The Swordmasters (Part 2)

 

Since Part One was posted I have finished the first unit of these guys. The steps of which were all covered in part one. All the completed models in this unit were flocked using grass tufts and miniature fallen leaves. I think the leaves give a particularly earthy look to them. 

The next few pics give the command models a bit more scrutiny. Here is the musician:

The unit standard bearer was particular challenging, though fun, to complete. The banner in particular was the biggest challenge as i used who Contrast paints to create a blended effect receding from a dark to a lighter blue ending in a purple tone. despite my best efforts I just couldn't get a photo that I feel is true to life for this model's colors. You'll just have to take my word for it at this point. 

And finally onto the unit leader, who I have dubbed "Gunner" due to his fabulous hair. That hair was done using Aggarros Dunes with a faint dry brush of White Scar. I guess 'frosted' is the best way to describe it? Perhaps I'll have to ask his fan club. Anyway, I am happy with how he turned out. I have happy with the sword especially as getting those mystic runes on the blades to look right was not and easy task. 

And that's a wrap, unit one is done! Now onward to unit two where I have more ideas I want to try out...

The Swordmasters (Part 1)

 

The Swordmasters. Or, more formally, the Swordmasters of Hoeth. Martial artists with really big swords. These guys were one of my favorites back in the early days of WFB 6th edition, not just because of their game stats back then, but 'I just love the 'batter's up' stance of everyone in that unit. If I recall, I had about 20 of the metal miniatures and ran them in one big massive block. (I still have PTSD from watching them being pulverized by orc rock lobbas...). 

A few months ago, around the time that the High Elf Arcane Journal was released,, I bought a second-hand collection of High Elves, most of which were from the Isle of Blood set*.  It had two 10-man units of Swordmasters however and I have since felt compelled to tinker on them. Rebasing them to 25mm bases really gives them a more beefier vibe**. With a desire to paint something that doesn't have a beard, horns or that wonderful (imagined of course) undead smell, I figured I would tinker on a single High Elf just to see how well it goes. 

Contrast Paints (first coat).

The Contrast Paints that I used for the basecoats are Guilliman Fleshwash for the flesh, Space Wolves Grey for the clothing articles that will end up white, Aggarros Dunes for the gold and hair, and finally Ultramarines Blue all over the rest of the model. 

Contrast Paint (second coat).

I was happy with the vibes I was getting from just the Contrast Paints alone! But I wanted to see it through and take him all the way to the finish. 

Metallics added.

On the next step I employed some metallic paints, classic and modern, to see this model through to the end. Retributor Gold was painted on the surface of the areas previously painted with Aggarros Dunes (except the hair). On the blue areas (except for the helmet's top knot) I painted over that with Polished Blue. And I got to say, I think this really pops! 

The translucent effect this achieved was a pleasant surprise.

Mithril Silver, another classic Citadel Colour paint from decades ago, was highlighted onto the blue metals. The heaviest application of it was on the sword as I wanted it to standout the most.  

Auric Armour Gold was the next layer over the gold followed by a highlight of Stormhost Silver. 

Mitheril Silver highlight.

And that's essentially it. There are a few gem stones that need to be dealt with, but I'lI get to them, as well as the base trim, when I knock out this next batch:

"We're next. Hopefully."

*Sadly, it didn't include White Lions, Sea Guard or that sweet Griffin. 

** We are talking about Elves here, so...

Square Base Adaptors

 Finally! I managed to find some cheap adaptors to extend the square bases on some of my finished Warhammer miniatures. Most of my old WFB miniatures are on either 20mm or 25mm bases respectively. And since The Old World launched last year (2024) a good portion of the older Warhammer miniatures have had their bases increased by one stage. Part of the reason I have started new armies (Dwarfs, Beastmen and Vampire Counts) is because I did not have the heart to rebase my Orc, High Elf and Empire miniatures. Or the time to do it even if I wanted to. 

The adaptors arrive. These are the 25mm ones.

