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I love a good fluffy army, and not just the sort that have been dropped on the floor either.

I like your concept, And to add my thoughts, Obscuras sounds like he would roll withthe whole mental insecurity thing, What with the whispers... He could have risen to power from the whole imperiums paranoia of its self falling to chaos.

Cant wait to see more!

LadyCassandra wrote:Obscuras' daemons tend towards shadows, cold, fear and a certain sleek, fast look. I chose my main colours as black, white and blue.

Aha! I got there first! Seriously though, do a web search on the previous page for fear; it turns up in the fluff write-up about seven times . Obscuras' emotion is fear, crippling anxiety, paranoia, terror, insecurity. There's a lot of that in the race of Man, and they're just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Oh, the Space Marines, I'll grant you, haven't got a terrified bone in their body, most of the time. But the Imperium as a whole? The Inquisition are worried, with a side order of occasionally terrified. The Tyranid invasion has got a lot of worlds' populations twisting in terror even before the first spore ever lands near them, and there are a lot of other threats to worry about. And that's not even counting the normal day-to-day fears that swamp humanity: will she like me, will I get fired, will I have enough food for next month, will they find out? The other races aren't as prone to fear. The Eldar are mostly free of it, same as the Orks. Necrons and Tyranids don't even know what it means. The Tau bury it with honour and duty, but they've probably also done their part. Chaos engender fear, but none of them truly feed off it.

If I was writing this as a novel of Obscuras' birth, I would probably follow the antics of the Inquisitors of the Tyrantine Cabal, trying to stop it happening. Eventually, they realise that the whispered prophecies of its birth speak of a "great darkness falling over all the lands of the Emperor". Too late, they realise the horrible truth, as the light of the Astronomicon is eclipsed. It only lasts a few weeks, but it is enough for a thousand, thousand worlds to fall into crippling terror, and the glut Obscuras needs to be birthed. And you can guess where his birthing place will be and what it will rip into the Warp.

However, my army are merely the Harbingers. For less epic campaigns, I will probably just have them be the daemons of a Minor Chaos Gods, with fear, shadows and the cold as his key themes, who is trying to grow in strength. Amusingly enough, I think Obscuras is someone the Night Lords would immediately defect to if they knew of him. Pity I really dislike CSMs.

I also like the fact that this juxtaposition of the emotion of fear and the concept of shadows lets me play on a lot of childhood insecurity about the dark. I have a unit called the Night Terrors, you'll see them later and they are focused around the aspect of fear as the fear of the unknown.

In brief, my fear-based daemon aspects:

Whispers: insecurity, anxiety, they represent the voice in your head that if you let it, makes you worry about every little thing, every thing you've done or thought, every thing you might do, everything that might happen to you. It's a quiet sick feeling in your stomach that flutters unsettlingly.

Night Terrors: fear of the dark or the unknown, they are the terror in every shadow, the movements in the dark that aren't there and the cold, crippling feeling of being watched from behind when all alone. They are the worry while walking down nighttime streets with noone around. It's a cold in your bones and a lump in your throat and wide eyes.

Shadow Hounds: fear of violence and helplessness, they represent the terror of being hunted, the pounding heart, the fear that comes when you're running from something that wants to hurt you, no longer a delicate fear, it is primal and raw and strangely pure. It is pounding blood and flashing vision, confusion and a raw terror. The Shadow Hounds are the closest to the mortal realm and have even been known to slide through on their own at "thin" places, leading to many stories of large black dogs with glowing eyes that haunt desolate areas.

Pretty sure that's the lot for fear. The other types are based around cold or shadow as their primary, except for the Daemon Prince and Greater Daemon, who have more complicated interpretations, since they actually have personalities as such.

O.O

I want to see this story happen. Death of the Emperor-style.

Your fluff is really great, and I like the both way you think it and the way you write it.

Haha. I just realise my three types can be neatly summarised into "what if I get attacked walking home tonight?", "oh god, I'm walking home, it's dark, is that footsteps behind me" and "aaahhhh he's chasing me!"

