Mengel Miniatures

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Last night I managed to finish up my Banshee and my Mourngul. With these two done my 1,000 point army is done! This was my original goal, but I will probably continue to expand these guys out to 2,000 points. I think I will go on to a different small army for the moment though. I will have better pictures of everything by next week most likely. Thanks!

Started in on my Mourngul for my Nighthaunts last night. So far I just have most of the shading down, no highlighting yet. I think I'm going to continue making the hands a bit darker. The claws and teeth will be black with ethereal highlights. I don't think this guy will take too long.

My Hexwraiths are now done and ready for basing. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, especially the fire since I was unsure about that. Now all I have left to paint (besides the bases on everything) is one more Wraith, a Banshee, and the Mourngul. My goal is to get the all done before I leave for a 2 week vacation in 2 weeks. I think I can do it.

My Spirit Hosts are done now except for the basing so it's on to the next unit, the Hexwraiths. I have I have the ghostly parts done on 3 of them so far, so just 2 more to go. They are taking about one per evening right now, so not a bad pace. After all the ghostly parts are done it's onto the scythes and the flames. The flames will be a bright green when they are done, via the use of a Waywatchers Green glaze. I think that is suppose to be grass underneath their hooves on a few of them, but since my bases won't have grass I will be painting those the same as the flames. I also got the Malignants box for Christmas so I can start planning out the expansion of the army beyond 1,000 points. If I convert the Mortis Engine into a Black Coach then all I will need to buy is one more Spirit Host box, a Banshee or Cairn Wraith (unsure which I want yet) and another Mourngul... 2 Mournguls in 2,000 points isn't bad, right? I wish Nighthaunts had one more type of unit because I would like to not add a second Mourngul, but at the same time I don't want my army to just be a ton of Spirit Hosts. If I do get a second Mourngul I would convert it somehow. Right now my thoughts are closing the jaw, changing up the hair, and maybe extending the raised army backwards and putting a Stormcast victim in it. I hope to have my first 1,000 points done by the 12th because I leave for vacation for 2 week that weekend. Let's see if I can do it.

I ended up having to push my Nighthaunt tutorial back to next week due to issues with the post. Looks like a few packages of mine are taking longer then expected to arrive from the UK. In the meantime though I have started on the rest of my army. All I'm missing at the moment are my Banshee and Mourngul. I have glued everything else together, primed it all white, and given everything the first wash of Nihilakh Oxide. On 3 of the Spirit Hosts I have also gone in with the more selective wash of Coelia Greenshade, and on the ghost in the bottom of the first picture I have done the highlights. Looks like my technique transfers well across the whole army. I think the Hexwraiths will end up taking the most time though and I may have to insert a few more steps because of how large and flat their horses robes are. Hoping this will be a quick project.

I recently decided to start a new small force for my half of the Team Tournament for Adepticon. I'm taking my Tomb Kings for the singles tournament and wanted to play something different the day before for the Team Tourney to give myself some variety and avoid burning myself out on 8 games in a row with the same army. This also gives me a little break from painting Tomb Kings. I also have Stormcast but I'm trying to paint those to 'Eavy Metal standards. I have about 500 - 700 points done so far, but didn't want to rush anything to hit 1,000 points, plus that would probably take up all of my painting time before Adepticon and I still need to finish my Necrosphinx before then at the least for my TK. After going back and forth between Ironjawz, Bonesplitterz, and Nighthaunts I decided to do the ghostly guys. I picked them because they are relatively low model count, fairly unique, and quick to paint while still looking good! My 1,000 point list will be 2 Cairn Wraiths 1 Banshee 2 Units of Spirit Hosts 1 Unit of Hexwraiths 1 Mourngul Before I committed to the army I bought a Cairn Wraith to test out my color scheme on. I wanted to make sure I could paint them quickly and still look good. This guy below took me about an hour or so of pure painting time. Lots of drying time though, but when painting several units at once that should be mitigated a bit. I'm really happy with how he came out and especially like the solution I came up with for his weapon. I'm still waiting on stuff for the base, which will look awesome, but it's a surprise until it's done! I will also have a step by step tutorial for this guy on Mengel Miniatures, most likely next week, but possibly the following week. It all depends on when all of my basing material gets here.

So I took the plunge and started painting my Necrosphinx. I expect this guy to take awhile. I will probably break up my painting on him and do other projects in between sections so I don't get bored. I'm painting him in chunks, starting with the stone, then I'll move onto the gold. I decided to start out with the main body, next I'll move onto the hood and tail then the legs before moving onto the gold. I am going for a black marble look. I have a tutorial for it up on my website. I'm pretty happy with it so far.

