The Chaos of 'Bruegel-Bosch'

When I was a kid, my mom was an active member of our local library board, so we always had lots of books around the house. In addition to the military history and craft books, I always enjoyed anything dealing with art, especially books focusing on the Renaissance period.  While I liked the Italian masters well enough, I was particularly fascinated by the painters from the Low Countries. Pieter Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch were two of my favourites, as their work was often quite bizarre, bordering on the grotesque. Here are a few samples:

Bosch's 'Garden of Earthly Delights'

Bruegel's 'Seven Deadly Sins'

With all this in mind, a few years ago I created a fictional setting that I call 'Bruegel-Bosch', a canal town in a composite Renaissance-esque Germany/Low Countries environment. I'm slowly populating it with all things strange and odd. In a way, it was my response to the loss of Warhammer Fantasy's wonderful 'Old World'. 

First I started with some of the brilliant Renaissance fantasy figures offered by Lead Adventure (sculpted by the talented Ratnik). Below is a trio of examples (not for scoring):

So, when I came across Eureka' Fantasy range I knew I had to get them as they fit in perfectly as denizens of 'Bruegel-Bosch'. 

They are so terrifically odd and macabre, with many being 'thematically adjacent' to characters in Bosch and Bruegel's work.

I mean there's a bird-faced creature with a bucket on his head, his tentacles holding a huge honkin' key. WTF? I don't have a clue what it's all supposed to mean (much like Bruegel and Bosch's work), but it really creeps me out, which I find super fun.  :)

There are 12 figures in this group and I still have around 16 still to do, each one a delightful study in the strange, macabre and the grotesque.

Next Up: Something for 'Lord of the Rings'

- Curt