John Blanche, Vol 3+4 Unboxing and Test!

Being old fashioned, I am going to do a good ol' fashioned "Picture Unboxing." Okay, one day I might do something very limited video related, but for now, we're going with pictures because I am a luddite. 

As some who know me might know, I'm a huge fan of The Army Painter. I like their paints, tools, how they do business, and generally what I've seen of the company themselves with their interaction with the community. I like how they listen to feedback and take it to heart(they even improved their line of paints immensely by listening to feedback), something I wish more companies did. I don't ONLY use them-I have a whole box of Citadel paints I use too sometimes, depending on what I need; not all colors have perfect equivalents in acrylics, contrasts, washes or whatnot, and Citadel has a whole line of technical/texture paints as well. I use some Vallejo(their true metallics are fantastic, and also their diorama stuff in big jars), AK, Scale75(Black Metal forever), Green Stuff World, Pro Acryl(they have some god-tier paints), you name it. But when it comes to my 'workhorse' paints, I definitely hit The Army Painter the most.

I absolutely loved their initial John Blanche sets, vol. 1 and 2. They had some great dark colors in it, filling a lot of holes that I felt the line had, and I even did a piece in only these paints, showing that even just Vol 1 and 2 had a great array. I even have some all-time favorite Army Painter colors in these sets, between The Darkness, Blighted Green, Blanched Berry, Ivory White, Fiery Vermillion, and Tainted Garden. Heavy Metal is probably my favorite metallic paint of the entire line, Grim Rust I use enough of to put someone through college in the US, and all of the washes get an insane amount of use, with Grimdark Shadow and Voodoo Shade on most of my models it seems, and Warm Skin Shade used often when I do flayed skin. 

So as soon as I heard about vols 3 and 4, I pre-ordered. These are a little different; they're brighter, bolder colors; the whole "You cannot have shadow without light" thing going. And I'm glad these exist too, since these colors all fit into their triads, too, or they can. There's a "Cool Box" and a "Warm Box", and what I'll do here is unbox each one, line 'em up, take some pictures, and then test them on some pre-primed random little terrain pieces I have. No, these aren't even, as they're bricks, but you'll get an idea of the color. I have one black and one white. (I'll do a grey test at some point.) 

So as quite a few folks said before me, these are additions to the current Vol 1 and 2. Here are the boxes!

Also included a Dipit's Most Magnificent-est Brush in each box, since I pre-ordered!(It's a pre-order thing.) It's a synthetic with a nice tip that's in between the sizes of their Speedpaint and Layering Wargamer brushes, and I think I'll be using this fairly often. I never actually got a Dipit brush before so I'm happy I have two now. I tend to prefer synthetics as a whole. 

Alright, so here's what's in the boxes themselves! Starting with Vol. 3, I took everything out and set it up. (The same things are in both, besides the paints.) 

The back of the little JB writing. 

They have what sort of color it is written on the side, as usual.

Okay! We got them all unboxed and lined up and stuff. 

So to test these, I took a couple of pieces of terrain I had, kept one black, painted one white, and just popped some colors on. As I suspected, I fell in love with Frostveil, which is an *amazing* strong blue. Absolutely beautiful. But all the colors in both sets for me are winners. Apologies for the uneven colors, the terrain was bricks and it was the first thing I grabbed. In hindsight, I should have used bases for these, like a normal, sane person, but when did I ever care about that, so I think you get the idea. 

Okay, so from the rows here, starting on the white colored side. We have Moonpetal, Iceborn, Skyshard. On the 2nd row we have Frostveil, Shadow Thorn, Dewpath, Bramble Grove, and Ashroot. On the black side, it's Frostveil, Shadow Thorn, then Dewpath, Bramble Grove, and Ashroot, and finally Skyshard, Moonpetal, and Iceborn. 

And on this side, first on the white it's Thicket Grove, Hearthborn, Rootpath, Umberroot, Sunpetal, Gladeshard, Blood Thorn, and Emberveil. Then on black it's Emberveil, Blood Thorn, Umberroot, Gladeshard, Sunpetal, Rootpath, Thicket Grove and Hearthborn. 

