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He's great. He really gives off the gnarly old wanderer vibe.

Thanks a ton guys! Really glad you like him

I'm really enjoying painting in this style so glad to hear it looks good! The main thing about it is it's fast. Spray, base colour, drybrush highlight, wash, done. Takes a little longer as I tend to mix colours to get variation, but it's still dead fast

Happy he comes across as a bit of a wizened wanderer. I've got this idea for a couple of warbands wandering the wastes that function as the intelligence services for various Astartes forces. I always thought that astartes would make catastrophic spies, but their keen strategic minds and awe-inspiring presence would make them ideal spymasters (a job that I'd imagine would attract some pretty non-standard astartes characters). So this guy is the Wolves' spymaster, and there's pending Raven Guard and Alpha Legion dudes coming then stuck inbetween all that are my Crows, caught inbetween three rival factions of their gods

Speaking of which, I thought it would be a good idea to flesh out the Crow's pantheon a little more hence this guy!

Each young crow must learn the ways of the gods. All are fickle and dangerous, even our own, but some are even moreso.

The Corpse-walkers are malevolent gods of the dead. Once mortal like the other gods, they sold their souls for the ability to transcend death. They now dwell in the nowhere-place between worlds, and are the only gods who can hunt a crow through death and into the afterlife.

The Butcher-hounds are gods of slaughter. Their minds are consumed with the anger and hate of all living things. If you lock eyes with a Butcher-hound, there is nothing, no champion, no machine, no god, that can save you from a gruesome death. All that you touch will be slaughtered.

The Flayed Men are gods of the void itself, and hunt in darkness. They stalk their prey across the stars, and create great tapestries from the hides of their victims. Once they have your scent, they will forever know where you are, no matter how far you run or how well you hide.

These three we fear most of all.









it's inspired somewhat by Bruticus' bare-torso'd Slaaneshi Marine, but I thought the idea would fit quite nicely for a Khorne Berserker given that the original berserkers were men that went into battle wearing nothing but animal skins (although that depiction of them has fallen out of favour).

The fluff is also a little teaser for some other dude's I'm putting together at the moment

Also took a pic with his new buddy (or not...)



I'm quite glad that the heretic Astartes has turned out about a head bigger. I've always quite liked the idea that Chaos Marines should be even tougher, nastier and deadlier than regular Marines. They are the same dudes, but infused with chaotic power after all they should be bigger and nastier.

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Looking wicked! Love the colors and tones on your Berzerker, and the way he radiates this unhealthy, unearthly ambiance. The strong light/dark contrasts work very effectively. Great job!

Yep, liking him

Great work as always!
On a first glance I could not tell that these guys were painted that quick. It's a good skill to make amazing looking models consistently without getting stuck for too long.
Something I should definitely learn.

Fantastic stuff as usual dude

Thanks guys!

Yeah I like mixing light and dark tones onto my models were I can. Lots of people mix warm and cold colours to great effect, but to try and the all my models together I've been keeping all my colours cool (basically mixing blues onto most of the colours, even the red on the Berzerker). So it's only really the light and dark contrast I can plan with

And yeah I tend to find that if painting a models stretches on a bit it gets to be a bit of a slog to finish so I'm definitely one for low-effort paint schemes I think it's the drybrushed highlights that help disguise the speed of the paint. With a wash they give a bit of a gradient to the highlights which looking much better thanks it has anything right to

Oh, and there's only so much time I can go without making more Crows, so here's my first effect from the Cawdors kit:



Tailor-made for Crows!

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Oh, and while I was at it taking group shots of the kaerls I thought the Crows deserved some love too





Tried to get a big shot of all my crows...but here's the problem:



They don't fit!

That's a chief and his concubine, a tech-priesty thing I still need to find a snappy name for, a priest of the Old Ravens, a Rook, a crow-walker, a scrap-cart, a sleipnir horseman, twelve regular crows, a juvenile and 2 crow-pig-dog-things add onto that the snake-cult which are part of this group but didn't fit on the book and that's a lot of Crows!

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 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Tailor-made for Crows!

QFT Fakking perfect.

And cheers for the group shot of the Crows, the lot look even better en masse, where the delicious tone of the project really comes through

Looking real good there!

This keeps getting more and more intricate. You really have a knack for showing your world building through your models-- like really good illustration, it's still very possible to track the spiritual "posture" of all your models through image alone! Very, very nice!

I do love a collection of awesome models. An impressive body of work, man. Really good stuff.

Thanks guys! Always flattered that people like my little gribblies and I'm glad the worldbuildingy stuff is coming through well. That's what tends to fill the slower parts of my work day so good to see it paying off

I really must make a bigger display board/scenery tile so I can take some proper group shots.

Onto the next warband!

"Stop Haaric...STOP! You know what happens to those taken by the Wyrm. They walk, they talk but they're dead Haaric. He's a wyrmwight now."



And lo, the mountain rose above the horizon as a bleak and forbidding tower. Smoke bellowed from its summit, and the fearsome sound of industry echoed through the hills. The home of Fafnir, wyrm of the north, was terrible to behold. There he lurks, jealous and protective of his horde.

Those who fail to escape his clutches are brought beneath his thrall. Wyrmwights we call them. Their minds replaced with metal, they are nothing but slaves to the great dragon now.