Back when Warhammer 40k extended the round Space Marine bases from 25mm to 32mm,  it seemed that 3rd parties were quick to make adaptors or extenders for them. The first ones  I bought were made from resign and some of the later ones were plastic. But when The Old World did it's big base refresh it seemed to take a bit longer for these cheap and simple adaptors to show up.  In the interim I found some plastic ones but they were over priced for what they were. Or the cheap ones I found were MDF,  and that's a material I'm skeptical about using for this purpose. Recently, I found a seller on eBay that sells both 20mm-25mm square adaptors and 25mm-30mm square adaptors. They're plastic (a major plus!) and fairly priced. 

On the day they arrived in my mailbox I was eager to try them out.  I wanted to update one of my older miniatures so I went with a wizard who was the last model I had painted for my High Elves back in the WFB days.

Elven Wizard on 20mm base. 

It wasn't too difficult working the adaptor into place, and once I was satisfied with the dry fitting, I applied some superglue to make the bond permanent. 

Elven wizard, now with a 25mm base.

Then I added some grit and painted it to match the existing base. I followed that up with a grass tufts and a few fallen leaves. 

Flocked and painted. 

And yes, I chose to stick with a Goblin Green base. My old High Elves have Goblin Green bases, and even though this project could be a good opportunity to depart from that tradition, I just feel that the Goblin Green just works well with the High Elves. 

Anyway,  I'm pleased with this product so far and I am very likely to get more! 

AOS Square-Based Skeletons (Part 2)

 ...and they are done! 

A view of the command group.

Continuing on from last time I managed to get the whole unit of 20 completed. And I am quite pleased with how they turned out. 

The whole rabble.

I repeated this process 19 times: I edged highlighted the cloth scraps using Fenrisian Grey and washed over that with Drakenhof Nightshade. Then I kind of drybrushed the metals using Canoptek Alloy over the Gor Grunter Fur base coat.  

A view of one of the ranks. 

The banner (see the first pic) proved tricky as I had attempted to use a decal on it. But it was so old that it disintegrated when I tried to apply it. Then I attempted to hand paint an icon (the folks at Den of Imagination makes it look so easy!). But I was not happy with those results either. In the end I just decided to leave it black. This way I can just say it represents whatever banner suits me at the time. 

The undead gather

And with that, here they are gathered with the rest of their fellow Undead ilk. I am really enjoying this project and I hope you are as well! 

AoS Square-based Skeletons (Part 1)

 

After I finished the Black Coach for my Vampire Counts and gathered the whole (painted) army together to look upon my progress so far, it became apparent that I needed more Core units to support this army. Enter Skeleton Horde #2. This unit was part of the AOS Soulblight Gravelords Vanguard set that I recently picked up. Unlike Skelly Horde #1, these fellas are better proportioned, better armored, and look bad-ass. After getting them on to 25mm square bases and playing around with ranking them up, I am confident they'll work out just fine in the game. 

Assembled and gritted.

And yet, that older style of Skeleton Warrior isn't without it's charm. I have enough left over to assemble another unit (Skeleton Horde #3 will have Hand Weapons and Shields). Oh and those really old ones I posted about awhile back will likely be joining these guys as well.  Just for kicks, I thought I would take some of the leftover  bitz from this new kit and see how well they would work on the older ones. 

...and I think it works well! 

Anyway, I painted these things almost entirely using Contrast Paints. All of the cloth areas were painted using Black Templar. The spear shafts were painted with Baal Red. All the leather bits, straps and sheaths, were painted with Snakebite Leather. The bulk of the models are the armor and Spearheads which were all painted with Gore-Grunter Fur which makes a great base for rusted metal. 

Basecoats with Contrast Paint.

I wasn't so sure about this direction, so I decided to take a single Skeleton Warrior up to a nearly finished state. I edged highlighted the cloth scraps using Fenrisian Grey and washed over that with Drakenhof Nightshade. Then I kind of drybrushed the metals using Canoptek Alloy. 

One guy mostly done.

And dang! -I am very pleased with these results. Now I have 19 more to go...

An undead mass.

This Old Black Coach (Part 3)

Not that there was all that much to finish from last time, I still managed to finish this. Well, mostly. 

He's here to do the reaping.

The biggest change is that the driver is now fully painted and mounted onto his seat. I used the same color palette for his skin that I used on the ghosts. His robes were painted up from black to a light gray and then washed over using Naggaroth Nightshade. The blade of his scythe was painted with a dark brown, then a bit of old Tin Bitz was dabbed on it before finishing it with an edge highlight of Stormhost Silver.

