EmperorNorton's Overabundance of Projects

[EmperorNorton]

I love those flagellants - tell me how you painted the flames. Now! Or else..

That was extremely easy and I am surprised they turned out as nice as they did.
Base colour is Iyanden Darksun, drybrushed with Fiery Orange and then another careful drybrush with Blood Red. Took about half a minute for all the flames in the unit.

[EmperorNorton]

Christmas came a little early...


Now that I have my presents I should really get started on getting presents for some other people. No clue where to start.

In the meantime I busy myself with more Empire stuff, but the Skaven are so tempting...

[Siam-Tiger]

Thats quite a backbone for an army. You will have your joy with the screaming bell. I am currently converting mine into a war altar, amazing kit.

Looking forward to see those painted

[GomezAddams]

I'll take one of those bells as a present if you like

Looking forward to seeing these painted

[Gargobot]

Not touching those while you work for the tale will be quite the endurance test.
Anyhow; Merry Christmas! ^^

[Dino]

Christmas came a little early is an under statement here. But I can't wait to see it all built. I think i'm starting to have a weakness for the ratmen.

[EmperorNorton]

Thats quite a backbone for an army. You will have your joy with the screaming bell. I am currently converting mine into a war altar, amazing kit.

Looking forward to see those painted

I read your review and saw the beginning of your conversion, which will be great. Indeed I'd be tempted to steal the idea, if I hadn't planned to go in a completely different direction with my War Altar (which I just can't find the parts for).

Not touching those while you work for the tale will be quite the endurance test.
Anyhow; Merry Christmas! ^^

Thanks. And Merry EmperorNorton Christmas to you!
I didn't say anything about not touching, though, did I?
In fact I assembled my Screaming Bell today, at least as far as possible without making painting it impossible.
It's a great kit and building it was easier than expected. Less parts than I expected and they all fit together nicely, which isn't the matter of course as it should be with GW products. Still took me two hours, though.
Two things I didn't like, however. First, the plastic, which was somehow softer than usual. Easy to cut too deep when removing mould lines. Second, the surplus parts won't be as easily converted as I had hoped, but I should still be able to use them for what I had planned.

To prove that I'm still working on the Empire:



And because everything is better with pirates:

[Dino]

Everything looks really good so far. I painted up a unit of knights of the white wolf a few years back and found it rather fun. Though if truth be told my wolves hammers were bigger then yours. The wizards facinate me a lot. I only painted a blue my lore of heavens wizard. What your doing with what I think is a bright wizard will definetly make him stand out. I'm wondering what do you think of the new archer models? They look OK to me but I would like to hear what you think. And I do like the pirates too.

[EmperorNorton]

Everything looks really good so far. I painted up a unit of knights of the white wolf a few years back and found it rather fun. Though if truth be told my wolves hammers were bigger then yours. The wizards facinate me a lot. I only painted a blue my lore of heavens wizard. What your doing with what I think is a bright wizard will definetly make him stand out. I'm wondering what do you think of the new archer models? They look OK to me but I would like to hear what you think. And I do like the pirates too.

Not sure what to say about the White Wolves' hammers. These are just the standard plastic knights. I have some old metal ones, too, which will be my knights of the inner circle. Painting the knights has been fun so far, but I'm not so sure about the horsies. I'll have to read up on that.

Currently I have four of the plastic wizards, because I like the kit. The robes make them hard to paint, though, because you can't reach the inner parts well enough. I know the different lores have different colours associated with them, but I didn't want my wizards to stick out like a sore thumb, so I'm trying to do them all in different shades of blue (and purple for the one from the College of the Amethyst).

The archers are a nice kit, which allows for some great poses. I had a lot more fun with the parts from the kit I did not use to build the archers themselves, though. More about that in a future update.

[Gargobot]

To prove that I'm still working on the Empire

This will keep the ToFP-Stasi away for some time. ^^
I'm interested in seeing your all blue-ish wizards and of course the pirates. (Are they for the tale as well?)

[Putty]

your empire stuff is looking fantastic!

gives me added incentive to work on my own when i am able.

[EmperorNorton]

For the last week I have been mostly assembling Skaven:

The pile in the background contains 20 Storm Vermin, 40 Clanrats and a couple of Lizardmen, which are supposed to become a Blood Bowl team, but I don't know how to make them Blood Bowly.

The Rat Ogres need quite a bit of work...