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Wyrmwrights are dark and horrible excellent signs of the corruption of the Grim Darkness.

Great stuff dude

Thanks guys!

Next dude coming up



In the lands about the great wyrm's lair scurry and slither his ill-begotten progeny. Lesser wyrms and wyrmlings. Transliterated copies of his own fractured and animalistic mind, let loose to found their own colonies.







But see, amid the fogs and wealds,
a shape does creep and crawl.
A writhing thing of hate and steel,
from out the soaking squall.
The folk doth cry with mortal peals
the kaerls become its thralls.
For dragon's breath the fate it seals
of young and old withal.





The poem is a repurposed verse from The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allen Poe. I really like writing poetry, but at the moment I find it tricky to come up with structures that flow and have good cadence. So for now I'm happy to half-inch other poet's work and call it a 'homage'

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Dude. You are on FIRE. Love this one.

Haha thanks man I've found I tend to make a couple of proof of concept dudes and leave them for a while before fleshing out a warband, then doing that all at once so I wind up with nothing for ages then a load of ideas all at once

Speaking of which, I've run out of Wyrmwights and Wyrmlings to share, but I've been working on fleshing out some of the other dangers that stalk the Wilds. Bit of a refresher first:

When walking in the woods you find,
A body hung from branches high,
Your wits about you must you keep,
For shrikes around their larders creep.

- Extract from the Edda Óvættr (An Ode to Monsters)





Shrikes. Crow-kin, but don't mistake them for flighty scavengers. These are the ones they abandon at birth. Mutants. Vicious things.

Yes, I'm aware of the irony of mutants abandoning mutants. I'm informed it's a matter of perspective.



Oh, and a bonus Crow







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As always, fantastic Crows!

The shrike is great. That sickly, almost pulpy skin color is gloriously present with that one. The new crow looks so civilised by comparison.

Thanks guys!

You're right about the crows looking positively civilised. I've got a neat little comparison of degrees of mutation coming which should be cool need to share the models first!

Here's the next shrike



Like many mutant populations, shrikes seem to praise their affliction. Those with extreme 'gifts' are treated with awe and reverence. Favoured by their feathered gods.







Had great fun making this guy I figured that as crows get more mutated, they probably get more avian in their physiology. Makes sense from a thematic perspective, but also from a background perspective too. If there's any ruinous power that would have a hand in sneaking Alpha Legion operatives into a Raven Guard facility to meddle with their cloning experiment (where the crows came from) it'd be Tzeentch.

As far as I'm concerned, if your bloodline was once tainted by the ruinous powers then that curse will persist indefinitely. So, like the elk-men and Khorne, the Crows/Shrikes are forever susceptible to Tzeentch's influence

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Nice group shot, look great all together.

Good job on the wyrmwights, suitable mix of ragged technology.

Love the wyrmling - although I'm going to need to switch back from the green tones on my tek-wights now

Latest shrike and crow are great.

The mutant shrike is awesome, brilliant job on the interior faces.

Brilliant stuff as usual! I have great fun trying to identify all the different bits you use to build these guys, you must have a massive bitz box

G'day mate,

This is an absolutely beautiful blog. From the seamless kitbashing, to the clear photos, to the fluff, to the regularity of updates! Really love the individuality of the tribes that somehow still definitely feel like they are all from the same world. Keep it coming!

Thanks guys!

Ooh tek-wights I like the sound of them! Having a look now

And yeah I'm fairly certain I've cleaned out quite a few bits sites on numerous occasions

Glad they all look like they're from the same place. I've tried to keep the same dozen or so colours for every warband I've made to keep them all looking like they're from the same palette, but then varied which are the focal colours and mixed different quantities together to get variety between them glad to hear it's worked!

Next guy coming up!



Their magi and wyrds never cease to plot and scheme. Of all the wretched witches this forest holds, it is they who are most dangerous.





Shrikes congregate in vicious little mobs and gangs. It is rare there is any kinship between their members, with the majority being strays or foundlings. It is similarly rare to encounter any unity beyond a dozen or so shrikes, for they are forever plotting and scheming against their rivals.





So that's the Shrikes so far I've got at least two more ideas that I really want to do with them, but need to collect some bits.

The magi is pretty heavily influenced by Bruticus' excellent Slaves to Darkness Malal shaman. I've been wanting to do something similar for ages



It's also somewhat influenced by black herons, which are kickass birds that lure fish into the shade beneath their wings



Hope you like them!

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Fabulous!

Love the magi, great use of the cloak.

Yet another success!

The bases really fit the theme and give a nice contrast.
Dare I ask what do you use for vegetation?

Thanks guys!

The little sparse bits of grass are two different colours of loose static grass mixed together, a light and a dark one juat stick a blob of pva on the base, a pinch of static grass and poke it around a bit with a cocktail stick

Run out of finished shrikes to share, but onto the next evil lurking in the woods!



Our guide explained in hushed tones. It was a drowned man. An aptrgangr. A draugr. Men lost at sea would sink to the depths...and some would walk back out, dripping with briny seawater.

He told of an ancient evil, dead and sealed beneath the waves. But creatures such as this do not respect death. It still dreams in the deep, and its rotting children dream also.



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Your work really projects a dark mood and ambiance like nobody else. Well done.