On The Bench - 5th July

I've recently been made aware of a painting competition over at Good Games at Top Ryde, and being a sucker for these things I've shelved my current work to give something a go for it.  I've started to paint one of my Giants of Albion, yep sticking with the retro figures.  I love this model and have always wanted to paint it.  The pictures here are mostly for the face.  I'm playing with new colours for faces at the moment, reds and purples on top of skin tones to give him a really gaunt and unhealthy feeling.

I've also been working on my eye process, dotting the pupils and colouring the iris to give him  more colour and make the eye a little more catching.  I'm quite happy with the result on this guy.

Finally, looks like I've lost the hands for this model so I'm trying my hand at sculpting a replacement.  It's only half way there, layering up small bits of green stuff at a time to get something that resembles a hand.  It's really hard to do and very new for me but so far I'm happy with my first effort.

And that's what's on the bench.

Horatio, Magus of Glee

“I think he must be happy on the inside”

— Anonymous

Horatio, famous Magus of Eugedral, is best known for his unusual gait as he apparently skips across the battlefield earning himself the nickname "Magus of Glee".  Don't call him that to his face though, his apparently joyful progression masks an insincere and grumpy persona more likely to fry your entrails as a game than to offer a helping hand, well at least not without the right amount of gold.

This guy is a Guild Ball model that I have been meaning to find time for for a while.  I wanted to give him a cold persona so I've blended the purple colour all throughout the shadows of the model, most clearly seen around the face.  

The first thing my wife said when she saw this completed model was, "Why is he skipping and look so angry?".  Thus he was named, Horatio, Magus of Glee.

The glowing pink orb on his staff was an experiment, and I'm very pleased with the subtle results.  I used fluorescent paints from Vallejo to produce the effect, layering up from red, to fluorescent pink to white.  The highlight is just glazes of red and fluorescent pink mixed over the already highlighted cloth in areas that would likely be hit.  The fluorescent paint was also glazed over the pre-shaded metal to highlight and indicate reflective surfaces.

He's on a 20mm base but it's slotted in a 60mm holder to allow transport without him falling over, he is metal and quite heavy after all.

My other blog posts cover my basing if you are interested. 

Socius Alcatani - The Alcatani Fellowship

I have finished my latest project, the Alcatani Fellowship.  

“What is this world coming to! You can’t even deal with your own lazy good for nothing serfs without someone sticking their dirty rotten good for nothing noses into busi... NO I DON’T HAVE ANY LAST WORDS!””

— Baron Lorthrac

There are few mercenary outfits with a fame quite as large as the Alcatani, a renown earned through the defense of the defenseless, though perhaps not the penniless. Rodrigo, their one eyed leader, would rather take a contract to defend a bevvy of farmers oppressed on their land than a rich merchant's caravan on route through the bad lands.  Of course everyone pays, but we don't talk about that.  "Socius Alcatani" is their cry, it means "Fellowship of the Alcatani", a band of brothers, fiercely loyal to their brothers and their gold.

I've had these models for years half painted.  I've finally gotten around to restarting them and completing them.  I used the same basing technique I've been using across my army.  Every model in this unit is individually based.  Grass is applied using a static grass applicator I made myself and the flowers are all made by hand.

All the armour is non metallic metal done with the loaded brush mostly using English Uniform as the base, Armour Brown for the shade, Iraqi Sand for the highlight and white for the tips.  The spears I'm particularly happy with.  Their Khaki, then lined with Armour Brown and White, then inked with Brown ink.  I'm pleased with how they turned out.

Some freehand on the banner.  I'm not overly happy with the banner itself, making a banner with sculpy is harder than I thought, but I was please with the outcome when painted. My new Windsor and Newton brushes are worth the cost that's for sure.

Hope you enjoy them.

