Dark Souls: Executioner Smough, Winged Knight, and Boreal Outrider Knight

This wraps up the painting of the core set of Dark Souls the Board Game. 

Executioner Smough is part of the Boss Pair with Dragon Slayer Ornstein.  Ornstein was covered in a previous post so I'll not say much about him.  Executioner Smough however....

This is the model that convinced me to join the Kickstarter even though I wasn't a huge fan of the video game.  The Bell Hammer is just awesome! 

 I didn't look at any reference material for this project.  Mostly it was because I always thought I'd farm the minis out for other purposes but keep them together so I could play the game if it turned out to be good.  We're going to give the game a few more tries before we make a call on it.

Since I didn't know what my final use would be for the figures I just played around and experimented.  They look like they'd make great Daemon Princes for Warhammer Chaos or exotic giant types for an RPG.  When I setle on a regular use for them I'll add some heraldic details and possibly some themed patterning.

The big experiment here was the primer.  I used a metallic bronze primer and am pretty comfortable with the way it worked out for the armor.  It has a kind of hammered look before you do anything to it so I was able to do some shading and highlighting with thin glazes and retain most of the hammered look.  Some sepia glazes actually enhanced the hammered appearance which was an unexpected, but pleasant, surprise.

There is a lot of fiddling with shades of green and yellow in the big Jade-esque areas as well as on the legs.  These were dry brushed in and softened with a Green wash from Secret Weapon.

This guy is massive seen with both Dragon Slayer Ornstein... a pretty large fellow in his own right... and the Warrior player character... that hammer bell thing is gonna really hurt!


















The Boreal Outrider Knight and the Winged Knight are Mini Bosses.  They are less massive than the Main Bosses but are still large models.















The ancient bronze metal look worked out really well on these and really sped up the painting process.  These two have significantly more shading and highlighting on the bronze than Executioner Smough does.  I did that with the Boreal Outrider Knight because the model is almost entirely armor and I wanted it to be visually engaging even if its a bit monochrome.

Shown here with the player character Assassin the Boreal Outrider Knight looks a bit weedy and almost insectoid.  That lanky look is shared with the Dancer of the Boreal Forest.


















The winged Knight has more color, being largely covered by a tabard, I worked up the tabard with Reaper Bone triad and some touches of the P3 Menoth White set.  The tabard is left free of heraldic designs so I can update it when I find a regular use for it.

The two Mini Bosses together.

I *think* the next thing I'll do is finish up the Star Saga core set... but other stuff mmmaaaaayyy insert itself into that process.

Looks like the queue currently is:

Star Saga
Twisted Dickensians
Lust Elves
The Ynnari Triumvirate
Necromunda Bounty Hunter
Undertown Street lights and Barrier walls
Brugelburg Street people

Back to the desk!

Dreadtober progress

 Progress on the Dreadtober Project!



The Throne of Judgement is being worked up from a black base... big surprise yo!

I got to thinking about being representative of my style of painting... and realized I hadn't really thought of that in a while.  I think, in the main, I'm a texture and process painter with a lot of layers of build up.. sometimes pretty heavy... and thence the texture... 

Typically starting with black and brushing everything with a dark grey so I could make out the details.








 After the grey the areas that would end up weathered or red got a brush up of scrofulous brown... love that color!






The model got a weathering pass of Rustungs Farbe... a bright white metal color.. and then all the scrofulous and metal brushed areas got a Secret Weapon Flesh Wash.

Bases got the pale brown over black, brushed over with tan earth and washed with Army Painter Strong Tone ink then re-brushed with Tan Earth... wood got the standard wood treatment. 

 Then on to scrolls bones and robes... for some reason these guys persist in viewing themselves as "The Good Guys" in spite of all evidence to the contrary.... so I thought yar!  white rube for the judgy Priest!... I'll trim it in red... vanity is a thing even for judgy priest types!

Anyway Jack Bone, Menoth White, Menoth White Highlight.

 Going forward... will be reds and then gold trim and actual black areas.

I've done this a bit inside out... where some of the raised detail was done before the recessed detail... almost always a recipe for failure but in this case a lot of sub color texture was done so Ithink it'll work out.... well see soon enough!

