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Thanks guys. I'm quite happy with them. Especially as they're finally finished. Sure I can add more models and bump them around, but the individual models there are done.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Those are some fine-looking Iron Warriors. I especially like the added cables. I've read about using guitar strings before, but have yet to try it. Did you find them difficult to work with? Also, you have done a fine job differentiating the bases from the armor. What was your final technique?

An extra layer of thinned black wash in the end. I've used several coloured washes on the bases anyway - rust, blue and brown with a little variation in the floor metals so they don't look too monotone - especially since I'm calling them "space ship flooring" instead of concrete and dirt, etc as they're technically supposed to be.

 BrookM wrote:
Duuuuuude, those hazard stripes are sharp!

Thanks Brook - stuff like that plays well to what I think is my biggest strength, which is small freehand details.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
Cracking unit there, I really love the head on the aspiring champion, where is it from? It is good to see that the monopose plastics from Execution Force fit in well with the rest of the unit. Painting wise I think you have just the right mix of grime and shine on them.

As for your new builds what units and miniatures will you be gleaning the parts from?

The AP's head comes from the Metal IW upgrade parts, though with the horns cut off. It's a MKIII head with an armoured mask over the top, much like the new/current FW Breacher models. The new ones will draw from the same sources - CSM, Berserker, SM plastics, IW Metal ugrades and old CSM metal shoulders, but with newer plastic SM, Calth and FW Armour Marks and upgrade parts added into the mix. Though I also plan to have a squad of "Traditionalist" type IW in Heresy-styled MKIII armour without any modern or chaotic markings on them at all. Also a squad of IW Khorne Bersekers is something I've wanted to do since I read Storm of Iron many years ago in Iron, Black and Brass. So those as well.

With luck I should have some more stuff for you to comment on soon, Damo. I'm trying to finish 4 more Minotaurs based on the stuff I got from you earlier in the year. Then just the Sergeant build and one more for them to be done. I'm kind of going back and forth between the two sets of marines, though overlapping as well.

 Archer wrote:
The iron warriors are spectacular. Very, very nice paint job. Wouldn't want to paint 2,000 points and donate them to a worthy cause by any chance?

I don't see myself donating them anywhere after finally getting them started properly after so many years, but I do hope to paint 2000 points and beyond.

Those bats are awesome! They look almost like something a vampire would turn into or some kind of magical spell, what with the silky bloody red coloration. Excellent

And those Iron Warriors... damn. I mean damn. I dunno but they're just speaking to me. Making me... I can't express the feeling... not nostalgic because I never had any but like... regretfully quasi-nostalgic for having never done any of them myself... i'm not sure that makes sense lol. Did you do anything special for the metal? Something about them is just getting to me, really fancy. My finished models shelf is jealous of them.

Those are great like the cleaner look I don't imagine Iron Warriors dirty to proud for it.

The Iron Warriors have great pop, I think they look lived in while still being well maintained.

I'll ditto thr thoughts on the swarms: they look like aswarm of nasties, which is great.

Yeah, those Iron Warriors look the business. Nice work

Thanks again guys. I'm very happy with them so far. I've pretty much done the renovation and re-completion on the next couple of them, so I'll get them up next time I've got time to take some photographs.

 GrimDork wrote:
Those bats are awesome! They look almost like something a vampire would turn into or some kind of magical spell, what with the silky bloody red coloration. Excellent

And those Iron Warriors... damn. I mean damn. I dunno but they're just speaking to me. Making me... I can't express the feeling... not nostalgic because I never had any but like... regretfully quasi-nostalgic for having never done any of them myself... i'm not sure that makes sense lol. Did you do anything special for the metal? Something about them is just getting to me, really fancy. My finished models shelf is jealous of them.

Thanks Grim. The metal is a mix of drybrushing in several layers over a black undercoat, but the top layers were done with thinned metals (GW Ironbreaker and then VMA Steel) and then washed with variously thinned black and (in parts) dark brown. Trying to get a... well, a kind of oily, slightly grimy/used/lived-in look to the metal. The brass/bronze is done in a slightly patchy and inconsistent way with various metals from VGC Tinny Tin through various coppers, brasses to the newer GW Golds, but without verdigris added - since I figure the IW would be too proud to let that happen. Wear and tear is one thing - the badges of war - but allowing corrosion to set on their armour? nonononono!

Ironically, I see the opposite - the slight greenish tinge to the Minotaurs' armour in the same light - a badge of honour to have a very subtle mark of age and time on their armour. But not thick verdigris.

