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 241 - Trygon - Moar shots

Oh man! I mean look at it. It's far from a perfect picture, In fact the positioning of the model make it actually very difficult to work out what's going on but the colours are fabulous.

Composition wise I think this is much better but sadly less dynamic and could do with a bit more of the Vermilion than the orange in the background. But I bet it makes an swesome desktop wallpaper... yes it does!

And some full body shots. Again thanks to the dynamic pose it's difficult to find the golden angle for this, although this isn't too bad.

There we go my Trygon is complete, might be worth looking at what's on my Palette soon...

'nids part 240 - Trygon - TO DONE!

The Trygon is complete, although I hadn't glued his head on at this stage [yeah I don't know why either?].

Annoyingly when I did glue it in place I still got the torso out of whack, which meant the head still isn't straight and more importantly couldn't position it completely in the neck socket for a perfect join.

Instead it's just the pin, a whole load of Super Glue Gel and two super glue joins to where the head crest touches the Carapace

Close-up of the base, you can see the claw highlights and the additional spot third highlight on the Chitin just to define some of the more important ridges.

Another little bit of debris, Deathwatch or Ravenwing? You decide which was the unfortunate rider.

And the other side of the base where the BBQ chips were used to great effect to represent the way the Trygon thrashes along the surface to move about.

Obviously the biggest changes since my last update are the extra highlight on the Chitin, the black talons and claws highlighted and seeing the toxin/plasma effect in context with the rest of the model.

I had originally planned to do a video of the green being applied but foolishly shook my Dark Green Valejo paint just before I began, which given how the process specifically requires the paint to remain un-mixed rendered the whole process redundant.

Still it came out OK in the end I think. Obviously it's bold choice to retain the the Trygon plasma as green like it's Toxin but I didn't want to introduce another spot colour as the green on the red/bone/blue/turquoise is enough. Recently my Carnifex had blue bio-plasma head so I could try a new style but the green came out so well.

I could have highlighted the green more at the front, like a Doppler effect going down the containment spine but opted for an edge, but still front weighted with how much is highlighted towards the tip of the spine.

Finished pics on the white background, y'know in case I can ever be bothered to send these to White Dwarf. Ha, ha.

The irony is I'd be sending them through my gmail address but I really only access that by phone which means I can;t be bothered to type anything up :)

Maybe one day I'll pull my finger out but it'll be while I'm in the shed, which is time away from painting and it's bad enough finding time to take these pictures than then writing about them too [he says, writing about these pictures!].

Moar pics tomorrow, of the phone variety and there are some absolute doozies!

In the mean time Great Big Gamboge Stamp of Approval!