My take on the Alcatani Fellowship. All non metallic metal oldhammer fun. Hope you like it. http://oddianhobbies.com/modelling-blog/2017/5/15/socius-alcatani-the-alcatani-fellowship

The Wolf Knights of Tyris Gate

“The tunderous north can be an unforgiving place, and so with it’s people. Dorak trudged his horse through the icy plains following the quickly dissappearing tracks of the elusive wolves of the bitter lands. Today would be a better day, today his hunt would bring him fame and fortune. With the pelt of the wolf he would be accepted into the order and the Ice Queen would know his name and the chance to behold her beauty would be his.”

Had a great time painting these guys.  They are old hammer knights of the white wolf.  So much better than any of the new knights from games workshop if you ask me, at least the empire ones. 

All the metal is done with non metallic metal with the loaded brush (a quick form of wet blending).  The base follows the same style as my halflings fighting cocks and there are nearly 200 of those lavenders, phew. 

I play 9th age and Kings of War.  The bases are interlocking individual bases that are the right size for both games.  Individual models can be removed (should have taken a photo but you can see the lines between the bases).

The Wolf Knights of Tyris Gate are the body guard of the Ice Queen of Tyris.  Their banner is modeled after her horse barding.  They roam the land selling their services in the search for fame and fortune and building their brand as brutal and unforgiving killers.

Thought I would try something else here as well so I shot a video of the unit to get a more natural feeling of the unit.  Would love some feedback if you watch it. 

Project Complete!   Lastly, here's a few photos of the bases before I put the models on. 

On The Bench - 1st March

Slow hobby progress for the last few weeks as I've been on a little holiday.  Had a great time but little painting done.  I have done a little now I'm back, and started on the base for my wolf knights

The flowers are easy, bur damn there are a lot of them!!

Same basing technique as the halflings, but not in a skirmish style.  Regiment of knights for Kings of war or 10 knights for The 9th Age.  Lots of flowers to finish up and then the grass to add. 

Four of the knights are done, barring a little weathering and cleaning up that I'll do at the end.   All done in non metallic metal mostly with a quick loaded brush.

Not a great photo but you get the idea.  Started working on the unit captain too, love the old model and quite fun to paint

Still quite a bit to go, hopefully he'll look wicked when I'm done. 

So that's what's on the bench today.

On the Bench - 6th Feb

I want to take a few more in progress shots now and then so this is the first of my on the bench posts. 

Getting close to finishing the first of my wolf knights.  It's a little sketchy and I'm not overly happy with the blending but I'm painting an army here and indoubt I'll go back and fix it up.  I do have to weather and scratch it up though, that will blend it in well.  I've done all the horses though and I'll get through the rest of the knights over the next week or so. 

My bits finally rocked up, lion knights!  I don't like the warhammer chicken knights, but I do love these wolves.  Not sure about the rider, I'll be work on that. 

And that's what's in the bench.

The Ice Queen of Tyris

Ok so originally the Ice Queen of Kislev before her homelands were destroyed and she moved to Mantica.  I really love this model.  She isn't the fantastical animated glowing spikes messy elaborate giant of the new games workshop figures and I love her for it. 

I went with a very monochromatic cold colour scheme for the ice Queen.  Only 4 colours in total are needed to paint her.  Dark Sea Blue, Midnight Blue, Azure Blue Elfic Flesh.  Also a mix of black and white. 

The horse weatherbeeta (I think that's what it's called) was my first attempt at free hand.  From black I shaded the moon haphazardly with an airbrush, then masked it with a round piece of tape, shaded the sky, painted the mountain and trees, then dotted the stars.  One thing to note, White is very hard to freehand with, the stars are light gray and just dotted white. 

Had a ball painting this witch.  She has so much character!  I'm pretty happy with the result and plan to take her along to the scale model show tomorrow for a bit of fun.

Rolling Plains - Multibasing with Removable Models

My new army project is a KoM / Leave of Rhordia Mercenary army based on my old Dogs of War minis.  I have decided on a basing scheme of rolling planes of lavender and broken ruins overrun with greenery.  This is hard to do if you're individually basing all of your miniatures, which I want to do because I still play the occasional game of T9A and use the minis for dungeon games like Warhammer Quest and hopefully Dungeon Saga at some point soon.

