More Ghoulishness

After putting quite a bit of effort into my last few models and using mostly dark and cold colours, I decided I needed a change of pace. Inspired by John Blanche's use of Contrast paints (it's somewhere on the Warhammer Community website if you feel like searching for it) I decided to try doing something with a yellowish palette. 

I had a hunt through my boxes of sprues I found some more ghouls I thought I'd lost or traded. They seemed like a good choice for playing with Contrast paints and dirty, yellow tones, and as I'd already sold the other ghouls I'd painted there was no obligation to keep to that colour scheme. A couple of days of building and painting later, they were done!

While these were nice to paint, I'm not quite happy with how they came out. The yellow seems to have green undertones to it that I wasn't really aiming for. One problem this project highlighted for me was that I still don't understand the Contrast method of painting as much as I'd like - I forced myself not to use any highlights after the Contrast paints but wasn't quite able to get the level of nuance of light that I would have liked. I guess it all comes down to practice. Maybe I should try painting with traditional watercolours.

Anyway, it was still nice to have a change, and while they're not the best they do look pretty good in the cabinet (which now needs extra shelves, but more on that later). As I don't have a place for ghouls in any of my armies, I intend to sell or trade them off at some point for something else that looks fun to paint.

Until next time, happy painting!

Queen of the Baddies

Been another bit of a break and I've got a backlog of models to photograph, but before I can get round to showing you them I've got to share the last of the campaign models I painted. You've seen the King of the Uglies, but while a gigantic beast is a fearsome opponent for your DnD characters it takes an enemy that can outthink you to be truly terrifying.

Meet the Queen of the Baddies:

Striking a confident pose, adorned with jewelry and holding a sceptre that sugests some magical power, this is the enemy that you really have to worry about. She might even be the one controlling Zombiesaurus Rex!

This model was an absolute joy to paint. It was an interesting challenge to paint her skin - I wanted similar tones to the rest of the campaign models but I also wanted to make her somehow softer overall, and I tried to focus a lot on the zenithal highlighting which I think I captured pretty well. My only criticism with the model is the breasts - even giving a little fantasy exaggeration I would have preferred them slightly smaller. Trying to imagine her running to attack some spellbound protagonists just seems comical to me - I'm prepared to bet it would be very uncomfortable without some serious support, too.

What made this model really fun to paint though is that she's actually two models! Not only is the Queen of the Baddies scary because she can work to outmaneuver her enemies, she's a monster in her own right - a medusa!

Everything that was fun about painting the first model was fun here, too, with the added bonus that I got to add some cool snakes and a subtle red iris to show off her petrifying stare. Looking at the photos, I tend to forget they are actually two separate models - I keep expecting the first one to take off her wig and reveal her true form! I guess that means they're a convincing pair, at least to me.

Now I'll leave my DnD painting adventure behind and move onto the rest of the models I've been working on in the last couple of months. There's quite a lot to get to!

Until then, happy painting!

King of the Zombies....Zombisaurus rex!

Finally! We've seen the goodies, the baddies, and the uglies, but now it's time for the pièce de résistance - the King (of the uglies).

This guy was a blast to paint, if not to put together. He's a resin model so he needed a fair amount of green stuff to plug gaps. I took advantage of the fact that he was a zombie to not worry about whether or not the gaps were filled completely smoothly - decaying flesh isn't expected to be ready for a Dove ad, after all. A couple of claws and teeth had to be sculpted, too - less room for error there, though.

For painting I had originally intended to make him more brown, a kind of brown with hints of olive. I got a bit carried away airbrushing greens, however, and he wound up being more of a fantasy creature with less of the natural browns I had wanted. Using washes I tried to put some brown into the model, but it just made him look dirty (which is fine for a zombie) rather than making him look brown. Lesson learnt: make sure you start with the colour you want, and don't get carried away working through your collection of greens. Still, he looks really nice and he was well recived, and presents a fearsome, boss-level opponent for the characters in the DnD campaign of which he will be part. I hope he eats someone!

Until next time, happy painting!