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Thank you guys. I never liked the Denethor model until I had him finished earlier in the week to be quite honest. Now that it's done, I'm quite fond of it. Then again, I usually paint faces close-to-last, so that's when the model comes alive in many ways.

Following on from the initial regiment/dozen Zombies that I painted last month, I started a follow-up regiment at the end of last month. The idea being that they could be used as two regiments - or more likely - combined into one horde (by keeping the regiment trays together). They would have been finished on the first weekend of this month, but instead I got them finished last night after work.



This mob has been painted in much the same manner as the first dozen. Some coloured base coats, Army Painter washes (mostly purples this time), a bit of highlighting, then the clothing in a dark grey, washed with black/brown and then picking out the eyes, teeth, bone and wounds. Then varnish, flock, and Blood for the Blood God to finish.



The first dozen were essentially painted with what I can lazily refer to as "green", "pink" and "grey" skin. This second batch can be summed up as "yellow" and "purple". After being photographed on their own to show off, these guys have been mixed with the first batch to give a bit more variety. Once I start the third batch, whenever that turns out to be, they'll primarily be another two skin tones. At that point I'll do "brown" and "red" (or something) and then in turn mix those in with these guys. That was as I continue to paint more zombies, the overall variety will increase over time. I'll probably take a bit of a longer break before I do the next two dozen, though...



Putty for intestines, and snapped off limbs leave a bone-like protusion.



Another dismembered zombie, and one that's just a pile of viscera.



These models are probably the nicest of Mantic's undead range - I've been finding that their skeletons are far less fun to paint than I'd expected - but the limited number of parts is less than ideal, so I've mixed in a fair few of their Ghoul parts.





The unit shots of these guys were just taken for this post, as right afterwards, I mixed the models from the two zombie units so far, in order to mix the skin tones up a little more.



And here they are - The completed Horde of Zombies!

Awesome Az I like the zombies and ghouls, though you almost have to mix them to get the variety you want. Really nice mix of colors and poses here.

The variety of skin tones really makes the unit-- in retrospect I should have done that with mine. I also like the little gut pile.

The little pile of guts makes me think of BloodBowl . Well done on the horde, they look nice together.

Denethor looks amazing, Az! Almost like he jumped right off the screen!

I see you are getting some painting momentum going again. Good to see your quality progress again. Putting my lack of any to shame. Again. Really like the denethor paint job and the ideas on how to get him onto the table top.

Man, I really like those Mantic Zombies...great work on them.

EDC

Some cracking work on those zombies, Azazel . Truly disgusting and vile undead

Truly disgusting! which is to say they look exactly as they should!

Great walkthrough with Denethor! I have a bunch of unpainted LotR but I don't think they'll look nearly as nice as yours.

Zombies are great too. Horde looks really horrifying. : o

Thanks guys, these Mantic zombies are oddly easy to paint in a batch compared to almost everything else. It is quite tempting to try and pump out another horde of them before I take a break from the undead.

I know what it can be like Archer - work and life can grind you into an exhausted dust sometimes. While my work is getting busier at the moment, it's a different situation atm, so immersing myself in painting during my downtime is a pretty healthy move for me right now.

While wandering around the house the other week while on the phone with my sister, I spotted a few Dwarven slayer figures on a bookshelf, primed black as I'd gotten them from eBay and left them there a year or more ago. I had one of those "Huh, maybe I'll paint these." thoughts as I picked them up and looked at them, moving them to the painting desk. I hadn't painted for a while, and just couldn't stomach working on the Zombies that I showed last update. Looking at them, I figured that they're mostly beards and flesh and axes, so not too hard - and most importantly, were something quite different to both the Undead and Gondor that I've been painting since January or February when I started the current painting challenge.



I got the first guy done - the one on the left with a single axe and open palm, and to be honest, I really enjoyed painting him so I pushed on and finished his mate. I then realised I hadn't done done any warpaint/tattoos. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do them, since I was pretty happy with the figures as-is, but in the end decided to go with it - and so decided to do a bit of a melange of Celtic/Maori/Polynesian/90's-style "tribal". Mostly because "Braveheart"*-style woad is too easy/boring for models like these.



