Continuing my crawl back through my old Demonweb “Refreshed” D&D project, this is a build that was serendipidous on a whole slew of levels. The Ogre Pulverizer was a model I felt like I was going to have to revisit at some point, especially since I wanted my next batch of Demonweb to focus on the common and uncommon miniatures of the set, since my last batch included so many of the fancy rare models like the Black Dragon Lurker or the Blood Slaad. When I found an Ogre Zombie at one FLGS and an Ogre Soldier at the other, not only did I feel it was high time to paint an ogre or two but I decided I was going to have a little fun with creative license.

Here is an ogre we all know well! He really needs no introduction, but he dates all the way back to a 1990 picture book by William Steig entitled Shrek!, and exploded to popularity on the silver screen in a film with a very similar name. The two Shreks are very different; there is little of Mike Myers’ charm in the fire-breathing, smoke-belching, princess-wooing ogre we meet in Steig’s book and yet the ogre never failed to make me smile. With these two miniatures I have built an altar to the duality of ogre-kind and more specifically Shrek-kind, and I am very pleased with the results.

Ogre Soldier, from what I believe is the Dungeons and Dragons Nolzur’s line, is one of the most charming sculpts I’ve seen come out of Wizkids. The wandering, semi-armored ogre snacking from a barrel loaded full of fish like they were potato chips just spoke to me on a level I didn’t expect. I used pretty standard recipes of Rhinox Hide, Skrag Brown, and then various bone tones for the cloak and barrel but I also got to experiment around a little with Mournfang Brown, which was fun. For the green, I fell back on a mix of Caliban Green, Warpstone Glow and Moot Green that had served me in painting some Salamanders ages ago. I think it turned out a little too “emerald” green but I’m happy enough with the results to keep it.

As for Ogre Zombie, in painting this I decided it would be just a quick, fun little color study to try and get warmed up on painting Nurgly colors. (I have my reasons!) I think the Shrek from the William Steig book would have approved of the choice, as the more dead olive colors made this fellow look pretty gnarly by the time that he was all done. I’m happy with how the eyes really stand out from the rest of the body. Even if he’s not as fun a sculpt as the Ogre Soldier I think there’s also still a lot of character here. In hindsight he’s probably more reminiscent of the Ogre War Hulk miniature from Demonweb than the Ogre Pulverizer, but I’m not shelling out for a second discontinued ogre miniature while the cost of fuel and shipping is so steep!

All in all, happy with how these two turned out! And so for at least a little while I return to my Demonweb refresh, and it’s going to be a very swampy batch, I think. What creatures now lurk in Shrek’s swamp, and will the ogre ever be able to repel or repulse all of them? Stay tuned!