Warhammer Underworlds - Ylthari's Guardians - TO DONE!

Ylthari's Guardians - TO DONE!

Lets start with Ylthari, admittedly my least favourite, and still so, but she came good in the end. The tree sprite is cute, vines were defined and the dark wood is alright but her face didn't quite work for me and I couldn't quite get the detail I was after.

Still, I'm far from disappointed, in fact I'm really quite pleased with the result as she was so far behind compared to the other 3 and I just couldn't see the vines working.

Admittedly I haven't done much to them to make them 'work' but just the basic application of the highlights to the washed and glazed base coat has managed to lift it out of the realm of mediocrity. The Silver Birch bark markings on her wand/staff worked out nicely too.

Horny Dude aka - Skhathael. What works - 

sword, [possibly] horns, hair and skin. What I'm dubious about is his bark loin cloth and his face. The horns are reminiscent of Silver Birch thanks to the bark splits but because they're obviously horns it's a little confusing - like painting a fire engine as an ambulance...

But the sword came out so well, once again I'm so impressed with just painting with washes and glazes and how much variety of tone it can create. This is definitely what I've taken away from painting these Underworlds figures. I'd have not had this experience without experimenting beyond my 40k armies. This also indicates I may find Contrast paints much to my liking, but as they've also been compared to watercolour painting, which I always found painful to do, I'm still a little reluctant. I'll give it a go eventually.

Archer aka - Ahnslaine, Revenant Archer. Definitely my second favourite of the four. I love the pose, bizarre 'quiver beetle' and the yellow eye just worked out. The minor green glaze just adds those extra touches here and there alongside the limited bark splits.

Twang!

If I ever do another I'll try the bow all Silver birch so I have more opportunity to add bark splits.

Halberd guy, aka - Gallanghann of the Glade my absolute favourite. The bark splits on the halberd haft came out so well. I doubted myself as the shading look so cool but much like battle damage and weathering a little goes a long way to adding more to the model.

I'm not 100% convinced of the yellow flowers but I couldn't think of any other colour to do them.

And the floral four in all their finery.

And the white background for White Dwarf [which is never going to happen, but nevermind].

Just n overhead shot so you can see I added some gloss varnish in the middle of the base, like it's a puddle in the forest. I've added a bit more since then, it adds a nice extra touch for those willing to scrutinise further.

Lastly a close up and you get to see everything - the slightly blobby highlight on the halberd but the smooth highlights on all the skin tones, the accidental shading around the bags under his 'right-first-time' eyeball. The subtle green glazing, the flint like claws [gloss varnished] the stippling on the tree-sprite wings and the Silver Birch haft in all its natural glory - Love it

And the Big Teal Stamp of Approval for a job well done. Now lets do the same on that darn Dark Shroud!

'nids part 269 - Rippers - Forgeworld inspired conversion

I'm continuing my Big Build theme and finally plucked up the courage to do my next three Ripper bases in the style of the Forgeworld ones. As you can see they got built and are considerably bigger and more representative than my first press-mold prototype.

I had been struggling to work out how to build these up, then I just started gluing chunks of hardboard to a 40mm base with the press-mold Rippers coming out of the base [plus one Warrior face pushing through the ground].

All in I think there are 12 Rippers on the base, 4 of which are the plastic ones.

  The next base I tried to use some of my Ripper side pieces glued to a vertical strut but it looked really odd and I ended up with the three heads running up the spine of the strut to try and hide it. Hopefully it won't be noticeable that those two halves are different.

I'll need to blend them in with a bit of ground material as they burst through the dirt. I think there are 14 on this base.

The last one, I think there are 15 or 16 on this, including 4 plastic and one Warrior face again. I pretty much used all my plastic Rippers.

All I have left are the Spinefist Maw variety, the two other upright versions [one with the horn on its head] and a couple of the others, in case I ever need to make any more press molds. It's unlikely though. The Spinemaw Rippers might make a base but it's an odd one I don't really need.

Now to blend them into the ground...