Seeing ghosts

When I was playing Lord of the Rings on a regular basis a few years back, I tried to incorporate my Army of the Dead into my 'Good' tournament force.  They were paired with Galadhrim elves.  It fit into the sort of my "Angry Elves" army, which refused to leave Middle Earth.

This stubborn refusal meant that they were willing to go to extraordinary lengths to stave of their many enemies.  These were primarily the Men of Easterlings. That was my "Evil" army.

Here's one of the test battles we fought with this arrangement:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/09/lord-of-rings-last-days-of-king.html

I had a great deal of fun mixing in the fluorescent paints with the regular paints to not only create a glowing effect (as seen in the movie versions of Army of the Dead), but to accentuate the degraded and decayed clothing and armor.

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/222019064852?

Taking back what was Ours

The time has come for Pseusennes to take vengeance on all those who have quested in his Tomb Cities for centuries.  While the Chaos God has seen his wishes come to life, the Tainted Pharaoh has not.  Now he will seek to destroy those who looted his Tombs in their own lands.

Chief among these targets are the Kingdoms of Men.  All too often, precious artifacts were stolen and brought back to their stinking, filthy cities.

Shobik would once again stand at the forefront of Pseusennes' main strike force.

The dastardly, cowardly men had not only sought allies among the Daemons... they had with them a sorcerous scroll which decreed that even more of the Legions should deploy, allowing the Trickster to see where they would attack next in advance.

This time they would bring with them one of their dreaded engines of war, which had shattered many a construct during the looting of the Tomb Cities.

The forces of Pseusennes deployed in an arc, seeking not only to encircle the hapless Men, but also claim possession of as many of the stolen artifacts as possible.  The remains of four artifacts were contained inside four monuments that the Men had constructed around them.

The Scavengers and the chariots moved into a position of attack.  These great birds were given a magical breath weapon by the Cursed High Priest.  Could they get into position to destroy the gunpowder weaponry of the Men before it could be brought to bear?

The Great Worm Riders and the Bone Dragon aligned themselves for a counter assault on the Knights, which they knew must come.

The massive Daemon beast appeared on the other side of the woods from the Scavengers.  They would be crushed by this massive abomination if they did not manage to escape!  The Breath weapon infused within them was too valuable to lose so early.

Here we see the advance of the usurpers of all that had been precious in the Tomb Cities.  See that they advance only in great rabbles and mobs, a feeble attempt to give each other courage to stand up to Shobik and his warriors.

Shobik saw these mobs advancing on all fronts, and chose to make yet another sacrifice of the Enslaved Guardians.  They were pushed forward from their firing positions, which no longer could see the tiny monkey-like creatures moving between the trees.

The magical power was so great, so focused, that the Enslaved archers were moved nine inches forward!  The Monolith apparently had a great deal of magical force to bear!

Drawing inspiration from their battle standard, and the Beast, the Men charged forward and sent a unit of Revenant Chariots back into dust.

With great mobs of Men surging forward, backed up by wizard and cannon alike, could the Forces of the Tainted Pharaoh emerge victorious?

Find out in the next exciting episode!!!

Being a Good Host

We step back once again to reveal another of the old timey 4th edition Demonhunters army!

I had one Retinue with 3 of these Demonhosts, which never did much of anything, but they were fun to paint :-)

I wish that they did more killing of the enemy over the years.  The potential of their abilities was just too random.

I'm thinking these could be interesting in more of a fantasy setting now...

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/222017752295?

Target Practice

It's been a while since I showed you one of the finished archers from the how to article.

These are from Red Box Games, of course.

Here's a link to the first of the 3 part series of articles!

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2016/01/time-for-some-paint.html

I can see your future

Here's something that I discovered in the back of a cabinet... one of the last remaining converted Inquisitor Retinue figures.  My old 4th edition Demonhunters army had anywhere from one to 4 Inquisitor Retinues.  They were so much fun, and the Psykers definitely played a role.

This must be an old Warhammer Vampire counts figure or something along those lines.  I added the banner and a Libre Daemonicus to his collection of odds and ends.

I modernized a few of the painted areas a bit to see what he might look like after several years hiding away in the Warp!

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/222016522672?

The Cries of the Tainted

So, you have witnessed the secret method of the ancient inscriptions... now you will discover where the souls of the tainted reside!!

This is a simple unit filler for the Enslaved Guardian Archers, which begins as a piece of 3/4 inch foam.  A magnet was added for the 4th archer.

I mixed dark green and blue with some black primer for the first layer.

A second coat of blue and green was added to the upper surface, so that I would have some wet paint to work with...

I mixed a teal green with some of that dark blue/green color for my first layer on the floors.

I then created a pattern of skulls and swirls (which will eventually be the demon faces).  I also kept the bases of the surrounding figures in mind, so that the patterns would fit in with the rest of the unit.

More and more of the teal color is added to the mix with each layer, so that I get more definition on the shapes.  Not all of them are done equally, however.  Some of them should be left darker than others, which gives the floor more sense of depth.

Both sides of the unit filler now have a good pattern, and I will continue to define the individual skulls and demon faces from here...

In this image, you can see the skulls have more shape, and the demon faces are emerging as well.  This is the key aspect of the effect, as you want it to appear that the floors contain the souls of the damned!

At this stage, the skulls and swirls are really starting to match the existing base.  I will do one more highlight on them before moving back to the dark tones.

I used a brighter seafoam green for this highlight.  Again, it's very important to highlight some things, but not everything.  Some rows of teeth help indicate the faces of the demons.

I attempted to make these parts of the unit filler more elaborate than the areas under the feet of the figures.  Since these would be clearly visible, there wasn't any concern about taking interest away from a mini that would be standing on them!

I used some Reaper blue liner paint to put some eye sockets on the skulls, and define a few more edges.  This would also help 'deepen' the effect, showing a small part of the abyss into which the souls have fallen!

The demon faces got a little more dark added inside the 'mouths'.

A small amount of fluorescent green was used to create the eyes of the faces.  A few tiny glowing dots were added to a few of the skulls as well.  This would bring some of them forward, or even make the 'shadowy' skulls in the background appear as if it was just two glowing eyes looking at you!

The dark blue was used to make some final touches to the demon eyes...

And PRESTO!  Unit filler. I will snap some finished shots so you can see the overall effect.

I loved this effect so much, I made "Painting Demon Marble" one of my kickstarter instructional videos.  As I love basing, I ended up filming a dozen different kinds of basing techniques!  Here's a peek at the 'core' video, which shows how you can make the sculpey bases:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW80jZhpvsg

They are available on USB drives directly from me, and also from Kings Hobbies and Games:

http://www.kingshobbiesandgames.com/James-Wappel-s-The-Painting-Pyramid-s/130.htm

Call the Marshall!

Hey there, partner, where do ya think yer goin' with that big sack 'o cash?  Time to get the Marshall to look into this!

This is one of our original Deadlands figures, which I believe is from Artizan Miniatures.

I couldn't resist putting the little tree in the base!

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321999138508?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649