Painting Evil Dwarfs

I’m going to put this project on hold for a bit. I’m going to struggle to get out for many games before the new year and my planned opponents aren’t likely to be available either. I don’t want to do much more till I’ve got a few games in.

I have one more figure to build and paint. But it’s a large figure that will need a fair bit of prep and other projects are pressing. For now I’ll say thanks for following along and hopefully this will pick up again in the new year.

It took me a while to finish this figure ‘cos honestly I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I’m happy with how it turned out though. I could’ve mucked about with it a bit more but you need to know when to call it done.

SAGA Age of Magic’s Masters of the Underearth have a special character called the Alchemist. This character carries incendiary bombs and other deadly concoctions.

Problem is I couldn’t see any obvious figure in Scibor’s range that suited it. I grabbed a couple of figures and decided to go with this one:
https://www.sciborminiatures.com/en_,shop.php?art=3099

I used a couple of glass beads I use as agitators to act as some kind of glass container filled with an explosive liquid with a bit of a strap. I greenstuffed some flames on the top of the staff.

Most colours have been detailed already. Some colours not detailed:

Explosive vial: glazes of ScaleColor Blood Red, Mars Orange and Sol Yellow.

Purple / Pink flame: blends of Game Colour Hexed Lichen and Game Air Squid Pink. Added some washes with Druchi Violet and highlights up to white.

I finished a couple more bulltaurs. I’ve detailed them before so I’ll leave off the details. Scibor have been adding different poses in little by little and I’ve picked them up as they arrived.

Considering this was another quick job I like how it turned out. I added a couple of dwarven cannoneers to the base with blu tack. Their bases don’t match but I can live with that for now.

Even evil dwarves don’t seem right without a cannon. I struggled a bit to find something till stumbling across Scotia Grendel’s siege kit.

I based it with a 3D printed base and magnetised it before adding some Vallejo Earth Texture, leaving a couple of squares clear to add a couple of dwarf cannon team members. A few extra rocks added a bit more texture.

I did the usual preshade then undid much of it after deciding to go back to a black barrel.

Barrel And Dark Metallics

1, Basecoat with black.
2, Drybrushed a layer of SC-57 Scale Colour Petroleum Grey on the barrel.
3, Drybrushed a thinner line of Vallejo Metal Colour Burnt Iron.
4, Some decorations were basecoated with Vallejo Brassy Brass and blended to Vallejo Metal Colour Gold at a thin point at the top.
5, Other decoratons and rivets were painted with Vallejo Metal Colour Silver and washed with Nuln Oil.

Wooden Carriage

1, Base coated with ScaleColour SC-29 Walnut.
2, Highlighted the upper areas with a mix of SC-26 Sandalwood and SC-29 Walnut.
3, Washed lower areas with a thin mix of SC-32 Black Leather.
4, Highlighted with SC-26 Sandalwood.

The Base

1, Wash the base with GW Agrax Earthshade and Contrast Aggaros Dunes.
2, Basecoated rocks with Vallejo Cold Grey. Washed with Nuln Oil and drybrushed white.
3, Basecoated sandbags with Vallejo Leather Brown. Washed with Agrax Earthshade.

The warriors are done. They were done a bit quickly and the matt spray left them looking a bit duller than I expected. Otherwise they’ll do.

Grey

1, Basecoat using Vallejo Cold Grey.
2, Highlight with Vallejo Game Air Dead White. It’s quite thin so will still have a grey appearance.
3, Wash with nuln oil to restore any lost crevices. Final highlight with Vallejo Game Air Dead White again. This’ll get to whitish notes for an older looking dwarf.

Black

1, Basecoat in ScaleColour SC-57 Petroleum Grey.
2, Highlight with Vallejo Cold Grey.
3, Restore any crevices with Nuln Oil and and add final highlights with Game Air Dead White. Again Game Air White is a bit thinner than normal so the white will fade a little. Too white and the dwarf will start to look old.

I moved onto the warriors I highlighted earlier. I tried to finish them quickly an much of the paint job involved dryburshing metallic gold over metallic brass. Perhaps the only thing worth pointing out was how I did the beards.

Blonde

1, Basecoat with Vallejo Heavy Brown.
2, Highlight some beard strands with Vallejo Dark Sand.
3, Add smaller highlights with white.

Red

1, Basecoat with ScaleColour SC-28 Orange Leather.
2, Highlight with a mix of ScaleColour SC-28 Orange Leather and Vallejo Dark Sand.
3, Final highlights with Vallejo Dead White.

