This is my blog to fully painted Skorne collection. I split this from my other blog as it seems that I'm now really pumped on getting my skorne figs painted and these deserve their own blog.

A bit of history on my starting difficulties: I bought the skorne battle box when it came out in 2004, but started to paint them this autumn. I wanted to have different scheme than the factory red-gold scheme PP uses and as I really like most of the minis I didn't want to mess with them. Finally the pieces got together in the spring and the ball started to roll on the painting last month.

The scheme is based on two primary colors: purple and brass with accents done with black and bone. I didn't want to go with basic human skin color, so that was another hurdle. After some tests the recipe for the grayish flesh was discovered and the scheme was ready. The desert/ yellow rock bases were added to the figs as the purple needed to have a strong base as the figs lacked contrast.



I have a about 800 points of the figs already bought and in the first step I'll paint a 500 point army starring Makeda, domina of House Balaash. The list is comprised of figs I like and have currently so the lack of shield wall troops will only be fixed after the current list is painted.

So the list I'm painting is
Makeda
Titan Cannoneer
Cyclops Savage
Basilisk Krea
Ancestral Guardian
Extoller Soulward
Pretorian Swordsmen 1 + 7
Venators 1 + 5


Here is the first unit I've finished the Venators. They have basically the same scheme as the pretorian, just applied to their different armor. I really liked the figs and they were a blast to paint. The leaders back banner is left out for now, I plan to paint all of the back banners in one go in the end.

Is very nice

I'm always a fan of the skorne.

Really diggin that gold purple color scheme.

malfred wrote:Is very nice

I'm always a fan of the skorne.

Thank you, the thing I like about the skorne is that it is also very consistent on the figs. There are no awful looking minis, so it is easy to get them looking good.

Frenzied Potato wrote:Really diggin that gold purple color scheme.

Thanks, it required too much thinking to get to this scheme, which is basically the scheme I used in my first 40k army about 10 years ago.

The first beast I got painted is the Cyclops Savage, from the battle box. Not one of the easiest models to put together, I think there are close to 10 pins in the fig. And boy was it nice to get the arms aligned nicely, couldn't do it in the end and had to green stuff the wrists. He is also missing the back banner, which will be added later. Overall I'm pretty pleased with it, it was one of the figs that caught my eye in the early days of Hordes.







After the Cyclops I will paint Extoller Soulward, here is a early WiP shot of her, just the skirt done and base coat on the brass. She is now close to finished, just have to get the base done.

They're looking good and it's nice to see an original scheme on them, makes them your own.

I wonder if you've considered picking out and painting the eyes?

Thanks for the compliments MeanGreenStompa, I'm pretty pleased with them myself. They are definitely better painted as a whole than my cygnar, which is the other army I've been doing in recent time.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I wonder if you've considered picking out and painting the eyes?

The eyes are painted, but without the irises, in similar way that PP has done them. You can see it best in the swordsman.

Finished the Extoller on last weekend and here are pics of her. She was a nice fig to paint, I really like her expression and the fig is full of character. I think she came out nicely, which is good as she is going to see a lot of action unless they totally nerf her in Mk2.







And lastly a close up on her face


While finishing her I painted up a Ancestral Guardian, which is still lacking some finishing touches on the weapon and base. He was pretty quick paint job, the stone was done with drybrushing and after that the metal areas and jewels were added. The stone looks good with drybrushing, it gives the surface a nice dusty appearance. Another good looking sculpt, I am enjoying painting the skorne as there are no minis which I don't like.



Coming up next are some pretorian swordsmen, have already started on those. With the extoller finished I now have 166 of the 500 points painted.

Got the Ancestral Guardian finisthed on the weekend and had time to snap some pics too. Finishing the base added some contrast to the living statue and brightened him up nicely. I am pretty pleased with him as he was a really quick paint job. Managed to keep my limited palette intact too.








194 points of the 500 are now painted, and half of the figs to the list I posted are ready. I am a bit ahead of the schedule I anticipated, I estimated to be at this point when the field test rules for Mk2 are published but now it seems I might have most of my list painted by then.

After the swordsmen I have on my desk now I will probably paint one of the remaining beasts. I'm thinking the flesh color on them, would warm gray work and fit with the rest?

Nice work on the skorne. I like the stark contrast between your Ancestral Warriors
stone and his gemstones. Very striking.

Thanks Malf!

I needed to get some color to the stone man and red gems seemed the way to go. I was still thinking of adding some metal areas to the body before finishing the base, but in the end opted to limit the metal to minimum. The gems and the base bring enough contrast to the fig and keep it simple, which is how I like it.

Here are the next 3 swordmen. I got these painted last week and took the pics yesterday. Comments and critique are welcomed as usual.






Basic paint job, I got a bit sloppy when painting them and had to do more corrections than usually. I got to the target I set to myself as I got 218 points of the 500 and 13 of the 20 figs on the list painted. Next have to read the Mk2 rules and see what changes they make to the list I was gonna paint. At the same time I probably take a bit of a time out and paint something fast for a change.

The horn on that guys shoulder makes him look really off balance, almost hunchback-like.

Liking the purple, the highlights really add depth to the cloth and the pallid looking flesh is kinda freaky...
Hope you are liking mkII so far.

I really like the color scheme on these. It's always worth it to use a non-studio scheme to make your army a bit more personalized. One of the things I like most is the skin tone you have going. What colors are you using? I also really dig the basing you have going, it's nicely done.

Your colors appear a bit flat to me though. Are you painting on white or gray primer? The group pic of your Venators appears darker than the rest. Is that the lighting? Or are your colors possibly washing out a bit on the other pics? For some reason I'm always drawn to more to darker color schemes. I think it's the depth factor(or whatever you want to call it).

Very nice looking army. I love the colour scheme.

Seems that its about time there was a group shot

Deminyn wrote:Liking the purple, the highlights really add depth to the cloth and the pallid looking flesh is kinda freaky...
Hope you are liking mkII so far.

Thanks for the comments. I'm just looking at the Mk 2 rules, but so far it looks to be ok. The only fig I have no use for and have painted is the extoller as she cannot anymore give eyeless sight to the venators. I expected something like that though so... The 500 points list is worth 27 in the Mk2 so have a bit of juggling to do to get it to 25 or 35 points on the new system.