Yeah, I was a bit chaotic here but they're on the plastic and that's what matters! Ahem. I should note that these took varying layers; the typically strong colors(blues, and the browns especially) covered in maybe a coat and a half, so to speak, no matter on black or white. Red and Orange took 2-3 to go over the black, but went over the white a bit easier. Everything took somewhere between 1.5-3.5 coats, depending, with an average of 2-2.5, so the coverage is very nice. Keep in mind, I hand-shook these and don't have an agitator, and may have shaken them for varying amounts of time, and so on. 

To go into each one a bit, I think they all serve a good purpose. Nothing out and out copies a color but they fill in well in their respective 'flexible triads' Frostveil truly is a strong blue; it's amazing what it looks like in person. Shadow Thorn is an amazing blue-green, somewhere between Deep Ocean Blue and Abyssal Blue. Definitely going to be using this one a lot. Dewpath is a lovely teal color, Bramble Grove is a very nice desaturated cool green on the darker side, and Ashroot is a lovely darker brown, something that might be nice to use as another leather color. On the lighter side, Skyshard is almost white but has the slightest hint of blue(this is gonna be fantastic for a frosty drybrush I can tell), Moonpetal is a 'cool pink', that can serve as a highlight for the cool red triad, and Iceborn is a super-light pinkish purple, again probably a nice highlight for one of the cooler red or purple triads. 

On the warm side, Thicket Grove is a really lovely olive color(will slot right into the olive triad), Hearthborn is going to be, I think, a nice underpaint color for caucasian-style flesh, and Rootpath is a super-nice ochre that I'll probably be using when I need to lean into one of those(which is quite often, with how I paint.) Given the Zorn palette at work here more ochres are nice. Umberroot I really liked-it's a dark, reddish-brown color that I think will have a myriad of uses, for leather to hair to rust. In fact that might be one of my favorites. Sunpetal is a brilliant yellow that can slot right in with their yellow line, and Gladeshard feels like it's somewhere around Rainforest, a tad darker. Boyz will have some nice highlights with this one. 

Blood Thorn is another favorite, a strong, cool red that I think compliments' Vol 2's Fiery Vermillion super well(which is a strong, warm red, and probably my fav strong, warm red of the set.) Finally we have Emberveil, which is a great orange color that will be suitable for all sorts of fire and lava, or perhaps glowing eyes if you don't want to go fluoro. 

To test the washes, we're going to use Horace here, a monster dude I 3D printed. Horace was meant for greater things-to be a random demon-like monster for some party to slay-but the filaments sorta messed up and he has no arms. So I slapped some white paint on him and decided to give him a new job as a 'Wash Tester.' 

So here are the four washes! On the head is Nightroot Shade, a lovely purple that I KNOW I can have some fun with darkening up old blood or putting it over green for a sickly plague look. On the lower left leg is Pine Hollow Shade, a beautiful blue-green wash(leaning more heavily toward blue) that will absolutely work well with all of the cool colors. Lower right leg is Grove Hollow Shade, a fantastic green that's less brown than Military Shade, but also darker than their Green tone, giving a nice in-between. Finally, the tail is Vineroot Shade, a great red-brown wash that seems to have a myriad of uses right from the getgo. 

Now with all of that said, I DO admittedly miss having metallics, effects, and speedpaints mixed in. I use far more acrylics than speedpaints, but I really like Turnbull Turquoise and Bloodmoon Red for some embellishments, Grim Rust is one of my favorite rust effects, period, next to Dirty Down, and Heavy Metal is one of my favorite metal paints(and Emperor's Gold is amazing as well.) I AM extremely happy with these washes you get, though, as Army Painter's washes are fantastic, and these are no different and I am gonna get some definite use out of all of these, I can tell already. Though, I might have liked Pine Hollow Shade to be a *touch* more green, as if there's one thing this line lacks, is a really nice 'Coelia Greenshade'-esque wash. But Pine Hollow Shade goes beautifully over any of the cool colors here and I do think will work as a cooler verdigris-wash even as it is(a quick test on some copper tells me that.) 

