Fleshy experiments

I have finally managed to get some painting done. The constant gloom here makes any form of highlighting difficult! I am experimenting with the Children of the Bear hoping to find the correct skin tone. I wante something a little pink, hinting towards Slaanesh. I think I have achieved that. The colour starts very pink and then mellows into a nice light flesh colour. It is easy enough to mix too and as I have most of the flesh covered for these guys quick to apply. Thankfully today seems to be good too so I hope I can get some more painting done. I hope to have these guys finshed this week. That would see me with three core regiments finished with two weeks to go to the next tournament. I will be able to get a little more done by then so the army will be in some form of decent shape!

The cloaks will follow the brown I used for the fur on the Chaos Warriors collars. I am going to 'stripe' the fur.By that I mean it will start very dark in the centre of the cloak and then lighten out towards the edges. It gives it a more natural look and makes it less boring. Seeing a sea of the same coloured cloaks is not very inspiring! The rest of the colours will be neutral too. A mix of warm browns and greys like the Nurgle Sorcerer. There are a few pieces on the models that need something more in colour terms. Many of them have loin cloths. I was thinking of doing these in a dark red. I have no clue as to what colour to go for. Green is out as I don't intend to use any green if I can. Any ideas?

This is the slight conversion I made for Crom. I hated the sunken or maybe shrunken head he and Archaon share. I used one of the knights helms and made a gorget for it to sit inside raising his head up. The model looks a lot better this way I think. I kept with the original sword for the left arm. I had been thinking about making him a Battle Standard Bearer. His arm is extended out a little too far though and I don't think it would have looked nice. For his right arm I am satying with the original style but using pieces from the knights set. I wanted him to have a larger more dramatic shield. By using the plastics I could also alter the angle that he is holding the shield at and keep it away from his body. That means that the delicate painting won't be hidden by the shield!

At least I am reading!

My hobby has been suffering of late! I am very busy at the moment between going back to Ireland for a weekend and looking for work. At least with all the travels I am getting a lot of reading done. My flight on Friday was delayed by two hours so I really got caught up in the book while waiting. Currently I am reading Toll the Hounds part of the wonderful Malazan series by Stephen Erikkson. I am almost at the end and I have enjoyed the book a lot. The authors style has changed a bit from his earlier books with a lot more narrative introspection but the action still delivers. I read the first five books in the series one after another while long distance commuting a number of years ago. Then I had to wait for the rest of the series to come out. In the meantime I was busy travelling the world! Once I got back a lot of time had passed and it was difficult to get back into the series. I had forgotten a lot of the characters and events. I could even be wrong about the evolution of style but my memory tells me that the writing was more concise and focused (but not better) in the earlier books. Dust of Dreams is already out. It claims to be the penultimate book in the series. I hope so as I do like my storeis to eventually finish!

I picked up Drood today. It is what I will read while waiting for Dust of Dreams to come out in a better format. I really like Dan Simmons and have read all his Sci-Fi books so far. I found this in the Crime section of Thalia books in Hamburg. I am not quite sure if it is in the right place but I bought it anyway. I hope he follows his usual wonderful style that have made Hyperion and Olympos some of my favorite books. I recommend them highly especially if you have any interest in either the poetry of John Keats or in Homer's ancient writings. On another note the latest in the Wheel of Time series has been released. Seemingly it has gone from a single tome to three books. I hope they will be good and that the series does end eventually! I will await the publishing of all three before I restart that series. The initial reviews from friends have said that it is at least promising and that the styles of the authors compliment each other well.

I am hoping to get right back on track with the painting soon. Tomorrow may be a relaxing day and if so I will be breaking out the brushes and attempting to finish some test marauders I have been doing. I noticed in the almost local Games Store that a Crom the Conqueror model was still on sale. I believe that he is now out of production? I bought him anyway as I wanted to get a nice collection of characters for the army. I am already trying to dream up how I will convert him. Oh and the weather in Hamburg is terrible at the moment!

The cusp of completion

It seems the weather has put an end to my gardening career! It has been really grim and gloomy here for the last few days, the rain has never been far away. The view from my room is amazing however, I am surrounded by wonderful golden trees with a few scattered pines for contrast. With the weather being so bad I managed to get a lot of painting done over the weekend. A few hours of brightness on Saturday enabled me to tackle some of the highlighting on the cloaks of the six that were remaning to be done. When I mixed a brown glaze for them that evening I got a strange purple tone in it. From where it came I don't have a clue. It was a clean palette I used so it was a little weird. In an experimental mood I applied it as it was only a slight purple tone. It worked suprisingly well. However it had some drawbacks! While at the bottom of the cloaks it was fantastic it made the transitions very stark at the top of the cloak. It seemed to change the mid-tone. It is okay but I will have to experiment a little more. Thankfully these cloaks were for the guys in the front ranks so it won't be too noticable.