Lord Alaric wrote:I really like the color scheme on these. It's always worth it to use a non-studio scheme to make your army a bit more personalized. One of the things I like most is the skin tone you have going. What colors are you using? I also really dig the basing you have going, it's nicely done.

Your colors appear a bit flat to me though. Are you painting on white or gray primer? The group pic of your Venators appears darker than the rest. Is that the lighting? Or are your colors possibly washing out a bit on the other pics? For some reason I'm always drawn to more to darker color schemes. I think it's the depth factor(or whatever you want to call it).

Thanks! The skin is simple enough, but took some time to figure out. It starts with mix of ½ dwarf flesh and ½ cold grey from Vallejo game color. Wash with mix of purple and brown inks and highlight by adding bone to the base color. The sand bases were needed to light the figs as the rest of the scheme is so dark, they needed some additional light color to get some contrast.

I'm paining on grey, black or brown primer depending on the fig. The Venators are primed brown if I remember correctly. The changes in the darkness are the lightnings fault, my photo set up is less than optimal and I have to edit the photos for brightness afterward. That makes the colors seem a bit washed out .

StubbyGB wrote:Very nice looking army. I love the colour scheme.

Seems that its about time there was a group shot

Ok, lets see how the weather is on the coming weekend as I need natural light for the group shot to succeed.

Here is the a shot of the progress so far (Click for full scale image in Gallery):


After the Mk2 rules were published I have been pondering on the list. The plans are changing, but I moved the first goal to be the following 25 pts list:
Makeda -5
Gladiator 8
Savage 5
Krea 4
Ancestral Guardian 3
Swordsmen (min) 4
Venators (min) 6

I still need to paint the Makeda, Krea, Gladiator and 2 swordmen to get that done. After that I think I'll get Cetrati and some beasts to paint. The cetrati are excellent looking and really good on the table and I need to have some more beasts, Molik Karn is looking good both on table and as paint project.

Next up is Krea, which is coming along nicely. Still need to paint some details and metal parts to get her finished.

Got the Krea done last week and I took these pics of it on the weekend. Pretty basic paint job on the blind frog, the fig didn't inspire me much. Tried to get similar effect to the back armor plates that is described in the evolution book's skorne section and practiced my jewel painting skills there also. Overall looks nice from behind, but the front angle is a bit lacking.









Next up are the last swordsmen to make the unit into minimum size and then all that is left of the 25 point list are Makeda and Titan Gladiator. I will probably post couple of WiP shots of the Gladiator as it's going to take some time to get that bad boy painted. I bought full unit of cetrati from Maelstorm's new year discount so those will follow to round out the list to 35 points.

Looking good. The armour turned out really well. I don't know why but that belly is kinda disturbing. Painted well, but disturbing. Looking forward to the titan

Thanks!
The whole fig is kind of bloated and unhealthy looking and I tried to emphasis it by adding a bit of green tone to the soft belly. It is one ugly frog.

I'm also looking forward to the Titan as it was the fig that made me start collecting skorne in 2006 or 2007. It is really nice fig once it is built and painted, it is one of the worst PP figs to assemble though, these are gaps and ill fitting parts a plenty. Now I just have to get those final swordsmen out of the way before capping the first step in fully painted skorne with it. 23 points of 63 I have are now done.

It's been over half a year and the Hordes Mk2 has been released along with the updated Skorne. This has reinvigorated my interest in getting the desert dwellers to paint table. With the updated rules I've made some adjustments to the lists and started to paint the missing pieces with aim toward fully painted lists for 3 casters at 50 points. That seems to be the local maximum for tournaments. First up is the Makeda list and that's including a lot of the units to be used in all of the lists.

I started to paint the Cyclops Shaman as the first new project and as I promised in the last post before the break I'll try to get more Work in Progress shots of the figs this time. So here is the Shaman with the base colors on. Basic stuff for my Skorne with purple cloth with black and bone as the other colors along with brass metallics. The skin is a experiment, I was aiming for weathered and sun tanned look. Lets see how it works.

Wahoo! I knew I kept this subscription up for a reason. This guy has a tendency to seem harmless then prove to be very annoying whenever I see him across the table.

Deminyn wrote:Wahoo! I knew I kept this subscription up for a reason. This guy has a tendency to seem harmless then prove to be very annoying whenever I see him across the table.

With him and the new baggy pants the skorne can sling animuses on the table with low cost on fury. I haven't fielded my skorne at all so I still have to experience the laser eye myself.

Shaman has recieved some shading. This time I did the shading using washes, usually I just paint from the darkest color to the lightest applying the shadows and highlights as I go, but this time I decided to do it a bit differently. Also the size of the fig demands some nicer transitions than the usual human sized figs. The skin and wrappings got both same shade color (ss camo black brown) and are bit too close now in shade. Have to think what to do to solve that, probably some lining is needed. Brass got the usual brown ink and purple was shaded with imperial purple from vallejo.

The grey areas I'm going to highlight first and the wash down to almost black.

I've now highlighted the shaman's skin. After the shadows it was first highlighted with the base color of Earth and Elf Flesh (both from Vallejo Game Color). After that more elf flesh was added to the mix, and then bone was added to the final highlights. The contrast to the wrappings still needs to be made stronger, I will highlight them next and after that we'll see if something extra is needed to divide the colors.

Also the teeth, nails and eye was painted at this stage. Teeth and eye are painted with bone, nails have a hint of skin color mixed with bone.

To continue with my monologue I have now finished the wrappings on the fig. I mixed some light grey to the color to get it look different to the skin and it made a lot of difference. I still need to put some dark lining between the skin and wrappings, but at least they are now clearly separate colors. The figs seems to come alive with the upper body close to finished.

The I'll tackle with the black areas before highlighting the purple cloth and armor.

Metsuri wrote:Overall looks nice from behind, but the front angle is a bit lacking.

I know a girl like that

Nice.

jackanory wrote:

Metsuri wrote:Overall looks nice from behind, but the front angle is a bit lacking.

I know a girl like that

Don't we all

I washed the black areas with wash of black paint and blue ink to get them down to black. This worked well to create a black with highlights, which doesn't look grey. Next I'm going to tackle the purple cloth.