AP has some great effects paints, and I think there could have maybe been room in, say, Vol. 3, for a frost effect paint to add on to their list(they have three amazing rusts, a verdigris, oil stains-which also makes for great black blood-two blood paints which I get a ton of mileage out of, Oozing Vomit which my plague stuff loves, and Disgusting Slime which likewise has its fun uses when I want something more glowy, along with all of their fluoro effects.) I can imagine that these guys could come up with an amazing frost/rime effect paint(that hopefully has less of the 'rubbing off' aspect that a lot of the existing ones have when touched with anything, especially water, due to the compositions. If they ever do, I'll be buying several bottles.) Hell, an 'ash' effect paint might also be cool(thinking of a 'warm' effect paint.) An ashy, dusty like effect paint for those who don't quite work with pigments yet. 

All of THAT said, though, adding in a metallic in each box, along with a speedpaint or effect, would've cut down on the amount of awesome colors you get here and I'm not sure if I really would've wanted to see ANY of these colors or washes go? Like it's easy for me to say 'I missed having a couple of the extra things' but then when I look at the colors in each box, I think I'd have been at a loss of what I'd have cut, so at the end of the day, I think these boxes are fine the way they are and do the job of being the perfect add-ons to Vols 1 and 2. And these sets are very complete if you have the whole bunch. You have your whites(Ivory, Skyshard), The Darkness is close to a black, you get two metallics, several washes to cover a variety of situations, 

I look forward to painting the Necromunda Hive Scum in these(I do want to work on my Hell Knights for the rest of this weekend, but maybe next week I'll start some in conjunction with the Yoke Fiends.) the Hive Scum have a great cyberpunk look, and if there's one thing I think these paints-all 4 sets-can do perfectly is that 80s cyberpunk look. Remember I'm a huge old-school Shadowrun fan, and some of that old art is perfectly able to be replicated with a mix of the dark, gritty colors of 1 and 2 as well as the vibrant colors of 3 and 4. Some favorite art examples from the Shadowrun 1st-3rd books here show you what I mean: 

Definitely on the darker side for parts, but then with those big pops of brilliant color. 80s cyberpunk could float from synthwave onto the dirty noodle bars of Bladerunner and everything in between, so no doubt these sets will be able to handle that. We'll see what happens! 

Anyway, just had to gush about the new paints for awhile and do an 'unboxing.' I don't think this is a 'review' per se , though if I have to pick some favorite colors, it's of course the stunning Frostveil, Shadow Thorn, Blood Thorn, Umberroot, Thicket Grove(and hell Bramble Grove will make some incredible mossy effects), and Dewpath. I'll be using all of these, though, I'm sure, at least sometimes, depending on what I'm working on. Might be challenging, too, to get some of these colors around when I'm doing the really grimy pieces. 

(PS: I'd still buy several bottles of frost effect paint.)

Trench Crusade Court, Part 3: The Rust Begins

And with a playlist heavily fortified by 1349(I am totally not getting an idea for a Black Grail army with this):

Rust. Lots of rust. I did some highlighting with a mix of Heavy Metal and Gun Metal, and then went in with some straight Gun Metal at parts. The horns are done with Dusty Skull. 

And then, started the rust. I actually had to come back to this after getting a proper mask. Using small amounts quickly is one thing, having to hold the mini up to your face and work with it for minutes at a time is another story entirely, even without an airbrush. Better safe than sorry. 

I cleaned up the blobs that were left behind after my first foray. Also messed with Grim Rust for some lighter parts. Mummified Grime Speedpaint came in handy for the deepest recesses, to show the really old, nastiest rust. 

