Night Lords by Mage updated 29/10/19 Forgefiend Update

The Obliterators are more awesome models that I like from Shadowspear: the combination of Astartes, Weapon and Daemon as well as being a staple of tournament Chaos Lists in previous editions. Now they are bigger, and not sure if they are better: the impression I am getting from reading online is that they are not as good as before.

Then again, competitive gamers are never happy, are they? Correct me if I am wrong 😉 Lol.

These guys intimidated me initially with all the warped demon skin as well as the sheer amount of detail and the size. However I got stuck in anyway and had a blast.

This will be a short and sweet post. Below are the current WIP Obliterators. Very nice models with various textures. Fun so far, but again, I am regretting the choice of skin colour for the basecoats.

PS: Apologies for some of the brighter pictures. I’m not quite sure what happened.

And now the two Greater Possessed from the Shadowspear boxed set are completed. They were quite fun with different textures. Their claws gave a chance to add extra colour to the palette, while the cables, flesh and armour meant painting certain parts were forgiving since the whole deal is veins become cables, skin becomes armour, armour becomes skin.

The only tough part was the smooth repetitive layers of Rakarth Flesh. I could have done the skin any colour since they are technically Daemons, but I wanted their gene seed Night Lords skin to show through. I did not have to do this though… but I did and that’s that!

These models are great and I want more. The fact they were larger means doing their armour and gold trim was more forgiving than the slightly smaller ‘normal’ Chaos Space Marines. If and when I get a second Shadowspear set I want to convert these guys and swap around arms, heads and backpacks for variety since a multi-part kit of them does not exist, yet.

I do need to touch up the star of Chaos Symbol on the right shoulder of one of them, looks more like a glob of paint then a highlight… and the base runs again. But they are done!

Below is where I am at the moment with my Greater Possessed. I am having fun painting the army, but after a stressful incident I took a break from these guys to mass drybrush my WIP Death Guard army (which will not be pictures here).

These models are so nice. The textures, the detail, the ambiguity as to where marine, armour and daemon all begin/finish makes for some interesting, creative and forgiving paint jobs.

As the above unimaginative title suggests, here are additional pictured and alternative examples of use of the technique.

This is WIP and more photos are to be done

Since Night Lords are a dark blue I didn’t want to go with the typical turquoise or light blue traditionally seen on Plasma Guns. I wanted something warmer to contrast and offset the dark blue power armour.

I checked the ever handy Warhammer TV on Facebook and hybridised these two videos together for what I was aiming to achieve.

Here are the finished results on two models. The Plasma effect on the Obliterators are complete but the models overall are not done. Below are examples of finished models with finished Plasma effects.

I’ve made a few updates today. It has mainly mounted up and meant to be stuff I kind of gradually did over the last few days but I’ve been busy til now. Enjoy the complete group photos below.

Last night I finished four more Night Lords. I took my time and paced myself as the edge highlighting required a lot of my focus and wasn’t something I wanted to rush and result in a slapdash job. I’m quite happy with them

I guess I have to do now is suss our Transfersand varnish them

I got two sets of these from my Conquest Magazine collection. More kits and terrain should be done in coloured plastic as the brown looks great as is. I’m trying to prime them but the weather is either too hot or humid.

I’m still not sure how I should paint them…

And I finished four More Chaos Space Marines. Enjoy!

And this is it for Sunday’s posts. I might do more tomorrow: or depends on my free time and what I can work on. When the four with drying bases are dry tomorrow morning I’ll tear into them quickly.

The last two edge highlights will take longer as they need to be near and accurate. I’ll also need to do touch-ups.

The  it’s onto Phase 2: Obliterators, Greater Possessed and the Master of Possession

Enjoy the extra photos! More to come…

Here are some more models closer to completion: observe the base. I just need to touch up the hollow of the eye lens and do some edge highlights on the gold and blue

This is not much of a tutorial here either, but I have four models that are 90% done and four more which are 85% done. Been busy meeting up with friends and walking today. It is great to almost have this ten-strong squad finished. Then I will start on my Master of Possession, two Greater Possessed, two Obliterators and the Venom Crawler.

Edit: This stretched longer than I expected so I am spreading it into two posts. Also the last picture is a better shot of my second completed model

A small update. I’ve completed a Marine and am working now on the squad leader and plasma gunner.

I am hoping to finish the squad today and will return to the more tutorial and stage by stage stuff with the obliterators and Possessed: I got a bit ahead of myself with the batch painting.

I am still working out the kinks in the first post with the upside down photos. Also I felt that it was getting a little too long for a single post as a tutorial.

Punctuation is important on a plog and this year I decided to do one more focussed as a tutorial since I did not do one last year and got few recommendations for Tutoring if any in the two I did.

Additionally this post marks my first deviation from the GW tutorial.

Below, I did a thin hilight of Pallid Wych Flesh. A second coat may be needed depending on how it looks, transparency, and how you yourself use water/medium.