After painting the tattoos in with dark blue, I glazed over them with the paint base coat - a very old Dwarf Flesh (hex-style pots with white lids) to give that "tattoos under the skin" look. The bright orangey red is a little more muted than these photos indicate, but they're still very bright. I considered adding some stubble at the shaved points of their heads, but went instead with a clean look under the tattooed skin. Besides, people who shave their heads regularly end up with normal-looking skin in that space anyway.



These models date from the 4th-5th edition period of WHFB. So after I'd stopped playing. They're actually "Giant Slayers" - so from that point in time when GW decided to split them off from regular old Troll Slayers, and did so by giving them bigger hair, as opposed to "simple" old giant mohawks. Hence the 4-lane mohawks these guys have. To be quite honest, I never really liked these models. I wasn't a big fan of the Marauder ones that pre-dated them either - really only being a fan of specific models in the range (like this guy) and of course, the original sometimes-norse dwarf berserkers from WHFB and before - sadly, I only have the one. As it happens, and just as with Denethor (who I finished after these guys) - after painting them, I'm now quite fond of them.



Despite all this, I picked these up a couple of years ago to paint one day for my Dwarven KoW army. Which I guess I've now started in some form - at least for a small, legal "ally" sized force. I've got some ideas for these guys once they become a unit, but I'll talk about that later. I picked up a ton of plastics from Damo/Nerdfest last year for this army, so they'll finally be getting some love after I get more of these orange-haired guys done. Probably.



My "modern" slayers so far, all together. This pic perfectly demonstrates what happens when figures from a similar range are painted in different batches. Beard-shade variance!

Aside from that, they're painted in a style evocative of the White Dwarf magazines from the period of when they were released, rather than especially realistically. Bright orangey-reddish hair and beards, clean, stripey trousers, dark blue tattoos. Let's face it, these models are far from realistic in their proportions or gear. I've always appreciated the Perry's style of dwarves, which these and pretty much all GW and GW-alike dwarves followed in - but the proportions are horribly deformed compared to anything realistic. I figure I'm happy to just embrace it!

Besides, it's not like GW has moved on from the 90's Dwarf Ethos, either. If anything they've just gone further over the top...

*Yeah, I know Braveheart is an absolute mess of historical anachronism - but everyone knows what Mel Gibson looks like with half a blue face, so it's an effective visual reference point.

Tattooes are wonderful, so neat and so tiny it makes my eyes ache just thinking about it

Very nice work. You are allowed to have models just sitting around on bookshelves? That would cause domestic unrest here.

Lovely work on those slayers. A classic paint job but the tattoos really add something more. I'm going to have to remember the glazing trick to get them to look under the skin.

Great work!

Cracking stuff with the dwarfs there mate. What do you think to the new plastic slayers then? Yea or nay?

The ink isn't over the top, but at the same time really there and part of the model, top marks!

 angelofvengeance wrote:
Cracking stuff with the dwarfs there mate. What do you think to the new plastic slayers then? Yea or nay?

The Fyreslayers? They're ok, actually. Not the best thing since sliced bread, and I overall prefer the older metal models, but if I got some for a reasonable price, I'd be happy to paint some up. Some I like more than others, basically. I like the Magmadroth and Vulkites - though some of their poses look awkward - it's the lack of pants, I think. The hearthguard don't appeal overly (axes would have worked for me, but flailhalberds? not so much), and the runemaster would need a GS moustache...

Yeah. They need pants. And boots. There's way too much chubby baby bum happening overall on the new models. I'd prefer bigger beards as well, but they're ok.

I've got a box of Felix' AoW plastic berserkers ...somewhere. I can't seem to find them, but I'll make a more concerted effort to find them when I run out of metals and manage to still be interested in painting slayers...


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 JoshInJapan wrote:
Very nice work. You are allowed to have models just sitting around on bookshelves? That would cause domestic unrest here.