I want to take some time, now, to sort of explain the 'story' I see for these guys. I'm a TTRPGer at heart, and this carries over into other wargames. Rather than just "Hell Knights", I like to think like, what happened to these guys? Hell Knights, in the lore....well, I'll let the Trench Crusade Official site describe them:

"The silent battalions of Hell, summoned when the Court of the Seven-Headed Serpent seeks sport, are composed of Hell Knights. Their ever-burning banners stream as they march to war, carrying out the bidding of their masters. They are the bannerets of the high lords of the Court, and champions who respond to foolish mortals daring to challenge the hunting parties of the Serpent’s nobility.

Heretic Priests whisper that these Infernal warriors were once lesser fallen angels or mighty mortal champions raised into devilhood, only to be cursed by their liege lords for some slight, real or imagined. Cast out from the burning palaces of the Pit, the alabaster architecture of their bodies has been twisted, folded upon itself a thousand times, entombed within their once-splendid armour which is now an eternal prison. 

To glimpse the body inside is to gaze upon the sheer horror of divine flesh warped beyond reason. Glaring eyes of light, mouths uttering blasphemies, and pulsating inner organs that gibber and shriek, all crushed into a space barely a tenth of their original form. Despite their reduction in stature, their inordinate pride remains unbroken, and they brook no insolence from the wretched mortals that serve them.

Once privy to the secrets of Creation, their minds are now clotted with endless blood-red waking dreams. Their thoughts are crushed to a singular, jagged prism of murderous obsession. Their form is tormented by the cold of the earthly realm, which they are forced to endure just as humans suffer in the flames of Hell. They are mighty still, yet mere shadows of their once exalted glory. Even so, they are terrifying and implacable foes to a mortal soldier."

So these lads are essentially single-minded killing machines, encased in armor that's probably bleeding(yes, that'll be coming eventually, along with some eye glow.) Their armor and weapons are going to be messed up because they're, again, single-minded murder machines permanently encased in their armor. This is not armor that is taken off and cared for. It's going to have trench battlefield mud, grime, and rust all over it. Despite being single-minded murderers, though, I like the idea of some of them keeping some semblance of their former lives as a slight subconscious thing here and there, in this case in the form of some grisly trophies(hence a few skulls hanging here and there, and the one that's probably getting pieces of a priest frock), or nastier weapon additions, like the rusty hook. I kind of want to let some of the design choices tell that story. 

Knowing all of this now, we'll get back to the model! I was a bit tired today after a bit of extra exercise and a rough night of sleep, so I just did a couple other things. Started on the fur-this is going to be done in a dirty ochre color(Tainted Garden so far, with a bit of Dusty Skull on the skull), and just washed with Grimdark Shadow. I'll be adding some drybrushing and stuff with it tomorrow, though it's going to be pretty dirty looking. Drybrushed a bit of the metal chain. 

Also started a verdigris recipe. Testing it on one lower part of the cloak, it's a drop of Verdigris, a drop of Temple Gate Teal, about 3 drops of stabilizer, and brushed it on. after it dried, drybrushed some Evil Chrome over it(which is really more of a bronze color, though I might fiddle with the color some.) Verdigris is still wet here, you can see. (Also messing with Grimdark Shadow on it, too, for a sort of unifying look, though I might work with the Mummified Grime here too.) 

Tomorrow, going to start manipulating some of the rust to lighten it here and there, and adding metal scratches around where there'd be battle damage, as well as work on both cloaks and the skull more! And hopefully start to add blood, of course. (I'm trying not to take forever on these models, since they're an army; I have no need to rush and I won't, but I'd like to see if I can not take my usual eleventy billion hours to finish.) 

'Til next time! 

Retro-Game Roundup

 You know, sometimes one might forget I am a big vidjagame fan, but I figured, because I use this to talk about some other stuff I've been doing, what retro games I've been playing the past few months. 