First Challenge - Base

The standard GW bases have tapered edges.  These will create large gaps between my troops and make my base look broken so I ordered a bunch of 20mm square MDF bases.  They are laser cut and accurate with nice square edges.  

My base is made up of three layers.  

1. The first layer is a perspex sheet, 2mm thick and cut into two troop sizes.  I cut a regiment size and then split it in half so that they would fit together exactly.  If you have 1mm perspex then you can just score and snap it so there is no wastage.
2. The second layer is 2mm thick ferrous rubber (feels like rubber, but magnets stick to it), glued to the perspex and then trimmed to match the size exactly.  It's not strictly required but if you want to magnetize your miniatures for transport I'd recommend it.
3. The final layer is the bases.  Each base has a rare earth magnet drilled into it.  My unit is a skirmish style unit so the MDF bases are placed on the ferrous rubber with their magnets spaced like a skirmish unit so that it will work for both T9A and KoW.  The gaps are filled with Milliput (don't use greenstuff, milliput sands better and fills like clay)

Lastly I placed some magnets in the joining ends so that they would stick together for when I use them as a regiment rather than two troops.   Final result looks like this.  Not much to look at but a good starting point for the rest of the process.

Gotta love magnets!

Second  Challenge - Scenery

I wanted a road through my base.  Even Halflings like to walk on stone every now and then.  I bought a green stuff roller from Laser Shark Designs .  I laid down a mat of green stuff over the joined bases and then rolled it over with the roller.  After trimming the edges I cut out the spaces between the MDF bases, removed them and let it dry.  A small amount of trimming was required one dry to slot the bases back in, but not much.

Rolling hills are rarely flat.  I wanted a messy small edge of a hill dirty and rocky.  Cork is great for that.  I got mine from spotlight, a few bucks for a bunch of coasters.  Cut them up a little and stick them down with superglue and they look good.  Cut out the edges of the MDF bases once dry just as with the road and it's done.

Time for a spot of paint.  The airbrush is great for bases, saves lots of time and give you good effects without much effort.  This base was German Black Brown, highlighted with Khaki and then final highlight with Bleached Bone.  I'm happy with the results.

Step 3 - Grassing

Two types of grass were used on this base.  Firstly I made a bunch of tufts.  Rather than buy these at a premium I made my own static grass applicator.  It's not hard and it works well and you can find a video on how to do it here.  I used 6mm grass for my tufts that would end up being lavender bushes and darker green than I was going to use for the rest of the grass.  I stuck the tufts along the road and along the edges of the hill where I thought they looked good.

For the rest of the grass I applied this directly to the base using the applicator.  I used a grass mix from Noch, Summer Meadow I think it's called and it's a mix of 4 different lengths in varying colours.  Once applied, I trimmed it in appropriate areas so it wasn't too tall where it shouldn't be.

I think the outcome was good.

Added a halfling for impact.  Isn't he cute?  Just ignore the base I forgot to slot into it's hole at the back ok?  Bet you didn't see it at first did you?  Damn, why did I call attention to it?

Third Challenge - Lavender

This was surprisingly easy to make.  

1. Take a single bristle of a coarse paint brush (best to use a large one for painting walls) and paint it green.  
2. Once dry, dip the tip in white glue (PVA for us Australians) and then into fine white sand.
3. Again once dry, paint the sand dark purple and then highlight in light purple.  
4. Once dry, dip the other end in white glue again and then slide it into a tuft of grass.  Slide 1-6 of them into each tuft depending on density needs.

I'd suggest sticking down the tufts in their desired location before adding the lavender or other flowers and using tweezers is essential unless you have tiny fingers and not the clobbery ones I have.

End Result

I'm very happy with the end result.  There are 75 lavenders on the base, I did them in two batches and in total it probably took 1.5 hours for the lavender.  I painted the base with an air brush and  a quick dry brush that took less than an hour and the grassing took roughly 30 mins.  Comments, questions and feedback are always welcome here or on Facebook. 

