More Horsemen

I am slowly making some progress on my Chaos Army. These are my second regiment of Marauder Horsemen. I want to get these painted as I have the horses already done. I also think the models are great and as I sculpted the cloaks on these I don't want that effort to go to waste. I have enough Tallarn Flesh now so I can keep going with these guys. Hopefully they will be the next regiment finished.

Back to Warriors

There might be a few WIP shots over the coming days. I am working on a huge amount of projects at once. I am just painting what I feel like at the moment rather than slogging through a massive regiment at once. I glued a few spare warriors together last week and I sat down to base coat them over the last few days. It took far longer than I though. Basecoating is annoying! It always seems to take longer than it should. I washed these in a few places and built back up the base coat. This is the first time I used the Nuln Oil(GW) where I could compare it to Badab Black(GW). I have noticed that it gives a lot stronger coverage. The armour on these guys has come out much darker than the previously done ones. As these are a completely separate regiment I don't think it is that noticable.

I armed them with two hand weapons as I didn't have enough halberds and painting the shields takes far too long despite looking great. I might eventually do a second regiment using the lances from the Chaos Knights as Halberds. I have fourteen, I guess another ten or so should be enough. I can't see regiments of Chaos Warriors being taken in much bigger blocks than twenty five.

A Questionable Lady

I more or less got this Rotten Belle finished over the weekend and I did a few touch ups yesterday to finish her off. Again I am happy enough with how she came out but once again there are a few problems I see. I also tried a new thing which has me confused. Yellow is a colour I don't use often as it has terrible coverage. I undercoated the whole model in yellow so this for once wasn't a problem. I went very pale with the colour and again I should have had a better eye for the contrast. The skin again came out fine especially the face. I added a few rotting patches on the skin this time. Basically I added some thin patches of red and green glazes in two or three places on the skin. I think the knee is just about visible in this piture.

The new technique I tried was some transparent clothing. I have seen it painted a few times last year in competition standard models, especially one by Marike Reimer. I tried this on the forward leg here in the picture. I don't think I did it correctly though. I painted the entire stocking in a mix of the base flesh tone and white. I then shaded the area with the basic flesh tone. I then highlighted with more white until I achieved a colour that is just beyond a usual colour for flesh. With the skin tone being pale to begin with and using white as the clothing colour I think I was fighting an uphill battle. It is a technique I will have to play with a little more so I can understand the mechanics of it. I think planning it out a little better will help as I can pick colours and tones that work better.

Rotten Belle

I managed to get a decent amount of painting in over the weekend and made a lot of progress on various projects. I find I can get really overwhelmed if I have too much stuff on my desk at once but so far no problems. I painted this rotten belle deliberately in a colour I don't often use, green. I wanted the dress to be really pale and as she is a zombie I went pale for the skin too. In the end it is an interesting scheme as it is far brighter than I thought it would be. The skin came out quite well especially the face. The model is quite expressive and that makes it really easy to pick out the areas for shading and highlights. When I get a really plain face, like the recent gripping beast stuff I painted, I can't do much with them. Models like this and the marauders though are really easy to paint the faces well on. I still have the base to do but I need greenstuff to sculpt the brickwork effect I want to have so for now these ladies have to wait to get their bases done.

I guess I need to consider having a lot more contrast in these models. It is a little late as I am almost finished the yellow belle too but for the red or pink on I think I can get that in there and really make the pale colours pop a little more. Contrast is something I always struggle with. I tend to chose a base colour and work from there. I rarely consider mixing in different colours to achieve interesting and striking shading contrasts. I think with the green here I could have used a purple or brwn to get the shadows to really stand out. I am still happy enough with how she came out.

Traffic Light Ladies

Despite the fact that I have four Khador Warjacks,Chaos Marauders and Chaos Warriors on my painting desk assembled and base coated I decided to start something else. I have played some Malifaux over the last few weeks and yesterday I picked up the Rotten Belles. Rather than continue with some cavalry I though I would get these done first as a break. I painted them without realising it in a wonderful traffic light scheme. I undercoated them in these colours as it saves time trying to cover over black. Foundations paint helps but it can still take a good few coats for red and yellow to come out nice and even. I am going to try to get some of these finished while I also progress with the Marauders. Thankfully I managed to get some Tallarn Flesh at the start of the week. Old Fogey at Hobbyhorse sent me some. So now I can make some real progress with my Chaos army without fearing that I will have to change the colour scheme halfway through!