As many who know me might know, I do vastly prefer retro games. I think the last brand-new game I really liked was what, Astro Bot? I play a couple of MMORPGs, like FFXIV and WoW, both casually, and have since those games were both in their early incarnations(I even played 1.0 for awhile with FF, and WoW since Vanilla.) Of course, given those games are respectively 13 and 22 years old this year, they are no longer new. (I do prefer Classic WoW, but poke around the current game at every new expansion, and come and go from it.) I have been keeping up with FFXIV, though-been subbed since the start and I'm grinding out my relic. I can't lie that I am really hoping the next expansion recaptures some magic I've missed from the current one. I think it's a lot better than haters online seem to think, but it's missing...something. (It's got one of the best raid series ever, though.) 

 My retro handhelds(Miyoo Mini +, Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, and my beater handheld, my R36H) have been all pulling most of my weight. I somehow have been on a PC Engine kick lately, playing Alien Crush, Devil's Crush, Blazing Lazers, Cadash, Bloody Wolf, and the old Ys games quite often. I have certain NES games I like to replay at certain times of year for strange nostalgia's sake things-Mario 2 has been taking up a lot of that time now, and in spring I do my yearly Rygar replay, but that's coming soon enough. 

Over on the RP4, it's been a replay of the OG Phantasy Star Online, my first online game, and still one of my favs. It's a game that I fully admit having save-states on and being able to come and go from it makes it even better. I had replayed Castlevania: Curse of Darkness not too long ago-over the holidays, along with Gauntlet: Dark Legacy(another one of those all-time favorite games of mine.) PSO just hits so many right notes for me. (FWIW, I'm replaying the GC version.) I'm on Hard mode again, and I'll see how long I can play before I get bored. I had a completely maxed HUmar back in the day, so I decided to run HUmar again(only named Nathicana. I of course was listening to 1349.) 

(As an aside, the RP4 Pro is a pretty incredible little handheld still, to this day. I am looking into a dual-screen one at some point. If I had to suggest a workhorse retro handheld for someone, though, I still stand by the Miyoo Mini +, if you don't mind stopping at PS1.) 

Anyway, I think I feel the itch to play a bit of Devil's/Alien Crush again. I swear the sound chip in the PCE goes so damn hard for an old-school system. Way harder than it had a right to. Maybe not SID chip hard(which basically just sounded literally like the future), but extremely hard. Those pinball games have always been some of my favs, though-I mean the whole horror-like aspect of them suits me, and they're basically Video Pinball: Heavy Metal Edition. (Okay, the old Windows pinball was awesome, too. I used to play the hell out of that in compsci classes when I was supposed to be paying attention.) 

Also Vagullion in Ys can continue to eat my entire ass. This has not changed in nearly 40 years. Who the hell decided that boss was a good idea...

Trench Crusade Court, Part 2: Drybrushing and starting metals!

Okay, continuing!. (Also, here's a picture of the primed flail. I put a jawbone at the end of one of the chains.) 

Decided to do my initial drybrush in AP's Banshee Brown, believe it or not. No, you don't see it *super* well, but the idea here was to have a reddish-brown undercoat for the rust, of which there is going to be quite a bit of. 

I then followed it up with an AP Grey Castle, picking out some details here and there, and particularly hit some things like the skulls and such with it. I also did a few things in AP's Abyssal Blue(which will be verdigris-laden bronze.) Each model has something that will be bronze-the Hell Knights with bronze chain cloaks, the Yoke Fiends each have a little something, like a trinket, or some bit of armor. 

I went heavier on the Grey Castle brush with the fiends' skin, which will be a very sickly pale, mottled color(at least, I hope) at the end. 

Next, I started do do a rust undercoat for certain things. The chains and barbed wire are going to get a rust undercoat(AP's Dark Rust), and drybrushed metal over it, but the rest will be painted first and then I will begin the rust applications with Dirty Down, Grim Rust and everything else. 