EDIT: Thanks guys . I used to do a LOT of writing stuff a while back, though I don't have the patience to do a novel. Maybe I can get Dan Abnett to do it . It's really awesome to know people are watching this space, it's certainly making me feel more and more guilty about not working on my Chained model right now. Tonight, I promise! Not that I can show you it yet as I'm entered into a competition . Do you think they'd throw their toys out of the pram if I showed you a WIP?

Lol... No idea... But I'd like to see it anyway, that's for sure!

Tell you what, you don't tell them and I won't tell them and we'll keep it all hush-hush .

EDIT: Spoiler tags no longer needed.





Click on them to zoom in for details, if you're of a mind, they're big images . And remember, hush hush!

The skin needs another work up of Bleached Bone, and then top highlighting of Skull White + Bleached Bone. The mount needs a lot of highlighting stages done, the sword is going to be a sort of NMM, using metallic paints, like the most recent WD painting article. Basically copying that scheme . The claws need a highlight, though I don't want to use Bleached Bone on them due to the skin. Perhaps I should make the rider's claws glossy black instead? But then they're lost against the mount's back. :( The base is pretty much done, though I'm going to be working up the ooze in a few more layers (PVA plus green, brown and yellow wash mixed in) and then cover it liberally in concrete dust weathering powders. The tentacular hair.. I'm completely stuck on. I don't know if I want it a dark purplish black, a dark greenish black, or just go for the straight, black highlighted with grey approach. Leaning towards purple at the moment, but worried that will warm up the scheme too much. Gems haven't even been begun yet, same with the glowing ice blue eyes.

Maybe a little bit too hush-hush.

Well, keeping it in the shadows is entirely in keeping with the army

Thats a really lovely scheme! I would do the claws, black with a grey edge highlight to define them. The hair... Im not sure. What about black with grey highlight then gloss it with varnish or PVA??

I did that scheme for the hair last time around, and ended up with a very dry monchrome look. I'd like them to look like they're as alive as the other two , difficult to make them look like they're constantly moving, though. The claws could work as a deep grey though.

How about black with a red or blue or purple highlight (for the hair I mean)? It could yield some nice results, as the new Dark Eldar armours are (just check on GW's website).

To me, it allows a feeling of great darkness, and, with small hues in colour, breaks the monochrome sensation...

For the claws, have you tried Dheneb stone? Or maybe Rotten flesh? It's quite close to Bleached Bone, but not quite the same... Thus joining with the aforementioned effect... Or you could do as I suggest for the hair, black with another colour for highlight...

On a personal point of view, I have mixed feelings about the sword... I don't know why, maybe it's not complex enough, maybe it's the scale... I don't quite seem to identify it, sorry...

But overall, this is a great start!!!

Methinks the sword needs some sort of ethereal lighting to make it stand out, not the red hot glow of most daemon weapons but like, a colder glow, maybe blue or green?

I'm interested - want more

Cool, nicely based/converted seekers.

Yggdrasil wrote:How about black with a red or blue or purple highlight (for the hair I mean)? It could yield some nice results, as the new Dark Eldar armours are (just check on GW's website).

To me, it allows a feeling of great darkness, and, with small hues in colour, breaks the monochrome sensation...

I have to say, I think I like the purple one better, even though it warms it up. It might also balance the loincloth, which is fairly strongly turquoise.

Yggdrasil wrote:For the claws, have you tried Dheneb stone? Or maybe Rotten flesh? It's quite close to Bleached Bone, but not quite the same... Thus joining with the aforementioned effect... Or you could do as I suggest for the hair, black with another colour for highlight...

On a personal point of view, I have mixed feelings about the sword... I don't know why, maybe it's not complex enough, maybe it's the scale... I don't quite seem to identify it, sorry...

If it helps, the sword has been basecoated with Boltgun and washed and that's it. It's far from finished, I'm going to be trying a True Metallic (NMM with metallic paints) method on it. Or do you mean the actual model rather than the paintjob? It's a little chunky, it's from an older model. Unfortunately, there's no way I can sword-swap out at this juncture without a LOT of problems.

Hrm, Dheneb Stone isn't in my collection, I'll have to take a look next time I'm in there. Rotten Flesh is a greenish cream colour and seems a bit strange. I may go do a search on "talons" and "claws" on Google and see if any inspiration strikes.







