After what has been possibly the busiest week I have ever experienced I was left utterly exhausted and devoid of any motivation to do anything other than sit on the sofa and move as little as physically possible. I even had to have a battle of wills with my arm before I could force it to turn the TV on!
However I have now recovered from this vaguely conscious, practically comatose state and have even managed to squirrel away a little painting time! I am currently waiting for some of the pre-finishing touches to dry before I put the finishing touches on the first five Clan Rats. The novelty of ‘thoughtless painting’ wore off within the first three colours, but as it takes about an hour to get all but the finishing touches done of each batch of five (damn the drying time needed!) I’m hoping to see fairly quick progress… I have taken a bit of a gamble on the Clan Rats by trying out having their shields a fairly vivid green to further set them apart from the Slaves. I like the way it looks on the first five, lets just hope that I don’t end up re-painting shields when the rest are done… Let the mindless repetition of brush strokes continue until there are no ‘plastic grey’ Clan Rats left to make mockery of my painted slaves!
The ‘Plastic Grey’ Clan Rats and their brightly coloured shields.
Posted: October 13, 2012 in UncategorizedThis one could take me a while, though I am looking forward to the mind-numbing simplicity of the squad! Maybe I’ll let my mind wander while I paint and solve many seemingly unsolvable conundrums… By the time the squad is finished I shall have found a solution to world hunger, global warming and the burning question of why so many people enjoy watching so much terrible reality TV.
Again I shall mostly be using greens, though as these guys have armour I think a dark, dirty silver might well be the predominant colour of the unit. (Hopefully the paint I ordered Friday will arrive today as I’m running out of the mud wash!)
I’ve only put this picture on again because my IT skills are extremely limited and it’s the only way a know to get the picture to put it elsewhere!
I have finally completed my Vermin Lord. It is the biggest, scariest model I have ever painted! I’m pleased with the way it looks looming over my one other painted squad… I like to imagine the Slaves caught between their fear of marching forward and their terror at the Vermin Lord.
I have painted the sides of the base since taking this photo! I decided to keep the Furnace as part of the model as it gave a very easy excuse for a spot colour which I have struggled to get in else where on the model.
Well it’s been a while since I managed to get any painting done until recently…
I finally plucked up the courage to continue with the Vermin Lord, it is still a daunting project! I’ve discovered that starting at the feet lets me try out the colours (and check the consistancy of paint needed) before painting any of the more obvious parts of the miniture. I’m quite pleased with how it’s working out so far, especially now that I’ve reached the ‘finishing touches’ stage and things seem to be speeding up a little!
This is my own version of the Vermin Lord, I found the Games Workshop one a little too small and vulnerable looking for what should be the most imposing creature/model in my horde. It is very much still a work in progress!
I began with the Beastman Ghorgon kit which I then added a tail, rats face, different weapon, plenty of Skaveny stuff (E.G. runes sunk into his flesh, which will be glowing green) and the furnace from the Screaming Bell / Plague Furnace kit (I’m not sure I like the furnace, though it does balance the model nicely…). I also removed lots of arms and Beastman type stuff and re-built the horns to at least resemble the original Vermin Lord. Again I will stick with greens for the clothing / rags and continue to use the matt / gloss finishes to add texture.
I have a soft spot for these little rats which I think is down to painting them after having just finished painting thirty slaves (it is a little worrying that I found thirty a lot to paint given some of the units I have planned)! This was also the miniture that made me go down the route of trying to use gloss textures to try and make things (especially warpstoney stuff) stand out which I have never tried before. Again sticking with the greens and lots of wash.
Though I have since discovered that the idea was not even remotely original I was quite pleased with myself when I worked out I could build a whole squad without armour and make them Skaven Slaves!
The general plan with these worthless critters was to make them look random yet coherant (I do enjoy a good oxymoron)! I chose three shades of green and two or three washes which I used for all their rags. Unfortunately I couldn’t make their warts and boils look as I want them so they are still a work in progress! I chose spears purely because the length makes them look more like a seething mass with out any effort on my part. There will hopefully be four of the models being replaced by a large modeled ‘lump’ of slaves climbing over each other.
I feel it would be a bit rich to describe my current collection as a horde, however here it is…
As you can see I did not begin this blog when I began my modeling or painting unfortunately, I have already painted a unit of Skaven Slaves, a Poisoned Wind Mortar and begun modeling and painting my ‘Vermin Lord‘.
My overall design/feel for the army is still scurrying (see what I did there?) around in my head, however I know that I want my horde to…
- Look like a horde E.G. have minitures crawling over each other to get to the front. (I’m still working on how to create that effect!
- Despite looking like a horde I want it to feel much more uniformed than the Games Workshop examples, to achieve this I have simply decided on a (somewhat vague) uniform… Green, lots of different greens. Judging by the first unit it seems to be working!
Due to a few requests for a documented progress report (I also won’t deny my own desire for a visual record, if only to prove to myself that I am getting somewhere!) I have begun this blog to show the creation of my Skaven horde from (near) beginnings to horde and hopefully beyond. This army is designed primerally to please me while I model, paint and then look at it. Gaming with it is somewhere between skydiving and getting physically fit on my list of priorities (it would not be awful if it happened, but I won’t be putting any effort into making it happen).
Skratch Marks 