Battlemasters Tower (Part 3)

 Continuing from Part Two, I finally made progress on this thing by painting the doors. 

Adorable huh?

These doors were left in their original black primer for a few years now. The idea was that I would simply dry brush them in a gray and call it done. Only that once I got around to doing it I found that the gray of door kind of clashed withe the surrounding gray bricks. 

The gray on black doors. 

Well, I wasn't having that. So a wash of Agrax Earthshade mostly did the trick. I did find that the cracks between the individual door planks needed a kick in the contrast department, and more Agrax Earthshade wasn't going to do it, I needed to bring out something more potent. And that turned out to be Brown Ink from the Citadel Inks set from the '80s. The inks from that time still hold up and they were, and I'm not understanding this, very intense hues. I just used a thin blush and ran the Brown Ink down the joins and along the door edges. 2

Brown Ink in the joins. 

Gray over black. 

The hinges and door latches were all painted with the old Tin Bitz paint, then randomly painted with an old Copper craft paint. 

The studs on the doors were painted in a copper cplor as well then highlighted with Leadbelcher. I used Leadbelcher as a highlight on the hinges and latches also. 

All-in-all, I think these doors turned out pretty good. They really have an archaic vibe to them which is totally what I was going for.  But this mighty little tower isn't done yet. In part tfour I am going to paint the banner that is draped over the front crenalations. Well not the whole banner. -You'll see! 

Anyone know where I can find 25mm-28mm empty milk bottles?

Celestial Lions Chaplain (Part 2)

Continuing on from Part 1, it's time to paint this first-born hero. 

I picked out the gold ornamentation with Retributor Armour and used Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint on the areas I decided to paint a bone color. 

After a bit of internal debate, I decided to go ahead and paint the right shoulder pad a bone color instead of gold. I thought this might break up the monotony a bit. I kind of like the armor bewing white. It reminds me of a Dark Angel force that was shown in White Dwarf back in the '90s that had all the leader models painted in Death Wing white. Well, that's an idea for a different army I think. Next I painted the armor black using good old Abaddon Black 

Next I picked out the gun holster and the wax part of the purity seal using Khorne Red. Gee, for a guy who hates Chaos, he sure is adorned with a lot of colors named for it, huh? 

So, I suppose he's painted to a Combat Ready standard, but I have no intention of  keeping him this way. So far it's been fun painting up this old miniature. Next up, his mid-coats and highlights. 

Where's My Thane?

Of all the used dwarf models that came in the lot that I bought back in the summer, the only one missing a component was the Thane model; he was missing his axe.  His mighty axe. Gone. Lost in the warp. 

"Aye ain't 'armless, aye still got me teeth!"

The paint job on this one was refreshingly basic, so doing my thing over it shouldn't be too challenging I think. I'm tempted to keep that pink trim on his cloak, just for the humor of it. 

Gotta have solid stones to rock the pink frill.

Going through my bits, I found this hammer from the early '00s multi-part dwarf kit that I determined would do the trick. With minimal tinkering I was able to get it to fit, and I think it looks pretty tough. 

Heavy metal indeed!

Being the big-bad Thane that he is, I thought he needed a suitable base. Who needs a tactical rock when you got tactical slab! This came from the old citadel basing kit. I added a few skulls too in order to make it a bit more interesting. 

But is that enough skulls?

Here he is being test fit to the base. Yeah, I think he's going to look cool on this thing. I was surprised at how balanced he was on it, which will make gluing him to it a little easier. 

Surprisingly balanced.

I painted the base up first. I like to keep things detached at this stage in order to get a cleaner paint job. 

Painted rock and skulls. 

Painting this guy was pretty straightforward because he was more metallic colors than anything else. 

The green is my typical mix that I use for my dwarves: Caliban Green with a highlight of old Woodland Green.  As I paint more of these guys in this scheme the cool greens contrasting against the hot metallics seem to work better. Especially when a lot of them are all ranked up.

And yes, that purplish trim contrasts nicely against that cloak also. He's a Thane with a sense of style. 

Style. Pimp royale.

I used the existing color that was on the cloak as base for my greens and it works well giving the green an added sense of depth that I like.  I'm not sure but I think that existing  color was Kabalite Green or an older analog of it... just not too sure actually.

I needed more depth on his beard so I washed it with Nuln Oil and highlighted it again with White Scar.  After a few touch-ups, he was good and done. 

Hammer time! 

Here he is ranked up with the dwarf warriors that I painted a few months ago. I think he looks good and stands out prominently as a leader among his peers. 

A true leader indeed!