For the base metals, as much as I love my beloved John Blanche Heavy Metal, my bottle is starting to get somewhat light, and I need to order some singles soon. They don't sell them in local stores around me yet. I want to also use this on the Praetor and the Saint, so to ensure I keep enough on hand, I used this as the base for the Yoke Fiends, which have less metal. For the Hell Knights, I opted for the excellent and aptly named Scale 75 Black Metal. I don't use a lot of S75, and I've seen some of their colors not do too hot, but I love this one and it goes on smooth and easy. It's also incredibly close in color. 

If you're a Citadel person, btw, the best suggest I have for you is 1:1 Leadbelcher(the Citadel Gun Metal equivalent) and Abaddon Black, and Leadbelcher straight instead of Gun Metal. (As for the other colors, I think Doombull Brown 1:1 with Rhinox Hide, Mechanicus Standard Grey and Thousand Suns Blue are close. All that said, I do not think I am someone you want to be taking paint advice from; I'm just listing color equivalents. There's a slew of way better painters than me online that give way better advice.) 

Anyway, here's the crew with some basic metal stuff done! (it's a bit messy, but I'll be painting over any of that, so I wasn't trying to be particularly neat here.)

And that's it for tonight! Tomorrow I am going to start the highlights and the weapons-Gun Metal for a lot of them, but I'll go over some other color picks. Note that starting then, I'm going to not be doing them as much in batches, due to the extra details I'm going to be doing. I want to give the three Hell Knights different levels of verdigris on the cloaks, for example, and they're going to have heavier rust in different places, and so on. But for the priming, drybrushing and base metals, it seemed good to do them together. 

Til next time! 

First real army getting painted, Trench Crusade Court, part 1

 So, while I've actually put paint on a lot of miniatures since late September, I have never painted a full, real army yet. Finally getting my Court of the Seven-Headed Serpent army in for Trench Crusade(I am partial to skirmish games a bit more than the Real Big Ones, and I like TTRPGs the most, even over wargames-but TC is awesome), I thought it might be cool to sorta catalogue the building, kitbashing, and painting process of a general noob in a little series. 

It goes without saying this army will be painted in the grimdark style. I have ideas on how I want them to look; whether or not I'll be saying "That's a fine looking army. WHY DOESN'T MINE LOOK LIKE THAT?!" will be up in the air. 

My chosen soundtrack for this is, surprisingly, a lot of 1349 and other assorted black metal. I know, shocking. 

So, the next photographs are just of the basic, new army; unassembled, I printed up the appropriate sized bases for them, and assembled the Praetor and the Desecrated Saint, both of which needed some. Particularly the Saint. I also filled in some gaps with Milliput. These are all the base models still. 

Desecrated Saint

Pic of most of the army. Then the Desecrated Saint(2 pics), Hunter of the Left Hand Path+Pit Locust, Praetor, and Sorcerer

Starting off, I decided to work with the Hell Knights and Yoke Fiends. I knew I wanted to add chains, barbed wire, skulls, inverted crosses, and all that good stuff to them, so I started attaching stuff to places, drilling out skulls and so on. Added a couple of demonic skulls as shoulder armor and a shield deco for the Yoke Fiends, as well as some additional weapon embellishments. Also was messing with some tissue + cigarette paper + PVA glue + water + a variety of speedpaints and washes to make flayed skin to add for cloaks and pieces later. (Grimdark Compendium Youtube Channel has been a wealth of ideas for this bunch.) 

After all of that, I added a few more embellishments, as well as a pass with some Green Stuff putty mixed with water(Tamiya + glue is stickier, but it's very cold out and my painting place isn't too well ventilated, so I went with the lesser fumes. I do use some fume-y stuff sometimes in winter, but this took me a little while to do, compared to the shorter bursts of working with things like a bit of Dirty Down or assembling models or whatnot.) I then carved up some of the putty areas to add some damage and weathering, and then some cheesecloth to a mace handle. (in hindsight, I shouldn't have dyed it yet due to it probably being hit by primer, but oh well. At least I see how the color looks.) Green stuff pictured in next bunch. 

From here, we did the other weathering passes. First with some AK corrosion texture to anyplace that seemed like it could be rusty, and then with some Vallejo Thick Mud to greaves and lower capes and armor and stuff. 

