The Circus of Corruption - A Pustulent Comedy

The fine team over at Old School Miniatures are currently running an excellent Kickstarter for a hugely characterful Circus of Corruption set, comprising plague-ridden daemonic circus performers literally dripping with charm (and bile).

Go and check it out: The Circus of Corruption Kickstarter

The OSM team were kind enough to send a complete set of pre-release resin master casts of the Circus of Corruption to split amongst the Scale Creep crew. Here's what we did with them:

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Errol Phlegm by Axiom

Errol Phlegm is one of the Brethren from the set - I guess they're henchmen or lackeys perhaps. I panted Errol up with plenty of washes and drybrushing, paying particular attention to his rather nasty-looking swollen ankles!

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Frederick Looger, Manny Bokely and Tweedledump esq. by the Asslessman

I got five of the sculpts in the mailbox (I had he luck to pick which) so I was really eager to play with my brushes on them! I really like the completely insane vibe of them, they're like Ledger's Joker or Nicholson's Torrance with hygiene issues.  Don't ask me why I find that appealing but as a subject for miniatures I do find it pretty cool.

I kept the palette minimal on mine to enhance the grim look of them, I wanted a circus flavoured corruption rather than a corrupted circus if you see what I mean.

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Copriolanus, Gunter Firkenshart, King Smear and three Rotlings, by Cheetor

As a fan of Carnivàle, The League of Gentlemen and generally unpleasant miniatures, these models were right up my Cadbury alley.  I reckoned that the sculpting style would reward a rapid approach predominantly using washes and drybrushing, so that’s what I did.  Nothing very fancy.

I am planning to get the other eleven circus folk from the starting range painted to match the six above as soon as I possibly can.  With the straightforward paint job above I reckon that I can fire out the rest of the Circus pretty rapidly and have them ready to hit the table in a couple of weeks with a bit of luck.

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Bob, Larry, Jim, Little Bob and Emanualle Snicklethwayte-Chomdley Pierce III Junior by Whiskeypriest

I has painted somes stuff. It has all the luverly colours wot i likes and stuff. They looks all gooey and yukky like that they has a snotty nose and sneesy bums. I likes these funny little men wot i didied on my holidays. I really likes the one wiv the little rubber chicken. I did liek to paint the little funny mens cos i got to use my bestest brushes and make farty noises as i did it. I also like to taste the paints when i licks my brush.

 By whiskey Priest aged 42 (and one qaurters).

Gang painting - The Scale Creep Methods

When it comes to our painting it seems that the most common goal at the moment is a 'Gang Sized' project. Around 10 or so figures in a thematic group, whether it be a unit, a warband, a gang or some other kind of group, it's the kind of thing each of us will do a couple of in a year (at least).

But how do we do it? Each of tends to work in isolation, showing WIP's or finished items to group but we never have the opportunity to sit and watch how the others work through it. Occasionally WIP's will illicit responses such as, 'Why the fuck do you do it like that, you awkward sod?' or 'For the love of god will you tidy your painting desk!', occasionally 'Tell me you only keep your paints in a plastic bag to wind Paul up' can be heard over the tumult of 'Cut your fucking fingernails!'.

Artistic view of WIPsters group painting, actual process may differ

So we thought it might be educational to get each of the Scale Creeps that are willing, awake, sober and paying attention, to blether on a little bit about how that go about painting a gang of mini's (mostly so the rest of us can point and laugh).

Of course we all have our views and it's only natural we'd want to confront them in the most gentlemanly way. Here's our personal observations on each other's methods :

Assleman :JB
WP
Axiom
Captain Crooks