Ravenborn

Absolutely stunning work, Tidings. I love the autumn tones throughout. It’s and incredible display piece. Where did you find red leaves?

Same here, been looking for an excuse to roll out my coldone... er, Drakespawn knights for a couple years now. At least the stats improved slightly.

I think you’re right about tying the mount and rider together with pink eyes. I’ve built eight riders, just need two more. Thinking of making the leader a female with a Melusai snake mask like my hag queens, possibly mounted on a black stag (from wood elf kit) instead of a horse. Or or do you think a male warlock to lead them? Rereading that, the words “black stag” sounds way more interesting than “horse”. So that’s settled. Just gotta decide male or female.

Not yet, building the rest of the unit. Thanks for the input... I’ll do a test and see how it turns out.

Pink eyes and brand for the horse, or blue? Blue will match the mane and tail, but pink might stand out more. Suggestions?

Slowly making progress...

“Purple Overload” sounds like a Prince cover band.

Ugh. I’m the worst. Thanks for triggering self-loathing! I normally wear glasses, but need to take them off to paint. I end up holding the model about 4” from my eyes, so I see EVERY little flaw. And I just cannot have that. How the hell can Trooper Jim shoot properly if one eye is bigger than the other, and slightly crossed!?!? So, yeah. Definitely persnickety here. That said, I love painting, have for over thirty years. It’s a “zen” thing for me, blocking out the world and trying to exert a level of complete control over a single model, that I rarely have in real life. It’s strangely calming. And I am improving, learning to “let go” and move on to the next model... but I still have a long ways to go.

Much appreciated! I originally painted the manes purple, but realized it was purple overload. I like the blue better as well.

I’ll be painting the horses like this, but probably won’t keep any of the original rider bodies. I despise their palsied left arms.

Took a break from painting due to well, life. I’m now a grandfather! Lots of other stuff going on that’s not nearly as much fun, but I’ll save that for therapy. Anyways... warlocks. Love the concept, like the individual models... but I’ve been trying to get excited about painting them for years. My primary issue is that there is no real variety in their poses or gear. Individually they look dynamic, but as a group they’re a bit lacklustre, particularly when sitting next to models designed since rank n’ file was jettisoned. So I’d paint a couple, figure out the colours... then lose steam as I realized I’m painting the same model ten times. I got the bright idea to turn them into riding bowmen. I got the inspiration from Mongol riders, with special saddles that allowed them to sit higher when they shot their bows, similar to the dark elf saddles. I may be wrong about them being Mongol, could have been Chinese. I haven’t been able to find the reference, but it’s not important. My first attempt was frustrating. I used a bow and arms from a Melusai archer. The arms were a good proportion for the warlock body, but the bow was just far too tall to be fired from horseback. I ended up buying the wood elf stag riders to use their torsos, but that was a dead end as well. Enter... the Namarti. Elves bodies, good proportions, shortbows. They were perfect, and surprisingly easy to fit on the existing lower bodies. I liked the neck armour and belts as well, they added some colour to the riders, which helps tie them in visually to the rest of my army. Throw on Melusai quivers, and they looked like light, fast archers. Exactly what I wanted. Took me a while to figure out the heads. So many options, but in the end I decided to go with executioner heads. I like the sleekness of them, and decided that hair would look too busy with the quiver. I may add some very short hair, which won’t interfere with the quivers, but that’s a later problem. On that note... anyone have spare executioner heads? I should have ten, but managed to lose four. Ah well, I’ll figure something out. After all the time wasted on figuring out how to end up with a product I would be excited to paint, these ended up being surprisingly fast to assemble. Now, time to paint!

It’s late and I have an idea that will look ridiculous in the morning, but I’mma subject everyone to it anyhow. What if witchbrew was a prayer? It would remove the certainty of applying it to a unit, limit how many you could use per turn, and also requires sacrificing a slot that could be used to cast another prayer. In fluff terms, the hag queen needs to “bless” the witchbrew before giving it to a unit. Would that work? It seems 60 pts would still be a reasonable cost, given the drop in reliability.

