Skitterkyn Skittering!

Well that was a longer break than I had intended from posting. Many things distracting me from posting and paining, namely a new job :)

Heres a new character for my chaos warband project, the Skitterkyn!

I'll hopefully manage to get some paint on it later tonight ready for a proper post and introduction to the model.

ixor the keyholdyr - Nearly finished

Managed to get some paint on Ixor last night, hes come out a little differently to planned, mostly due to some weird wash seperation. That will teach me to shake washes properly before use.

Here he is:

Im not sure what my next figure will be, im thinking of working on some scenery for some better backgrounds for my photos. I do have my Iron Warrior champion to work on, but its not really inspiring me at the moment.

I may just have a browse online and see what figures inspire me.

Ixor the Keyholdyr - Work in progress

While I wait for my conversion bits to arrive i've put together this happy fella, a member of a warband idea thats been forming in my head. Linked to my Chaos Preacher figure this new warband is The Wardens of the Shattered Aquilla.

Ixor the Keyholdyr

During the fall of imperial rule and crushing inversion of the warp the sanctary known as the Bastilia Imperious was beseiged by scores of refugees seeking shelter from the horrors that had decended. What went on within the walls of the Bastillia are a tale for another time, but it was Ixor who sealed the great aquilla and his ears to the screams of the demons and the damned. Each time those who needed entry rang out on the doors he denied them, seeking comfort In knowing his duties were just.

Ixor still holds his precious position, serving the now corrupted masters of the Bastilla, his skin marked with pox and boils, each a mark of a time he denied entry to the inocent, Itching and painful they constantly require attention from Ixor distracting him from his duties, After all the great god Nurgle enjoys a good joke.

Chaos Preacher - Finished!

Started and finished my Chaos Preacher figure last night, below you will find a very blurry camera photo. Hopefully i'l be able to borrow the works camera to get some better shots over the weekend of some completed models.

I really enjoyed painting this figure and I went about it in a completely different way to how I normally approach a paint job.

(He looks a lot better in the flesh)

I tried to be a bit more loose and free hand in my painting, mixing colours on the go and adding washes and medium to paints to get better flow. I think this is the style which I will continue to pursue.

I really love this rust effect medium from Model Mates, Its stupidly easy to apply and the effect is awesome, I can't wait to try it on some vehicles.

Hopefully once I complete some scene setting scenary and display board i'll be able to get some better photos with a lot more character in them.

I said last post that I would soon update with what my current plans are going forward, this is more a guide for myself really to ensure I stick to some form of structure.

1. Finish green stuffing and paint my Mutant Leader conversion.

2. Paint up my Iron Warriors Champion. (At the moment he's just the CSM Aspiring Champion straight out of the blister, so I may add a few bits of details)

3. Paint up some basic Chaos Cultists (This should help flex my painting muscles and also give me some figures for Scene Setting Photos)

4. Build some scenery (This will be basicly for photographing purposes)

I reckon this will keep me busy for a week so two.

Chaos Preacher - Alterations and Undercoating.

*Heres the first of hopefully two posts today regarding what i'm currently upto and my new to-do list.


Chaos Preacher:

I made a few changes to my Chaos Preacher conversion last night, mostly because I wasn't happy with the figures right arm and bolt pistol.

I've swapped the bolt pistol arm for one with a plasma pistol from the CSM Upgrade sprue and added a shoulder guard from the Black Templars sprue with the Crux terminatus sysmbol shaved off.

Weirdly each photo makes the pose look odd, Once I get a better setup for photos hopefully all this should change.

Here's a pic after a quick GW CB Undercoat:

(Another really poor shot from my camera phone)

It's been a while since I last used Black Primer so the results should be interesting. Recently my painting has been shades, washes and glazes over a white undercoat as can be seen on my Nurgle Herald a while back.

Looking at the Preacher as a test model of sorts for my colour scheme I've realised that I needed to go back to the shading and shadows that only a black primer can provide. This is especially true for the metal and the rusty armour effect that I want.

I'l see what I can get done tonight painting wise, although I still need to finish green stuffing my Mutant Leader.

Chaos Preacher - First Sightings

Over the weekend I've continued work on my Mutant warband's leader. He (It?) still needs quite a bit of green stuffing to fill a bit hole in the back muscles and around the head. To be honest I think he's lacking a bit of something to really tie him into the 40k universe so I may have to think about adding to more techno bits to bring him in line.

As a bit of a distraction whilst I wait for inspiration to strike I've put together this wandering chaos preacher figure. He's not really intended to go in any particular warband but as a character model he's there to flesh out the background of the demon world I'm working on (Which still needs a cool name).