Okay, I quite like the cougar's claws in the middle picture there and it does look a bit like Rotten Flesh. I'm surprised by how much variety there is among talons and claws, though these I'm putting here mostly for reference later.

nice demonettes, i have being thinking of collecting some myself

Well if you want the metal ones like mine, you're looking at about £8+ each on eBay, as they're OOP. The new plastic Seekers are... okay, I guess . But they're not Diaz's masterpieces. Really glad I got ten of these beauties before they vanished into the ether. I would love GW to bring these back as Classics.

Cassandra: Your not giving him all the info
True, they go for around £8, but they are like gold dust from time to time.
Ive tried to pick up some of the diaz seekers a few times, and they generally double in price in the last 20 seconds or so.

So im now going to have to use new seekers, but with the new witch kit when it comes out instead.




OT: Liking this so far.
Makes a difference to see slaanesh painted a different colour, even if its shadow coloured like mine (ill grab a pic of my KoS later)

thats , quite pricey , thanks for the info

I really thought you did a fantastic job on your greater demons face.
BTW... are you a biologist. I study ecology and worked as a biologist for a few years. Just wondering cause your holding a puma paw...or is that a stock photo you dug up somewhere.

Sennacherib: Google search I'm afraid! While I would love to work with big cats, I think I'd probably get eaten. And the greater daemon is just a Photoshop work up . I haven't actually started proper work on her yet, just chopped off some breasts and sanded down some arms.

EDIT: Ahahahahahaha... I just realised of my beautiful Chained model which I spent so long modelling and painting and fretting about... I didn't put the Chain all the way around the steed's leg, so now it looks like instead of a chain manacale, like its about to drop off. How do I fix this

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'll be able to hand in my entry for the competition, so I can finally drop all pretense of secrecy at least. I was entered into the MotM September (on here). I did my back in yesterday, so I couldn't finish it, but once I do, I'll post up final pics for C&C .

Will take the extra time to fix the gap between the pipe and the rock, and the chain on the foot. May post up some pics of the current version if peeps are interested.

Of course we are!

yep

The current version! A few things to note: I haven't done the metallics yet, they're basecoated, basically. Skin is finished, so feel free to critique that as much as you like. Eyes aren't done yet, they're going to be glowing fitfully (much like Space Marine eyes except much creepier), Mount is pretty much done apart from his eyes, as is the rider's hair. Base is done apart from some concrete dust (Gray Ash weathering powders) getting dusted onto everything. What I really want C&C on, and maybe advice, is the extreme highlighting on black I tried to do on the mount's skin and the rider's hair. I'm not convinced it turned out brilliantly.

like the model , the chain looks fine to me , like its just broken free or kicked it whilst running, like the broken pipe , detail, as well , your colour scheme is nice and muted , i prefer subtle colours on minis like this, i think the edition of glowing eyes will really sell them, sorry i cant help with the highlighting problem , only just got back into the game after a long time , and havent got much painting experience under my belt yet.
but i think you could go a bit lighter on the beasts main maybe to give some distinction? nice work

You're right about the mane I think, Ice-Blue/Space Wolves Grey mix to the rescue! For the pipe, perhaps it should be broken, since a large chunk of masonry just fell on it. On the chain however, as it is a symbol of Oscuras' power over his Chained ones, having it almost be falling off isn't a great indicator . I will probably fix that shortly, it helps that I haven't done too much work on the chain itself yet. Just needs painting, washing and highlighting with Chainmail. The more powerful a creature of Obscuras is, the more chains appear as a visual theme.

oops. where'd that second page come from? These are looking great. I'm liking the fluff too

You could just try gluing a link or two a bit around the front. If someone looks closely they'll be able to tell it's not properly joined but from a distance it will help.

Fluffwise, the chains can be broken, but only briefly: instead of falling to the ground they fade into dark mist, promptly writhing itself back into place before freezing into the restraints of before.

Or something like that.

Oh God this is too perverd for me!!

Just kiddin' I like your models and painting is pretty nice too!