I have now highlighted the purple cloth and metal areas. The purple got highlighted to almost pink and then I washed in down with purple ink. The brass areas got highlights with brass and mithril silver. Next he'll receive a coat of gloss varnish to protect the paint job while the spear arm get attached. Then its on to the finishing with painting the details and the lacquered armor.

I got the final details sorted out on the shaman, put the spear arm in place with green stuff and he has received varnish to protect the paint job. The base is all that remains to be done, after the pics were taken I have glued some sand to it. I left the images a bit bigger this time, so if you want to have closer look click on the images to go to the dakka gallery for full size pics.

Purple and gold always go well together, good work so far.

Thanks, The Bloody Handed God.

Purple and gold with some bone white seems to be a combination I'm always coming back to. My first actual army project, CSM for 3rd edition of 40k, were done in similar scheme. It has nice contrast and is pleasing to eye.

Yesterday I got the Shaman's base finished and here he is in all glory. Again click on the pics to get to the bigger pics in the gallery. This was really nice mini to paint, a lot of detail and different textures to paint. Overall I'm pretty pleased with the finished product.





Paingiver beast handler unit is next in line and they are well on their way.

Here are paingiver beasthandler grunts to drive my beast to frenzy.

They were the first skorne figs I started to paint and test the scheme. Bought them some 4 years ago and they sat half painted on the shelf for about 3 years. I just couldn't get the scheme to look nice on these figs. But now that they are finally finished they look good, and surprisingly were not half bad to paint.

Again purple for the robes, this time done a bit further toward pink highlights the same as shaman. The contrasting belt and ribbons were done with bone, if I'm getting another unit of these guys they'll have black belts. Armor and linings on the robes are done with the brass.

Click on the image for larger one in the gallery.



Next up are the Beasthandler Leader and Swordsmen UA. I'm closing in on half way mark of skorne figs painted according to forward kommander I'm at 48% painted now.

Looks great! Love the color scheme (the white sashes are a nice touch), but minor fluff nitpick: Balaash colors are red and gold.

Laughing Man wrote:Looks great! Love the color scheme (the white sashes are a nice touch), but minor fluff nitpick: Balaash colors are red and gold.

Thanks!

I couldn't do another skorne army painted to the studio scheme, I needed to make them look a bit different. So no red and gold for me. The name of the plog is a reference to the first warlock I plan to paint, and that day is quickly closing as I only have couple of more figs to paint before her. Min unit of Cetrati along with Titan Gladiator are in line before her.

I managed to get some paint on the UA and Beasthandler leader yesterday, they are now on the shading phase and had some brown ink washes to get the shadows to the brass armor. It seems that I nowadays enjoy the painting most after the base coats are done. Getting the base coats in place is so mechanic, it's only the subsequent phases that the figs get their character showing.

Here is the finished Paingiver Beasthandler leader along with picture of the full unit. Leader was painted the same as the rest of the unit, as he is covered mostly on the cloak he was pretty fast to paint.





Comment appreciated.

Next up are the Pretorian Swordsmen officer and standard bearer, which are now receiving the varnish before getting the bases done. I'm now 34 points out of 76 painted, still 17 figs for fully painted skorne. I am already planning on getting a Bronzeback titan and basilisk drake for my collection so the goal might move a bit further.

Metsuri wrote:

Laughing Man wrote:Looks great! Love the color scheme (the white sashes are a nice touch), but minor fluff nitpick: Balaash colors are red and gold.

Thanks!

I couldn't do another skorne army painted to the studio scheme, I needed to make them look a bit different. So no red and gold for me. The name of the plog is a reference to the first warlock I plan to paint, and that day is quickly closing as I only have couple of more figs to paint before her. Min unit of Cetrati along with Titan Gladiator are in line before her.

No complaints there, your guys look stunning.

Regarding your technique, I might try going a bit higher with the highlights, and a bit broader with the color you're using for your highlights right now. Might just be the lighting, but it's a little difficult to make them out. YMMV, of course, and I'd definitely try a quick test model to make sure you like it.

Laughing Man wrote:Regarding your technique, I might try going a bit higher with the highlights, and a bit broader with the color you're using for your highlights right now. Might just be the lighting, but it's a little difficult to make them out. YMMV, of course, and I'd definitely try a quick test model to make sure you like it.

Thanks for the comment. The highlights are definitely a area which I could improve. I've been doing these subtly highlighted figs for some years now and they don't look as striking from distance or in pics as more broadly highlighted figs would. I have tried to make the highlights more prominent, but it goes against my gut to do so. I will try to go to that direction though to improve my painting.

My other goal for improvement is free hand, which you will get a glimpse in the next update when the Pretorian swordsman standard is done.

That tone of purple is perfect for the gold contrast. Great work!

I got my Swordsmen UA painted and noticed that I hadn't posted images of the swordsmen unit after I got the leader and rest of the grunts painted for min unit so here they are. The UA is painted in the same colors as the rest of the figs, the officer was a bit of a disappointment as the detail is much better on the regular swordsmen. The pose is ok though, so he wasn't complete pain to paint. The standard bearer is the first time I've painted free hand and it had me scared for a while. In the end I just grabbed some vallejo earth paint and my finest brush and started to paint. In the end it was easy enough to paint. I'll probably go back to the backbanners of the leaders and get them done now that I've got the first banner done.





And here are the unposted pics of my min unit of pretorian swordsmen along with close up of the leader with 2 grunts.

Amazing fething Amzing is all i can say.

I really like the fleshtones you've used on the Skorne and it ties very nicely with the purple and gold. Great freehand on the lettering on the standard - the kanji in the middle looks kinda lonely, though. Maybe you could add some "embroidered" sworls around it in the purple with gold or silver?

good, clean, crisp painting !

Death By Monkeys wrote:I really like the fleshtones you've used on the Skorne and it ties very nicely with the purple and gold. Great freehand on the lettering on the standard - the kanji in the middle looks kinda lonely, though. Maybe you could add some "embroidered" sworls around it in the purple with gold or silver?