(It was a sunny day so I decided to take a picture outside, turn out a lot better than my past efforts, although my camera work has made the bolt pistol look massive)

(I used another part from the Flagellant's kit to cover up an old nasty plastic glue spill on the models back, this was so old the plastic glue had turned yellow!)

Whilst moving some old boxes of stuff around my room an old chaos warrior plastic figure dropped to the floor. Now when they were initally released I had a huge army of these figures, but they were abandoned and donated to another player years back once the newer plastic kit came out. I guess this bit of history had been hiding out ever since. I've combined the legs and torso with some bits left over from a CSM spruce along with some bits from the Empire Flagellants kit. He seems to have come together quite well for something that only took 5 mins.

Once I get my order from Wayland games today I'l be able to finally undercoat some figures and get painting. My package from Model Mates turned up on friday with the rust effect paint so I'm looking forward to giving it a try on this figures armour.

With any luck I'l have this fella painted tonight!

Mutant Leader - Green Stuffing

Got some more work done on the majority of the green stuffing last night. I've started to add the desired texture to the mutants skin whilst bulking out the areas where I had to shave away the original arms.

Theres still a ton of small details to add yet to add more character to the figure. I've got loads of small chaos icons on chains from the Marauder horseman sprue along with some pouches and other junk. I was also considering the back banner from the WFB Empire Flagallent warband boxset for the Mutant although I'l probably save a banner for one of his minions as the models tall enough as it is.

I'm hoping to be able to get some painting started by the weekend although I may distract myself with some cultist figures to ensure I've got my colour scheme right first. Also I need to do some tests to see what basing will suit the figures best.

Mutant Leader - First Sightings

A very quick update with a terrible photo of the wip on my mutant warband's leader.

Still a huge ammount of green stuffing to do on the gaps between the limbs and body. I intend to sculpt the mutants skin to have a texture more like the arms with sores and scars.

I'm not a 100% sure on the helmeted head at the moment but don't really have an alternative that feels right either.

Heres the photo.(I've smoothed some gaps in photoshop)

Hopefully things will look better in the next post.

Back from Nottingham - Warband Progress

Having spent the weekend in Nottingham for my brother's Stag do I felt it would be rude not to pop in the Nottingham Town Centre GW.

Some nice figures on display including a cool Howling Griffons force, although the gaming tables were very plain, i really miss having cool scratch built scenery in stores. I managed to pick up a box of the chaos cultists to be spread across a couple of the warbands and the Chaos Aspiring Champion Plastic figure for my future Iron Warriors Warband.

My parts have now turned up for my mutant warband leader from the Bitz store on Ebay, so there will be some more posts coming this week regarding my progress, in particular i'm going to have to give some thoughts to my colour choices, using the previously posted artwork as a guide.

Here you can see where I've grabbed part of the artwork and pixelated it to get a colour chart. Hopefully this will help with my colour choices.

Order placed & Designing a World

Well i've placed my orders for the parts required for my first warband member as mentioned in my last post. Hopefully I should have the parts with me by next week so I can start mocking up my first warbands leader.

Parts include:

Savage Orc Warboss Plastic
Some Forsaken arms & Heads
Chaos Knight Shoulder Pads (Not sure if they will be used)

I also ordered the Forsaken head with the eyestalks for another potential figure.

Also i've been having some thoughts about coming up with a setting for my warband and this led me to the idea of concepting a whole daemonworld.

 I brainstormed some ideas which I think will be really cool and will probably play out as Three warbands. This is a long term plan and i'm not sure everything will ever get finished but so far these are my ideas:

1. Main Focus - A Daemonworld mutant warband featuring debased chaos warriors and renegades. All infantry with some larger mutants and possibly Daemonkin.

2. Secondary Focus - A Dark Mechanicus Warband. Lots of scope for Mecha-thralls and debased servitors with a skimmer type transport (Why a Skimmer? this will become clearer once I've finalised my very rough background!)

3. Least Focus - A Iron Warriors War Party - More based on the old concept of Chaos Renegades led by a champion. This will be the smallest of the warbands and be mostly character focused.

So this is the inital plan, lets see how it survives contact with the enemy!

Something Wicked this way comes!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm looking at creating a bit of an 'Old School' vibe Chaos Warband. I'm not sure yet how many models this will end up being or the exact make up of the warband.

However I am sure that it will be inspired by this piece of classic artwork.

I'm especially drawn the to rusting metals on the warriors/renegades in the bottom left. There's an excellent tutorial for painting rusty metal on the Tale of Painters Blog which I will be attempting to combine with my own painting style. I'm hoping to be able to capture the feel of the artwork without being a slave to copying the images directly.

I'm already getting a list together for the parts i'll need for my first conversion, a Demonworld renegade in the midst of transformation into some new form of monstrosity. I'll be using the plastic Savage orc model as a base along with several parts from the Forsaken kit and hopefully some orky bits aswell.