Gorgon Studios Draugr

Gorgon Studios offers a smallish range of Dark Age Scandinavians, including some Draugr. Having ordered them a while back, with no particular plans for them if I'm honest, I just now got around to painting them up. They are perfect as roaming enemies for Frostgrave.

oh man look at those draugr go

These sculpts are a great balance between undead lethargy and simmering menace. They struck me as perfect for frozen wights roving the ice-ridden ruins of Felstad so I painted their corpseflesh blue-grey and washed with TAP blue tone before highlighting. The eyes are Vallejo Model Green Sky, which I think of as "Romulan Green."

pretty sure these two are related

The bases are in my usual style for Frostgrave and the dirty snow look nicely compliments these grubby Viking zombies. Gorgon Studios advertises them as 28mm but they are noticably taller than North Star's Frostgrave soldiers. I'm fine with that - these draugr obviously descended from a heartier race of men than the scoundrels picking over Felstad these days.

there was a sale at Ax-Mart

The draugr set actually comes with eight figures, all different sculpts. After painting them up, I noticed that Gorgon had shorted me one out of this set. I'll mention it to them the next time I order and see if they can send me the missing guy. Unfortunately, it was one of the coolest sculpts in the set. I know because I ordered two sets and the other one was complete. The bellowing chieftain is sold separately.

Gorgon also makes a cool necromancer to waken the cranky frozen warriors. I will post a picture of him  as soon as I'm finished painting him, along with some scale comparisons to North Star soldiers and gnolls. If Gorgon expanded the line to include a few more sculpts (most notably, some draugr bowmen) this could be the basis for a very thematic Frostgrave warband.

No Business Like Snow Business

Working on large bases for some upcoming monstrosities to stalk the ruins of Felstad, I got to thinking about snow. The first ever product I purchased explicitly for terrain work was a tub of Citadel snow and after a few false starts, I just decided to set it aside. That was seven years ago and I have never really looked back, even despite GW reportedly improving their product.

So how to base for Frostgrave? Without really thinking about it, I used a mixture of finely crumbled cork and Vallejo's Sandy Paste: prime gray, wash with Vallejo European Dust, and drybrush white. Very simple and - to my eyes at least - very effective for bases fully covered in snow.

L: finished; R: primed and washed

Bits of cork help to vary the texture. I also like to "tease" up the Sandy Paste while it is fresh then tamp it back down after it has been drying for a while. The idea is to create thoroughly frozen, dirty terrain rather than the fluffy stuff you might see freshly fallen in a more temperate climate. Needless to say, grass clumps will not be necessary.