Thanks DBM! I added some purple to the shadows on the flesh just to tie it with the cloth, its a small thing but looks good on the finished figs. The standard could use something extra in the middle, there is a bit too much space around the kanji. I'll have to think what to put there.

comisarmilo wrote:Amazing fething Amzing is all i can say.

azekio wrote:good, clean, crisp painting !

Thanks guys, these are my better looking army. I really like the uniform look of skorne figs and try to paint them to a good level. The figs help with this style of painting as most of them have clean and crisp detail.

I am putting finishing touches on Void Spirit and after that it is time for pMorghoul and pMakeda to get some paint. I have now 25 of my 43 skorne figs painted and the fully painted doesn't seem to be that far anymore.

Next up as promised is the spirit dragged from the void to serve the tyrants of Skorne, the void spirit. I tried to make the armor worn and corroded and yet make it fit with the rest of my skorne figs. The armor is the tying part of the fig as most of the fig is somekind of spirit form and was painted to fit that. The corroded effect was started after base coat of brass and wash of brown ink with adding wash of turquoise to the nooks and depressions on the armor. The armor was then highlighted with mix of brass and silver. After this the armor was dulled with glazes of brown and green ink. Green was used to remove the warmth of the brass and to tie the verdigris effect to the rest of the armor.

The figure was finished by adding the purple cloth and the small light effect in the eyes.

Nice lighting effect on the eyes. Good stuff.

Hey, how did I miss you've got a Cygnar plog, too?

Death By Monkeys wrote:Nice lighting effect on the eyes. Good stuff.

Hey, how did I miss you've got a Cygnar plog, too?

Thanks, the lighting is just wash of green and yellow on top of the finished skull. It gives nice effect with minimal work.

I haven't been advertising the Cygnar blog as it has been on hold since spring as I have been focusing on Skorne. This will change soon however, I'm just putting finishing touches on Ironclad and I'm planning on painting a nice 50point tier 4 Kraye force in the Spring.

Very cool stuff here! I have always wanted to start Hordes, and this thread makes me want to start it more!

_Tim?

Thanks _Tim?

Hordes and Skorne in particular grabbed me front the moment the figs were released, and they are really nice figs to paint. Plenty of detail and most are sharp sculpts. I haven't yet played one game with them, Warmachine is the game for me now, but lets see when I get the two Titans painted. Maybe I have to try them on the field. WM/ Hordes are different to GWs games and the amount of figs is so small that I can afford to give the attention I want and still have decent force finished with my limited hobby time.

I still don't like that model, but I like your painting of it. Nice work!

Cheers Malf.

I kind of learned to like the void spirit model . It has too big hands, but the shape and pose of the body and the characterful skull are nice. And I enjoyed painting the armor, I could use many weathering tricks which don't fit in with my regular armies.

Here are late stage wip shot of master tormentor Morghoul. The base is only thing left to do along with some small touch ups. Basic scheme is the same as with all of my skorne, a bit more black on this fig. Black was this time done with Vallejo dark gray washed with GW blue wash. The end result is pretty close to black, but with some nice blue tones. Overall a nice fig to paint, I have never liked the look of him but while I painted the fig I noticed the nice folds of the skirt and the back armor. I'm still not a fan of the Freddy Krueger gloves, but otherwise he fits well into my army.

The first warlock I've painted is now finished. The base got the usual treatment with some cork and light brown. Next up is Primal Makeda and perhaps I finally start to paint the Titan. 60% of my skorne figs are now done, though I have to buy some more heavy beasts to get a nice army together.

First Skorne fig finished this year is the second warlock in my collection Archdomina Makeda. She is a nice fig and I made the base slightly higher for her to stand up more from the crowd as she is leading the troops to fray. She is again painted in purple, brass and black and she as a lot of gems to show her status as the supreme commander of the western army. I fun mini to paint and quite fast too, she was painted in parts as the right arm, back banner and head dress are in the way when put to place. They make her look really dynamic though. I have now 62% of my skorne fully painted.





I also have drilled all of my small banners for the Cetrati unit I have lined up for painting, they are in the queue next along with the Gladiator, which I will start this week. The Gladiator will need a lot of attention as it is the mini that made me start Skorne and I'll update my progress here.

I'm sorry. I just found your thread, but may I say beautiful work!? I'm just dying over the purple you've got going on.

Thanks bunnygurl. This is the army that I've painted to my best ability and I love the models so I spent too much time honing the scheme and colors to get them just right. I guess it is just the normal evolution as a hobbyist, just everytime trying to do something better than the last time and Hordes armies are so small that I can afford to spend time with each figure and still have decent collection painted.

The purple is based on Hexed Lichen and then washed with Imperial Purple. Highlights are then layered starting with 2/ 1 mix of Hexed lichen and Warlord purple and going to pure Warlord Purple. Some of the richness of the color is coming from the contrast between the purple and the brass armor and desert base. Those two colors are pretty close to yellow and create nice contrast and make the minis pop. It's important to me to create these colors parings to make the minis come alive.

Yesterday I got started on the Gladiator, he got the base color on his skin, I hope I get more time with him today to get some additional base colors in place and then it's time for some photos.

It is definitely a nice, rich purple. Well done.

I started to work on the Gladiator last week and now I start to have something worth sharing. The purple armor is pretty close to finished, the skin and brass areas have been base coated and washed. Those areas are now awaiting the hightlights. All of the light grey areas are still unbase coated with primer showing. Most of them will be bone colored.

Problem area currently is the loin cloth of the titan, it is too close to the skin color. I have to see how the skin evolves with the highlights to make decision if the cloth needs to be made black. I originally planned on highlighting it with grey and then washing the color down to a hue close to black.

The gladiator has gotten some love in the recent evenings and the skin is starting to be finished. I added some Vallejo GC pale flesh to the base coat mix for the skin highlights and got the hue I was aiming at. Its quite a bit warmer than the Basilisk Krea's skin, which is based with the same mix. The horns have gotten wash and some additional brass areas have been base coated. I also washed the dark gray armor plates down towards black, now I have to paint the brass areas next to the black parts to check if they are dark enough or if some additional washes are still needed.

Still long way to go, this is the most complex PP sculpt I have painted, but it has so many different areas and textures that it is a joy to paint.

Lovely work! If i were to do Skorne it would bne purple.

Keep it up

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Lovely work! If i were to do Skorne it would bne purple.