Cracking bunch of Iron Warriors, Azazel. Usually their paint scheme doesn't really do anything for me, but these guys are great

I've been a little burnt out from blogging for awhile, though in the interim I've still been painting (if not playing - winter sucks!) Rather than go into the uninteresting trials and tribulations of my life, I'll just get on with it and see how it goes. These models were finished last month, and so are part of my pledge for August's entry of the Tale of Gamers Paint Challenge.

I know these models are ugly as gak, but in my defence, I purchased them a long time ago, around when they were released, and they were at least a step up from the initial offerings. I attempted to.. well, not "fix" them (because just look at them) but make them look a little less terrible and fit in with my Iron Warriors who I had started at that time. I did so by turfing their original heads and replacing them with ones from the plastic Chaos Knights kit. I also felt that their "weapon hand" loadouts were on the wrong side of ridiculous, and so moved some stuff around, and added in a few plastic bits. They still look terrible, but hopefully less terrible than the stock models?



The colour scheme is the original one I came up with all those years ago. I felt that "mutated meat" looked far better than the pinky flesh that GW's official scheme came up with, particularly against the metal and hazard-striped look of the IW scheme. In what was pretty much my first use of guitar strings, I added a couple of extra cables in places on the models, very sparingly.







In the recent "renovation" of these two, I've gone over some of the metals and re-weathered them in spots, rebased them on the new GW plastic bases to go alongside my other Iron Warriors (and added a bit of guitar string there). After the new layer of varnish, I also went over all of the flesh by highlighting in spots with regular red paint and then with both Blood for the Blood God and Spirit Stone Red in different "patches" of the flesh, which gives it a glistening viscera look - but with some variation and unevenness to it. This stand out in person more than in photos, but you can see it best in the left arm and hand of the Obliterator above.







I believe that I have one more of these guys in metal, but I'm damned if I can find him. I know I only painted the pair at the time since one of the initial targets for my IW was for a small "Kill Team"-style army of about 600 or 800 points, and I only planned to use two Oblits in that force. I did recently find another six (!) of them in finecast which I had picked up cheap on eBay a few years ago with a thought of being able to do more with them than the metal ones. So... that might become a thing? I've got some other things way before them in the queue right now, but I guess I should consider painting them before GW releases a new version that causes me to lose all interest in the ones I have...



The last "Family Photo" pic just works to show them alongside their uninfected brethren. Their armour shows a lot more corrosion, discolouration and muck than the regular Iron Warriors. I'd say that the Obliterators are much less interested or able to properly maintain their armour. Especially as it's now fused to them.

Hm.. I wonder if Gal Vorbak models would work well as Obliterators or Mutilators? They always struck me as the most awesome Possessed models, but maybe there's something to be had there?

Nice, icky work there. I particularly like the haedswap. I never thought that the stretchy-face Thing heads worked very well on these models.

You could be onto something with the Gal Vorbak subbing as Obliterators or more perfectly Mutilators. But do they have the bulk to make it work?

Nice Oblits, the head swap works really well, as does the red with the metal/yellow/black.

EDC

gruesome!

Good to see you back Azazel's, and even better that you have been painting whilst away from the blogging. The oblits look great, and the little modifications really help make the difference. As you say the red flesh looks a lot better than the pinky tartare look from GW.

Good luck in finding the missing metal miniature, and it will be awesome to see these combined with the finecast ones you have.

Crikey Az - you've made a mad improvement on them. The head swap to start was definelty a wise move. That kit really is a nasty ugly piece of yuk but you've certainly elevated them. Great job.

Yeah, I think the head swap is lovely. The big thing it does is to make them look less like "space fantasy chaos ogres" or something. Yet as ever with helmets, it somewhat dehumanises them too. Overall it's a really good look. Super Meat Boy meets chaos knight = win.

Good stuff here Azazel. The Obliterators carry the Iron Warriors paint scheme pretty nicely.

Nice and gribbly. The oblits are a bit doofy for what is a fairly interesting concept, but you've done a good job with yours.

They are awesome I was thinking of starting my own small Iron Warriors force to go with my Black Legion force - got any tips?
I also share your dislike for the Obliterator kit but you've done a fantastic job making it look a lot better. Tbh you needed to include something like Obliterators, as long range firepower really does fit the fluff of the Iron Warriors and yours look extremely cool. Good Work!

Thank you all, I feel that they're decent, and I'm happy enough with that. The headswaps certainly help a lot with that.

 DaemonColin wrote:
They are awesome I was thinking of starting my own small Iron Warriors force to go with my Black Legion force - got any tips?

Uh... go for it? What kinds of tips do you mean? If I can help with suggestions on some aspect than I'm more than happy to do so.


I've gotten a little more done in the last week or so, but while I'm waiting on the final touches of letting flock dry and photo taking, here's the three models at the front of the current paint queue. Doesn't mean they'll be finished next, but I've been working on them the last few painting sessions.



