Ragnar Lothbrok

Originally planned as a Christmas present for a friend of mine (who is quite the fan of the Vikings series, and passingly interested in miniatures), until my wife pointed out that his birthday was this week, which incentivised me to get him finished a little sooner!

The wobbly scroll on his base says Ragnar in old Futhark runes (or at least, the google search to find a translator that I did suggests it to be the case):

One of the defining features of Ragnar (as far as I can tell) as portrayed in the series is his ridiculous haircut:

Whilst the Gripping Beast Vikings sprues provided donors for the majority of his parts, I couldn't find anything in my bits box that was quite right for this. In the end, I decided to go with a GW head from the Middenheim sprue in my Mordheim boxed set (which I had to give a bit of a haircut to) and a little bit of sculpting. First of all, I used a bit of solder wire as a 'skeleton' for the hair:

In the very definition of first world problems, I spent a fraught evening unable to find my florist wire. Oh, the troubles I've seen.

I thought I'd taken more WIP pics of the hair sculpt, but apparently not. I coated the wire in some green stuff, chopped in the rims of the hair band things, and then sliced in some hair texture. Then, I went back over it with some thinned Liquid Green Stuff and literally painted on some detail, like adding more depth to the hair bands, the spikes at the end of the hair etc:

And lo, one paint job a later we have a Ragnar-alike, that whilst not an exact match for screen Ragnar (the beard isn't quite right, for one) is hopefully going to make the recipient very happy!

You'll note, I'm sure, that as this is for someone else, unlike most of the miniatures I paint for personal use, he even has pupils and everything!

I had especial fun painting his shield, taking inspiration from this picture:

[Tally 66 vs 36 = +30 unheard of, I know! I imagine this year will be the year my wife starts buying me miniatures at Christmas, ensuring as tradition dictates that I end the year in the red]

Due to being a massive nerd, in between writing this post and the time I'd scheduled it to go up, I went out and got a gift box:

Which with the addition of a lick of paint:

And some ageing with a variety of washes and stippling and general messiness,and careful application of a rune in Sharpie and pencil, gives us a box fit or a king:
 

Heh, king of the nerds...