I imagine this thing bouces a lot. 

Also, this post was a chance to re-photograph this thing with a different color background so that the ghosts stand out better. They blended in a bit more than  I would have preferred with the previous one.

Rear 3/4 shot.

The coach is now securely attached to it's base. I added a few tufts of grass on the road edge. I think I might go back and place a few leaves as well, but we'll see if I can remember to do that.

Profile shot. 

The last thing to finish is the coffin and it's resting occupant. He was fun to paint, although a bit challenging. I have wonder how challenging sculpting this was for the artist who produced this. I had an idea to try to magnetize the lid using thin straps of sheet magnet. This, however, utterly failed. I think it was a polarity issue and after several attempts, I decided to abort the whole magnet idea. Frustrated, I stopped there for the night. 

Sheet magnets on the coffin rim.

The next day I looked at it and decided the sheet magnets had to go so I stripped them off, repaired the damaged paint, and applied three tiny magnets. These magnets were acquired back when the misguided notion of slapping out Marine special weapons was something I was keen to do.. Anyway, after attempting to reverse some of polarity on these new magnets I was impressed when they actually worked! 

Small magnets added. 

There is a significant gap between the lid and the coffin, but without getting really fanatical about the whole thing, I decided I would live with this. If I had known how this would've resulted beforehand I would've attempted to add a small green LED light to the inside of the coffin to make the light seep out of that gap. That might've looked creepy-cool. 

Not as a tight a gap as I wanted but it'll do.

The coffin fits in the Black Coach now and I am not at risk of losing the coffin lid. Well, unless I lose the whole thing, but that would be far worse blunder. 

Happy trails.

I think this is a good opportunity to take a look at all of the Vampire Counts miniatures I have built and painted so far. Interestingly, since I started painting models for Warhammer: The Old World last summer, I seem to have painted more for this army than I have any of the other ones. I suppose the Dwarfs are coming in second in that race but we'll see if they can retake that spot back over soon. Note the cluster of primed pirate zombies over to the right, just waiting for their paintjobs to enhance their grossness. And I have a few more vampires waiting as well. Currently, the only painted vampire is conked out in the back of that Black Coach! 

The spooky crew so far...

This Old Black Coach (Part 2)

 Since Part One of this project was posted I have made some progress on this grisly model. Quite a lot in fact. 

Yes, it's mostly finished but the most obvious thing I have yet to do is to secure it to it's base. 

As far as painting goes,, here is what I recall: The red areas, the cushions and curtains specifically, were finished off by using Carroburg Crimson in the recesses and Pink Horror for the highlight. The wooden areas, the wheels mostly, were painted using Wyldewood Contrast Paint. This is probably my good go-to for anything wooden, I just love it! 

The gold (-ish) filigree was painted using a copper which was drybrushed over using Sigmartite and finishing if off with a highlight of Stormhost Silver. 

The Black of the coach was highlighted using a light gray. Then I washed over all of the Black areas using Naggaroth Nightshade. 

I didn't want the flames on the pair of torches to be typical flames, but rather something warp and evil. Green flames would fit the bill and stand out against the other colors on the model. 

The last two bits to complete are the driver and the coffin. That also includes the occupant within it...

This Old Black Coach (Part 1)

The Black Coach rides forth.

I have always loved the old Black Coach model. It was so Gothic and regal.  It was also loaded with stoic charm despite it's implied movement. All this made it  a bit creepy.  I also really like the current plastic one with all it's energy and spirit mayhem. However, it 's price point made it unattainable for me. Lucky for me I found this old one for a fraction of the cost. While putting it together I kept finding images of the newer kit, and it's ghostly attendants were really starting to grow on me. 

Primed to the right.

As you can see, I came up with a solution. I found a pair of ghosts attached to a single sprue on ebay. I believe they may have been part of a Warhammer Underworlds team. After a bit of trimming and tweaking I was able to make it seem as if they were whisping forth from the window of this herse. 

Primed to the left. 

I was excited to get cracking on this so I primed the whole thing in Wraithbone and after it dried for a few hours I set about applying Contrast Paint for a basecoat. 