Brown

1, Basecoat with Vallejo Flat Brown.
2, Highlight with a mix of Vallejo Flat Brown and Vallejo Dark Sand.
3, Wash with Agrax Earthshade and final highlights with Dark Sand.

More gobbos getting me to two sets of levy for SAGA AoM.

They’re all done. They were reasonably quick to finish and I’m pleased with the result.

I’ve been trying to get the orcs and goblins painted quickly. Most of the work done is pretty straightforward. However I tried something out for the skin which I think worked well.

• Preshade the minis.
• Paint lower areas with Contrast Magos Purple.
• Paint upper areas with Iyanden Yellow contrast paint.
• Go over both with Athonian Camoshade.
• Go over the skin with Badger Ghost Tint Green.

For the warriors I can run gunners or troops with melee weapons. All the dwarves for Scibor’s Moscals have good armour. I’ve got some Boyars who I’ve given shields and I’m hoping that’ll make them distinct from the Hearthguard. I’ll probably make the armour a little less fancy. I had a few problems losing some of the smaller horns and had to resculpt a couple.

Finally Scibor made more Bulltaurs! I’ve built one. The other is on the way 🙂

I painted some more dwarves. I thought the old colour scheme I used didn’t pop enough so I painted their helmets blue. I liked the result enough to change the others I’d painted.

He’s finished! Well ok I would’ve liked to spend a bit more time on him but I’ve got a large amount of stuff to be getting on with.

Annoyingly the mount I could use for my Age of Magic warlord cannot be a flying mount for the subterranean dwarves. Ah well, I doubt my opponents would be bothered but I have ordered another unit.

The base was quite a piece. There’s something very sinister about it. Were the figures just carved in or were they once living? I tried to give them a little focus by making their colour different to the rest of the rock. Rather like they were in the process of being petrified. The large head had a little Vallejo Basic Skintone mixed in.

My general approach was to give the base a desaturated look. I overbrushed most of the rock with some pale blues and shaded again with druchii violet. Where there were other colours like the trees I made sure they retained their desaturated look by mixing in some of the blue base.

The skulls were simply coloured with a bone white and then shaded to varying degrees with Agrax Earthshade.

After the airbrushing stage I began by strengthening the purple shadows and  blue tones with druchii violet and a mid tone blue.

Next I used Scale Colour Birch to add some small, dashes to act as both a highlight and texture.

The next stage was a little more involved. I used Scale Colour Orange Leather to base coart the hairy parts around the hooves and the horns. I shaded with druchii violet, some parts mixed with Payne’s Grey ink, then highlighted the hair with mixes of Orange Leather and Birch.

I basecoated the armour with Brassy Brass then heavily shaded with a mix of Payne’s Grey and purple ink. I finshed the armour with an overbrush of gold in the upper parts.

The wings were wet blended with purple and dark to mid-blue tones. I gave them a wash with druchii violet and drybrushed them up with a light blue highlight.

Finally the dwarf’s coat was basecoated with Scale Colour Black Leather, Dry brushed with Orange Leather and then had marking / wear added with Scale Colour Birch.

The dwarf’s beard was shaded with Basilicanum Grey contrast then highlighted with the same blue tones as the wings.

I’ve been looking forward to taking on this model for some time. It’s imposing and filled with details demonstrating what a vicious and low breed these dark dwarves really are.

First up were some gaps that needed filling on the wing joints and the horns. I used green stuff and attempted to maintain the continuity of the musculature. Around the horns I tried to add a tufted hair look.

For the airbrushing stage I started with a mid grey, then an overhead white. After that I spot highlighted areas with more white.

Next I mixed Paynes Grey and Purple inks to spray underneath the model in the shadow areas.

I went over the wings with a mix of blue and Payne’s Grey.

After this I went over the upper body areas with a flat green before highlighting some areas with yellow. I coloured the horns yellow with blackened tips.

The golems are done and ready for battle.

While most of this project was bought from Scibor I struggled to find some golems I liked. Eventually I settled on the Dark Guardians.

My intention was to do a pretty quick job by overbrushing. I batch primed a bunch of minis black but felt that was a bit too dark to go over with blue. So I overbrushed a kind of preshade.

Next I overbrushed with blues, keeping the blacks for shading, and applied Vallejo Brassy Brass to the metallic parts.

Next I used Druchii Violet to shade the darker parts and the metallics. I mixed Liquitex purple ink with white in various shades to colour the eyes and the glow within the mouthes of a couple of golems. I used that mix on the bases to pick out the runes.

Finally I drybrushed the stone parts with a very light blue and edged with some white.