The Fighting Cocks

Love the old Dogs of War models and finally Lumpin Croop's Fighting Cocks are complete, well minus Lumpin's shield but I've lost it so I'll need to make a new one so that's a project for another day.

Lumpin, Ned and his Fighting Cocks are all painted with Non Metallic Metal.  The Leather is painted with preshading and glazes and the rest is simple layering and glazing.  I found the eyes were really hard to paint, not because of the size but because of the molding or the casts.  The eye balls just weren't all that well defined.  Other than that they were a pleasure to paint.

I am going to use these guys for Kings of War and 9th age so the basing has taken both into account.  It's shown in the picture, the base is slotted for 6 20mm bases in each but designed to fit together in a single design.  I'm quite happy with the result but would love your opinion.  The larger base is two troop sized units and they are inset with magnets to lock together as a single regiment as well.

I will do another post on the basing, but just for this one there are 75 hand crafted lavender sticks, 20 hand made grass tufts, cork, milliput and greenstuff that has gone into making the base.

The Captain - Non Metallic Metal Adventures

Finally finished the captain.  He didn't take all that long, but I got held up waiting for the right tools to finish his base.  He's a 28mm model from the Heresy miniatures line in white metal.  I normally prefer to paint plastic and resin, but this model is one of my favorites.  He has so much character and so nicely crafted I just couldn't wait to paint him.

The metal is entirely NMM (Non-Metallic Metal).  White to Dark Gray to Black for the metal plates, White to English Uniform to Burnt Umber for gold and White to Dark Sea Blue to Black for the sword.

The base is just cork, green stuff for the cobblestones (I got a green stuff roller from Laser Shark Designs, great web store), static grass (woodland scenics I think).  The lavender is made from bristles of a paint brush (a big one for painting walls) painted green then dipped in sand.  The sand is painted purple and then they are just stuck into the grass tufts.  Really simple.

I had heaps of fun painting this guy and learned a lot about NMM.  Questions, comments and criticisms are always welcome.

Project Complete - Swamp Monsters - Night Stalker Doppelgangers

I wanted to give the impression that my Doppelgangers were gooey swamp monsters oozing out of the slimy swamp that makes up the theme of my army.  To try and achieve this I've used a lot of my old miniatures (including a bunch of Warhammer quest minis).  I painted the eyes the same way as the rest of the army, glowing purple, and embedded them int he resin swamp.  I've used Vallejo water effects to goo them up.

I'm fairly happy with the result, though all the shading and highlighting I did has blended into the glossy effect and the glowing eyes don't have the impact of the other models I've done.  I still feel like they do the job well and I'm happy with the result.  I have two regiments of these guys, this is the first.

Photos have come out a bit dark, I don't think I'll re-do them though.  Perhaps when I do the second unit I'll add some new photos.

Project Complete - Arachnophobia Night Stalker Needle Fangs

The next unit up in the Night Stalker army creation is the Needle Fangs.  I had a vision of this swarm as a plague of void creatures skittering through the deeper and denser parts of the swamp taking on the guise of the greatest insect fears, arachnophobia.

The models are Warhammmer Quest spiders.  I've had them for 20 years and never have they been close to a paint brush until now.  I've followed the same formula as the rest of the army.  I decided in the end not to overcrowd the base as I just didn't think it would have the same effect.

The base follows the same scheme as the rest of the army.  It's a bit deeper in resin swamp water and has no land to represent difficult terrain.  The rocks are real rocks as usual, all painted of course, and the stick is a real stick also sealed and painted.  I really like the reeds so I'll be doing more of them in the future but perhaps the base could have used a little more colour.

I now have a regiment, two troops and a monster.  All the ingredients of a small army.  My next post will have a progress group photo.  The next unit I'm working on is the Doppelgangers, and here's a small spoiler you can expect to see the return of some of the Warhammer Quest miniatures.  What's more scary than old Warhammer Quest miniatures lurching out of the swamp to come and eat your dreams?