I've never really been a fan of "blue librarians" and have never painted one as such, but I thought I'd experiment (partially for my eventual for my GK and DW) by adding some metallic blue panels on this guy, and of course blue and gold work well together. The red robes are because I've been using those as a part of the Minotaurs due to their Spartan lineage, and the cut of his robe works well as another common element. I'm a little concerned with potentially having too many (almost) primary colours at work on him, though between the red, blue and yellow (gold). I've got to figure out what colours to use for his ribbed cabling, and the same for the Dread, for that matter (using red for the non-ribbed there). The dread is simply an AoBR plastic with a couple of bits of Minos brass etch added. I might add some hanging tabard bling later. Not sure. I can always bling up a second dread.

The Mordheim elf has been WIP for years (back as far as when I for a time added flock before finishing and varnishing - WTF was I thinking?) - and I've finally gotten to work on him again with a view to completing him within a few days/the next few painting sessions.

I'll get into cleaning up the monthly pics in the Tale of Painters soon.

Nice work Azazel. Love that minotaur dreadnought. I love the blue tint on the librarian.

Awwwwwww, that elf!

The blue looks excellent on the librarian. I think it will be perfect for the grey Knights.

Not commented in a while, just lurking.

Those Iron Warriors look great, and the elf's posing is pretty neat.

That librarian is going to look great when he is finished.

I've painted up a couple of units of "Fir Bolg" Skeletons from Brigade Models now, and this makes the third. Or the fourth, depending on whether I count those spearmen as one or two units, as they can make for either a Horde or two Regiments. I know I've got another 16 archers (two troops of 8) to paint as well, so once I clean up my desk in the next week, I'll spend some time cleaning the archers up and then hit them with the spray can. This time, we've got Skeletons with Sickles.



Staying with the same colour scheme I've used on their predecessors and in keeping with the rest of the army - Red and Black, Iron and Brass, Rust and Verdigris, Cadmium-Red wood - and Bone. The tabards and cloth this time have been given a Par Chevron in red and black.



The standard came from one of the other Fir Bolg skeleton sets, and working out how I'd create the banner took a bit of time. Eventually I settled on a cloth banner, cut from the material taken from an old pair of shorts and fixed with PVA. The Hero is actually their Skeleton Leader with Axe model, with the axe cut and trimmed into a sickle of sorts. I painted the second of the two champions with the same Par Chevron, though reversed. I'd like to move him to a different unit down the line, and perhaps replace with a drummer, but another £3.50 for a drummer feels a little steep when the champion - a mod of the same base figure plus two troopers runs £4.00 by comparison. I dunno. I'll figure it out later. I'd originally planned on giving the two champions different shields as well, but when it came time to complete the command figures, I realised that the shield I'd initially selected would not have looked good angled at 90 degrees, and by then I had already ended up using the last "horned skull" shield on one of the troopers, and didn't feel like tearing the superglue-and-greenstuff mod apart.





Only two sculpts, unfortunately. I like having one-piece metal sculpts for these models, but I do wish there was a little more variety in the number of sculpts, like there typically was in the Old(Hammer) days. The shields also reveal that rather than having given the models that lack sculpted shields freehand shields, I used some of the old-school, 20-year-old Warhammer Undead shield decals that I found recently. Once again, these guys were painted using the "Warm Bone" method, starting with a cheap cream spray can from the local hardware store - with much of the work done bit by bit during lunch breaks at work. The final work was completed last Monday, so these guys also qualify as my September Undead entry for the Tale of Painters challenge.


As per usual, the final shots show them off blu-taced down to a regiment base for KoW - which I really need to get around to playing again sometime soon. I've not done much tabletop gaming in the last couple of months, as it gets a bit too chilly out in the War Room, and as a result my regular gaming sessions with the group for the past few months have been digital (The Division, Destiny, Dead Island) rather than tabletop-oriented. Hopefully the weather can actually change a little now that Spring is here, and we can get some wargaming and tabletop gaming done again!

Those skellies are brilliant . I love the designs on the shields and banners

The skeletons are really nice, I like how you did the bone colour

The brass etch really adds to that Dread, it is a simple miniature but I still think it works as well as the more complicated kit. Am looking forward to the Mordheim elf as well, such a classic.

The Fir Bolg Skellies look excellent, the weapon swap champion and fabric banner really set the unit apart, as excellent as ever.

Love the skellies. The use of cloth rather than paper for the banner is inspired.

Fantastic skelemen Az!

Thanks guys. I've got more skellingtons to come soon! There's a bit of a backlog to photograph and write up. I do like how well the cloth banner came out, so I'll definitely be using that again on more units.