The kharybdis model is so much better than the hydra... but I think the hydra rules are so much better for the DoK. I’d much rather have the ranged attacks and guaranteed regeneration of the hydra than a slight bravery debuff. Role-wise, it’s a damage magnet, attracting firepower away from your other fragile units. I definitely want to get one, because I loves me some c’thulhu-inspired ocean-spawn to terrorize my enemies. As far as hag and slaughter queens, I used the delf sorceress for mine.

Okay, one down, nine to go. 😂 I’ve been using my medicine cabinet as a lightbox. Kinda’ works, so I thought I’d try a coloured backdrop so the camera doesn’t try to pick a white point from the background. I think I need one more layer of highlights for the skin, looks a little flat in the photo.

Thanks! I’m really happy with the blue. It’s Vallejo Dark Prussia Blue 70899. I mostly use GW paints because I like their durability and coverage, but they aren’t very vibrant. They desaturated all their colours slighty a few years ago when they switched manufacturers. Vallejo seems to have smaller pigments, and blends smoother. I’ve been adding a couple drops of the Dark Prussian Blue into my GW blue-grey paints that I use for the armour, to add a little colour.

Really wonderful work. Great colour choices and smooth blending. I’m really looking forward to seeing the bird on the base, it’s just amazing so far.

So... painting the three Queens let me finally nail down my colour scheme. It’s different from what I originally intended, but much better. It has good contrast, balances dark accessories reasonably well with all the pale skin, doesn’t seem too derivative of anyone else’s work (that I’m aware of) and let’s me enjoy paiting the armour (blue grey) lighting effects (pink) and some rare highlight items (gold). Even leather is fun (black, blue, white). If that sounds odd, painting is kind of a zen thing for me, very relaxing. Painting grey is boring. Sounds wierd to say that, but, neutral greys and browns are boring to paint. Brighter colours are fun. Anyway... now I want to apply that to a unit of troops. I have half-finished Doom Warlocks, an Altar and twenty Witch Elves, but want to apply the paint to clean minis. Painting my half-finished minis will get me distracted again (“hey, maybe I should keep that yellow after all!”) so I’ve packed everything away out of sight except for my Queens. Once I get the Sisters of Slaughter done, I’ll get back to the other half-finished units. Hunh. Apparently, someone lost their head in my last game. Poop. I magnetized all my models so they stay safe in my metal toolkit, but the biggest problem with Dark elf models is also their greatest appeal for me: lots of barbs and pointy bits to hook on each other. My greenstuff work was pretty hasty, I wanted to start painting last night so I had to patch up a lot of shoulder gaps where I kitbashed Khinerai arms to SoS bodies. I still need to greenstuff eyes, but wasn’t up to that last night. Ugh. I can’t remember what tool I have that was fine enough to do the eyes for the Queens.

This is coming along pretty fast. Should be able to finish tonight!

...and they’re done. The Slaughter Queen will be on my altar, so the base is temporary. I’ll finish the hag bases later, when I can do a dozen or so at a time. Up next: my Sisters o’ Slaughter.

Two down, one to go...

Thanks Zed. So I’m really happy with the final results... kind of lilac (dark bluish purple with lots of white added). It’s more purple underneath, almost pure white at top.

Thanks, I’ll see how that works. It’s no too different, just means lightening to pure white instead of 50/50 mix.

I hate February. It’s hard to keep any painting momentum going, when my brain wants to curl up in the fetal position under my desk and hibernate until Spring. And by “Spring”, I mean June. I love Canada, but it sucks too right now . Sigh. Anywho, here’s proof I’m still making some progress on the girls: Overall, I’m pretty happy with how they’re turning out. A big reason for the slow progress is that I’m still figuring out my colour scheme. I’m moving more to dark blue and pink, rather than purple, pink and gold. I think the hair needs to have a lot more pure white, like my Slaughter Queen on the left. It’ll help them stand out from my regular witch elves on the table. She’ll end up on my Altar. And I’ve managed to break two sickles already, and they haven’t even been in the battlefield. Damn. What do you think looks best for hair?

Wonderful stuff. People like you remind me why I still love this hobby after thirty years.