Warhammer Underworlds – Ylthari’s Guardians – TO DONE!

Ylthari’s Guardians – TO DONE!

Lets start with Ylthari, admittedly my least favourite, and still so, but she came good in the end. The tree sprite is cute, vines were defined and the dark wood is alright but her face didn’t quite work for me and I couldn’t quite get the detail I was after.

Still, I’m far from disappointed, in fact I’m really quite pleased with the result as she was so far behind compared to the other 3 and I just couldn’t see the vines working.

Admittedly I haven’t done much to them to make them ‘work’ but just the basic application of the highlights to the washed and glazed base coat has managed to lift it out of the realm of mediocrity. The Silver Birch bark markings on her wand/staff worked out nicely too.

Horny Dude aka – Skhathael. What works – 

sword, [possibly] horns, hair and skin. What I’m dubious about is his bark loin cloth and his face. The horns are reminiscent of Silver Birch thanks to the bark splits but because they’re obviously horns it’s a little confusing – like painting a fire engine as an ambulance…

But the sword came out so well, once again I’m so impressed with just painting with washes and glazes and how much variety of tone it can create. This is definitely what I’ve taken away from painting these Underworlds figures. I’d have not had this experience without experimenting beyond my 40k armies. This also indicates I may find Contrast paints much to my liking, but as they’ve also been compared to watercolour painting, which I always found painful to do, I’m still a little reluctant. I’ll give it a go eventually.

Archer aka – Ahnslaine, Revenant Archer. Definitely my second favourite of the four. I love the pose, bizarre ‘quiver beetle’ and the yellow eye just worked out. The minor green glaze just adds those extra touches here and there alongside the limited bark splits.

Twang!

If I ever do another I’ll try the bow all Silver birch so I have more opportunity to add bark splits.

Halberd guy, aka – Gallanghann of the Glade my absolute favourite. The bark splits on the halberd haft came out so well. I doubted myself as the shading look so cool but much like battle damage and weathering a little goes a long way to adding more to the model.

I’m not 100% convinced of the yellow flowers but I couldn’t think of any other colour to do them.

And the floral four in all their finery.

And the white background for White Dwarf [which is never going to happen, but nevermind].

Just n overhead shot so you can see I added some gloss varnish in the middle of the base, like it’s a puddle in the forest. I’ve added a bit more since then, it adds a nice extra touch for those willing to scrutinise further.

Lastly a close up and you get to see everything – the slightly blobby highlight on the halberd but the smooth highlights on all the skin tones, the accidental shading around the bags under his ‘right-first-time’ eyeball. The subtle green glazing, the flint like claws [gloss varnished] the stippling on the tree-sprite wings and the Silver Birch haft in all its natural glory – Love it

And the Big Teal Stamp of Approval for a job well done. Now lets do the same on that darn Dark Shroud!

Warhammer Underworlds – Ylthari’s Guardians – Grime of the ancient forrester

We left these guys particularly pale and interesting. Despite the pre-shading and zenithal highlights I was far from happy with where they were going. I had envisaged a reduce palette that was indeed pale but my natural desire for high contrast and the lack thereof in the white compelled me to add more shading.

I mixed some Waywatcher Green Glaze and Army Painter Soft Tone together and washed it over the recesses and anti-zenithal areas. The green gave me a hint of ‘mossiness’, despite the fact the moss is orange on their bases! That extra tone has made so much difference in the models.

The ‘amber’ blades have also been highlighted [that white sparkle got a bit messy] but the Bloodletter Glaze has worked a treat and is a good alternative colour replica of the original green version [I think]. The fact these glazes have been replaced by Contrast equivalents is rather annoying as I was under the impression they don’t mix with water/washes. 

My ability to blend those colours has really helped and you can see the subtle effect on the weapon haft that will require 3 new Contrast paints to achieve in the future

The yellow tree sprites have also come out OK. I had no idea what I was going to do with the originally but the yellow was a sensible choice and they could all theoretically be psychic manifestations hence why despite their different physiology they’re all yellow.

I think this is my second favourite sculpt out of the four. I like the Halberd dude most, then the Horny guy and lastly Ylthari herself.

That said the washes have helped me to come to terms with her vine legs, I mean it’s far from perfect but I’m hoping some subsequent highlights will help define all the details a bit more and bring it altogether.