He's all done now! You can read more about how I painted him and watch a 360º video of him here: http://www.mengelminiatures.com/2016/09/gallery-tomb-scorpion.html

More progress on my Herald on Chariot. The herald himself is pretty much done besides his weapon. I'm really happy with how the scale half cloak turned out. I started working on his Chariot to make it fancier looking. At this point I think the one side is done, now I just need to replicate it on the other side. I'm thinking about adding scythes to the wheels, and will need to make his horses special looking too. This will have to go on the back burner soon though because I don't have a base for him yet. I'm also still undecided on giving him a spear or a flail. I kind of like the spear idea because it's more true to how ancient armies fought, but we'll see.

I started sculpting his scale armor half cloak. It's blowing back in the wind from the chariot moving. I will sharpen up these scales with an exacto knife before sculpting the top half. Fairly happy with how they are turning out so far. May put some stray bandages or random doodads hanging from his belt to break up the scales a bit.

This is the first unofficial warscroll for the unofficial Tomb Kings Battletome I am working on. I am working on my own Tomb Herald in chariot conversion and can't decide whether to model with a spear or a flail of skulls, so I figured I would give everyone else the same options. Feedback welcome, as well as recommendations for unofficial points for this guy. Right now I'm thinking 160 just like the king in a chariot. Expect to see the return of more units such as the Hierotitan, Khermic Titan, Necrolith Colossus with bow or shield, and more as unofficial warscrolls in the finished battletome.

I finally started working on a Tomb Herald on chariot conversion idea I have had for years. This guy is still very WIP and has a lot of work left to be done, the chariot is just a stand in for right now, his will be much fancier. The raised hand will either have a flail of skulls or be hurling a fancy spear. The other hand will be gripping the front rail of the chariot. I'm also thinking of sculpting on a half cloak around his wait of scale armor like his tabard, which will be fluttering back in the wind. I'm pretty excited about how this guy will turn out. In friendly games I will write a custom warscroll for him, in other games I will just use him as a king in a chariot. These two images are my main source of inspiration for this model along with the description of Settra's Herald, Nekaph, from the 8th ed book.

This guy is done now, lots of fun to paint and fairly quick. I'll have finished pics up next week, but for now here are some more WIP shots and a few teasers.

GW one. I actually didn't buy it until they put it up for Last Chance to Buy. I knew I wanted one so I acted quickly.

Pretty sure the carapace is done on this guy. Now onto the gold and the mummy in its back. I would say a weeks worth of work left.

It's all done now! You can check out even more views, a 360 degree video, and a bunch of my thoughts on painting them here: http://www.mengelminiatures.com/2016/09/gallery-tomb-kings-chariots.html

I've started in on my next TK unit, the humble Tomb Scorpion. i am going for more of an actual dead scorpion over one made of bone or stone. Kind of like they found this giant dead scorpion, entombed a liche priest in its carcass and stuck a bunch of ornamental stuff on it, you know, the usual. so far I'm liking how it's looking. This should hopefully be pretty quick to paint to. I'm doing the carapace in sections so I don't burn myself out. The legs are next.

These guys are almost done. Working on the bases now, will have finished pictures of them next week. For now here's a teaser image of their new banner.

Just some proof that I am still working on these. The crew are almost done. I really wanted to get these done this week, but I am leaving tomorrow until tuesday, so they probably won't be done till Wednesday sadly.

First set of horses done The second set is almost done, I just have the white highlights on one horse left to do, then it's on to the crew.

I've started painting the horses. I base them, shade them, do a quick drybrush to pick out detail, then go back with the drybrush color and layer. It's all finished off with some line highlights. I thought this was an interesting point to take a picture at. One horse has just been drybrushed, while the other has had the layer step and most of its line highlights. Kind of compares the look of drybrushed bone with carefully painted bone.

The second chariot body is now done. Now I'm moving onto the horses. I'm hoping to have everything but the crew done by Sunday since I am playing in a 1 day tournament. That might be a bit unrealistic, but that's my goal anyway.

Thanks! I primed the models white, then painted all of the white areas Rakarth Flesh since I want it to be kind of an off white in the end. I then used Agrax Earthshade in all of the crevices. This was followed by several thin coats of white. A little thinner then you think it should be. This way I can build it up. On these guys I usually paint in a streaky patter near the end since I want a weathered look, but for my king on a chariot I used a smoother blend. This is all finished up with a final highlight of pure white. Here's where I'm at on the second chariot. All of the white areas, and wood are completely done, and the gold is done except for the weathering. I think I have two more evenings of work on this. The bronze on the wheels and blade takes a while to build up a solid coat of since I am still using an old pot of Dwarf Bronze. I bought it right before they discontinued the paint and I only use it on this army so I think it will last me for awhile.