!  I look forward to seeing what you do with them.  I think the larger the figure, the better the technique required; hence my preference for smaller stuff despite increasing difficulty in seeing them!  Given MY techniques don't change much regardless of the scale of the subject, a rough job looks better on a smaller figure (or at least I hope people have lower expectations of them...).


Regards,

M

[nicusi]

Very good choices, Andy!

[nicusi]

Well, Andy, I hope you already made one of your famous vikings! Only now I succeeded to come back to this project. It takes too long for me to come back to the older projects, that's the reality, this year I didn't have much time for this hobby.
I hope to like the photos. Some more work on the helmet (Scale 75 metallics and Vallejo inks), on the belt and with Jo Sonja acrylics I reworked the face and the hair. Still a lot to do!
Cheers!
Nicolae

[Leon]

Excellent work Nic! He looks so realistic.

[nicusi]

Warm thanks, Leon! I still have some work to do in order to make him very realistic!

[nicusi]

Hi everyone,

After a hard year, I try to come back to some projects, this is how is looking one of them.
Still a lot of element to work to the helmet, fur, tunic, the face and the beard, especially.
Have fun with your projects!
Nicolae