Project Complete - Night Stalker Shadow Hulk

The first of my three Shadow Hulks for my night stalkers. This model is almost entirely airbrushed.  Black undercoat first (Vallejo) then a dark gray for a small highlight from above.  Each set of scales was then highlighted with a lighter gray using blue-tack to mask and allow the airbrush to focus on a single scale.

Purple effect was airbrushed into each of the slits and holes to create a minor OSL glow effect.  White was painted into the slits and holes then, very thinned down to get into the cracks.  Thicker white painted over that for coverage.  Purple ink and some minor highlighting where required.

Lots of mat varnish to seal each layer and a final mat varnish to seal the whole model.  I find the airbrush paints rub off easily if you don't varnish.

The base is the same as the rest of my models.  I tried to create a little waterfall and while it didn't work as intended it did make a nice stream effect.  The water surface is broken up with Vallejo water effects.  They're good, but by prepared for them to shrink a lot.

I think it's my best night stalker yet and I'm getting better with the airbrush.  Comments are definitely welcome.

Project Complete - Night Stalker Fiends Regiment

Front View

Side

So it's been a while between posts and it's not because I haven't been busy but I've been trying to run two projects at once so neither of them have been completed in a very fast fashion.  The other project is also almost done, but in the mean time here is my second Night Stalker unit, a Regiment of Fiends.

Different from the Shadow Hounds I have used an air brush for most of this unit.  I'm pretty new to air brushing and you can see some of my mistakes but I'm very happy with the end result.

I added a new plant to my basing theme and a tree.  The reeds are from a paint brush (wall painting flat brush) and stuck together at the base with hot glue.  Then under-coated with the air brush, base-coated Vallejo Black Green and then highlighted with Vallejo Air Khaki.  I'm pretty happy with them as they are pretty easy to make and I like the effect they bring to the base.

A little bit less water on the base in this model, which I regret.  Future night stalkers will have much more water as this one just doesn't look swampy enough for my liking.  

For anyone reading this I would love to hear what you think.

New Project: Night Stalkers Fiends Regiment

Time for a new project.  Fiends are a core part of the night stalker MSU army with their great movement and strong combat skills so they're next on my table.  For this unit I'm going back again to the Tyranids and looking to use their Warrior models.

GW Tyranid picture taken from the GW site.

Justification

The warrior models are on hoofed feet and I figured they were appropriate for either Butchers or Fiends.  Butchers are shambling and the warriors just look to fast and agile to suit the shambling rule.  All of my shamblers are going to be on snake tails to make them easily identifiable.  The sprues come with lots of different arms and with some small mods I can setup a savage looking unit with minimal fuss.

Modelling

Obviously the guns have to go.  The sprues I have come with enough options for most of the limbs to be claws, but I'm two short.  I have spare bits I'll use for that or do something interesting with the non-gun arms as they have tentacles coming out of them that fit into the weapons.  I'm also re-positioning the legs as they look too static for a fast moving unit in their default pose.

Continuing my swamp basing scheme will be fun.  This time their going to be splashing and wading int he water a little and that's going to be much tougher in that I'll need to do some greenstuff modelling and then clear resin casting along with other water effects.

These models will be a little brighter than the hounds with some extra effects of light around their heads and hands, but they're still stealthy so expect them to still be quite dark and contrasting against the colourful swamp.  No fillers for these guys, 3 per base as they are supposed to be.

Nightstalker Shadow Hounds

Now that my swamp base is done I've been working on some shadow hounds to occupy it to define my night stalker army style.  I wanted something dark, nightmarish, black and evil but also a little colour.  Eyes aren't really enough colour for me, but the Tyranid models that GW use have lots of areas that I can set to glow with the inner purple power of these creatures.

 I used loaded brush a lot on these guys to get the blending of light gray to black to give them some depth.  The purple is simply white and then layered up to purple and a drybrush OSL.  I wanted a good effect without spending a month on each unit and I'm happy with the result.

Next step for me is the second unit of these Shadowhounds.  This unit is the lead and the second troop will be behind.  The scenic bases will match and join together with magnets when done to make a regiment.

