A Night Horror Demon for Halloween

As always I like to paint a miniature that has character and that also addresses several different hobby needs. The Night Horrors Facebook Group are running their annual Halloween contest and I had this partly broken Citadel Night Horror demon converted and ready to paint. The original trident head had snapped off and was missing so I replaced it with one from my bitzbox (I think this is a Snarsnik one). 

So not only does he represent my entry for the above competition, but he also works as a Minor Demon for Frostgrave purposes and is another notch in my Frostgrave bestiary challenge.

I went for a really limited palette here, working up from a dark red/brown up to bright red and finally added yellow to make an orange highlight. So three colours for the skin tone. The base coat had a white highlight added for the fur, making a fourth colour, a dark and a light green for the tongue to create a nice complementary colour and the trident used just silver and a dry pigment for the rust. White and yellow for the hoofs and teeth. The base used two shades of grey and a couple of green/brown washes. So in all nine paints were used, one dry pigment and two inks. 

Anyway, I'm quite happy with the results, especially the skin tone which I think works quite well.

Goblinoid Combat Card: Rungit Spleenchewer

Following on from my 40k Ork, here's my last involvement for this year's Orctober, another fantasy orc Combat Card for my collection:

Paint the model in my own scheme (based loosely on the original). 

Take a photo of it.

Resize the photo, cut it out to fit the shape (using scissors)

Glue it onto the colour photocopied template.

Fill in the name and stats with felt-tip / paint.

Here’s a few more shots of Rungit himself, with his lovely old-school shield that came with the model.:

And the original card next to my hand crafted version:

Modelling Workshop 4: The Cottage (White Dwarf 130)

This is my 4th post in this little series of terrain building using the Modelling Workshop articles from White Dwarf, following on from number three; the barn, number two; the ruined temple and number one; the townhouse, with just the more complicated coaching inn and stables to go.

For this classic cottage, I wanted to approach it from a slightly different perspective, partly because I have made these before and also because I wanted to add to my Frostgrave / Mordheim collection with more ruined buildings. So after a bit of image research I decided to go for a ruined and burnt out cottage but still using the same materials and templates as per the original design.

The painting of this was really quick. A grey primer was sprayed on and then everything was washed with a very dilute dark grey. This was then highlighted up with a few drybrushed lighter greys. I then worked a cream colour onto the less burnt areas of wall and again drybrushed the highlights.

A little tip: always drybrush in the direction you want the light to be from; in this case from top to bottom. There will be more paint on your brush as you begin and therefore you'll automatically create a lighter tone at the top which will recede to darker through the brushstoke as you brush is less laden with paint. 

I then applied a multitude of green and brown washes to the walls to show it's derelict, mossy state. Finally I re-applied some black to the areas where the fire damage would have been most extensive, where the wooden aspects of the building are - window frames, beams etc.

Here's a couple of wips to show the process of making using all the traditional materials and techniques as suggested in the original Modelling Workshop articles. I meant to add clay stones to the chimney but totally forgot and instead applied my thinned polyfilla to all the walls.

And finally the plans from the White Dwarf, if anyone fancies having a go themselves.

Orktober - Ork Madboy

My first involvement with this month's Orc(k)tober is a deviation from all my other best laid plans. I've moved from Fantasy into 40K to paint up this wonderful Bob Olley Ork Madboy who has been languishing for way to long in the to-do pile. He will eventually group up with a selection of other Bob Olley sculpts who will make a warband all of themselves. Imagine loads of over-bitten, wonky lips and an abundance of wrinkles. This guy didn't have the plastic arms/weapons that originally came with them, so I improvised by cutting down some fantasy orc arms and attaching a bolter to his hand as his weapon and then painting him with my usual greenskin recipe. I'm sure you've noticed the addition of him treading in a pile of shit, which I vaguely remember seeing in an old White Dwarf /Golden Demon with a similar model; it's just some brown paint mixed in with UHU glue and teased into position:

It's such a characterful sculpt, the pose is dynamic and fun and in fact the whole range of these Ork Madboyz (from the Stuff of Legends website) shows what a fantastic group they all are together. I would love to see a load of these painted up, my brief research did not show much love for these on the Internet. Anyone got any painted versions to share?

Next up is a fantasy orc from the Greenskin Combat Cards collection.

Just a little jolly Nurgling merrily scurrying through the undergrowth, on his rat

Killing a couple of birds with one stone is, I imagine, pretty tricky in reality but a real motivator in terms of my hobby. This little conversion was completed a while ago having been influenced by a few of the more zany Golden Deamon entries from the late 80's (ie the orc on a bicycle) and will fill a a space in my Beastmen unit for my Lost and the Damned Army and at the same time be entered for the Oldhammer Forum's newly revived Goldon Gobbo painting competition.

Just a little, jolly Nurgling merrily scurrying through the undergrowth, on his rat: