Spring Cleaning Hobby Challenge – Classic Warhammer Dwarfs

Rather than leave the miniatures blank, I decided to actually do the relatively simple task of basing Long Drong and Ungrim.

Simple but effective. If I had been thinking about it I would have probably done a base layer to the models before adding the grass. But, it still works and matches up well with the rest of my Dwarf army.

I think it does look nice once a miniature finally gets its base done!

…and here is Ungrim Ironfist who is missing a few components (alas) but he turned out ok!

I switched up some of the colours here and gave him red clothing (again, to match the army) and then the green dragon scale cloak.

Plenty of fun working on these older miniatures although I am reminded of how these squat little Dwarfs very much suck in the light!

Looking back to the previous post, I reckon I would go with blues and greens as the main colour for the army if I were to approach it afresh!

The first miniature I got some paint down on was Long Drong of the Slayer Pirates. I didn’t do an extremely detailed breakdown but went with showing off the three main stages I go through when I paint.

The first is the basecoat. I just run a basecoat over everything and shade up as a whole rather than completely finishing certain areas of the model.

Long Drong is different from many Slayers in that he is covered in different accessories. Not only does he have the twin pistols but also the cutlass on his back. Oh, and the lovely parrot on his shoulder.

The next stage is the wash. For the majority of the model, we got out the Agrax Earthshade. The skin was given Reiksland Fleshtone and then the more colourful areas of the model an appropriate blue or green wash.

Once the wash has gone down it really binds the miniature together. It also picks out the different areas that you might want to consider highlighting during the next step.

The final step was doing that quite heavy highlighting across the miniature. I think it turned out well and covered some of the mistakes from earlier.

The next stage will be to base the miniature. I’ll go with a standard grassy landscape to match the rest of my Dwarf army.

Whilst most people paint Long Drong’s trousers in blue to match the pirate theme, I went with red as that also matches my army.

Given the chance – and plenty of disposable income – I’d probably completely redo the paint scheme of my army to be a lighter almost Space Wolf grey. But, for now, I’m enjoying the earthy red.

The next miniature in line is going to be Umgrim Ironfist!

I had a dig around in my box of forgotten toys and found some classic Dwarf miniatures from the Citadel/Games Workshop range which I’d left unpainted.

These were a collection of miniatures that I got gifted towards the end of my time with 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles. It was a real shame as there were some fun characters in the collection.

For example, above you’ve got Umgrim Ironfist, Burlock Damminson and Long Drong of the Slayer Pirates there.

I also have a set of the Slayer Pirates in my collection!

This is going to be the main focus for me. I had LOADS to choose from but I wanted to try and pick miniatures I could add into my larger Warhammer Fantasy Battles army to use in the future should I desire.

So, I am going to be working my way through some characters and more at a leisurely pace. I don’t want to overwork myself as I’ve had a hard enough time painting miniatures at the moment!

I also have two Artillery packs to paint with a Cannon and Bolt Thrower.

If I’m feeling frisky, I might go beyond these and have a look at the box of Lords Of Legend from Citadel that I was kindly sent a few years ago.

The slayer from this set has already been painted and I use him for my Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play character of choice.

I might pick out a couple of these and give them a look as the slayer was a really fun character to paint up.

I’m hoping this might give me the mojo to do lots more painting in the future too. First up, I reckon, is going to be Umgrim though.