I also need to highlight all the dark wood elements too.

So, there we go, almost done and I can see the end now as things have resolved themselves.

Warhammer Underworlds – Ylthari’s Guardians – Hobby progress at last

Horny dude! With a plan in my head I started to get the bark lighter, this was a pretty big gamble going pure white as there’s no going back from it.

I left the red primer and bone primer visible in some areas – there’s no point zenithal highlighting if you don’t take advantage of it. Although I’ll probably cover it all up with shade washes in the end.

Now at this stage I started to hit the snags with my blog which didn’t inspire me to keep regular records of where I was at. It took a bit of time to reconcile the bases and suddenly I have the orange moss done and went for yellow leaves on the ground… how the hell that fits with the red leaves on the Sylvaneth because usually they go yellow, orange then red before they fall off. But this is all make-believe so maybe in my wood they go red, orange and the yellow when they fall off?

And horny dude progressed a fair bit while I was ‘off grid’. All the skin tones got shaded with Bloodletter glaze, mixed with a bit of soft tone. I also shaded his sword and added Rhinox Hide to break things up a bit.

Leaves got painted red and Strong Tone was applied in places for greater depth, shading and to blend the end of his branches into the leaves.

The other guys got highlighted and skintone done but I haven’t got round to shading the bark. The tree spirit went yellow, to try to capture some of the extra autumnal colours lost in only choosing red for the leaves [I appreciate I was trying to keep the palette of colours down but I’m also trying to capture all of the inspiration].

The halberd got shaded much the same way I see the standard green one done. Plenty more to do with highlights but early days. The haft game out really well and I suspect it’ll be the most Birch-like element when I add in all the bark splits.

I went with the bow being orange, as that’s the ‘heart’ of it but part of me things it might have been better with it white and the fixing orange but nevermind.

Lots of shading to do next to try and stop all the whiteness blending everything together.

Ylthari is a real challenge, her vines don’t fit my design at all and I need to sort out her back thing. I can’t glue her to the base either as then I can’t get inside to paint. Still I’ll get there eventually.

There we go – progress, finally! A good few hours [5 or 6] to get here. I doubt I’ll get them done for this months’ Squad painting challenge but they’ll be ready for the next one.

Warhammer Underworlds – Ylthari’s Guardians – Big Build – TO DONE!

As everything is so disrupted at the moment and I had officially admitted to myself I’d entered a mojo recession I did the only thing I could do – bought more toys! Ylthari’s Guardians have long been on my mind and I thought I needed something to try and kickstart my mojo.

All along I had plans to paint these at autumnal Silver Birch and luckily there are is a lot of art out there to help pin down that look. In fact too much because you can do the leaves yellow, orange, red or clearly a mixture. On top of that the Birch itself can be shaded in all sorts of ways from monochrome, to ivory or even turquoise shades. And that doesn’t even take into account how to treat the ground, or how most of the Sylvaneth in the warband do not have smooth bark to do the little black marks on.

And Spider-Man, into the Spider-verse threw in this inspiration. Not that it helped pin down what I was going to do.

So I just went with what I was familiar with. Army Painter Skeleton Bone Primer zenithal highlight over Red Oxide. 

The bases look like they’re covered in moss, but this will be orange on mine and I decided on red leaves to make them less busy looking. However, that does venture into the realm of Game of Thrones’ God’s Wood trees, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

All the skin tones will be golden orange/yellow, as that will stand out quite nicely against the white bark I’ll doing and is also the colour of the inside of a birch tree [or at least it was in one picture I googled].

Hair is all red, to match with the leaves, but there will be some Rhinox Hide in places to try and break things up and tie it all together.

I still need to do the little tree sprite holding the arrows here, I’ve no idea what colour to do them but even though they’re all different little critters I’ll do them all the same colour. The bases also got Trollslayer Orange on the moss, but I don’t know what t do with the little puddle area in the middle…

I wanted to do the weapon material the same as his skin tone. Even though that should be ‘soft’ [because it’s skin] I think the heartwood is the strongest part of the tree so it makes sense to also have it for the weapon. I may also paint the thing on his back bronzed flesh too, now that I look at it.

