Primordial Ones - for a 10mm Pendraken Samurai Apes Warband Army

 Primordial Ones - for my 10mm Warband Samurai Ape army

Whilst going through Covid-19 lock-down - I thought I'd have a go at a 10mm Warband fantasy army, and as I have a couple more conventional Warband armies on the go, in 28mm - an Orc and a Wood Elf  (& a Taurian in the metal pile)- I thought I'd go for something that only Pendraken produce - a Samurai Ape army in 10mm. I was also going to enter it in the Pendraken 2021 painting competition for fun, and to act as a focus for me to get it completed.

Whilst I ordered the rest of the army from Pendraken, I started immediately on the creation of my Primordial Ones base (more may be required later, but this was the starter) - and I had the idea of sculpting them out of filler - which is what I use for basing. 

The description of a Primordial One in the rules is as follows:

"Primordial Ones are barely formed elemental creatures, often little more than sentient oozes." 

So here are a few pictures of how I ended up with what I did in the end ... I had originally envisaged them as being slightly sinister - a mix sort of aggressive mud and the worm-like creatures from the Promethius Alien Covenant movie. 

However, it all turned out a bit Moomintroll and Disney (although as a kid I'd always found the Hattifatners in Moomin more than a little sinister): https://www.moomin.com/en/characters/hattifatteners/ 

So here (in photos) are the stages of construction:

1. the basic 100mm x 50mm base + the dice holder squares (NB: I have 3 as it give me the option to play different sets of rules other than Warband, including an experimental Fantasy rules set I am working on).

1)

2 & 3 the first stages of the sculpts - you get the idea - adding the eyes (pin-heads*) and gravel 

2)

3)

4 - 7 and starting the basic painting - using GW Steel Legion Drab - watered down quite thin to start with, and building up in layers. Then adding tufts and static grass to complete the effect I wanted of these creatures being summoned out of the ground.

4).

5)

6) Rear view

7)  the final finished unit: 

I might add some some gloss varnish in places to give it a more damp and slimy look (especially as slime trails behind some of the bigger ones), but the basic sculpts have been heavily matt varnished, to provide stability (after they have been painted) - but even so I'd not recommend you get them too damp or they might just melt back into ooze!

It was an interesting experiment - once I have the hang of the army I might well make a few more bases of Primordial Ones, as whilst they are not hugely effective as units, they are cheap and a lot of them might cause an enemy real issues. 

I will also use the base sculpting approach on my other Elemental units, as the Samurai Apes can use Earth, Air, Fire and Water elemental as choices.

Cheers

(* with the pin head - cut about double the amount you think you are going to need - they are really fiddly to get into the drilled holes - even with tweezers - I lost at least half of them as the 'pinged' off and disappeared into the carpet and holes in the floor boards!)