Dances with Ur-Ghuls

 

A pair of Ur-Ghuls. 

Every good Archon (ur, well evil technically) has to have a retinue and one of the weirdest options they can have are some Ur-Ghuls. When their first miniatures were released on the scene GW had just transitioned to Finecast (shudder) and even though the Archon linked above is in fact a Finecast model, I just couldn't find it in me to pay the price for the Ur-Ghul miniature. And I am glad I did because many years later they would appear in plastic in the Blackstone Fortress game  and thanks to those online bitz brokers out there, I was able to score two Ur-Ghuls in plastic for less than the retail cost of the inferior Finecast model. Excited, I based them up, primed them, and... forgot about them for over a year. 

Granite Grey over Chaos Black Primer

Until the other day when I was scouring YouTube for interesting podcasts I stumbled upon this painting tutorial.  They made it look stupid easy to paint these things, and well I am becoming a sucker for fast and easy miniature painting techniques. I compared this to the Dark Eldar Painting Guide: Raiders Of Commorragh which has a single page Ur-Ghul tutorial and decided to something a bit between these two versions. However, both of these examples required that the models be primed White and I had already primed these guys using Black. I didn't have the Citadel color that GW recommended as the basecoat in both tutorials so had to find an analog. Apple Barrel Granite Grey turned out to be perfect for this and it coats over the Black Primer very well. 

Next came the liberal wash of Coeliac Greenshade. This stuff rocks! I like the vibe this color creates. If these guys were ghosts I would mostly be done at this stage! 

Coelia Greenshade wash stage.

Coelia Greenshade was drybrushed over using Ulthuan Grey. It was amusing to me just how close Ulthuan Grey was to the Granite Grey, it was only a tad brighter.

Ulthuan Grey drybrush layer.

Druchii Violet was washed over the hands following the technique from the Warhammer TV video. Carosburg Crimson was applied to the face as per The Dark Eldar Painting Guide. The final step was to hit the highlights with a solid application of Ulthuan Grey. This was conservatively applied on the raised areas where the skin is tight and on the tips like their knuckles and ribcage.

Ulthuan Grey highlights. 

After this step, I finished off the skull on the one model's base,  added some tufts and finished off the rims on both miniatures' bases. And, presto, I had both of these miniatures knocked out in (for me anyway) record time.  And I even had time to introduce them to their boss, the still unnamed* Archon for my Dark Eldar force. 

The court assembles.

I hope to expand this court of painted miniatures sooner than later, but I doubt I can expand it with the expediency to which I was able to execute these Ur-Ghuls. But, believe it or not,  that's two miniatures from my painting queue completed! 

*I am thinking about naming him Skot, after an old friend. Yeah, Skot the Despot. Catchy name, although some might think he's a bit of dick,..