The warriors are almost there, the cusp of completion. I have the skulls at the back of the cloaks to do and then the weathering and bases. I have undoubtedly missed some pieces somewhere so I will go back over them tomorrow with a fresh glance to see what needs some more attention. I have a tournament in Ulster in four weeks. The army will not be ready at all. It will be January I think before I can field a fully painted army. I tried to get to a tournament here over the weekend. I contacted the organisers but it was full. That was a pity. My Battlefoam case is supposed to be here sometime towards the end of the week so can get the army around now. I called their office to see what the progress was. According to them it will be dispatched today! That means I can start looking for opponents.

Will they ever be finished?

I am still not finished. These Chaos Warriors are taking ages to do! At least the first rank (not the front rank) is getting there. The skulls and plumes are the last things to do. I might need to tidy the mettalics on the swords a little more but I have to wait for them to dry fully and see what they look like then. I have realised that the large shields really cover about 50% of the model. That will be good to remember as I can skip painting one of the legs. Well I can skip the armour plates at least. The shield covers them completely. These guys are turning out nice and I am getting a little more enthusiastic about the painting. It really is nice to see something completed for a change (well almost completed!).

I am going to continue and get the final six members of this regiment done as soon as possible. I would have liked to have taken a break and get a second regiment of hounds done. It is probably best to keep going with these and just get them completed. I am currently sculpting some detail for the standard bearer. I am giving these guys the standard from the deamonette box that has the Slaanesh symbol. Sadly it doesn't fit straight onto the warrior model. A slight adjustment of the arm and some armour plates should work fine. Painting that standard will be great. I don't have a clue how I should go about that! For those that asked the heads come from the mounted Slaanesh Champion. I mail ordered them years ago when I was then thinking about a Slaanesh army. I never used them and found them just before I moved to Germany. That was a welcome suprise. It is a pity I didn't also order a few of the shields that models come with.

I am not looking forward to repeating this scheme on the Chaos Knights. That is really going to take me a long time. I hope that it will be worth it in the end. I don't know how far to go with the scheme across the army especially when it comes to the marauders. I would like to tie them in somehow but having them painted this way goes against the theme of just using them as standard norsemen.

The ambush

I have noticed what may be a national characteristic here in Germany, the lyrical ambush. This has happened to me a few times already and I am waiting prepared for the next occurence! The best example I can think of is this: I was asked what the word 'Levy' meant. I explained that it is special type of tax and recieved a look of incomprehension. Then I was asked again as there must be another meaning. I thought for a second and then explained that a levee was an obstruction both naturally and artifically created to prevent rivers from flooding. Once again a look of incomprehension but at least the guy left. Eventually the guy returned and said what does "I drove my chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry" mean? Hmmm this time the incomprehension was mine!

I was in Hannover at the weekend. I attempted to attend a tournament and party there. Sadly I missed the tournament due to the party! I was going just to spectate and see what the armies were like. It would be nice to know what exactly is acceptable in terms of nastiness for armies. I don't want to turn up at the first tournament with what I thought was fine but nobody else does. Maybe it will be the one time I would get away with it? There has been a huge amount of disscussion online about army compositions within the Irish Warhammer Community. It is great to see everyone chatting about it and hopefully some reasonable concensus will be reached! With the vastly improved tournament scene there now I think these types of issues really need to be discussed.

I am still slowly getting the army prepared. Sadly real life things like a job are getting in my way. I suppose I should be happy about that but still today I would have prefered to paint. The Chaos Warriors are what I am working on at the moment. As I can't glue the shields and weapons on to these guys yet but I still want to use them. I felt they needed some attention. At least that way my opponents can see exactly what they are armed with. I have half of them started. It takes a long time to do one!

I incorporated a few Slaanesh symbols onto these guys. The helmets come with a tiny symbol in the centre. GW really hot the ball with this one. The mould line runs right down through the centre of the delicate sigil. I removed it fairly well but on one or two of the models so far I have also managed to remove part of the symbol. Annoying but a steady hand fixs them up pretty well. The heads look really great on the warriors. I don't have a clue what colour to do the crest in. I was thinking a dark grey blended up to white, keeping the colour cold. It should offer some contrast to the warmer palette but not distract from the details. It will be the last thing I paint on them anyway.

I still haven't finished with the Hounds. They are almost done, I think the claws are the last bit to do. To tie them in with the army I put some lava on these guys too. I wasn't sure what colour to do the scales so I experimented with the same pattern as the armour. Its not bad!