Thanks! The bone and purple were the scheme in my first real 40k army I did in the early 3rd edition: Chaos Space Marines. I couldn't much paint then, but the colors worked well together so I took that as the basis of this army.

Got some more paint on the Gladiator. All of the areas have at least the base coat on now, except the metal studs on the back, they will be painted last as I'm keeping hold of the titan using them. The ropes have been base coated with khaki and then washed with earth brown, the tusks and claws on the feet have been highlighted. The tusks will recieved still some glazes as I'm not satisfied with how they look. Finally I've started to highlight the brass areas, but most of those will still receive couple of highlights so a lot of work to be done on them still. The red areas on the belt will be painted as gems, only base coat has been applied.

As the Titan started to drag and lost a bit of wind in painting it, I took couple of simpler Skorne minis and painted them. The first of these finished minis is Razorworm, a light warbeast that came out with the Prime Mk2. I painted the armorplates on back with the same black recipe as the cloth on the warrior figs, just added some texture to the plates by striping them a little. The soft belly is painted with the same mix as the Titan's skin. These colors were selected to tie this beast to the rest of the army, as it has so little to tie it otherwise to the Skorne. The little bits of metal were painted to match the armor of the other figs.

It was a fast thing to paint and quite nice fig to work with after the Titan, which has also had some progress since the last pics were taken. Comments and opinions are welcome as always.

Click on pics to open larger in Dakka Gallery.

Love seeing WM/H logs. Everything looks great. Really like the skin on the Titan.

It's good color on the Razorworm. Did you decide not to highlight
the carapace as much or is there highlighting on the model that
doesn't show?

malfred wrote:It's good color on the Razorworm. Did you decide not to highlight
the carapace as much or is there highlighting on the model that
doesn't show?

It's bit of both actually, I tried to keep the highlights limited and the black glaze I gave to the area was bit too strong. The highlights are more visible in real life, but it is quite subdued. It is nice fig, it just doesn't seem to fit in to the faction too well. I tried to give it some links to the other figs with the colors and I think that it succeeded. It fits well next to my other beasts. It was a quick paint job for me, the fig got finished in couple of weeks, which translates to some 2-3 hours of painting.

Looking really nice so far. Can't wait to see the Gladiator finished.
Keep up the good work.

superspud wrote:Looking really nice so far. Can't wait to see the Gladiator finished.
Keep up the good work.

Thanks Spud!

I think I'm going to restart the gladiator next week, I now have couple of minis almost finished and Marketh is closing to the final highlighting phase so the Gladiator is the next on the line. These skorne are the army I've painted to high standard, most of the infantry have been painted in batches of three and the rest as individual minis to ensure that they all have got the attention they deserve. They are really nice figs and I like to spend some time in getting them right.

Next up on the fast and simple paint jobs is Kovaas. This mini is the companion piece of warlock Zaal and I got the itch to do a Zaal tier force when I saw that Malf had done it in his pokeminis blog. Again like razorworm a quick and simple paint job. The souls of my skorne are dark red, which creates nice contrast with the base and the black stone of the destroyed Ancestral Guardian. I'm pretty pleased with him and now I just need to get Zaal painted to get them both on the table. I still need to purchase and paint immortals and Hakaar to be able to field the theme force, but I think that I'll do it to get a army that plays differently to the beast heavy lists I have been running.

Anyways here are the images. Comments, encouragements, criticism etc is welcome.

That is one odd model. Love the paint job though, can't wait to see Zaal done as well.

Really like your bases offsets the dark colour scheme perfectly in my opinion.

Keep up the good work.

came out nice. Really like the highlighting on the red

Thanks guys!

superspud wrote:That is one odd model. Really like your bases offsets the dark colour scheme perfectly in my opinion.

It is a soul of a skorne ancestor breaking free of the soul stones holding it as the statue that was holding the stones is broken. It is quite nasty solo, but only available to Zaal and only after a Ancestral Guardian has been destroyed. I noticed when I had painted my test fig, that my skorne scheme is so dark that it need light bases to give decent contrast and make the figs pop. The contrast between the figs and bases is something that most people don't seem to consider, but figures can look a lot better with a small consideration of the bases.

Deminyn wrote:Really like the highlighting on the red

The red consist of around 7 layers of red from dark reddish brown to yellow-orange. The end result is nice though and the layers go well together with minimal fuss as all the reds are not covering too well and the previous coats show through.

Yeah, I hate painting red 'cause it always involves more work to get it to look good. But it really came out great there.

The flow of quick paint jobs for my Skorne collection continues in the shape of a agonizer. The baby titan was painted in the same skin color as it's larger mate. Time was this time spent on getting the facial expression right and trying out some blood mixes for the injuries. The expression was successful and pretty easy to achieve as the fig has so large eyes, it is easy to get the sad look. The blood on the other hand was a lot harder. I am not 100% happy with the result, but for a second try it was reasonable success. I have to practice it more with my Malifaux crew.

Click on images for larger versions in Dakka Gallery. Comments welcome especially on the blood and injuries.

Aptimus Marketh, another great fig both as sculpt and on the table, is the latest I finished. He is painted in my skorne colors and was pretty quick paint job as the colors just found their natural places. The only thing that I had to think about was the collar, which was done in black to frame the head. The figure is a bit unbalanced as the front is full of detail and the back is pretty bare. Taking pictures also proved to be a bit problematic as the pose is leaning over to the front, so I had to drop the camera a bit lower to get all the detail in. After him I have 60% of my skorne figs painted, now I just have to keep this pace up to not get dropped behind as the new figs from new expansion start to appear.

Nice! Like the tortured baby titan Those crazy Skorne!

DOnt particularly like the collar on the last fig though (the sculpt, your paintjob is excellent)

Aww, poor baby Titan, mean 'ol Skorne don't respect him, do they?

Loving the army, and I really want to see a group shot when it is all done!

Cheers!

_Tim?

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Nice! Like the tortured baby titan Those crazy Skorne!

DOnt particularly like the collar on the last fig though (the sculpt, your paintjob is excellent)

Thanks, who doesn't like cute babies It is one of those figures that every WarmaHordes line has that define that faction. If I had to pick on caster, beast, solo and unit to define skorne, Agonizer would be the solo.

Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:Aww, poor baby Titan, mean 'ol Skorne don't respect him, do they?

Loving the army, and I really want to see a group shot when it is all done!

Why they are giving him plenty of encouragement and respect. They use it to remind enemy how they will feel after defeat to Skorne.

Glad you like the army and there will definitely be army shots coming as soon as I have something close to playable army painted up. Mainly that has been delayed by the Privateers supply problems, I haven't been able to get my hands on the Bronzeback. I have been trying to get one for over half a year now, but nobody seems to have one for sale.

Metsuri wrote:
Mainly that has been delayed by the Privateers supply problems, I haven't been able to get my hands on the Bronzeback. I have been trying to get one for over half a year now, but nobody seems to have one for sale.

Had a quick check wayland games in the uk have some on there site as instock (http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/privateer-press/hordes/skorne/cat_150.html?page=5)
not sure what there shipping to europe is but might be worth a try.

Agoniser is looking awesome, love the facial expression, keep up the good work.

That poor Agoniser. I would totally rescue it. Great work again. Sorry to hear about the Bronzeback. Hope you get your hands on one soon!

superspud wrote:Had a quick check wayland games in the uk have some on there site as instock

Agoniser is looking awesome, love the facial expression, keep up the good work.

Thanks Spud I noticed that wayland had those available on the website about a month ago. So I went and ordered one immediately, just to get mail from them saying that they actually had none and had ordered one from Privateer. 3 weeks later they cancelled my order as they couldn't tell when they will receive the mini from PP. Gotta keep looking for one, but I guess that I have to succumb to buying Molik. He's about the same point cost and will fill a role pretty close to one the bronzeback would have had. I'm just going to miss the synergy between the titans, but I think I can live with it.

James S wrote:That poor Agoniser. I would totally rescue it. Great work again.

Thank you James. That agonizer gets all the attention in the world and get to serve a greater purpose, what's more to be had in the world

To finish the trio of support solos I bring forward the former member of Cygnaran Inquisition: Orin Midwinter. He will complete the denial faction of my army along with Agonizer. Even though he is a merc I painted him in same colors as the rest of my infantry, so he fits seamlessly among them. The skin color is painted with my normal VGC dwarf flesh base to make him more human looking than the skorne. I also painted some muted OSL to the zappy staff. Nice and fast fig to paint, I would have liked him to have more of his face visible, but the expression is visible with the small amount showing I think.





Let me know what you think about him, there will most likely be a small break in my painting for summer vacation during June and I'll be painting next time somewhere around August.

I got back from holiday today and also got some painting done during July. Bad news is that my trusty old Canon powershot died also during the holiday, so these new pictures are taken with a new camera and I'm still adjusting to using it. The pictures are a bit washed out and too bright, but I hope to fix it soon.

I got the Titan gladiator painted, except the back banner which is coming soonish. It follows the same basic color choices that other parts of the army follow. I am really glad that I finally got this big boy painted, he has waited for his time for a while, but I think that the end result is well worth the wait. Click for the images for large ones in gallery.











On the positive news I finally got my hands on a Bronzeback titan, which is already built and primed gray. He will most likely be the next skorne model I will paint up.

Wow, I seemed to have manage to miss Orin Midwinter somehow!
He is looking really cool, certainly suits the colour choice, I'm sure he won't look out of place besides the Skorne.

The Gladiator is looking good too, in particular the blending on the purple on his back, its turned out well.

Hope you enjoyed your holiday.

superspud wrote:Wow, I seemed to have manage to miss Orin Midwinter somehow!
He is looking really cool, certainly suits the colour choice, I'm sure he won't look out of place besides the Skorne.

The Gladiator is looking good too, in particular the blending on the purple on his back, its turned out well.

Thanks, I have had the vision of Orin in purple for quite a long time already and when I got to paint him it was really fast and inspired couple of days to get him done. I'm quite pleased with the end result and he fits well among the skorne. Just his skin color differentiates him from the not-dark-elves.

The gladiator did succeed fairly well, I had bit of a battle exhaustion on getting him finished. He is such a large model and with the texture everywhere you cannot quickly paint him like a heavy jack. I'll probably take another set of pictures of him when I get the back banner done and try to fix the lighting issues by then.

superspud wrote:Hope you enjoyed your holiday.

It was excellent, the July is time with family and if I get any hobby time most of it is spent on assembling and priming miniatures. This summer I got the bronzeback, sentry, a spherewar kurgan and a old Rackham wolfen assembled and primed, so I also got a lot done in addition to spending time in the sun.

So I started to slap paint on my Bronzeback about a week ago, and now I have base coats applied. It's one big beast, even bigger than the gladiator. The metal areas are again where the time is spent - all of the nice borders take time to get nicely covered. This time I started the metal areas with base coat of VGC scorched brown and brass mixed one to one. That gives nice coverage, is easier to thin and gives excellent matte base for the metals. I can play around high reflections and gloss with the coming highlights together with the lighter coats. The skirt is based with VMC dark grey and will be washed to almost black after I have highlighted it. Skin is the same as with the gladiator, Bronzeback has so nice detail on the back that will look great once finished if I can get the highlights done without messing with the underlying colors.

So here are the pictures of the base coated titan, I go forward to apply some shading with washes.

Great basecoat! Was the bronzeback hard to put together? Did you have to weigh down the base some how?

The BB was bit of pain to put together. The torso is made of two halves, and is hollow so there is not much area to apply glue when it is connected to the lower body. I filled the hollow area with some cheap epoxy putty and added some pins to ensure it is a solid fig now. Next I had to use green stuff to sculpt about 3 to 5 mm of flesh above the leg armor to conceal the connection point. Rest of the fig was breeze to put together with a bit of putty work to hide some small gaps.

The titans are worst PP sculpts to put together, I wouldn't recommend them to anyone without some greenstuff experience, but boy do they look nice when put together.

The fig is balanced well it doesn't need any weighting of the base as the legs are so heavy and I have positioned the fig to the base to get most of the fig above the base. The head along with the tusks is the only part outside of base.

I have already applied the shading to the fig, I'll post new set of images as soon as I get some hobby time.