At this stage, bare in mind I had paid little attention to the original models in pictures and box art, I noticed there was a scarred Chaos star symbol on the sergeant’s head. I came back to this with a second thin coat. I have to say I am quite impressed with that detail and it came up nicely.

In Conclusion:

Disclaimer: I do not own White Scar paint and have not done this step. I will return and do it, but only conservatively on the most pronounced parts of the heads and faces

I’m liking this skin tone and am very happy with the results. This recipe could also be used for:

• Raven Guard
• Void born humans
• Delaque Gangers
• Afriel Strain Guardsmen
• Mutants
• Daemonettes
• Zombies
• Albino
• Azog / Goblin town goblins from the Hobbit
• Cyborgs
• Servitor
• Ghouls
• Vampires
• Possessed Creatures
• Carcharodons Space Marines
• Legion of Evervlight from Hordes

… to name but a few!

Time to break out the Leadbelcher paint. I’ll be back with an update tomorrow:

Also please comment and leave feedback! ???

The Night Lords gene-seed gives them pale skin over time. With that in mind, and fond of the GW system and speed painting I checked out Warhammer TV for something along those lines. I found this and was not disappointed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efMsWE8Uz4s

I began with Rakarth Flesh. Two or three thin coats are needed.

Next I did a layer of Pallid Wych flesh, this was 1:1 water, maybe a little more. It needs to be watery but not runny, imho. You may need to do a second coat, it depends on getting the right consistency that works for you. Hope that is helpful, I am not the most skilled nor technical painter. Most of the GW guides say to get to the paint to the consistency of milk – to me it needs to be close but a little thicker. Your mileage may vary.

Be sure to hit the prominent areas like eyebrows, forehead, scarring etc. Don’t worry if this isn’t perfect, the next stagess help with making it get cleaned up and enhancing it.

After achieving smooth basecoats and highlights, which is important as skin is not as forgiving as rough armour or speedpainting, do a wash of Seraphim Sepia.

Use Lahmia Medium or water if you want but I am advising against that. Before you gasp shocked gasps of ‘thin your paints’ let me explain. If you have have more than what you need to medium down on your brushy, but less to apply one full thick coat, you can just push and spread the wash around so it sort of thins itself naturally.

Think of it like getting the right amount of butter on your knife before spreading it to perfection on a slice of toast; smooth, even, and tasty. Don’t eat your minis. Below are my results and I was super happy with them. If you cringe at my painting skills, well, cringe away. It’s the best I can do.

A quick update before bed. I have started basecoating. Everything will get two thin coats by the look of it. I’m breaking the models into stages as some have more skin, horns, daemon bits and metal compared to others.

I have have started on the Chaos Marine squad, one Greater Possessed and the Master of Possession. Once these all get their basecoats done I will work on each indivodual unit at a time. I find once basecoats are complete then washed, details and edge highlighting can be hard for me to do in batches as they require a different category of brush control, technique, focus and attention span.

For instance with an ineividual character model there are usually more textures, surface areas and details to do compared to say, basic infantry. It’s a different pace, speed and beast altogether and hard to change gears in my brain with the discipline and momentum I build.

Likewise the Possessed have more horns and skin compared to Chaos Marines while the Obliterators are bigger again.

The most important thing you can take away from this insight is do what works for you and makes you happy so you can keep moving along, in a fun way, with the project. Turning it into a grind ‘because this is the way you are supposed to do it’ will affect your morale and enthusiasm for what your working on, as well as the quality of your work.

Find your own path: the journey is more important than the destination in some ways.

Ok, after posts failing to load, upload and re-upload I am back up track. I am not too please with how long it has taken this evening with this a loan and I am a little behind on painting now.

Many thanks to @robert for recommending I retry by uploading one pic at a time then nuking the entire post. I will be applying that moving forward.

So here is the end of the unintended Trilogy. More Night Lords with some blue on them! Enjoy!

Today I finished the blue on the rest of my Chaos Space Marines from Shadowspear. I made a few mistakes here and there but I dont mind. The gold is showing through a little in parts but thats ok: the next coat of blue and the black wash will remedy needing to do a second coat.

It was slow, required accuracy and took a while, but it was enjoyable and satisfying. I guess its a tad smaller than my last project and different enough, despite being a 40k army using power armour.

I also got more detail work done, in addition to these, but I am still working on it and will post another update about them either later today or tomorrow.

So the Venomcrawler is completed, the squad of ten Chaos Space Marines and the remaining Greater Possessed.

Picture heavy is this entry as it is just applying the Night Blue as a basecoat in as a block colour. I’m doing one medium ish coat. Even though some of the gold is showing through, this will be remedied by the next coat of lighter blue and the black wash.

I still have one Greater Possessed, nine Chaos Marines and the Venomcrawler to finish with this step.