There are still a lot of questions to answer on colour choices so I’ll be working on the horned guy a bit more to feel more confident in the direction before I apply it across the other three, till then BW shot!

 Big Build – TO DONE!

I builds it, I gets the badge!

Warhammer Underworlds Shadespire Garrek’s Reavers – TO DONE!

Garrek’s Reavers – TO DONE! There was a point with these where I had no idea where I was going with them.

Luckily I had my Imperial Knights to focus on and with no real reason to be painting them the end result and the decisions needed to get there were broadly irrelevant.

Which is a wonderful learning experience -you have freedom to explore with no expectations and no targets to meet.

Although it helped I wasn’t trying to follow a style it was a slight hindrance in that I had those questions about soft fabrics and wrappings.

So I’d definitely recommend doing something purely frivolous if you can fit it in amongst ‘must do’ tasks.

And as a palate [or even palette] cleanser it’s also helpful in setting up your next project. It gives you renewed purpose having explored new territory.

Good old Garrek, he’s a beast of a model in fact. As a sculpt it’s really quite clever how subtly he’s elevated to the leader status

The hair was almost by accident that I used purple to shade it. In fact I used it on the skin and all the armour plates. I’m not even sure if it’s apparent but I felt like it was tying it all together.

I should have got a close-up of the decapitated head, it was one of the last things I did and really rough but came out quite cool – clearly newly severed.

Now, the scars… I’d had them all red but they looked too understated so I went purple on them and maybe they’ve gone too far the other way.

Possibly a couple of more washes, even a black might have made them less cartoonish but I wanted something else and that’s what I got…

This guy’s brand looks more like and open wound – the Tamiya Clear Red X-27 really came into it’s own on these.

And just adding the gloss varnish on his helm I felt was a nice touch.

Come at me bro! Some black wash was added to the Tamiya Clear Red X-27 blood to make it darker. it also makes it matt, so you have to offset that with another dab of Tamiya Clear Red X-27, or gloss varnish.

A touch of blood from the spines rupturing out of his back – little touches just add more drama to the mmodel.

I don;t know why but I think this is my favourite of all the reavers. Maybe it;s because I think he looks like Willem Defoe?

The white background pics.

Individual character shots

And the Big Teal Stamp of Approval for giggles.

Warhammer Underworlds Shadespire Steelhearts Champions – TO DONE!

Second of my completed Shadespire Warbands – Steelheart’s Champions.

And I know it’s now Night Vault and the actual game is Warhammer Underworlds but these technically were Shadespire warbands and the name is just altogether better.

Just a reminder I [loosely] followed Rob Paint’s Model’s base guide for these.

And I also followed his painting guide for the Stormcast Eternals themselves.

He obviously did a much better job and I threw in some battle damage too but I’m more than happy with the result.

2 things about steelheart: 1. I love the blending on his sword – I wish I could do black like this ALL the time. 2. The pupils for his eyes or on his top eyelids. It looks OK, but it isn;t right and one day I may have to fix that.

The purple wasn’t quite as smoothly blended as I’d hoped. It had been looking quite dire and just the edition of that white line across the bottom made it far more interesting and draws the eye away from the dubious blends…

I also glossed all the weaponry, again to make up for what I didn’t explore on the Chosen Axes

Pics on the white background.

See what I mean about his pupils. However, do me a favour click on the pick and zoom in to the leather groin protector – see those individual brush stroke highlights? I love them! While you’re at it look at the blend on that sword closely – I need to do all my blends like this!

Anyway, a Big Teal Stamp of Approval for these guys.

Warhammer Underworlds Shadespire Chosen Axes – TO DONE!

I finished the Chosen Axes just before the end of the last Hobby Season, but I didn’t take my TO DONE! pics, well apart from one for the end of the season review.

With Garrek’s Reavers done I thought I’d do all three warbands in one sitting and I ended up loving the Camera360 shots so much I didn’t even bother with my digital camera – too much faffing.

It’s really weird to look at these now, I haven’t really paid them much attention since I finished and I’m pleasantly surprised what I actually did.

I’m not 100% convinced about the grey on the base, but the flock and skulls are OK.

Individual facing shots [where appropriate].

Gratuitous 360° rotation.

I can honestly say right now I don’t quite know how I did the gold on that axe head. I need to go back and see if there are any tips. It might just be my standard brassy bronze with some extra highlights but that’s what I’ll go for on my Deathwing Knights when I get round to them.