And the crew is now ready to prime! 

Part 2 soon, with the priming and drybrushing. Might go over the color choices then too, but I am still milling over a couple of those. 

(Bonus! I started to build a flail, though I'm not sure which yoke fiend is going to have this strapped to his back. Not primed yet because the green stuff isn't cured fully yet. Also I had decided to, after all, add some cheesecloth to one of the Hell Knights, since he had fewer embellishments. I think it looked pretty good in the end. I do have to prime him tomorrow morning, still, but hey. Also I am so thankful that I like skirmish and TTRPGs the most. If I had to hand prime and entire army I might walk into the sea.) 

Grimdark, "Black Metal" Rat Ogors, Part 3: The Ice Rat, Progress(kinda) Blog!

 I realized I never posted like, a progress blog. Actually it's gonna be a little hard to post one here because I forgot to take pictures of him besides the initial drybrush, but I can at least show that one. 

Disclaimer to those who don't know: I'm a relative noob with some paintbrushes and not some expert or teacher, so take any of this stuff at your own risk. I'm just showing off what I cobble together. 

I started with a drybrush zenithal deal over black primer. I did a dark grey and then a very light grey over it. I'm not using many speedpaints(I do use some for effects, though), but I do this mostly to get an idea of where I'm putting stuff. I kitbashed on some chains and barbed wire before this, though I might be adding one or two more things before he's done. I also added some AK corrosion texture to the metal parts. 

Then I did some underpainting on the skin with Blanched Berry from the John Blanche set. I wanted the skin to have a bit of a purplish tint at first underneath(it's going to have some frostbitten parts later, near the edges especially.) I brushed on some thinned Dark Rust(also from AP) all over the metal, because rat ogors are not smart lads and don't really maintain their equipment. I then drybrushed Heavy Metal over it(also from the John Blanche set), and then added Grim Rust(from the same set). I'll be doing more stuff with that later on. Some of the metals(that are hard to see in this pic) are done with Vallejo's Aged Metal drybrushed over an underpaint of Abyssal Blue and a wash of Verdigris to make it more like bronze. 

Now, in a "draw the rest of the owl" moment because I didn't take any pictures between then and now, I did a basecoat of Ironclad Grey(the JB set again), with a touch of Uniform Grey, before adding a mix of Grey Castle and Dusty Skull to the fur. The skin was built up with Abyssal Blue, Phalanx Blue, and a touch of Barbarian Flesh, and the claws done with Dusty Skull. The eye is Fiery Vermilion(JB set my beloved) and the nose area is Moldy Wine. Then the whole thing was washed in Grimdark Shadow wash(JB set), because I really want to try to sell the frostbite look to some parts of him, plus I really dig the color it turns everything. When it comes to grimdark stuff I really like the unifying washes(I don't use them on everything; some figures I only use them on a couple of small parts, but when I do the particularly grimdark style stuff, I quite like them.)

After that dried, I did a small drybrush and did the fur part again(mostly the longer fur) with some Dusty Skull; this is going to get the slightest hint of ivory for a dirty white. The skin got a drybrush of Phalanx Blue mixed with Ice Yellow and a touch of Barbarian Flesh to keep it with a more sickly look. I also started taking some Grimdark Shadow and Brownish Decay to fill in some of the parts I want to resemble frostbite. 

The next session I started to make the skin look frosty and rime-covered by using a mix of Ivory White(JB) Fenrisian Grey(Citadel) and Skeleton Bone, and also did a bit of rime-covering on the fur. Then using Brownish Decay speedpaint I started adding the 'frostbitten' effects near where the skin meets the fur in the torn parts. This gets a few covers. Drybrushed on some of that 'rime' mixture to the armor, chains, and wire too(more will be done at the end, along with a bit of work with AK's icy effects.) Also added more rust, started trying to darken the rust a bit, and added in more odds and ends like some verdigis. Decided to make his kilt-thing dark brown leather and the belt red leather to counteract all the cool colors, threw down a basic basecoat on those without  weathering yet. Also started on the warpstone. It looks flat right now since it's just the base tracing of it, going to be adding the effects and everything. I'm deciding on what color to make the tubes. Making them a similar green to the warpstone could look cool(I did that with the first rat, whom I affectionately call 'Filthgrinder'), but I'm still debating. I just painted the one in a basecoat to see how I felt. I might decide to make it another color. 

