Everchosen - Archaon - WIP#3

More work on Archaon this week, with my focus being on the Tzeetch head. Unfortunately it is taking me an age to paint. So many feathers.

The process itself is actually very straight forward, it is simply the care and attention to the fine edge highlights that make this a time consuming process. It is also one of the reasons I have been working one each head a piece at a time, I think I would go stir crazy focusing on just this one before moving onto the others. Breaking down the model and working on it in small chunks helps to keep me motivated and focused.

The feathers have been painted by basecoating with Stegadon Scale Green, then washed with Coelia Greenshade. Each feather was then picked out with Stegadon green again. I did some thick edge highlights with Sotek Green, followed by thinner highlights of Temple Guard Blue. A final thin edge highlight of Baharroth Blue finished off the initial highlights

At this stage I glazed the feathers with Coelia Greenshade, but I worked from the middle of each feather back into each recess, and not out towards the tips. The other half of each feather was glazed with Sotek Green thinned with Lahmian medium several times. Baharroth Blue was reapplied to the edges to make each feather stand out.

At the moment, due to glazes, the feathers are quite gloss, and have an interesting glassy type effect. This is something easy to 'fix' with matt varnish, but I am tempted to leave them glossy and maintain the glassy effect. Something to ponder.

Everchosen - Archaon - WIP #2

Work has been slowly continuing on Dorghar, my focus being on laying on more of the base colours to each area to get a feel for how the finished model will look. Having already changed how I was going to do one of the larger areas of the model as a whole I didn't want to focus on each individual area to find that it just did not work when put together as a whole.

That being said I am not currently 100% certain that the Nurgle head will tie into the rest of the model, but I suspect a tweak to the tone with a few glazes will solve that issue so I'm not massively concerned at this stage.

The Khorne head has been based with Khorne Red then washed with Agrax. Mephiston Red was layered over this in thin glazes before an edge highlight of Evil Sunz was added. There will be further highlights to come, but again this will depend on how I do the rest of the model. My thinking at the moment is to add in either Cadian Fleshtone or Kislev flesh as the highlight tone.

The bone areas have been blocked in for now. These may change, again depending on how the model colour scheme comes together.

I also spent several evenings playing with different colours for the wings. I tried something similar to the GW scheme but this didn't work for me. In the end I have gone with a blend of Rakarth Flesh to Bugmans Glow. This was wet blended in part on the palette as well as on the model.

As mentioned in my previous post, when revisiting the skin tone I felt a grey shade had the best look when put next to the wing scheme. I can incorporate the grey into the shading for the lighter parts of the wings.

Everchosen - Archaon - WIP #1

I've wanted to do a centerpiece for my Khorne army for a while now, and I also really wanted to paint Archaon because it is a beautiful model with a lot of different detail and areas to work on. Having also picked up a copy of the new Warhammer Quest and being gifted some old Skaven by Maelstrom my Chaos horde has clearly grown to include most of the pantheon, so it seemed fitting that I should have the Everchosen at the heart of this expanded force.

I've been slowly building the model over the last few months, although at this stage I have only built Dorghar into some sub-assemblies for painting. Archaon is still on sprues, but I anticipate building him as I paint anyway.

As is my way I have naturally started with the heads for Dorghar.

So far I have been experimenting with the tone used for Dorghars lighter flesh areas. I tried a brown shade over a Rakarth Flesh base initially but this ultimately didn't gel with the direction I chose for the wings. In the end i settled for a shade of Mechanicus Standard Grey thinned with Lahmian medium as this produced a colour that will carry over to parts of the wings and tie the model together.

The Nurgle head so far is Deathworld Forest highlighted up with Nurgle Green, with Athonian Camoshade shading.

All the other areas are just blocked in colours so far, with shade washes applied.

Age of Sigmar - Khorne Bloodbound #3

With the large number of Bloodbound releases over the last few months I've managed to build up quite a force (and sticking to a budget to boot!).

I've built and painted the Blood Reaver set in it's entirety and used five of the Blood Warriors from the Blood Warrior set to bulk up the unit from the starter set to ten models strong. I could have made the unit larger but I "have plans" for the remaining models in the box.

I also dug out some Goblin Troll models that I had laying around, using these as a proxy Chaos Troll, they have received a Khorne style paint job to tie them in to the army in general.

The first of the clam pack character releases has been finished; the Exalted Deathbringer. One particular highlight in a recent game was failing to hit on all his attack rolls only to wipe out his opponents with a lucky batch of mortal wound inflicting armour saves.

At this point that pretty much brings the list of painted models up to date. On the to do list; Wrathmongers, Skullcrushers, a Skullgrinder, a Slaughterpriest and a couple more bits and bobs.

'Chaos' Trolls

Exalted Deathbringer & Blood Warriors

Blood Reavers with Deathripper Axes & Command

Age of Sigmar - Khorne Bloodbound #2

Two months since the last update. Since that last post we've moved in to the new place, decorated here and there and I have a hobby room set up. I've even found time to paint! I've been cracking on with the Khorne Bloodbound, working to get the models up to a based and shaded level (so that good tabletop level).

The army itself is now nearly completed with only a couple more things to buy to round it out and there are now less than a third of the models left to paint. I reckon I have two more boxes of bits to buy and I'll call that it for this army.

