Dead on Arrival

So I’m getting some models pretty close to done. The last thing to do is to put a bit of flock of some sort on the base.

All along I’ve said I’d go “full gothic” on them and put red flowers on the base, which also fits with the details on some of the models.

But now I’m not so sure…

Luckily Games Workshop gave me five of these guys, when I only need four, so I have a spare to experiment with:

Once I’ve had a chance to varnish the models, I’ll be back to show how the experiment goes. My fall back will be to leave the bases as they are – the bare earth look is also quite nice, if a bit plain.

Pretty happy with how the Spirit Hosts are turning out – straight into the pictures this time…

I think a light drybrush with straight white will finish these off nicely!

First off, I have this beauty built and added to the paint queue… I asked my friends which of the character models they thought I should get and they all suggested this one. I’m a big fan of the fluff for the Craven King,  but my friends refused to play against him in regular games as his rule actively makes your opponent unhappy – “You know that fun special thing you can do with your army? Yeah well now you can’t do it”.

Anyway, enough blather, the model is gorgeous:

But I mentioned a question in the title of the post, and the question is something like: “What do the really ghosty bits look like?” I’ll still want to keep the “fade to black” feel on things like banshees, spirit hosts and so on, but I don’t think the “grungy, just pulled out of the ground” feel will work.

So the plan is to stick with the blue -> black at the edges, but go for a much lighter, cleaner glow feel to the faces and arms.

I didn’t have a lot of time last night, but I did manage to make a start on a couple of models:

So what we have here is Nihilakh Oxide washed over the main details, followed by Nighthaunt Gloom on the “edge” bits. These are applied quickly, then quickly rinse out the brush and blend the two together where they meet. It’s a really simple way to get nice blends.

The next step will be to put a black wash on the very edges and then a dry brush of a light colour, possibly even white, to pick out the highlights again.

It’s been slightly frustrating watching John’s vlog series this last week, as he gets large amounts done so quickly! It’s been a tough couple of weeks to find painting time, but over the weekend I had a clear spell to make some progress.

Most of it was spent assembling and priming the remainder of my Nighthaunt so that I can get a 1000 point army on the tabletop in time for our next club meeting.

I did however manage to take one figure to an almost finished state. I was working pretty quickly, trying things out so I didn’t get a proper step by step – I’ll aim to remedy that with the next post.

The metals aren’t too bad, except that the iron look is too shiny, so I’ll probably dry brush (or maybe stipple?) something almost black over it to tone it down. On the rest of the models I’ll just mix some black with the metallic paint to get a similar effect.

The face / arms have had a bit of hexwraith flame, followed by some ivory highlights, the “ghostly” bits have had an additional black wash to increase the contrast and the base has been tidied up.

Now I just need to decide how much (if any) flock goes on the bases. My original intent was to go for reasonably grassy with bright red flowers – to make the models themselves look really grungy. Not sure if it’s a stroke of genius or a terrible idea – feel free to let me know!

TLDR; I was surprised that I was able to get a large unit of 20 figures to a reasonable standard in 2 hours. Not finished by any means, but well along the way.

Aiming for getting these models table ready as quickly as possible, I decided to try batch painting the Chainrasps – all 20 of them.

If you’re aiming for a minimum standard, I find it pays to look at the model and decide what the single biggest improvement you can make is at each stage. This lets you get to “good enough” much faster. In this case, the black with “zenith” is actually not terrible, so instead I decided to put some paint on the bases. Vallejo British Uniform, watered down goes over the bases really quickly (watering it down serves two purposes – it allows the paint to flow into all the detail really easily and also lets the basic shading show through).

Next up, I put some sepia wash (Vallejo) and Agrax Earthshade out on my pallet, and using a largish brush (maybe size 3-4) I coat all the white (and also the chains etc) with random combinations of the two. No need to be careful here.

That didn’t take long at all! GW have given us some pretty nice new paints / glazes to play with, so next it was time to try some Nighthaunt Gloom. I applied it straight and fairly roughly to the black areas of the models. Once I have added this to each model, I give the brush a quick clean and then “smudge” the border of the blue and sepia washes (which are still slightly wet) to get a nice, grungy blend between the two.

Although I was aiming to paint the unit of 20 chainrasps this way, I had some washes left over on the palette, so did this guy too.

Two hours of painting, and I’m really happy with these guys. There’s more I will do, but even at this stage I’d be content putting these on the table. Next steps will be to:

• tidy the rim of the base.
• a light dry brush on the top of the cowls and black wash at the extremities of the “spectral” bits.
• add some Hexwraith Flame to the faces / arms followed by white highlights to make ’em pop.
• get some of the metals done – aiming for an aged feel.

First off, I have to say that the presentation of the new Soul Wars box is gorgeous. Opening this box is every bit the experience you’d hope for with a new purchase. I’ve been loving AoS from both a gaming and modelling point of view for the last year and a bit, so purchasing the new box set was a no-brainer.

The plan is to quickly assemble and paint the Nighthaunt to give myself a new army to play with. The spectral nature of these figures makes them a good candidate for speed painting, and I’m keen to see just how quick these can be turned into a table ready force.

Assembly was fairly quick and easy, with no flash and just some minor mold lines that are quick to clean up. With that there was still the issue of cleaning up the joins – typically a pain to do, especially using something like liquid green stuff which shrinks and often needs multiple coats. It was (luckily) at this time that I came across the following video:

Problem solved! Don’t try to make a perfectly smooth seam, just smush the liquid green stuff all over the cowls to hide the seam and get some nice texture in the process. Talk about a win/win. Adding some simple basing texture (Vallejo Earth Texture with some gravel / sand sprinkled on in places), and I was ready for priming.

Sorry, I got a little carried away at this stage, so didn’t get any photos.

Anyway, priming was just a simple black base coat. Then I decided to vary things a bit from the standard GW scheme. I want the faces to draw the eye, so dark with light “spectral” fringes wasn’t really the thing. Instead I applied some pre-shading to the faces and upper bodies to give something a bit like this:

At this stage I’m already liking what I see – the models are oozing so much character. Next up, let’s see how quickly we can get these guys to a presentable state.