The Loathsome Ratmen and All Their Vile Kin - Tale of Fantasy Painters 08-09

[Magos Explorator]

As well as High Elves (link in my sig), I'm painting a Skaven army for this year's Tale of Fantasy Painters. I thought I'd start this log to chart my progress, as it's easy to get lost in the main Tale threads with the hundreds of painted models appearing every month.

This army came about after I began to get back into the hobby almost a year ago now. I started back on 40k, but felt an urge to recreate some of my previous Warhammer Fantasy armies from 4th edition onwards (which had since been sold, lost, binned, or were just badly-painted). My first army was High Elves, from the 4th Edition boxed set, so a new force came about.

The only other army I successfully fully painted was my Skaven, which began a little before the time of the 5th-edition early 'regiment' boxed sets. I'd always loved the little ratmen, but when the Clanrat regiment was released I began to go off them, as the tails were fiddly to file down and often broke off. So I stuck with the one-piece plastics, and older metals, and over time the army fell out of favour with me.

Now, thanks to several posters here and eBay, I've managed to assemble enough of the classic metal figures for my army to not have to resort to the plastic models with separate tails. Let the painting begin!

There's no overriding theme to the force. It's quite small for a Skaven army, because I don't have much time to paint. I'm going to have different schemes for the different Clans, and unify them through warpstone and dirt. Clanrats will belong to Clan Skryre, as I'm planning on using a fair number of their troops. Here's my proposed list:

Lord: Grey Seer
Hero: Chieftain (the Queek model)
Hero: Warlock Engineer
Hero: Warlock Engineer
Core: 30 Clanrats with hand weapons, plus a warpfire team
Core: 30 Clanrats with spears weapons, plus a warpfire team
Core: 3 Giant Rat packs
Core: A handful of Globadiers
Special: Gutter Runner tunnel team
Special: 6 Rat Ogres
Special: 10 Jezzails

(I've got a bunch of stormvermin and some Pestilens stuff, as well as some slaves, but they'll have to wait.)

Month one of the Tale has been my Grey Seer. I also painted a couple of Assassins (not in the list but I painted them anyway.)



This is one of my favourite miniatures to date, and inspired my choice of Skaven all those years ago. I hope I've done it justice. It was largely Foundation paints and washes; I chose a purple robe to make him more regal-looking.

Next up are the Assassins:



Fairly standard scheme; the flash has washed-out one, and I've not been able to entirely correct the glare in Photoshop. My Gutter Runners will be in a similar scheme, but probably with more brown (to distinguish them from Assassins).

The bases on all the models have Citadel Water Effect applied after varnishing. I wanted them to look like they're skulking up from dank sewers through the streets at night...

Comments and suggestions appreciated--I may have to Joker next month as I'm away for most of September, but I hope to have some form of update by the end of it!

[mrtn]

Vintage skaven? Sign me up!

[Urgat]

Neat
I love the skavens, especially the old metal (I usually like the vintage metals anyway), and they almost became my first army back then.
The pic aren't too bad, but try and find how to turn the flash off, and take your pics with sunlight, it looks better.
Anyway, these two skavens look very good, and I demand more!
Oh, yeah, suggestions... don't have any really, but one: maybe you should dirty up the bottom of the assassin robes, you know, like they were running in their tunnels and stuff, and some mud splattered? Well, basically, like on the greyseer, in fact. I know the assassin robes don't flow as low, but I kindda picture them running all leaning forward, keeping a very low profile.

[Magos Explorator]

Thanks for the kind words. Although some of the new Skaven models are great, I really love the old figures and think they've stood the test of time.

I need to work on my camera skills so hopefully we'll also see progress on that front! I thought about dirtying the assassins but didn't because, as you mentioned, their cloaks are shorter than others. Perhaps I'll go back and add some grime in. The second picture doesn't show it (as I was trying to compensate for glare) but the assassins' cloaks have a wash of Devlan Mud over them so have a slight brown tint.

[Magos Explorator]

After several months I finally found time for some Skaven. As my first month of painting for the Tale was over 200 points (months 2 and 3 were sadly Jokers), this one is a little under. I really wanted to finish my Clanrats, but have only done 9 of 20, so they will hopefully appear next month.

Anyway, on to the pictures. Have been having great difficulties with lighting (taking pictures in quick succession with quite different colour balances, for some reason) but they're all reasonably near the true colours. The first warpfire thrower picture is the most accurate.

A Warlock Engineer:





A Warpfire Thrower team:





I really like these old models, and am happy with the way they've turned out. Liberal use of foundation paints and washes.

So... hopefully Clanrats to come soon. I may post pictures of them as they're ready. After that, probably some Moulder stuff.

[Magos Explorator]

So the month's almost over--or at least my painting time in it is--but I've managed to get most of what I wanted for next month's Tale of Fantasy Painters done. My plan had been to finish the first 10 Clanrats and paint another Warpfire Thrower. The Clanrats are done, but I'm not sure whether I'll manage the Thrower in time (unless I can do the pair tonight):



The unit's going to eventually be 30 strong. I kept with the same theme as I'm doing for all my Skryre troops: yellow on bottom, red on top, reversed for characters. I think it ties the models together nicely, but since they're a variety of figures and quite dirty they still look like a rabble.