Gratuitous 360° rotation.

Gratuitous 360° rotation.

Gratuitous 360° rotation.

And on a white background, with more natural colours.

I had considered coating their skin in gloss varnish, glad I didn’t now; although I glossed the armour on Garrek’s Reavers so I got to see what it would have looked like.

That ‘gold’ tho!

Of course these were completed in my 2017/18 Hobby Season and as I’ve only just got round to taking some pics here’s the appropriate Big Gamboge Stamp of Approval!

Warhammer Underworlds Garrek’s Reavers pt2.

With the Knights complete it’s back to Garrek’s Reavers and when last we looked at them in December I was unsure about the bases. My conclusion was to just block out the colours and then I might have an idea how to deal with the ‘sand’. And so now you can see what my concept is…

Yep, they’re all red. Given it’s Khorne I just wanted them to be red-skinned, which obviously makes their armour and clothes an issue as usually they’re the red things. However, a quick view of RobPaintsModels video helped me to just use Incubi Darkness on the fabrics, while the armour was always going to be glossy black.

I added copper in places just for something different instead of my bronze and silver as all the pointy sharp bits.

All the skulls got picked out, although there were some jawbones I missed – watch out for those. The realisation was then NOT to do anything with the ‘sand’. I’ll be making the grand glossy, like it’s Shadeglass and the sandy areas will remain that colour just matt. Adding in another patch of colour would have just been more distracting.

After a purple wash to shade all the red skintones [and to tie it into the other purples on the base] I then highlighted all the skin with Khorne Red and then Valejo Bloody Red. I also threw in some purple wash on his hair, again to connect everything together.

This guy has just had his face highlighted with Khorne Red + Bloody Red. The rest of his body is just at the Khorne Red stage, which looks pretty good anyway, I could have stopped here! Strong and Dark Tone washes were applied to all the metallics.

All the Khorne Red highlights are done.

And all the Bloody Red Highlights are done too.

I went back in with more purple wash in places to add greater depth and increase contrast. I picked out some fake musculature too. Eyes were picked out in yellow and some of the teeth were painted in brown – y’know dental hygiene isn’t high on their list of priorities.

A also did Dark Reaper highlights on all the clothing and picked out the armour plates with Incubi Darkness, but only on the sharpest points. I also did a first black coat on all the base rims.

And that’s the last of my WiP pics. further highlights and details were picked out, varnishes [matt and gloss] and lashings of Tamiya Clear Red X-27 and you’ll see it all when I finally take some TO DONE! pics.

Warhammer Underworlds Garrek’s Reavers pt1.

I took these pictures at the end of September, that seems so long ago now. I wanted to further explore what I’d done with the Stormcast but more fantastical. The bases got a rough pale blue base.

I then applied a fair bit of purple shade and also green glazes to make it quite ethereal.

Here’s a close up of the shading.

I then drybrushed the base to pick out some highlights, might have lost some of that range of colour.

And now I’m stuck as I can’t decide what colour to do the piles of sand/dust on the bases. Brown seems so dull, glossy black? Or yellow? maybe I should paint the skulls so there’s more context. 

I’ve an interesting take on the rest of the colour scheme, perhaps I should block those in too for the full effect before I pick the colour?

Warhammer Underworlds Shadespire Steelhearts Champions – almost there

With the preliminary basing of one Knight out of the way I felt sated enough I could try and move these closer to completion. I did all the obsidian weaponry and highlighted the leather on hilts and kilts.

I also did the obligatory glowing eyes with some dubious results. Then I added some battle-damage to the armour which I was even less pleased about. It doesn’t look quite as bad in this picture but I thought it was too harsh and spoiled the prisitine look.

But these guys will have been in Shadespire for eons, brand new armour isn’t an option so with one damaged and two undamaged I had a choice – fix the damaged one or push on through with the other two…

And I went for damage, this time with Skavenblight Dinge and used a sponge for more randomness. I think it was the right decision, although the execution was better this time it was still not quite right. however, better to try and fail [slightly] than to take the easy route.

I also added the [other] obligatory verdigris on the armour, some extra highlights and a little white stripe on his cloak.

Now to varnish and they’re done!