Metsuri wrote:Purple and gold with some bone white seems to be a combination I'm always coming back to. My first actual army project, CSM for 3rd edition of 40k, were done in similar scheme. It has nice contrast and is pleasing to eye.

I keep painting stuff in the scheme of my CSM too, which will probably include my own skorne once that ball gets rolling for real Great painting log, nice to see skorne dudes in not-red

On your gladiator / bronzeback, how did you attach the arms after painting them separately? GS + glue combo, perhaps with pin? Which suggests to me that there isn't a huge gap needing to be GS'd in, maybe?

- Salvage

Boss Salvage wrote:I keep painting stuff in the scheme of my CSM too, which will probably include my own skorne once that ball gets rolling for real Great painting log, nice to see skorne dudes in not-red

Thanks for the kind comment. I hope you get to paint your skorne soon, they are really nice figs to paint especially once you get used to the detail and have adjusted your techniques to fit it. One of the most important goals for my skorne was to create a well working and strong scheme that is really different to the studio one as my Cygnar are just a minor deviation from the studio scheme.

Boss Salvage wrote:On your gladiator / bronzeback, how did you attach the arms after painting them separately? GS + glue combo, perhaps with pin? Which suggests to me that there isn't a huge gap needing to be GS'd in, maybe?

The arms are attached with GS and superglue with pin to add strenght to the join. You can actually see the pins in the wip pictures of the gladiator like this one http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/194129-Hordes%2C%20Privateer%20Press%2C%20Skorne%2C%20Warbeast%2C%20Work%20In%20Progress.html . I used 2mm brass rod for the gladiator. The joins on that are nicely covered by the ropes, but I added small sausage of GS to the arm which I then sculpted to cover the small gap that was left after the arm was in place.

The bronzeback is a bit more work demanding as there is nothing to hide the joins, but the arms fit really well so I had no problem with the smaller arms. We'll see how the larger arms fit in couple of days.

I have since the last update got some more painting done on the bronzeback and I've attached the smaller arms to the body. The brass areas have received a wash of GW brown ink and VGC scorched brown diluted with water to bring the detail up. The armor skirt has been washed once with GW purple ink mixed with black paint diluted with water. The purple is added to the wash to make the reflections look a bit more metallic. I need to wash the area at least once more to get it a bit darker and more uniform. Most of the purple armor is also highlighted up to almost pink.

The last bit of progress is the highlights of the skin, which were done by adding VGC pale skin to the base color. Adding flesh tone as the highlight make it look skin to the eye and pale skin is also a warm color which works well with highlighting. I have deliberately over done the highlights so that when I glaze the skin next I would loose all of the highlights and won't have to do them again, except on the highest places.






Next phases are painting the lower arms to a point where I can attach the main arms and then I can go forward with the skin. The plan is to add some battle damage and/ or tattoos to the back. I still have to think about suitable designs, but simple tribal shapes skornefied would seem to be the best bet.

After the last post I have painted the main arms with base colors and shaded them. After that I attached them to the main body with combination of GS and super glue. Then I started the phase, which seems to last forever with the titans: highlighting the brass areas of the armor. I now have highlighted all of the armor with the first highlight, which is straight up Vallejo game color brass. Next highlight will have some mithril silver added to the brass and the head has this mix already.

I have also done some work on the head. The tusks are still waiting for the final highlight layers, but otherwise it is pretty close to finished.







It is starting to look like the center piece titan I want it to be, but I still have a lot of painting to do until I call it finished.

And now for something completely different!

Or not as it may be, I started this basilisk Drake before I had gotten my Bronzeback and have been painting it between the BB painting sessions. It is not an amazing sculpt, which is sad as I will most likely run one in almost all of my Skorne lists. The amount of things you can do with the Pow 14 magical spray is amazing and for 4 points it is a steal.

The figure is painted in the tried ways of my skorne-fu, no new techniques were applied it was just painted to fit among the beasts and next to it's girl fried, which I painted over a year ago.









Now I have almost painted the list that I have been playing with, just the bronzeback is not done yet. After the BB is finished I'll take some army shot and have to contemplate on the direction I will take on expanding the collection.

I finished the Bronzeback during the weekend. It is such a beast that in the end I just had to stop and call it finished, there is so much nice detail to it that I could have just kept on painting for quite a while and still find something more to do.

I have washed the black areas once more with black paint diluted to wash to darken them a bit. The recessed armor areas have also received glaze of brown to get a bit of color to those areas and to add a bit of depth to the brass. The hair on the back was painted with the same way as the black areas on the armor, and black glaze was used to blend the hair to the back to get the transition smoother. Some wounds were painted to the lower back with Tamiya clear red and GW inks. The upper back has been kept clean as I plan to return and paint some tattoos there at some point. For now he is finished and running smashing things in the battle field.







Next up is Paingiver Taskmistress along with Aptimus Zaal.

Those both look great!

Thanks Mudge!

I'll try to get some army shots here as I have my 35 point Makeda1 force now painted. It looks pretty good on the tabletop.

That Bronzeback is looking awesome!

Keep up the good work, look forward to seeing the army shots.

Thank Spud!

I'll try to take the army shot with artificial light soon and if it doesn't work we'll have to wait for a nice sunny autumn day here so that I have enough light.

Awesome work metsuri!!! Love your painting

bebopdrums2424 wrote:Awesome work metsuri!!! Love your painting

Thanks bebopdrums2424, comments give me incentive to go forward with this plog.

The next figure is something that just happened during last week. I got the Paingiver Task Master (mistress?) from Maelstrom last Monday, looked at the fig and thought it looks good. Cleaned and primed it on Monday, base coated it during Tuesday and then got the rest of the colors in place during Thursday. It is one of the fastest paint jobs I have done in recent years, everything just clicked into place with her. The fig is a bit out of scale as she is as tall as swordsman even though she is in a bit of crouch, but the detail is really nice and she was a joy to paint.











Click on images to see the full sized ones in gallery.

I'm still working on the army shots, they are coming don't worry

Thats a tasty fig! The purple is great as usual

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Thats a tasty fig! The purple is great as usual

Thank you Vitruvian, the purple is going pretty much on autopilot these days, it looks really nice though. I might add another highlight on the cloth on the man catcher though, it seems to need another brighter layer around the edges.