Mortaria Noctis alternate head and Nertha the Faceless Mother WiPs

 Its been slow going between the time sinks of Pillars of Eternity and the forced stowing of my painting area to show the house to prospective renters but a little more has been done.  I've got two more days of showings this week and then we have company at the weekend so I'm making a note about where I've left off!

 This is the original head I think... the maskless one is technically the alternate.  I did the alternate first some time ago so.... this is the new alt!

I'm doing some additional things this go round, adding some details to the rifle... which I am also retrofitting to the earlier model, which was very plain, adding some color patterning on the scope, some more subtle patterning to the cape and some other bits of color detail... mostly to spice up the rifle.

 This model has a bit of a hulk thing going on with the right arm... which I added with greenstuff to replace a damaged rifle arm.  I could have pinched an arm from another model but I kinda liked the idea of an overdeveloped or augmented arm to aid in using the long rifle without its bipod. 

The Long knife was also damaged and it resisted my attempts to lengthen it... so I've shortened this one from a long serrated Eldaresque blade into a more traditional dagger or combat knife.

 Here is the first one I did... actually the first TGG model I painted I think.

Nertha the Faceless Mother has to be one of my favorite concept characters for the Iron Empire.  I've primed her black and brushed her up with Ivory.  Next I'm going to try some subsurface patterns on the hood and cloak before burying them in a couple of wash layers... that's the plan anyway!

Malice RPG: Tombs of the Dark Sun - Starter Set

 So... technically this is really a WiP.  For two reasons actually.  First... the very cool

Tombs of the Dark Sun - Starter Set

 is not yet complete.  I finished the floors and several of the wall sections are well along the way.... actually I thought I'd finished them until I saw how cool the candles could look with some OSL... sigh... SO those will have to get retrofitted! 










I wanted to set up these tomb like areas to support some scenes with the Iron Empire as I'm spinning them as a hidden remnant of the Necrontyr.  So... Tombs.. Mortuary Cults... some pseudo-Egytptian flavors... etc...


 
 Since the Iron Empire is being worked up in Purple and Cream I was thinking about staying with cool colors. In retrospect using some warm OSL for the candle alcoves will look awesome... er soo... yeah better get on that! I wanted a sandstone and turquoise kinda feel so I started with a Blue base coat and worked up some sand colors from there... Vallejo Tan Earth, Vallejo Sand, Secret Weapon Dark Sepia Wash, top up with Vallejo Sand.

 













 



The rest of the set is doors that work, some water features, and a tomb.  I'll most likely use this set for Heroquest or a Fantasy RPG but it'll always be an Iron Empire Crypt in my mind!



 
  

 That brings us to the early stages of Harbinger.  I did a reboot on my basing scheme as I suddenly got this hair-brained idea to work her into the Battlezone scenarios as an omen/special effect that can appear on battles in the zone.  I'd originally gone with a more elaborate base with a ruined arched window... that sort of thing... but it was looking to busy and distracted from Harbinger itself.

Currently she's planned to be a ginger at the orange end of the spectrum with cool colors in the robes and the long-feathers with the warm spot of her hair and some strong dark accent in the short feathers.

I've been scratching my head about some free hand in the robes but haven't settled on anything just yet... I better do it son though because its time!  The subsurface, cool color, shading  being held up while I dither!

Jailbirds WiP and Reaper BONES Kickstarter Undead Giant Colossal Skeleton WiP

Its a WiP kinda day.  Its been a hectic week mostly doing clean up and priming the Lulus from the TGG Kickstarter Wave 1.  All of the casts cleaned up quickly except the Butterfly Lulu.  It requires a lot of careful excavation of a large area that connects the bottom of her teddy bear toy to her cape fight in front.  There is also a tricky hand that is buried in a casting vent and has to be very carefully revealed. Its a great model anyway and is worth the effort!  I've gone with a White undercoat for this faction unlike for the Iron Empire.  I'm finding the black undercoat  made it difficult to see the detail.  The Jailbirds will be inevitably brighter than the Iron Empire and I'm still undecided about the way forward with the Kurganovas.

 Just in case you thought the Lulus were alone  There is a tree of metal One Shot Blondie and Mad Nurse Bernadette to keep them company.

The Jailbirds also get a different base treatment from the Iron Empire.  I think these came from Base X War but the site is closed making it hard to confirm.  These are some nice battle damaged streets and I'll have to get more as the project develops.

