Five Denizens from Mork Borg

Hi There,

Kawe from Westfalia Miniatures has been a supporter of the Painting Challenge from pretty much the beginning, in fact he was a participant himself, creating some terrific work for visitors to enjoy. As many know, Westfalia began focusing exclusively on Napoleonics, then moved on to pulp subjects, and now concentrates primarily on dark fantasy and sci-fi.

I always try to jump in to support each of Westfalia's Kickstarters and these five figures are from one of their earlier releases. They're lovely boutique minis sculpted by Boris Woloszyn and themed around the wonderfully strange and creepy world of Mork Borg. For a few years I've been GMing some out-of-town friends using Mork Borg and the Roll20 app. We've been having a lot of fun with it as the system is very rules-lite, encouraging on-your-toes creativity, which often makes for some very funny (and bloody) game sessions.

Anyway, here are five denizens from the grim world of Mork Borg:

The Gutterborn Scum

'C'mon my pretties! There's work to be done...'

The Heretical Priest

This fella looks like he's been huffin' a bit too much from the 'mystical censer'.

'Skelly Jo'

'What? The horns are too much, eh?'

Wrat

'Come now, let's all sing the chorus together...'

Wretched Royalty

'The world may be descending into rack and ruin but I'm still on the top of the heap.'

Thanks for dropping by!

- Curt

Ick the Mage, his homunculus Funnel and Nick aka 'The Red Right Hand'

A trio of fantasy characters for this week. 

First up is 'Ick the Mage' with his long-suffering but faithful homunculus, 'Funnel the Scroll Caddy'. 

Creeping in the shadows is the assassin Nick, better known as 'The Red Right Hand'.

Nick is a public relations troubleshooter (troubleslicer?) for those situations where discrete action is required to bring other parties into 'enlightened alignment'.

All three of these miscreants are prints from Knucklebones Miniatures. 

Have a great week everyone!

- Curt

Ben the Cleric and Molly from the Town Militia

Just a couple new additions for the fantasy collection.

Today we have Ben the Cleric along with Molly from the Town Militia. 

Both of these models are from Knucklebones Miniatures. I've been painting a lot of Knucklebone stuff over the past year and continue to really enjoy them - they have such great character, with lots of sculpted detail to play around with.

Case in point is Molly here with her polka dot skirts hiked-up to reveal her Landsknecht puff-and-slash uniform and assorted ironmongery. Formidable.

Molly came off the printer with a seam across her face. Instead of trying to remove it (a task I was not relishing), I decided to work with it instead. Using a tiny amount of milliput, I gave her a pair of tinted spectacles, incorporating the printing artefact. I figure this way she can comfortably blast away with her musket in the glorious bright sunshine.

I quite like the stolid pose of Ben the Cleric. 'If the blessing doesn't work then the warhammer will surely sort things out.' 

I kept it fairly simple with him, with white tabard and leather scale mail over red robes. I just realized that the purity seals need some suitable lunatic script on them... Hmm. Time to pull out the fine nib pen I guess.

Thanks for popping in for a look! I hope to have a few more Fantasy figures coming off the bench soon.

Have a good one!

- Curt

Figures for 'Forbidden Psalm' and 'Kill. Sample. Process.'

Hey there!

Though I've been a little quiet of late I've not neglected my brushes entirely - like Bilbo with toast and butter, I'm just spread too thinly over too many projects (typical). 

While translating all this distraction into completed work has been a bit of a struggle, I do have a few things to show for my efforts with this small group of fantasy figures that I did up for a recent 'Forbidden Psalm' game, and a rather odd pantalooned chap for the sci-fi rules, 'Kill. Sample. Process.'

Morka Porkas are fairly common beasties in both 'Mork Borg' and 'Forbidden Psalm'. I find them kind of hilarious and thought I'd do up a few for a recent game with the guys.

While they are rather ferocious, they can be tamed, but at a steep price. A 'lost limb condition' typically sets you up with one of these cuddly fellas as a steed. Most find it's just easier to simply climb a tall tree and let them rumble past. 3d prints from Tytan Troll Miniatures.

This big chap is 'The Feasting Wendigo', another wandering horror for 'Forbidden Psalm'. 

The original 50mm print was a little small for my tastes, so I have him here as a much more imposing 85mm. Design from Yasashi Kyojin Studio.

Finally, here is a super characterful mini from Knucklebone Miniatures. He'll be a member of my crew for 'Kill. Sample. Process.' which is the sci-fi version of 'Forbidden Psalm'. His cube head cracks me up and I really like the various textures and surfaces of his clothes, cybernetics and gear. Very fun to paint.

That being said, he's been sitting on my hobby desk for the past few months while I pondered on how to paint him. Inspiration finally came to me at work the other day when I saw a colour test pattern on a video editing machine. Bingo. 

I'm calling him 'NoSignal'. 

Adventurers for Mork Borg/Forbidden Psalm

Hi there!

In addition to all things root vegetable and vehicular, I've also been bitten by the Mork Borg / Forbidden Psalm bug, and so have here five hapless and homely mooks to fit that setting.

For those not in the know, Mork Borg is a Swedish designed RPG set in a comically grim, world circling-the-drain, Scandinavian death metal world (in fact, there is a mechanic in the rules to count down the game sessions to its doomsday). The small format hardcover is a real treat, whose cutting edge design and layout has allowed it to scoop up eight Ennies this past year.

The Mork Borg mechanics are VERY minimalistic (only 4 stat lines for characters, and probably less than 10 pages of core rules) and as such are a doodle to get into. Character generation only takes a few minutes (which is a good as they usually get chopped up and/or eaten in fairly short order), and if you're too lazy to put in the time, you can simply use their online character generator (aptly titled, 'ScumBirther') to do the heavy lifting for you. At its core, Mork Borg is an open system, where the GM and players are encouraged to fill in the narrative with their own creativity.

Another great aspect to the rules is that their licensing is very permissive. The creators actively encourage adaptations and spin-offs of their core system. This generous licensing approach has created several creative spinoffs already, including 'Cy-Borg' (cyberpunk), 'The Last War' (Great War horror) and 'Forbidden Psalm' (Mork Borg tactical).  

Both 'The Last War' and 'Forbidden Psalm' are not true RPGs, but rather figure-based wargame-adventure systems similar to 'Rangers of Shadow Deep' and the ever-popular 'Frostgrave'. These Mork Borg spinoffs are great rules for a light, but frenetic night of gaming (and a low figure-count of only 5 in a party/faction). I've been running an online Mork Borg RPG campaign for some out-of-town friends, and hope to get some Forbidden Psalm games in with our local group soon. With this in mind, here is a faction for FS - five misbegotten adventurers, all destined, I'm sure, to come to a quick, nasty and sticky end. 

Nick the Pick

Witnail the Flail

Gavin the Glaive

Wesley the Weaver

and, Ishmael the Pickerel 

Knucklebones Miniatures has done a terrific job in capturing the oddball, comical and weirdly grotesque nature of the Mork Borg universe. In the setting, the 'heroes' are typically homely (if not hideous), but in an interesting way, and it gets even 'better' when you come across the baddies. Hopefully I'll have more Mork Borginess over the coming months.

Have a great weekend, folks!

- Curt