And so Gargobot doesn't go and hunt me down, some Empire(ish) things:

I have decided to have some Free Company from Kislev in my army, which will pull double duty as a Kislevite Mordheim warband. That's why there is a freakishly large bear (it easily towers over the Rat Ogres). The figures in front are a Kossar command group. The standard bearer had the standard removed and now wields a huge morning star. The two youths for the warband were converted from the Mordheim Middenheim youths. The rest of the warband was built from the Mordheim mercenary/Free Company set, with various bits added in, most noteworthy the Kislevite heads from the Archers set. I usually go light on the bits, because with the number of unpainted minis in front of me I don't really see the point in adding unnecessary detail. I went in a different direction with these, though, and pretty much went all out with the bling. Regrettaly that makes them somewhat hard to photograph properly (which, in short, means that I don't have pictures at the moment).

I have also started airbrushing the Screaming Bell, but that's not particularly worth seeing yet.

[EmperorNorton]

Yet another work in progress:






I had wanted Be'lakor for some time and when I recently got him in a trade I couldn't resist.

[ScytheSwathe]

Nice! I think you need to be a bit more confident in your work, You may not paint like GeOrc, Radium, or some of the other masters on here; but I dont think that should dampen your spirits, this is all excellent.

If youre still after paint stripper for those stealers, i use brake fluid, but whatever you get, test it on some sprue or something first, i have no idea of composition changes between companies, and wouldnt want to be responsible for ruining anything!

My only constructive criticism would be that some of the time the painting can look a bit flat, notably the flagellants skin, the giant, and belakors chest. Try blending more the colours more to get a smoother transition, and some more striking highlights

Keep up the good work

[EmperorNorton]

Thanks for the comment.
I completely agree with your constructive criticism, but I'm not sure how to implement it, since I can't do blending (when I use paints that are that much watered down, they will go everywhere but where I want them to be) and I think more striking highlights done with layering look bad.

Despite the encouragement I couldn't bring myself to paint much over the last two weeks, so I have to pull out some characters for the Tale to not fall behind.
First we have Boris Todbringer of Middenheim (counts as Karl Franz in my army as the rules for Boris are so out of date):



Since I was ahead in points with my Middenland army, they only get a lowly priest of Ulric:



And since I wasn't painting, I had to spend my hobby time in another way. The rumours about the new Ogre Kingdoms book got me to assemble the rest of my Ogre army:

Looks kinda small. Makes me wonder if I should add a couple more units, although waiting for the new book - and hopefully new minis/units - is probably the smart choice here. I'm tempted to get some Rhinox Riders just to distract from the fact that most of the army is basically the same model, but I hope GW will release them in plastic.

[Dino]

Boris and the priest looks really good. I think you need to add some more character to the barding on his horse though. But thats just me. The ogre army looks pretty big. I think you may need some gnoblars but that could just be me.

[EmperorNorton]

Boris and the priest looks really good. I think you need to add some more character to the barding on his horse though. But thats just me. The ogre army looks pretty big. I think you may need some gnoblars but that could just be me.

You are definitely right about the barding on the horse. I think I'll try a blue rim.
Not sure I agree about the Gnoblars. I have quite a few of them, but can't say that I like them. Aside from a unit of Trappers I'd prefer an army without Gnoblars, but I guess I'll have to wait for the new book and form an opinion then.

In the meantime I have a couple of horsies I can practice getting the barding right on:

As you can see I made the same mistake with some of these as I did with the Genestealers, i.e. dipping them in the Vallejo wash. Even after thinning it down with water and dishwashing detergent (I read somewhere that's supposed to help) that stuff is worse than useless.
So far the horses have been painted in a diverse variety of base colours. I think a drybrush and a wash will be enough to make them look decent enough.

As for riders I'm currently concentrating on the older metal knights, which will serve as Knights of the Inner Circle in my armies:

For whatever reason I had gotten it into my head that I had to have the old metal models. Now that I have them I think they are, well, not particularly nice models at all. And I'm not really looking forward to painting the panther cloaks. Which will be leopard cloaks anyway.

[pililuk]

I really do love your belakor, Consider this thread subscribed

[EmperorNorton]

Thanks for your interest.

I have been assembling some more Chaos stuff.
First, there are two Spawn:


What excited me most about the Spawn kit are the possibilities you have with the bitz that are left over.
Although I ended up using them sparingly, they are what brought me to build some Chaos Ogres:

[EmperorNorton]

The Champion, looking down on whatever puny lifeform has the misfortune of standing in his way:


The musician and his skull brother:


The Gutburster:


Nobody has told him yet that the Gods gifted him with a tail. Ogres can be cruel that way.


A big head and big claws to scratch it with in confusion: