The Deadly Assassins (Part 9)

The Deadly Assassins return! The sort of annual-ish feature where I paint up an Imperial Assassin. Somehow I skipped last year, but this year I'm (sort of) catching up by doing two-in-one with this odd-ball model. 

Admittedly this post should really be called the Silly Assassins. This model is called Krak Shot, and it's inspired by an original humor piece, by an artist on Deviant Art, titled Callidus n Vidicare Combo. Clearly it's ment to be a punny joke, and when I found out someone made it into an stl.file I had, half-jokingly, suggested on the Neverness Facebook Group that someone should make a copy for me.  Well, my old friend Scott accepted that challenge and was thrilled to make it for me. He said it was quite challengingt to print but on the third attempt he got it. And as you can see, it's quite fragile. 

After pondering what to actually do with it, I decided to make it into an objective marker. It's simply too silly to use it as anything else. I wanted to use a more ornate base but chose to just keep it simple. 

A few manic months went by and I eventually made some progress on this model. I primed the model in Chaos Black then gave it a layer of Abaddon Black. This is advice that I got from Duncan's brilliant tutorial of painting Synthskin, which I followed for both figures here. 

Black on black. 

The next stages was to apply Dark Reaper to all of the higher areas, followed by Hawk Turquoise and ending with a highlight of Fenrisian Grey. 

Synthskin. 

The rest of the model was fairly straightforward forward and (mostly) followed the steps laid out in Part 3 of this series. .

The Callidus' twirling and gravity defying hair was painted using Sunburst Yellow washed in Agrax Earthshade and layered again with Sunburst Yellow. I thought this turned out good despite how tricky some of the areas of the hair braid is to reach.  

And there we have it, two Assassins on one model. I must apologize for the darkness of these pics;  I'm still trying to figure out the lighting in this new studio that I am in. I may edit in some  extra pics some day.....

The Deadly Assassins (Part 8)

Welcome back to my annual (-ish) feature: the Deadly Assassins. It's  that time of year  when I paint an Assassin model. Or two. And this year, like last year,  it's two again. I opted to finish off my Death Cult Assassins to give me a squad of four (five if I can count Knosso Prond). 

Primed and ready for a killer* paint job. 

Like last year I decided to add a lot of skulls to their bases. One has an assortment of human skulls ( Heretics, most likely) and the other has a tau skull and helmet as they have been infesting our local systems in recent times. 

It was the first time I used Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint on the skulls and I absolutely love how they turned out. But I ended up highlighting them anyway to keep them consistent with the two from last year. 

Of course the Tau helm is a homage (more like a taunt) to Da Masta Cheef's ( current) Tau scheme. 

I used the same methods used on the previous Death Cult Assassins, but I reversed the color schemes on them. Except I decided that one of them would be predominantly red. I liked the look of this and it reminded me of some of the old art from John Blanche and of the two Death Cult Assassins from the old Inquisitor game.

The hair is the same scheme I have used since Knosso Prond, but I like the way it works with these colors. The faces were done a bit differently this year. I used Guilliman Flesh Contrast Paint as the base but used a Dry** paint called Eldar Flesh for the highlight. Very simple, easy, and satisfying result I think. 

Wilderness shot. Overcast skies kind of muted their colors a bit though.

And here they are, eager for the first time I deploy them. Gee, I guess I need to finally paint up some Sisters to make that happen, right? 

"We know you're hiding in that bush! Come out so we can stab you! "

*'cuz they're killers. 

**At the time of this posting, GW is in the process of canceling a good portion (if not all) of the Dry Paint line. A chunk of that Dry range and a lot of the Air brush range are currently in the Last Chance to Buy category on their website.

The Deadly Assassins (Part 7)

 

Last year I painted Knosso Prond, a Death Cult Assassin. I was quite pleased with her and wanted to paint the older metal Death Cult Assassins, which I have now done. Their paint scheme is entirely based off of the Knosso Prond miniature from last year, and you can review that post to see what inspired that paint job. 