Contrast paints for the basecoat.

I started off with Skeleton Horde for the bones (horses and corpse-on-a-stick), Wyrmwood on the wooden wheels, Black Templar for the bulk of the coach,  Briar Queen Chill on the ghosts and Baal Red on the curtains, cushions, padding and the top knots on the horse's armor. 

Spooky ride. 

The things I didn't paint is the armor on the skelly horse's heads, but I will get to that when I do the touch-ups. After that I proceed to the mid coats and build the whole thing up with highlights.  I am satisfied with it enough to call it battle-ready,  but it's fsr from done in my eyes. 

A piece of a spooky road. 

Of course to truly make it battle-ready I would need to stick onto it's base, which is mostly done at this stage. It just needs a bit of grass tufts and maybe some fallen leaves. But for now, we'll save that for a follow-up post. 

Hobgrots on Squares (Part 2)

 

Ranked, filed and ready! 

Continuing on from the previous post I proceeded to make progress on these guys. 

I never liked the way GW used to paint the old hobgoblins. They were green, oh so green. Greener than the regular grots and gobos by far. I always thought of hobgoblins to be a bit more on the tan side with a hint of green.  A hobgrot painting tutorial in a recent White Dwarf really brought the idea home for me. I have always thought the ideal hobgoblins were the ones depicted on the cover of Warlock magazine #4 (which I bought at the Stars & Stripes bookstore at RAF Greenham Common way back in 1985). Their look forever informed my interpretation of what Hobgoblins should look like. Sadly I don't think any company has ever produced a miniature depicting a pair of them riding a bad-ass griffin but 12 year-old me is holding out hope!

Warlock Magazine #4. Such an awesome magazine this was. 

Anyway,  I began by simply basecoating the skin using Hobgrot Flesh.

Hobgrot Flesh. 

Next I washed the skin using Reikland Fleshwash.

Reikland Fleshwash.

I painted all the ropes (of which there seems to be alot) that adorn these fellas and their shields using  Kborne Red. Their flesh received another layer of Hobgrot Flesh. Then disaster struck: 

Calamity. 

We have two new kittens we adopted about two weeks ago who tend to  combine together into the avatar of a tornado. I made the mistake of leaving the door to my room open and they ended up messing with my table displacing many of my WIP models and worse knocking the movement tray of Hobgrots onto my floor. About half of them were busted off of their bases, but none of the actual miniatures were broken. Sadly the Lance ro my Pegaduke* was snapped off but I managed to fix it . 

Don't let the cuteness of this daemon trick you. 

Once the repairs were made, I highlighted their flesh using Zandari Dust. Then I applied Leadbelcher to their metal things (armor, weapons, trinkets, and whatever else) and painted their teeth with Wraithbone. Oh, and I picked out their eyes using Khorne Red. 

Repaired. 

The metals were washed with Cryptek Armourshade Gloss. I can't recommend this color enough for aging metals, it's amazing! 

The ropes that these guys are basically wearing as crude clothing were painted with Khorne Red. Although I like how these colors looked, at a glance from a distance they kind of looked like guts dangling out of everyone's bellies. That wasn't a look I wanted to run with. 

Repaired and with more paint.

So I went old skool and broke out the classic Blood Red from the '90s and painted over the Khorne Red with it. I really dig this now! This really worked out well on their shields also. 

Red shields (with battle damage).

I decided that he liquid dripping off of the Champion's sword was blood. I have seen other examples that interpreted this as poison and painted that goop in some exotic color to represent that. -Trust me, this was almost Tesseract Green! 

 

Embrace the red.

I decided that it was just a lot of blood and so I painted over it using Wraithbone and then applied about two coats of a classic:  Blood For The Blood God. 

Ta-da, done!

And after a bunch of cleanup using a variety of colors and minor highlights. I would say that the most important one being Stormhost Silver for edge highlights on armor, blades and spikes. 

The Champs.

After some grass tufts, they are now officially done! Yay! The temptation to do more detail work on their faces is strong, but for bulk fodder, I think I can stop here.  I hope these guys look good to you all as well. Thanks again for reading all this!

*It seems that I never posted that article, so sorry about the mystery.