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War Drums in the Forest: A Brayherd's Tale (now featuring a completed herdstone)


Swooper

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The first gors are finally done! I actually finished the warpaint on the 31st, but the bases only got done last night. Can't take good pictures without daylight (and even then I struggle - why does the autofocus always go for the base instead of the mini?), so I had to wait until now to post. I tried to take individual pictures of them all but almost all of the shots came out as a blurry mess. Anyway, here they are:

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I'm still not quite satisfied with how the warpaint came out. This was Macragge Blue highlighted with Teclis Blue, but it still looks pretty dark. It's actually not as visible in person, the flash reveals it pretty well. Any suggestions? I'm hesitant to go with an even lighter blue, and broader lines would leave less space for the labyrinth patterns I'm doing.

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I know I said there wouldn't be any grey plastic in here for a while, but I just couldn't resist assembling some minotaurs. Now, the thing that has always bothered me about minotaurs (and some other monstrous units) is that they come in units of 3, but are still expected to have a standard bearer and musician in there. I know the rules say that command models function just like other models in the unit, but it feels off that someone holding a banner in one hand can be as effective in combat as someone who's got a two-handed axe. It doesn't bother me in larger units, but when there's only three models, and two of them aren't fully participating...

So, I came up with some conversion ideas that allow these two to have their hands free for greataxes. The standard bearer would have a "samurai-style" back banner, I just needed the right banner bit for it (a regular T-shaped banner pole felt wrong for this purpose). I looked at lots of kits, considered both the Clanrat and Stormvermin banners, but in the end picked the Mournfang one. I was planning to buy a Start Collecting: Beastclaw Raiders pack anyway, and did so recently, so now I had the banner! I spent most of my free time over the last couple of days putting this (and two other minos) together, and am fairly pleased with the results.

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The greenstuff straps could be better I guess, but I've never done anything with greenstuff that needs this level of precision (mostly just gapfilling and some tentacles) so I'm okay with it. I realised I should have wrapped some straps around the pole as well, but not until after the pole was plastic-glued to his back... oh well. The fur from the marauder kit covers up the bottom of the pole nicely, and the one-horned skull and dangly bits from the minotaur kit save me from sculpting buckles!

My plans for the musician are somewhat more complex: An ungor, perched on one shoulder, beating a drum! I'm very hesitant to start that conversion, I'll need to cut up an ungor and repose his legs to fit somehow... very easy to mess up, I think. Anyway, tell me what you think about about this sa-moo-rai (oh gods that was awful)!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, at least someone laughs at my jokes. Here's a little teaser of what I've been working on (among other things), a very rough poster putty test fit of the minotaur musician (because minotaurs have better things to do than beating drums):

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It's going to be some work greenstuffing it so everything looks natural, but I think it's going to be awesome. What do you guys think?

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If you can get the legs in the right angles it will be brilliant. Keep an eye out for the centre point of balance of the ungore. It might be a bit to far back. Or give him some straps he's using to stay in the right space (also a good way to hide fiddly green stuff bits ;) ) 

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The first batch of ungors are ready! I decided to go with a slightly lighter skin tone on them (Mournfang Brown, layered with Scrag Brown and fine highlights with Bestigor Flesh), and I think it came out really well. Definitely using this tone on some of the gors to vary them a little bit like @Uveron suggested. The main thing about them, however, is that I went all the way with wet blended shading on the base coat with these guys! If you look carefully, you should really be able to see the purple shadows on their skin, and the green tones in the bone and wood. I love how it comes out, this is definitely going to be my style from now on.

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You can kind of see the green in the horn there.

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The purple is really visible on his chest and under his arm there, included this angle to really show what I mean.

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Next up, probably finishing the minotaur conversion and then most likely paint the ungor shaman!

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They look great, shading is brilliant and the war paint designs are really standing out now.

Does having these lighter skinned ones standing next to the darker help the darker's war paint stand out more? Hypothetically I could image that the flashes of blue on these more recent ones helping the eye be prepared to see the war paint on the older paint job... if that makes sense... :S

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Thanks!

Your point definitely makes sense. I'm not sure if you're right or not though, it's not exactly easy to measure! I'll see if I can snap some photos of the gors and ungors together the next time I'm at home in daylight (I live in Iceland, sunrise-sunset is about 6 hours at this time of year) and let you be the judge.

My main concern with the warpaint now is that it looks kind of blurry around the edges. Two ideas to fix that: Either just paint another layer or two of Macragge Blue and see if that works, or alternatively paint black underneath to "frame" the pattern.

