WIP: Prep Work

Between recent painting projects I’ve been building a lot of stuff in preparation for the “priming season”, which has now finally arrived! I’ll show some of these models in this post.

First up, a couple of Orks. Both of them are something of a bucket-list model for me. The one with the shoota has an OOP WHFB Orc head, which I’ve always loved but didn’t get to buy before it got discontinued. I finally acquired it from eBay, probably for a bit too much money… The big shoota gunner on the other hand has a custom helmet (inspired by a Meganob head). I tried out brown stuff (less sticky than the green), and practiced sculpting a bit. I sculpted the visor shape first, let it dry and then drilled the holes with a pin vise. To finish the helmet off I added some bolts from a plastic rod.

Next up, it’s on to the Indomitus box and its Space Marines. These guys will be painted as Black Templars, something like my test model. I’ve converted these character models slightly with parts (mostly) from the new BT upgrade kit. The Chaplain I left unchanged as I felt he’s an excellent model as is, and wouldn’t be improved by doing a headswap or adding more accessories.

The Bladeguard Veterans and the Lieutenant were likewise built according to instructions. Superb models, though I’m a little concerned about painting the eye lenses on a couple of the models, as the heads pretty much had to be glued on with the rest of the model. The shields however are not glued on yet, should make painting much less frustrating. As a final note, drilling the barrel on the Volkite pistol took some effort, but I think I managed it well enough.

Then it’s on to the Necron side of the box. No real conversions here either, the only thing I did was to clip the bayonet off of the Warden’s gun, as I did with all my Warriors. The models are shown mainly for their bases, especially on the Reanimator. As it’s supposed to be a repair machine of sorts, I thought I’d use the Necron corpse, originally meant for the Primaris Captain’s base, here.

Speaking of bases, above you can see some new Imperial cultists / Cawdor. The models themselves have been done for quite a while, but I finished their bases only recently. The standout features are the resin books and candles I got from Greenstuffworld.

The final group of models is a set of 10 Poxwalkers. Nothing special with these ones, they’re all stock, but they’ve been zenithally primed. I used Citadel cans this time – expensive, but they haven’t let me down so far (knock on wood), and seem to be a bit smoother than the automotive ones I’ve used. I’ll be painting the models with Contrast paints and some additional highlighting, like my previous ones, but this time I’m planning on varying the skin tones and cloth colors a bit more.

To finish up this post let’s return to the hobby bingo card. This is anachronistic as I’ve already shown a more recent version with one more square, but let’s do it anyway… The ork helmet visor scores me the “sculpt something on a model” square. Fairly unimpressive as sculptures go, but it’s something more than just gap-filling, and I’m very happy taking these baby-steps in my sculpting journey.

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.