On another note, I've added a subscribe link to my blog in case you're interested in hearing about what I'm working on.  

Creating a Swamp Basing Scheme for Kings of War

My last post was on the inspiration for the swamp basing scheme for a Kings of War Nightstalker army.  Since then I've completed my first base.  This is for a troop of cavalry and will be used for Shadow Hounds.  Those models aren't painted yet so won't be attached for a little while more, but I'm using Hormagants from the Tyranid range of GW 40K.  Water effects are easy and fun, so here's how to give it a go.

The finished product

Step 1 - Cut your base

There are lots of places that will pre-cut you some MDF to the size you want and that's fine.  I have a large sheet of acrylic that I use and I just cut it with a jig saw and sand it down when I'm done.  It works fine and makes a good starting base, plus it's a little cheaper.

Step 2 - Mounds and Lakes

I use Fimo Modelling Clay for this step.  You can use something else if you like, Milliput for example, but just be sure that it's easy to sand once you're done.  I like clay because it's super cheap and you use quite a bit.  Mold it into place on base just as in the picture.  The low parts will fill with water.  If you have a log or a stone, make impressions in the clay before it dries.

Once the clay is all dry, snap it off and glue it down.  If you used Milliput it will bond to the base, but clay won't so use a little super glue will bond it.  Once bonded, mix some white glue with water and paint over it.  This creates a tougher surface and ensures it won't chip later.  Once again if you used Milliput this isn't necessary.

Step 3 - Sand, Rocks and Logs

Glue your rocks and logs down into the previously molded shapes you made in your clay.  I just used superglue for this part, white glue would work too just take longer to dry.

Clay and putty have too smooth a surface to look like mud or sand when painted so you'll need to add some texture.  You can use Modelling Sand (whatever brand you like) but I'm stingy so I just use cheap sand from the hardware store.  I got 10 Kg for about the same price as a small baggy of sand from a craft store.  It's fine, it's clean and it works really well.  If you want it finer (mud looks better with REALLY fine sand) like I did, just crush it in a mortar and pestle first.

Mix your sand with watered down white glue and paint it on over the mounds.  Clump it where you want to make it look wetter, messed up or mossy.

Step 4 - Who wants Moss?

Spread undiluted white glue across any surface you want to be mossy.  Don't add water because you won't get enough depth from your moss.  While the glue is still wet, you have a while white glue dries slow, pour on as much sand as you can or dip your base into the glue.  Press the sand down to spread the glue through the sand and then wait a few minutes.  The glue is pretty tacky when wet so you don't need to leave it to dry, so tap the excess sand off your base.

Stick down some extra skulls or rocks or whatever you like and you're ready to paint once it's dry.  You could add some things like mushrooms now but I find it easier to pick placement a bit later.

Step 5 - Paint.

Pick your colours, undercoat black, paint, ink, drybrush, airbrush, whatever you like.  This isn't a painting tutorial but if you're reading this and you want to know my formula just leave a comment below and I'll post it.

Step 6 - Plants

To make my plants I went to my local hobby store and bought everything that looked leafy that I could use.  I cut the leaves off and arranged them into plants.  To make the ferns I bought a few plastic palm trees from Eckersleys, cut the fronds off and stuck them together with a greenstuff base.  It's easier than you think.

Once you've put them together, undercoat black and paint them.  They're plastic so they are fragile and the paint might crack so cover them in mat varnish of your choice.

Mushrooms are easy.  Get a small peice of wire, put a small ball of greenstuff on the end and wrap it around into the stalk.  Then get a larger ball and just push it onto the end.  They look great and add some real contrast to your base.

Step 7 - Water

This is the hardest step and you can't just paint over it if you stuff it up, so take care and run a few tests first.  I did 4 test runs with different levels of ink and base paint colour to determine the colour scheme I wanted and settled on a fairly transparent green with a hint of brown.  The mix is roughly two table spoons of resin to 5 drops of ink (Vallejo) in a ratio of 4 green (Black Green specifically) to 1 brown ink.

