More Poxwalkers

I’ve slowly been settling down to the new digs and the new schedule. While I’ve painted a bit less than before, I’ve now managed to finish a few new models! Here are the rest of the Poxwalkers from the ETB kit:

Not too much to say about the painting that I didn’t say last time – these guys were basecoated with Contrast paints and then refined with “regular” ones. For some reason the whole process was a lot longer than last time. I think I was a bit more careful with the painting and did a bit more back-and-forth in some areas. The extra time probably doesn’t show anywhere (I hope they’re consistent with the last batch), but nevertheless I found the painting very enjoyable and relaxing.

While some of the sculpts have room for improvement (the big guy’s pose being a prime example), I’d quite like to get a hold of the Dark Imperium Poxwalkers as well. As I said, these models are fun to paint and would make good conversion fodder, models for dioramas, or just a nice looking horde for a plague lord to boss around. But as they’ve now gone OOP, they might soon cost as much as the Dark Vengeance Cultists, at which point there are other cool models to consider. I guess I’ll have to keep an eye out for eBay “bargains”..

Poxwalkers; Experimenting with Contrast

So I’ve jumped aboard the Contrast train! I wanted something simple to test the new paints on, and what better candidates could there be than the humble Poxwalkers. These guys are also my submission to March Might & Magic painting challenge, more on which later.

I’ve been interested in the Contrast paints for some time now. Not for using them exclusively to paint minis, but to speed up the painting process in some areas. The greatest sources of inspiration for this have been Vince Venturella, Darren Latham (channel will close in May, go watch the videos if you haven’t already) and most recently JuanHidalgo with his ‘Eavy Contrast tutorial series. They all show great examples of how to use Contrast for basecoating or effects, and more traditional paints to refine and finish a model.

About a week ago I went to the FLGS and bought a box of easy-to-build Poxwalkers and a bunch of Contrast pots (not cheap..). I decided that I’d revisit the zenithal undercoating, and at the same time try out how that works for multiple figures simultaneously. Well, multiple minis seemed to be fine, but I had some problems with my rattle cans: the gray one clogged which left me with black and white only, and I ended up messing the white and creating a bit of texture on the models. (Here you can see the rest of the walkers, in their primed state.) Well, it’s Nurgle so not too fuzzed about it.. Of course, it probably affected the flow of the Contrast paint to some extent. Oh yeah, I’m using regular automotive primers, not the GW recommended ones.

Painting with the Contrast paints was very enjoyable and in about half an hour I got a model all basecoated apart from metallic parts which I wanted to do with TMM paints. The result looked pretty good actually, and if I’d have to paint dozens of these for playing games I’d happily leave them at that. As I don’t, I spent an additional half an hour per model to refine the paintjob. I layered, or rather glazed the larger surfaces of skin with Flayed One Flesh and then highlighted everything with Pallid Wytch Flesh. The pink tentacles and the orange cloth also got some layering, and the yellow pustules got a glaze of the now OOP Lamenter’s Yellow. Finally, a further 30 minutes were spent painting the metallics (Vallejo Metal Colors, Typhus Corrosion and Ryza Rust) and the base.

So all together, it was around an hour and a half per model, which I suppose is not all that quick, but I reckon a lot faster than what I could’ve done with traditional paints only. I’m calling this experiment a success, will surely use the paints for other models as well. For example, I have the Shadespire dwarf team still on my to-do list, and I now think that I’ll employ Contrast paints for the majority of the models.

I’ll also use these fellers to claim a square in the bingo: paint a model in a color scheme you don’t normally use. So far I’ve painted very few mostly naked models, much less Nurgle afflicted ones, so I think this counts. Furthermore, as I said at the start of the post, I’ll enter these models to a painting challenge organized by Ann of Ann’s Immaterium. The topic this month was “Might & Magic”, which could be freely interpreted by the painter. I see the Poxwalkers as the lowly embodiments of Nurgle’s might, and there’s at least a little magic involved as their disease-ridden bodies are blessings from a plague god.

Nurgle Lord of Plagues; PSA

Today I get to show a model which I’ve wanted in my collection for a long time: the Lord of Plagues. As he’s a bit of a bucket list model, I’m also entering him in Azazel’s Destino December challenge.

I bought the model last month after a pretty insane work week, deciding I had earned something nice 🙂 The Lord was on stock in my FLGS, and as the price isn’t as extortionate as GW’s more recent character models I picked him up. I know this model is often used for all sorts of cool (INQ28) conversions, but as the basic model is so close to perfect I wanted this one to remain in stock form. I did however build him a bit more elaborate base to make him stand out a bit more.

As this model was bought purely for painting and not for an existing army, I thought it would be a good platform to try out some new things. Firstly, the model got a zenithal undercoating, which was a first for me. I can’t really tell if it has a lot of effect on the finished model, as I might have still painted with too thick paint, but it certainly helped me to position shadows and highlights more easily. It’s definitely something that I want to come back to in the future though.

Secondly, rather than trying to paint the armor smoothly, I wanted to use stippling both for easier color transitions and to give an impression of the armor being pitted and banged up, which I think work well as there is already quite a lot of sculpted damage to begin with. There’s still room for improvement in my stippling, but I’m pretty happy with the light-to-dark contrast that I achieved.

For the paint scheme I wanted to do something a bit different from the default green. I had seen Andrew King’s rather wonderful blue Nurgle army in White Dwarf, and decided to try something like that. Andrew used Thunderhawk Blue as the basecolor for his armor, but as my local shop doesn’t stock it I used Stegadon Scale Green. The color was a bit more green than I’d have liked, but glazing some Guilliman Blue on top worked out well to correct this.

To complement the colder blue tones of the armor I wanted the base to have warm red dirt on it. Happily, WHTV recently published a tutorial on the new Underworlds Goblin Riders. I used the basing recipe (with some alterations) in it and got a really nice result. Some weathering powders could probably take it to the next level, but I’ll leave experimenting with those for another time.

I’m using this model to claim a square in the hobby bingo: paint a model from an army you don’t already collect. Now, while I don’t expect him to grow into an army anytime soon, I might just get some Plague Bearers for him to broodingly watch over. Or maybe his little brother, the Lord of Blights!

And with that, my 2019 hobby year is pretty much over. I might try to sneak in a bit of building before the new year, but definitely wont be finishing anything. I still want to do a wrap-up post for the year, but in case I don’t get it up before Christmas Eve, happy holidays to everyone!

Lastly, a small service announcement. A couple of days ago Krautscientist pointed out to me that commenting had been switched off for a couple of my latest posts. This was not intentional, and I have no idea why it happened. It’s been fixed now, so if you want(ed) to comment on those recent projects please do!