I tried to take the army shots and this one was the best of the batch. It is quite crappy as there are quite a few minis to fit into the pic, but I think it gives some kind of feeling how the army looks on the table.

Wow that's one awesome looking force. Would love to line up against that on the table, what a spectacle!

Man, that is one sweet looking army! All that purple and gold together is really cool looking.

_Tim?

All of it looks great!
I saw the shaman and razor worm at the back, how do you like them? Been looking at them, thinking about picking them up but undecided. Hoping to get your $0.02.

Lovely cohesive force Metsuri! It really pops.

superspud wrote:Wow that's one awesome looking force. Would love to line up against that on the table, what a spectacle!

Thanks, I like that this army looks like an army. All of the figs are clearly part of the same force, with colors tying it together despite some of the creatures being pretty far off. I like my Skorne better than my cygnar for this reason, they look like they all belong to the same army.

Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:Man, that is one sweet looking army! All that purple and gold together is really cool looking.

I had this vision that it would work well, and the time that I got the army first time on the gaming table last winter with most of the figs painted I was not disappointed. It is hard to make out from the individual pics, but the army shot shows well how the colors tie it together really tight.

MudgeBlack wrote:All of it looks great!
I saw the shaman and razor worm at the back, how do you like them? Been looking at them, thinking about picking them up but undecided. Hoping to get your $0.02.

Thanks, both of them are nice figs, the Shaman is probably my second most favorite of the skorne figs after BB. He is really great especially with low fury casters like Xerxis and Morghoul, as you can cast animuses twice without having to use the beast to do it and in some cases like charging a Khador heavy with Glad you are better of casting Rush with Shaman to conserve all of the Glad's fury for face beating. He also has nice ranged attack and reach on the melee weapon and nice animus, but all of those are more of a gravy. He is definitely worth his points, you just have to think if he fits your army list.

Razorworm is more of a dilemma, he is quite mobile and has AD, which both are a bit of a problem. If those abilities would be on a jack that would be different but as you have to have the worm in your control area for forcing it looses a lot of the flexibility. It also has quite low powered attack so is only suitable for killing small based stuff and the animus is a bit of meh. Some people run it with Hexy and soul slave, but I would use that spell on BB to keep all of my titans from frenzying. He is more of a border line beast, I wouldn't run him in 35 pts game, but could fit him in 50 point lists with casters with large control areas.

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Lovely cohesive force Metsuri! It really pops.

Thanks, purple and brass are almost opposite in the color wheel so they create quite nice contrast to each other and they are suitably different to the usual table colors so they really pop on the table. The effect will probably intensify once I get the banners done.

I can't believe it has been almost half a year since I last updated this thread. I have been painting my Cygnar and Malifaux forces during that time. Especially after getting my Malifaux Resurrectionists done, I have felt the inspiration to return to the desert and getting more of my collection painted. During the autumn I got the pieces I needed to play with the force and the minis I'm going paint now are additions to open up more variation to the force. I will be painting couple of additional warlocks and then Venator UA along with the pretorian swordsmen to fill the unit to maximum strenght. After that I will most likely follow up with Cyclops Brute or Titan Sentry, but they are still so far in the future that my plans might change. I have been thinking about painting up Tier 4 Zaal theme list, but that would mean two units of immortals along with second Extoller and Ancestral Guardian, which I haven't got yet. That kind of infantry centric army would be a nice counter to the more beast centric forces I have been running so far.

First up are the two new warlocks, with Master Ascetic Naaresh already finished and Supreme Aptimus Zaal is under final detailing and will be shown here soon. Naaresh is painted along the same lines as the skorne infantry before with purple as the main color of cloth and bone and black used as accents. The main difference in this mini is the amount of skin visible, which was a bit difficult to get right as the figure has a lot of piercings and it was quite difficult to make out where the skin ends and metal begins. The camera seems to have picked the purple shadows of the skin a bit more stronger than they are in real life, otherwise the pictures seem to have succeeded in capturing him quite well.

Comments and suggestions always welcome.

Beaut, love the bruised purple skin, good job!

Thanks Vitruvian.

I got Zaal finished yesterday, let's see when I have a moment to take pics of him. Quite pleased with how he turned out too. I'm so close to getting the missing parts of his theme force, the idea of lots of stone warriors on table is too cool.

Finally got this one finished as I started to paint him around October. Somehow I completely lost interest in getting him finished, but couple of weeks ago I just took him under work and finished him in couple of sessions. Quite pleased with how he turned out, he is basically a upjewelled version of extoller. I got quite nice refresher on how to paint red gems while putting on the finishing touches. He was the last of the warlocks I have bought to recieve paint and I'm quite eager to try him out in on the table top, he is quite different from the casters I have used so far. With his soul gathering and buffing of warrior models I need to get some more bodies to the table in shape of additional swordsmen and venators in the first phase followed by some ferox riders I think.









Anyways let me know what you think, I'll get back to finishing those bodies for him to use.

Wow those gems look really really nice. He certainly has a lot of bling!

You're really nailing these Skorne atm!

You tell me about the bling Vitruvian XVII. I had to spend one session on just them, he has them everywhere like he was some sort of high priest

I got some boost to paint them as I took a break on painting them and painted something completely different. Now I again have nice drive on getting the rest of the Skorne force finished and I am making nice progress. It is really nice to take some time of these long projects to gather new energy and recharge the batteries for the next batch.

Here is the latest addition to my Makeda and Zaal forces the Venator Officer and Standard. They are rather excellent in game terms giving the unit reform and snipe, which both really make the reivers shine. The figures are not as good. They went together really well, but the poses, especially the standard bearer's sword arm, are awkward. I had thought about fixing the pose, but quickly scrapped the idea as it would have required sculpting the detail on the sword's handle and sleeve.

The paint jobs are just the same basic stuff you've come to expect from my Skorne There are couple of gems on the standard bearer, but those were breeze after the training done on Zaal. Overall a nice and quick addition to my Skorne infantry. I don't know what to paint next, I have couple of beasts waiting as well as rest of the pretorian swordsmen, but I think I will go for the infinity paint comp and paint a nice entry for that one as a bit of variation before diving back into the desert warriors.