Finally comes the Undead Giant Colossal Skeleton from the Reaper Bones I Kickstarter.  This was pretty quickly done using Secret Weapon Sewer Water Wash over White Primer followed by two layers of drybrushing from the Reaper Bone Triad.  Vallejo Light Sand for ropes and bandages washed with Gryphonne Sepia from GW and then glazed with Ruby Red wash from Secret Weapon.  The stone Hammer is a concrete wash from Secret Weapon dry brushed with Reaper Grey Triad.  I experimented a bit more with GW technical paints for a glowing eye-socket effect but it initially looked a lot more like some weird jade colored sun shades!  I may still have to rework that a bit.

The biggest challenge with this model has been the very flexible nature of the Bones material.  the thing wobbles and shakes whenever its touched or picked up.  Gluing the hammer to the base helped a lot but the awkwardly extended left arm is highly mobile.  Might be a blessing in disguise since its bound to take impacts on the arm which just flexes out of the way.  Time will tell if droop is going to be an issue. It also did not take the primer gracefully and remained tacky for several days.  I'm currently working out a base for it and plan to try out that GW technical paint that cracks as it dries.

Hilda Von Stroheim and Volks Ayanami Rei 1/4 Bust

 The Ladies Hilda Von Stroheim from the Raging Heroes TGG Kickstarter shown here in primary and alternate builds.  A very imperious pose suitable for a Force Commander.

 This would make a good Death Korps of Krieg Artillery Commander 'counts as'  Gas mask and field telescope.

For my purposes the half cape is an element command insignia and might get color coded probably by changing the border color to match a unit type.  As usual these are mounted on Secret Weapon 'Trenchworks' series bases.  For this project I've added 1" washers to give the figures some weight and stability on the tabletop.

The capes are still plain pending unit construction.  Lots of room for Faction Icons and unit symbols but the structure of this set is still kind of in flux so I'll have to revisit those once I settle things a bit.

 The Helmetless head is awesome and very regal.  She'd also make a decent inquisitor come to think of it.  I'd always thought of the Heresey Suppression Force to be a Sisters of Battle based formation  but I'm starting to like the pageantry of the Iron Empire for Inquisition Shock Troops.

 Intolerance personified!

 The two heads allow for good positioning that rotates the front focus of the miniature making them look more unique.

Finally the Volks Ayamani Rei 1/4 bust.  We picked this up for a great price at the Mandarake in Akiba on the last trip out there.  I had some trouble cleaning mold release residue and will have to try out the Volks resin cleaner on the next big kit.  I has a lot of fun with the eyes and can start adding Anime style eyes to other projects now that I'm familiar with the structure.

She's all one massive piece but needed significant filling due to a really deep mold line seam.  Still she was fun to work on and will make a great centerpiece on our Evangelion display shelf.

Hyrekia, Dragonthrall Mage and Angron WiP

 An RPG Personality from the Reaper Bones Kickstarter I Hyrekia, Dragonthrall Mage is the first up.

A pretty figure with shallow detail this is one of the minis where the Bones material has real differences other than the way it takes paint.  The staff is very flexible which I initially was worried about but it might actually prove to be more durable in play.  Only time will tell. 

Details are very shallowly incised in this sculpt which meant a little more work than is typical for a GW model but the edges were sharper than Raging Heroes.   After base coating the mini in vallejo flat flesh the majority of the mini was painted using a mix of vallejo ranges and GW washes with the exception of the hair which was mostly Reaper MSP fire triad and Secret Weapon washes.  I rather like the way the hair sorted out.  Colors were kept simple and I decided against adding patterns or lettering.  Its an RPG figure and I'll add some story based design bits as she advances.

The base was finished off with various slate and some flower clumps from Army Painter.

 Angron, Primarch of the World Eaters is an ambitious diorama with an inset gaming base.  Its a very ambitious kit featuring Angron fighting/slaughtering three loyalist Space Marines. I'm going with a couple of loyalist World Eaters and a Loyalist Death Guard.  I've seen this combo before but it suits the storyline of the piece so I'll risk the inevitable comparisons.

Angrons base armor is worked up from the Reaper MSP Autumn Gold triad and the loyalists use the Blue, Olive, and Bone triads.  I've been happy with these matched triad sets for the ease of creating a uniform scheme over large figure counts without having to rely on a my formula notes...  which I tend to lose or rediscover when I move every couple of years! 

Back to the bench!