Another, unrelated concern: I feel like my painting skills are taking a big leap forwards with all this wet-blended shading business. At the same time, my skills at painting metallics are getting "left behind" because I can't really use the same technique there, so I'm still just doing basecoat>shade>drybrush>edge highlights on metallic areas. This simple style is fine for regular gors and ungors (who have very few metallic bits), but bestigors are like 60% armour. I kind of want to figure out a more interesting way to  paint metals before I tackle them - NMM seems scary though, and I've never really liked how it looks. Definitely "need" to learn it one day though, it seems like a requirement for learning demi-metals which I really want to master eventually! Until I get there though, I guess it's time to hit the Youtubes in search of good TMM tutorials...

Edited by Swooper
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Finished the minotaur musician conversion this weekend, so here are a couple of photos showing the greenstuff work. Sculpted a fur "saddle" for the ungor to sit on and some straps to hold it in place. The leg position is a little weird, but I couldn't get it better than this so it'll have to do. I added a couple of bits to his belt and glued him to the base after I took the photos (axe stays loose until after painting), forgot to take new photos after everything was in place.

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What do you guys think, is this convincing enough? :P

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  • 3 weeks later...

It's taken me a while (been sidetracked by a lot of other projects lately), but I've finally finished the ungor shaman and another batch of gors. Well, almost, I haven't done the banner yet as I want some input on that. They all have the lighter Mournfang Brown skintone, although for some reason I don't think it looks as good on the gors as the ungors - the brightest highlight ended up too stark and I had to darken them down a bit with a sepia wash. The majority of the rest will likely be in the darker Rhinox Hide tone, maybe with some variation in the highlights.

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Here he is, mixing the dye for the warpaint in a skull. The mushroom on the base is from the old Night Goblin Regiment kit, and was much easier to paint to a satisfying level than the ones I've made from greenstuff.

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I'm considering either drawing one of the classic beastman glyphs, or just something similar to the warpaint maze pattern on the banner. Both would be the same blue. What do you guys think?

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I'm getting pretty happy with how the warpaint is turning out now. I painted the pattern in black first this time, before going over it with three successive blues, trying to leave a thin outline of black at the edges, and I think it's looking much better than before. Will probably go back and fix the warpaint on the first batch of gors at some point.

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This is what I meant with the skin highlights looking too stark - and this is even with 1-2 layers of sepia to soften it. Should have blended the final highlights better I guess.

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See, this mushroom is just a pudgy mess with no edges. Sculpting something this small out of greenstuff with your hands and barely adequate tools is hard.

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So, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post I've been working on some side projects lately. That's mostly* been Silver Tower, which I kind of considered "done" until me and my friends actually started playing the boardgame, and were pleasantly surprised at how fun it really is.  I had only painted the leaders (summoner and ogroid) and one of the two copies of each monopose minion model in the box (except the grot scuttlings, because those are some of the ugliest models I've ever seen), and none of the heroes. I was planning to get around to at least most of the heroes at some point, but didn't fancy painting all the minions again.

But now, I kind of need those models to play. Dilemma. What I ended up doing was buying some tzaangors and horrors from a bits site and a box of kairic acolytes (the rest of them will be used for a future conversion project I have in mind) so I could have some variety. The scuttlings have been assembled and I figure I'm going to use them as a speed painting exercise (gods know I need that) as soon as my FLGS gets some white primer.

So that's what's been eating into my hobby time lately, and will continue to do so for a while. The herd will sadly have to go on hold until I've got everything based (all the Tzeentch cultists have sculpted flagstone bases) and primed, and at least some of it painted. I think I'll set up another thread for the Silver Tower project sometime in the next few days, in case anyone is interested.

*Also assembling a ghorgon, and turning the Knight-Questor into a Lord of Slaanesh.

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  • 1 month later...
1 hour ago, Timothy said:

Inspiring stuff! Can't wait to see you return to the herd

Thanks! Currently working on the Silver Tower grot scuttlings, after those are done (this weekend hopefully?) I feel the urge to get back to the herd for a while! Probably a minotaur and an objective marker (nothing special, just the mini herdstone from the ghorgon/cygor kit).

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Been a while since my last update here, wanted to share some WIP shots of what I'm currently working on! Start of the layering/highlighting stage, I've drybrushed the fur and stone already, everything else is just basecoats and washes.

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Skavenblight Dinge skin colour for this guy, mainly so I can use the model for a minotaur I play in a monster-themed D&D group! I really like how it looks, which actually  seems warmer and less blue in person (I think I've heard most phone cameras tend towards the blue end of the spectrum?). Might be tempted to do the other two in the same colour, rather than the dark browns I had planned. I'll burn that bridge when I get to it, I guess... which might be not too far off, as I find this model really fun to paint and can see myself painting the others soonish.