My house decor' is ...unusual in some parts of the house. OK, most of it. (older pic).

Holy crikey! I can see three things i'd give my left nut for in that photo! :-) the Alien skull, Predator and Balrog bust are jaw dropping jealousy inducing awesomeness!

Pretty epic room. Very jealous you have the space. Wife and I are soon to be house hunting and it will be a dream to get a bigger place.

Nice work on the Dwarves. The war paint is especially good, the steady hand is strong with you!

EDC

I like the tattoos!

Sweet slayers and fancy display space. Nice.

Thanks guys - I need to clean that space up again right now. I'll put up some more pictures of my non-miniature geekstuff once I've done so!

Onto minis - This pair was painted some and photographed some time ago - July 2015 - but for some reason the post never went up. In the interests of content - and conflict given the Slayers in my last post - here they are! Like the other Goblins from the era, they're just this side off of "Oldhammer" to the purists, but as I've said before - they're close enough for me, as they were some of the first models released for 4th edition, during the time that Kev "Goblinmaster" Adams was still the sculptor of all things goblinoid.



I've also given them the flame effect on their robe hoods, in pretty much the same style as I've used on my Night Goblin Fanatics. I'm wanting to put together a small Orc & Goblin force for Kings of War using my old metals. I just need to find some appropriate unit entries for the wilder stuff like these guys - not to mention do a hell of a lot of painting!



I've got some more of these guys on the boil, so hopefully I'll have them up here sooner rather than later!

Those are some really cool goblins there mate. Do you use GW colours for the greens?

How do you create the flame effects? They look as if I could use them for a salamander squad

Thank you. I use either my old Citadel colours of the Vallejo equivelents - whichever is closest to hand. Base colour is Goblin Green, shading is done with old Dark Angels Green and the highlights go through Scorpion and then Bilious Green.

The flame effects are done by going over the black (or the green for Salamanders) with white or off-white, then over painting with a bright yellow, then painting the bottom rim with a bright red. I then use 1-2 shades of orange (like a light and darker orange) to blend/transition the red to the yellow. Last of all, I sharpen up the edges of the individual flames with the black again - or dark green for the Sallies. It's pretty easy, actually.

Love the vibrant greens on the goblins! The personality on those older minis is just fantastic.

I love the Slayers. The tattoos are unbelievable. The axes stand out, too.

Nice goblins. The flames look cool.

EDC

Thanks guys!

...aaaand now, back to the Dwarves again!

Still doing some Dwarves mixed in with everything else at the moment. I've managed to finish this guy off a few days ago.



I bought this one along with most of the other metal slayers from eBay a year or so ago, and started him as I was finishing off the first batch that I showed off a week ago. I'm not entirely sure who sculpted him, or his compatriots as he was released after Citadel stopped crediting their sculptors properly and everything became the work of "The Citadel Design Team".



Much like most of his fellows, I was never fond of this model, as his hair is... ridiculous. A little less ridiculous that most of the Giant Slayers, I guess - as a tall, thin-crested mohawk like this one could exist much more easily than the multi-lane models sported by the Giant Slayers. I'm okay with his tartan pants, but in retrospect, I should have gone with blue, not red as there's not the colour differentiation that I would have liked. Even allowing for the fact that they're a little more defined in person. Ah well, I ain't repainting him!



Initially I had him based on a 25mm round, like his cohorts but then decided that he was a little big for it. Since I have a pile of 32mm bases, and I don't need to worry about WHFB and don't care what Mantic says about square bases for heroes in KoW (who have no facing anyway) I went with one of the bigger bases. The fact that it makes it a little more SAGA or AoS-friendly is simply by the by.



Since this guy is an older veteran of many more campaigns, I tatt'ed him up more heavily than the Giant Slayers. Work on both arms, his back, and (only) one side of his face. Conversely, when I get the Troll Slayers done, they might only have shoulders and maybe some back work done, rather than the number on this guy's arms of the single sleeves that most of the Giant Slayers have.