I am definitely buying Dirty Down Rust next week when I take my trip to the other hobby store. 

This session was more refining of various parts. Weathering the leather kilt(also distressing it physically, scratching the actual surface of that and the belt), using buildups of the previous colors(Blanched Berry and Brigandine Brown) mixed with more and more Grey Castle and Skeleton Bone. Washed it all with a slightly medium'd Desolate Brown wash(and the belt with Dark Red Tone), I use a messy-bristled brush to give it a less 'neat' look building up a little more.  This is a rather stupid lad who again, does not really take care of his stuff. 

Started to do some extremely careful use of Brigandine Brown around the cracks in the skin and added shading to the warpstone along with more effects. Painted the tubes green, but washed it in a slightly diluted Grimdark Shadow for an oily look(might actually come back with some oil stains tomorrow.) Fixed up more rime effects with the same mix as above and generally just refined more. Tweaked the chain since I have a plan for the skeleton for the base and he'll be wearing barbed wire around his neck, which I primed up(unpictured.) 

Today I started the base(no pictures of that yet, I'll grab one tomorrow before I do more of it and post it in a series, managed to get the cork glued and the Vallejo mud paste on it, along with some other bits. Want it to dry overnight, then will prime it up. 

Also to the ratboy, added the start of some blood effects, and his barbed wire/chain necklace with some severed heads. Was a little busy, so that's all I got done(besides a speed-painted little mimic I had been working on on the side while things dried, just a dungeon piece/enemy). The spike on the foot is getting trimmed off, since he's gonna get pinned to the base given the position. 

And almost done! A couple pics of the base in progress, followed by an almost-done fellow. He still needs some touch-ups, the 'altar' at the side needs a little fixing, and just some refining, along with painting the rim and varnishing. I used AK icy crystals and Citadel Valhallan Blizzard, along with Army Painter's snow effect mixed up to get a variety of snow types. Painted the wood in Brownish Decay(with a drybrush mix of frosty blue colors and bony white over top), along with some Battlefield Grey to give some gentle blue hue to things. True Blood touched up the gory stuff and did the glue stringy trick on the hand. (As for the parts, it's some modeling chain, cocktail sticks, some basing resin skulls, and some stuff from outside. Made the trappings from some 3D printed little cups and candlesticks and painted them in bronze with some verdigris.)

And here we have the completed model, after fixing up a few odds and ends, like adding a quasi 'hand of glory' to the inverted cross and fixing up some of the ice and such. This one was a lot of fun. I love doing ice-themed stuff. And we also follow up of the picture of all 3 together finally! 

The 'trinkets'(read: chains, wire, heads, etc), I can imagine, when I'm thinking of the 'story' of the piece which I like to do, despite being on the low end of the Int-scale(I would think these guys might be around a 5 or so on the AD&D scale and I'm being kinda generous), they *are* also rats, and rats like shiny things. IN their cases, they like chains, skulls and other death trophies, and sure, maybe the inverted crosses looked cool. I mean they could be in Warhammer, why not. 

Imagine if these guys ended up in a portal that threw them across universes into Trench Crusade and they're like, the Heretics' new war wolf additions or something, or creations of the Court of the Seven-Headed Serpent, in their cursed factories. 

Anyway, while I'm far from being some high-end painter given I only have a few months under my belt, I thought it would be fun to do a process blog. I will keep pushing to see how much a six-month improvement looks when it's time! (Which will be the end of March! Though I'll be blogging more before that.) 

'Til next time!