Here they are in their prepared state, waiting for their priming. I made the first one sort of simple, just a few skulls kicking around her base. 

This next one I decided to make it xenos themed, with an ork skull and some abandoned ork gear. 

I used the exact method I used last year on Ms. Prond. The major difference is that Ms. Prond wasn't covered in paper, a trend in GW miniatures that I think is ridiculous, but it has been ongoing for 20+ years now. 

WIP shot

WIP shot.

Here are their glamor shots, not much to say other than to let their pictures do the talking:

Together.

Left side.

Right side.

Left side

Right side.

One of the things that is obvious while working on them is that they are somewhat tiny. The are taller than the guardsmen miniatures of the time but then they are fully stretched vs. a Guardsman's crouched stance. Hold them up to Ms. Prond, their (older?) sister, and they look like young girls compared to her

Knosso Prond and her Death Cult sisters. 

Finalky I sprayed matte liqueur on them since they are metal and can chip fairly easily.. And now for the customary natural lighting shots:

Ork debris can be found anywhere.

Artsy portfolio shot.

Thanks for checking out this year's edition, I think next year I might go back to the more powerful Imperial Assassins... but I do have another blister of these in metal and the temptation to double up this unit is pretty strong. We'll see about it then! 

The Deadly Assassins (Part 6)

Death Cult Assassin Knosso Prond.

Greetings. It's that time of the year where I paint an assassin. Last year I finished off the quartet of Imperial Assassins that I had set out to paint when I started this series. That act completed that Execution Force. This year I wanted to do something different, and with the launch of the Adepta Soroitas Codex a few months ago I have been itching to get something going with them. So I thought it would be a neat idea to select a Death Cult Assassin as this year's assassin model. I have the old models but after seeing Knosso Prond from the Rogue Trader Kill Team boxed set I just had to have her for this year's project. Thanks to those bitz sellers on Ebay this was acquired without having to break the bank for the Rogue Trader boxed set.  It was a surprisingly odd model to assemble, and definitely not the pushfit model that I have become accustomed to with recent boxed sets.

Knosso Prond, assembled in her red glory. 

After priming the miniature with Citadel Colour Grey Seer I set about painting her up using some Contrast Paints. The red areas were done using Blood Angel's Red and the black areas had Black Templar applied to them. I was actually impressed with how well the colors worked over the Grey Seer and figured I would use Citadel Shades on some of the remaining areas. Druchii Violot was washed on her hair and Drakenhof Nightshade was applied on the "ribbed" areas. In the end I think the whole thing was coming together nicely at this point.

Basecoats and Contrast Paint layers. 

Like some of the other assassins I painted over the years, the straps and leather areas were painted Khorne Red with the intention of using Pink Horror as the final highlight.

Ink washes applied. 

Most of the techniques used to complete this model are nothing I haven't applied in the completion of other models on this blog so in the spirit of saving a bit of time, let's just skip the end:

At the finish line.

 Touch-ups on the red Contrast Paints were done using Mephiston Red. Indeed, I found this to be a subtle highlight color which doesn't compromise the effects and benefits of using the Contrast Paint in the first place.

Blood for the Blood Emperor! 

 The head of the plague zombie was a bit more challenging to paint. I started off by using Plaguebearer Flesh as the base, followed by a highlight of Elysian Green. At some point the old Nurgles Rot Technical paint was used. For the deeper recesses Agrax Earthshade was thinly applied. The eyeball was colored using Ulthuan Grey, which is the perfect 'dead eye' color. The pupil was done using a Micron pen. The bloody stump was finished using a liberal application of Blood For The Blood God of course, as no other paint will do.

Dart champ of the 41st millennium. 

One of the things that took me a while to decipher was the dart protruding from the severed head. Even after looking at some painted examples online (and there are some lovely examples, go check 'em out!) I did not make out what was happening at first. It wasn't until I realized that there were darts on her left shoulder pad that I got that there was a dark sticking out of the head. A fun detail, and one that sort of tells a story.

An ode to John Blanche.

