The night is dark and full of Chaos Spawns

Part 3

Outside the boundary of the firelight, the night seems darker than ever. Survivors tremble and cower as the men who still have their strength patrol the periphery, trying to hide their fear as howls echo in the surrounding forest. A snap of branches and a horned figure staggers into the light, bleating through multi-rowed teeth. ‘Hooknose’ Neumann scrambles for his halberd but the beast is upon him already. As it lunges for him and tears at his face, an axe lands in its spine, splitting the beast open. The wielder helps Neumann to his feet and examines the wound.

“A mercy, there is only the stench of death here. Come follow, for you cannot tarry here and it is dangerous on these roads. There is much for us to hunt.”

So not sure if this is a worn/damaged piece or the previous owner disfigured this guy, but he doesn’t appear to have a nose so now he is ‘No-nose’ Neumann. No matter, I figure he’s a veteran and lost it in a battle as per above vignette. His friend is missing an eye. Made good use of reddish shading on the white cloth to keep them looking thematic and not too clean, while keeping the high pass with pure white for contrast. I want the Free Company to be plain-clothes as much as possible.

The first of my Hunters of Sigmar order is represented by the Freelance Knight – not only does he have the janky, ad-hoc equipment typical of the Hunters, but he also comes sculpted with an Ostland shield (although there’s something fishy about it…). The horse armour is designed to look like it was once painted a bright colour but has been stained and rusted by the elements. Transitioning through ochre tones and tying it all together with a sepia wash has gotten me the closest to J.B. artwork so far. I’m also trying out small brushtrokes for the horse’s coat to give it a greying, grizzled look for a rickety old nag.

One thing I’ve found while working in this palette is that adding orange paint colours doesn’t seem to gel with the rest of the spectrum – I’m going from earthy red to earthy yellow to dirty white and when I try to include orange it either looks fluorescent and over saturated, or it has the wrong…temperature? Not as hot or cold. So Bestial Brown is acting as a mix-in to ease red into yellow.

The Spearmen from the old starter set are lacking a bit of variety in their sculpts and poses so I went for some different patterns on the shields to add some interest. You can’t get better contrast than black and white, so can get away with some more intricate patterns and still have them readable at small scale (as opposed to blue on purple for example).

If all the glue joins on this steam tank failed, the old paint would still hold it together. Really doesn’t matter though since once I finish the detailing, I’m offroading this ride with an assortment of mud, soot and pigment effects. Considering options for a toot of steam. While it’s always tempting to do a lush freehand triptych on the flat panels, Ostland is about restraint.

To cap off the weekend, I threw together this mess: a Mordheim Witch I will use as a Wizard of Death/Shadows. A good model for a messy paint job. The Forest of Shadows has many wise women, herbalists and healers…it also has horrible hags, häxen, whores of Satan etc. Which one is this? Who’s to say…

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