Chaos Marauder Horsemen; WIP

A weekends work and the Marauder Horsemen have moved forward a little.

I love the models of the horses; they just have so much life about them. They only required a little green stuff between the legs and along the backs, so all in all not a lot of work at all.

The marauder horsemen themselves are a different matter. I found the anatomy a little too comic book for my liking. Also the model does not have a good pose for the normal way you would want the model to act. If you give a marauder both light armour and a shield then he looses his fast cavalry abilities. The light armour is modelled on, so the only option is not to attach the shields. However the left arm looks daft if you don't attach a shield. I have opted to add throwing spears to the left arms, but there are insufficient in the set so I have had to borrow spears from skeletons and empire figures. Not working too bag despite this. I have chosen to use some heads from the flagellant set. I believe that they work quite well. Still a lot of work required with these figures.

Week 12; One slice of Cow or two?

It has spent some time on the back burner, but at long last the Varghulf is complete. Apologies to goblin1980 for obviously ripping off his idea, but it looked so nice that I wanted to have a go...

This is the first time I have tried to create anything imaginative with GWs water effects and I found it a lot easier than I thought it would be. The blood / gore effect was created by wrapping two small lengths of fuse wire around the painted claw so that I had four bits hanging down. I then mixed a small amount of water effect with a suitably bright red paint and dabbed it on. Leave to dry and repeat. This worked a lot better than I expected it to (experience has taught me to be disappointed after the first attempt).

The cow comes straight off the giant kit and required very little work other than bending the tail and cutting a small gash in its side. I filed the gash with pva and then dabbed in the same water effects as the claw blood. Easy again.

I hope you enjoy the overall effect. I am quite pleased with it. Maybe next time I will try a little more imagination...

I am still 10 painting points behind my painting target and on my painting table sit marauder horsemen. Last time I tried these, they look longer than I hoped, so it does not look likely that I be catching up on the schedule any time yet...

Week 11: Creaky old bones

Another week and another pile of old bones;

I have elected to construct a number of these chaps in pairs of two to help add or remove them from the unit.

I am aware that there is no logic in the rest of this paragraph, but here goes. I couldn't give the skeletons a wind instrument because I couldn't see how they could blow it without any lungs. Yes I know that they have no muscles to move their limbs and have no eyes to see with or ears to hear with; but having no lungs felt a move too far...

I said there was no logic in it...

That now takes my number of skeletons to 32. More needed!

Works in progress: Varghulf and Scyla

A little more progress on these two background projects this weekend. I wanted Scyla to have the ability to show fast movement so am constructed a pond that can a splash in it. I am experiencing great difficulty with the water effects. It takes days for a 2mm layer to dry and then appears to shrink days after...

Since the last update I have not made a lot of progress with the Varghulf. I have added a bit of sand and fiddled with the rocks a bit. I'm still not sure what colour scheme to follow with this chap. Options appear to be light brown, very dark browns and I have even found a blue Varghulf.

Not sure which way to go....

Week 10: Dog gone

The end of week 10 sees the end of the assembly and painting of the Chaos warhounds (at last). The army list I'm working too only requires 17 warhounds, but they come in boxes of 10 so it seemed daft not to paint all 20. The thought of three poor lonely unassembled puppies was too much for me to bear.

After listening to comments and advice I have elected to give the dog a bone, and an arm to one lucky pup. It adds to the character and helps to distinguish between figures. I have tried to vary the position of the figures in the base to make them appear less uniform.

I am going to claim the extra three figures in my painting points total. After 10 weeks I should have achieved 160 points. These warhounds count as 20 points but that only takes my total to 152. Erm, 8 points behind. Not sure how I'm going to catch that up. I'll have a go at completing the starting number of skeletons next week.

Time to tart up a bit of scenery

I have built a number of items of scenery for my local club. The good news is that they get played with, the bad is that the playing tends to cause a little wear and tare. I made a bridge out of foam card with bricks of individualy cut foam last yesr. It was looking a little worse for being played with, so I have brought it home to tidy it up. Whilst it is home I took the opportunity to paint it up.

The bridge is made wide enough to cope with a five wide infantry unit, but five wide cavalry will have to reform.

Whilst I was at the club, I also took the opportunity to photograph a castle I made late last year out of hot chocolate and pringle tubes, bits of empire building and loads of card...

Week 9: Let the puppies run free

Nine weeks have come and gone now, and I'm well on the way to completing all of the Chaos warhounds that I will need for my lists. In the list I have 17 warhounds. This week I have painted another 5 which takes my total to 15 (close but no coconut).

I have opted to omit the horns and greenstuff over the gap. I believe that this keeps the chaps looking more like hounds and less like boars.

I have tried to increase the contrast on both the fur and in the hair over the previous hounds that I have painted. I will leave it to you to decide if it makes any kind of difference.

The colours are Scorched Brown through Bestial Brown to Vomit Brown. The fur is similar but continues to Bleached bone. I have chosen to paint the fur rather than drybrush because I believed it gave me greater control.

Hope you enjoy the puppies and if anyone can spare them a bone....

More puppies take shape

The next of figures are underway. I have taken the glue and greenstuff to the remainder of the chaos warhounds. I have decided to obmit the horns from this set because I was not happy with the look that they gave the dogs. Quite a bit of green stuff later and we are underway.