Here's the command group in close-up; no idea what the rune on the standard means, if it means anything, as I just scrawled it. As for the musician, I imagine he's got some sort of miniature organ with a voice-amplifier on it. In the 1987 range, the same base sculpt was used for a handful of the musicians and globadiers.

[Magos Explorator]

And on to the rest of the rats. Here's three, including a pair of the 4th edition plastics (which I prefer to the current plastic range; even though they're only one pose, I think having a few in a unit works well):





And here's four more. I'm not certain what happened to the back shot of these guys... I certainly intended to take one.



My favourite's the third guy along, with the bone spikes. Comments and criticism appreciated!

[mrtn]

Nice work. I too like the old plastics, painted up 30+ of them a while ago (there's pics in my armyplog if you're interested, link in sig).

[Getifa Ubazza]

Loving those Rats. There just is not enough Skaven project logs for my liking. There such a characterful army, you would think more people would pick them up.

[Hadriel Caine]

obscenely brilliant - Old school Skaven are my favourite Citadels. love it. I just listened to Jervis' podcast interview with Jes Goodwin. great times.

In fact i was reminiscing about the plastic skaven in post 7 with Jervis the other day at WHW.

keep it up

Adam

p.s. got carried away. Red and bone is the perfect combination for Skaven IMO. very nicely and realistically done too. very earthy.

[Magos Explorator]

Thank you for the kind words, all. I'm glad other people love the sculpts as much as I do!

I managed to finish off the second Warpfire Thrower team I wanted to complete for the start-of-January Tale of Fantasy Painters. It's not quite as polished as the other one, but I'm still happy with it. I messed up the head of the guy at the back a little.



Looking closely at the sculpt makes me feel sorry for the guy behind--he's not only lugging the heavy barrels around, but his arms and legs are chained together and the rope's passing under his neck and tied to his tail, so if he lets go he'll get strangled! Nasty creatures, these Skaven.

Again, this pictures reasonably true-to-life colours although I think the position of my lamp's cast some shadows on the lower parts of the models, so apologies they're a little tricky to see. These guys are done and just need a little water effect on parts of their base, after varnishing.

Next up... I'm not sure. I have 8 Globadiers to paint, as well as up to 20 more Clanrats for this regiment. I'd also like to get into some Clan Moulder stuff: I have 24 Giant Rats, 6 Rat Ogres, 9 Packmasters and both the old and new Throt the Unclean models (which are both awesome). The Moulder models will probably use blue instead of the red: I might keep the yellow as the other colour, or else look for another tone of brown or off-white. I'm not certain yet. Pestilens will be red and green, I think, while Eshin's going to be black and brown.

mrtn: Nice work, to have completed 30 of the plastics you have more patience than me! I think I've got about 5 to go in this regiment, in total.

[Mulrak]

Excellent Skaven! Job well done. Looking forward to seeing more.

[unwanted]

I like... No, love 'em!

Those old sculpts are truly magnificent, and your paintjob really makes them shine!
Your muted colours work very well, and I simply can't fault anything. If you ever finish the horde to this standard, it'll be a sight to remember!

[silverstu]

Really nice skaven there Magos! I love seeing these old models- my mate has a ton of these- they have been my opponents for years. I think they look great- loads of character. You really capture the character of these guys with your painting scheme.[although I don't envy you doing the larger clanrat and slave units!]. looking forward to seeing these guys posting in the new TOP thread. Keep it up!

[bert n ernie]

Wow, I've never seem some of these Skaven before, and they look great.
I hope to see another update soon.

[Magos Explorator]

Thanks! I am struggling to find time to paint this month, but have made some headway with Globadiers and Giant Rats.

[Badders]

Looks Nice *Subscribed

[Magos Explorator]

A small and overdue update, as I've mostly been painting my High Elves. The Skaven have fallen too far behind in the Tale to catch up but I plan to keep painting them when I have the chance! I really want both my Fantasy armies to be painted.

Finally I think I've got the photo settings about right for the camera: looking back at some of the older pictures they're not wonderful!

For the moment I've got two Globadiers; one from the ~1987 range and one from the ~1993 range. Fairly pleased with both of them; they're in my Skryre colours. I've got 6 more to do.





I still need to varnish them and use water effect on part of their bases.

I'm also making decent progress with some Giant Rats, but want to wait until I've done all 24 (and maybe the Packmasters) before taking some pictures. I've done 15 so far...

[Darkritual]

Realy nice!

Think im going for a skaven army aswell when the new ones come out

Annyway keep it up they look real nice

[Gargobot]

Considering that I had a little skaven army in 1999 I'm quite surprised that I've never seen the Grey Seer or the smaller of the two globadiers until now. That globadier is a really nice sculpt, and nicely painted too.
Great stuff so far.