I'll focus on some of the non-starter box models in a following update, but for now here are some pictures of the remaining starter set models that I've yet to show. Once again these have been painted using the Age of Sigmar Painting Guide.

The Bloodsecrator had his face fully painted prior to attaching it to the torso as I wasn't convinced I'd be able to do it justice were it glued in beforehand. Whether I will get round to highlighting them all in the near future I do not know, but I would certainly like to get all the character models done.

Khorgorath

Bloodsecrator

Bloodstoker

Age Of Sigmar - Khorne Bloodbound - Mighty Lord Complete

This will probably be the last post for a little while as I'll be collecting keys to the new place on Friday and have a week of furniture moving, painting, unpacking and what ever exciting things house related to look forward to. So precious little hobby time for a while and almost certainly no internet either.

On the plus side I do get a dedicated new hobby room, it's small but plenty of room for me to store everything and have a nice dedicated hobby space to work from. I have also finished the Lord model, so the Khorne horde now has a fully assembled and painted leader.

Aside from substituting Steel Legion Drab for the XV-88 to do the cloak, I have continued with the painting guide scheme. The skulls have been glazed with a very thin coat of Zandrii Dust as I really didn't like the starkness of the Ushabti Bone highlights.

Khorgus Khol, Mighty Lord of Chaos

Flesh Hound

Cape Detail

For now that is it, I have managed to base and shade a large portion of the army, and if time allows I will try and pop some pictures up in the next few weeks. I've also got some Chaos Trolls and Skullcrushers on the go, the latter of which I have mixed in with some Blood Warrior parts to try and give them a bit of motion (rather than their default static poses).

So... Until next time.

Age of Sigmar - Khorne Bloodbound - Mighty Lord #1

I hit a big milestone this week, and managed to get the whole starter set painted to a good tabletop standard. Next up I'll need to get their basing done and they'll be good to go.

I also managed to assemble a box of Blood Reavers with meat ripper axes and the new Exalted Deathbringer so they'll be added to the painting production line once the rain stops long enough to let me undercoat them.

In the meantime I have been carrying on the paint work on the Mighty Lord and he is now nearing completion. Once again I am using the colours and guidelines provided in the AoS Painting Guide.

Khorn Lord WIP Front

Khorne Lord Close Up

One area where I have deviated however is the painting of the cloak - whilst I want to retain the sharp edges that typify this style I did also want to blend in some of the deeper areas to give it a smoother look. This was achieved by adding Abbadon Black to Khorne red and thinning heavily with water before applying as glazes. This is also useful to tidy up areas where you have painted an edge highlight but decided it wasn't quite right. A few coats of the glaze mix softened the edge nicely. I used this several times after I added highlights and decided that they weren't appropriate.

Khorne Lord Cloak WIP

Age of Sigmar - Khorne Bloodbound - Flesh Hound

"With the campaign being the driving force behind the army I've had to forgo my usual 'paint everything to as good a standard as I can' mentality and focus on getting base coats and shading on each model."

That was my comment last week. Didn't last long did it. I actually have an excuse though, and it is one that makes a lot of sense. So in this one instance, I don't feel too bad at breaking my own rule. Besides I actually have the bulk of the starter set painted to that basic standard, so at least I am not holding myself up too much.

So that excuse. Well the Lord model has his pet hound and if I stuck them both to the base straight away I'd never get a good paint job done on either of them. Plus your Army General does deserve a really nice paint job right off the bat.

I started off with the Flesh Hound, following the Painting Guide (with some minor variations in colour placement, primarily keeping the snout red). Keeping to the Painting Guide actually does speed this process along, with the simple base, shade and two/three highlight approach helping to keep things motoring at a nice pace.

It's also a fantastic way of practising painting fine lines.

Flesh Hound Angle #1

Flesh Hound Angle #2

Flesh Hound Angle #3

I am tempted to add a final highlight to the black to make it stand out like the red but otherwise this will be the hound done. I have already started on the Lord model and will hopefully have him finished in time for next weeks update. If not, well I have plenty of base coated models to show off...

Age of Sigmar - Khorne Bloodbound #1

I wasn't looking to start a fantasy army honestly, but the release of AoS has meant that, Maelstroms badgering aside, I would be able to get a game in locally, with a friend of mine wanting to start a narrative driven campaign. So I caved like the weak willed weakling that I am. In fairness it didn't take much persuading, as I have always had a soft spot for Khorne, so the Bloodbound were the perfect release to entice me in.

Playing the game itself proved to be a fun experience, primarily because we both focused on the narrative rather than anything else (charging a shield wall with Reavers, Blood Warriors charging their general). Taking the aim to win out of the game makes for an entertaining time for me.

With the campaign being the driving force behind the army I've had to forgo my usual 'paint everything to as good a standard as I can' mentality and focus on getting base coats and shading on each model. The agreement being that we both play only with a painted force (our first game aside). 

I've also gone with the stock colour scheme and copied the colours used in the Painting Guide. This keeps things simple as I don't have to worry about figuring a scheme out or suddenly finding I need to change it halfway through painting the force.

At this point I am well on my way to getting the whole army painted to a good solid (but basic,) standard. I have however realised that with some of the models (the Bloodsecrator and the Mighty Lord) I need to paint parts of them completely, as they'd be a right bugger to reach once assembled. I've started work on both and should have an update coming next week with both of them.

For now here are a few shots of the basic troops so far.

Blood Warriors

Reavers