The red I chose reminded me of Sevora and Servina, the first Death Cult Assassins from the old up-scaled Inquisitor game (you know, the one no one played but people collected the miniatures because they were awesome) which were themselves homage to the works of John Blanche.

Legs like only Blanche can draw them.*

Another stunning Blanche piece. **

The Blade of Clean Cutting. 

I didn't put Blood For The Blood God, or any color to represent blood, on the sword. My reason for this is that I assume Ms. Prond cuts quick and clean, leaving the blood to pour from her victims wounds where they fall. Because she is bad-ass.

I am keen to give her some companions soon so I dug out these old Death Cult Assassins blisters.  Perhaps the number of painted Deadly Assassins in my collection will grow sooner than later?   Surpassing the number unpainted Assassins in my collection with painted ones seems like a lofty goal, especially at a rate of one per year!

How old does something have to be to qualify as "vintage"?

And we shall finish with Ms. Prond with another obligatory natural lighting shot. I hope you enjoyed this one!

The hills had eyes. 

*These images are shared here for reference and review purposes and should not be construed or interpreted as a challenge to the respective copyright holder(s).

**Yeah, she's not in red leather, but damn, how I could resist that teddy bear? It's creepy as heck! And GW, whenever you guys make plastic Death Cult Assassins or Inquisition models, you got to include a Teddy Bear servitor.

The Deadly Assassins (Part 5)

On the planet where the phase knives grow.

Welcome to the almost annual series of posts featuring the Imperial Assassins. Last year I showcased the Culexus Assassin, which deviated from the other two (Vindicare and Eversor Assassins) in that I didn't base it's paint scheme off of the examples used by GW with the launch of the Execution Force game. With this year's miniature, the Calidus Assassin, I decided to go back to that original inspiration, with a few minor deviations. She also completes the quartet that makes up the Execution Force.

As I touched on earlier, I used a White Dwarf (WD Weekly #65) for a rough guide on painting this model, but I also referred to a Warhammer TV video on how to paint Synskin. The steps I used was Dark Reaper, then a 50/50 mix of Dark Reaper and Russ Grey and a highlight of Russ Grey. That final stage is shown in the next pic.

About half-way done.

Interesting though this was, it was way brighter than the example in the video and compared to the other assassins I had previously painted. So I muted this down by applying a layer of Nuln Oil. Although still a bit brighter, I was very much pleased with this look.

It didn't take too long to paint up the rest. Belts, like the previous Assassins were painted using Khorne Red, Nuln OIl and Pink Horror. The green energy of the blade and gun was done using Caliban Green as a base, but unlike the Warhammer TV example, I used Game Color Livery Green with a highlight of Sunburst Yellow instead and I think it worked out good.

99% done.

I was going to give her black hair as a homage to my dear Mrs Neverness, and was going to do it by painting it white first and then using old Citadel black ink over it. But when I painted it white, I decided that I really liked how that looked! It contrasts very nicely to the Synskin suit and gives the model a unique character. I have two more Calidus Assassins, so if I have a burning desire for one with a different hair color I will probably just give myself some options.

I was really digging the open base, I thought it gave more visual power to the Callidus model from an artsy-fartsy point of view anyway, but when I put her with the other three assassins it gave her the illusion of incompleteness. So I gave in, but only minimally so, and added a single skull and two grass tufts.

The finished Callidus.

 And here she is partying up with the rest of  her Execution Force buddies. I wanted to take a pic of all of them outside in the natural light and on the moss patch but it's been raining up here for the days and I didn't want to contend with the mud. That, and direct sunlight has been a fleeting thing these past few days also.

"Dude, I can see my house!"

 Case in point, while attempting to take these outside pics, the shadows shifted. As far as details go, the first pic in this post is the best pic, even though I couldn't get the phase blade to contrast too well against the grass. But this next one, the assassin was shaded, but I think it's cool anyway. Like she's leaping from the shadows.

Shadow leaping in plain sight.

Well, that concludes the first Execution Force, but I have more assassins to kept this annual-ish thread going for a long time! See you then!