The resin I've been using is Envirotex Lite.  It's readily available and pretty cheap.  Some forums will suggest other options, another is ICE Resin, but I've never tried them.  Envirotex Lite does a good job and is very simple to use.  Use gloves when you use it, not because it's overly harmful to your skin but because the risk of getting some on your fingers and then putting them in your eyes is high if you don't.  There are heaps of tutorials on you tube on how to use Envirotex Lite so I won't go into it here.  Google is your friend.

Once I was happy with the test results I used masking tape to mark around my diorama the height I wanted the resin to go to.  I had previously picked 6mm because masking tape comes in that height from the hobby store but you can pick any height.  

Then it's just a case of pouring your resin in.  Pour it in VERY slowly.  The best way to do this is to drill a small hole in the side of the cup holding your resin and drop it through that in a continuous stream.  It won't push into all the gaps on it's own, I used a toothpick to push it into any gaps that it's viscosity prevented it from going on to.

Step 8 - Cover and Let Cure

Cover it up so dust doesn't get in, trust me you'll regret it if it does or even worse if a bug crawls into it and get's stuck in the resin!  Once done, roughly 24 hours to be sure, pull the tape off and sand the edges flat with the finest sandpaper you can.  Use a gloss varnish to clear up the edge and here's the result.

Thanks for reading, I hope you get something out of this post, please leave a comment below or share this post.

Basing the Night Stalkers

In my previous post I talked about the inspiration behind the Night Stalker army I want to build.  In this post I'm looking into the basing of the army.  The creatures themselves will be mostly black with some OSL, so the bases really need to make the army.  The bases need to create a nice contrast with the evil black creatures stalking through them.  I've decided that I want a deep green swamp basing with plenty of water effects, colourful growth and deep green growth.  Fallen logs and moss will play a big part.

Here's my inspiration research.

Swamp bases work well when there's stark contrast between the elements.  I need to combine this with the stark contrast with the night stalkers treading through them.  I recently picked up a two part water effects resin kit and the next step is to get competent with that.

I've also never created mossy surfaces.  I really like the second picture with the mossy rocks and logs.  I've sourced a few places that sell stumps but I'm planning on using real sticks along with some greenstuff to model the fallen logs.

I'm still looking for a good place to get small plants like ferns and reeds from, but I'll try the color scheme and water effects first and make sure I can do it first.

Night Stalkers - My First KoW Project

Now that I've completed my first Kings of War tournament I've decided that I'm going to blog a little more about getting into the hobby.  My particular inspiration is coming from the new Night Stalker list.

What I love about this list is that there are no models for it.  Not only that but the list doesn't really have a counterpart in any other game.  The team that created it has drawn inspiration from Babylon 5 (one of my favorite TV series ever), the Tyranid army (the only 40K army I ever played) and from the looks of the lists from several classic horror films.

I've done a bit of research to help me find the right inspiration for this army.  Here's a gallery that shows what I'm thinking this army should look like.

Nightmare Horror

Demon Hounds

Also a good example of OSL on a dark colour.

Babylon 5 Shadow Creature

Imagine these crawling out of a swamp to eat your children

Good OSL on Black

Dream Stealer

Shadowy Banshee

Good OSL on Black

Nightmares

Glowing Eyes and Mouth

Black Lighting Effects

Dark Evil

Just goes to show you can create a lot of character without colour or definition.  Now how do you make that true for miniatures?

Shadow Monster

Black is a colour that can really blend into the background, so lighting is going to be important.  Basing will also let me have very dark models without making the whole thing feel unpainted.

I'd like to try a few techniques that I haven't worked on before with this army.  The first is going to be for the base, and that's water effects.   This army is going to be based around lush green swampland filled with water, fallen logs, critters, plants and moss.  Probably not a lot of grass, but reeds and weeds a plenty.  A dark and bold green will be the primary colour for the bases and I plan to produce one of these before even assembling a single model for the army.