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Then there's this. It's such a great little piece of scenery, it'd be a shame not to use it for anything! I think it's a bit too small for a proper herdstone, but it's great as an objective marker (I even had a spare 40mm base lying around)! Random skull and an ungor shield at the base, and a raven from the giant kit on top to add character. I was very unsure how to paint the raven, since I wanted to get that iridescent blue sheen that raven feathers have. What I ended up doing was use Leadbelcher mixed with black (which I had on my palette after painting the armour bits on the minotaur), glazing over with black to darken it some more, Drakenhof Nightshade and then Nuln Oil. That's where it is now, but I'm not sure how to highlight it... any ideas?

The vine, of course, stays with my autumn theme. Looks weird right now because the leaves were victims of some Dawnstone drybrushing, but they'll be brightened back up!

I'll post some more pictures when they're finished, aiming for this weekend!

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Nice little project, glad I`ve found it :D For the banner: I think a glyph would look better. The maze looks good on the beastmen, but you want to seperate them visually from the banner. As for motivation of painting them...I have been collecting Orcs and Goblins back in the days when I was still playing WHFB. I quit that after a while, as it were way to many models and after painting hordes and hordes of models, I`ve never been satisfied, as I was trying "to get it done". My suggestion: don`t rush yourself. At the moment I`m building up an Ironjawz army and play a lot of Skirmish along the way. It is really satisfying to spend some more time on painting and playing games where most of your army looks almost completely painted and shows a good look.

Even though you are progressing well and the models look good, I have the feeling that you`re facing a similiar challenge when I read your post: you love your army but are never satisfied to the fullest. This is a possibility to do it, instead of constantly thinking about getting the stuff done, simply enjoying it with smaller goals. Your minis look really nice and you could already play skirmish with them, so that will be a great motivational driver.

Keep it up, I`ll definitely revisit here more often.

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On 3/28/2018 at 6:46 AM, DinoTitanedition said:

Nice little project, glad I`ve found it :D For the banner: I think a glyph would look better. The maze looks good on the beastmen, but you want to seperate them visually from the banner.

Well, I ended up with the maze design. Actually did that weeks ago, just forgot to post pics! This will be remedied shortly.

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As for motivation of painting them...I have been collecting Orcs and Goblins back in the days when I was still playing WHFB. I quit that after a while, as it were way to many models and after painting hordes and hordes of models, I`ve never been satisfied, as I was trying "to get it done". My suggestion: don`t rush yourself.

Motivation is not an issue for me (yet, at least), the reason I'm focusing less on the herd at the moment is just that I want to get all my Silver Tower models finished soon, as me and my friends are playing it now! Am definitely not rushing myself, I take my time to finish each batch of foot soldiers to a satisfactory level. ^_^

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Your minis look really nice and you could already play skirmish with them, so that will be a great motivational driver.

You're right, I could (with the finished minotaur I have exactly 50 renown worth of models done now), but being able to play the game is not really a motivator for me. The last time I played a wargame (Rogue Stars, a scifi model-agnostic skirmish game) I got bored and wished I was painting instead... For me the main thing is getting good looking models on my shelf.  Thanks for all the encouragement, though!

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So, the bullgor unit champion, "bloodkine" according to the warscroll, is ready! Funny story, I was curious what "kine" meant so I looked it up. Apparently it's an archaic collective noun for cows, kind of like "cattle" (except as far as I understand, kine refers only to the females). GW kind of dropped the ball here, I think... should have gone with gorebull...

Also finished the mini-herdstone objective marker I was painting in parallel. Picture time!

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Pretty happy with how the axe came out. I'm getting better at painting metal.

Arrow from the ungor kit sticking out of his chest, but he doesn't care.

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Decided to go for red eyes for minotaurs (and, eventually, the ghorgon), as a nod to their bloodlust.

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The main advantage of minotaurs is that they have broad backs with plenty of space for warpaint.

The little wolf tail hanging from his belt is from the goblin shaman's (the one I turned into an ungor shaman) staff.

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Close ups of the warpaint.

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And here's the little herdstone. Ended up just giving the raven a very soft Eshin Grey highlight, and adding Nuln Oil Gloss to the eyes and beak.

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Finally, a group shot of everything I've painted so far. Starting to look like a warband now! Also, premiere of the finished banner. Not 100% happy with it, but only because the design is a little off centre... ah well, the next one will be better!

That's it for now, but I hope I'll have the hobby time to paint some more goats later this month (dear gods it's April already...)...

Edited by Swooper
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1 hour ago, Tzaangor Management said:

Looking really good @Swooper, coming together really nicely. Think I only really noticed the banner because you mentioned it, but you could probably just extend the lines a little to the right if it's really nagging at you. 

Where was the menhir / mini herdstone from?

That's from the Cygor/Ghorgon kit. 

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