Blog emptyscale's war against the grey.

Hello to the cold blooded. I'll be using this thread to post various WIPs and finished things. I have a lot of Fantasy stuff to paint but I can keep this thread limited to Lizardmen for the sake of focus.

Right now my hobby goals are:

• (having written some 1K and 2K lists for 8th) To paint up all the models in those lists to at least a nice tabletop standard.
• Paint the starter set models from the 5th Ed boxset
• Paint up the IoB models
• Make some more terrain for WHFB. Enough for a Lustrian board and enough for an Old World board

So for starters I've got a slightly old photo of my Saurus Warriors



The only new thing for these guys since the photo is that they have an MDF movement tray to replace the terrible one I made as a place holder, and importantly for the love of metal standards it is magnetised (praise be whichever of the Old Ones is patron of magnets). Once the starter Skinks are washed and highlighted I'll finish the basing on all three units with some fancy Lustrian sawdust but otherwise I think these are finished (Anything that looks like it glaringly needs an upgrade? I think the gold is a bit better under other lighting conditions).

First unit of starter Skinks.



These guys aren't finished yet, they still need washes and more highlights but I finally painted on the yellow scales. I have another unit which needs the scales added and then I can finish these up. I know the starter boxes didn't have metal command models but they are too cool not to add.

For the army colour scheme I'm going to have the Saurus, Skinks and Kroxigors as different shades of green using yellow and blue as secondary colours. The other dinosaur models will be a chance to add in some other colour choices.

emptyscale said:

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Beautiful work! The contrast between the blue/green scales and the bright yellow feathers are fantastic!

emptyscale said:

Right now my hobby goals are:

• (having written some 1K and 2K lists for 8th) To paint up all the models in those lists to at least a nice tabletop standard.
• Paint the starter set models from the 5th Ed boxset
• Paint up the IoB models
• Make some more terrain for WHFB. Enough for a Lustrian board and enough for an Old World board

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Looking forward to seeing the 5th edition box set painted up!

When your done please post a picture of the whole group together with the old box!

I've been working on some non-Lizard Fantasy stuff recently, hexwraiths, daemonettes, etc. But I did find the time to put the washes on a skink priest and wash and highlight a chief.





They're sitting in the cohort that is still waiting for its washes and highlights because these guys are my test cases for going forwards. For the chief I extended the scale coverage and got a chance to see how the painted scales will look with the modern skinks who have modeled scales for this model the scales were painted after the green wash and re-highlighting of the green. The priest is still waiting for highlights but already has scales so I'm going to see if bluring them in a little with green highlights will improve the shape, and if washing them over with a yellow shade and applying a new layer of scales will help them look more organic on the model.

I also built 3 old style slamanders and 5 5th edition Terradons, filled them in with a bit of greenstuff and put the foundation layer of paint on them, hopefully I'll finish them up 'soonish' and can post them. I've also got a couple of Stegadons at about the same stage.

Question for those of you wise in the ways of old metal Temple Guard.



It bugs me how they look on the diagonal bases, but the parallel bases I bought causes them to bump tails and not rank up. I know I've seen some pics of them based so they face forwards, does anyone know the best way to do it? I'm a little leery of just cutting the slots off of metal models because the slots are so good for keeping them on the base.

Excellent, love your green skinks!

Working on getting my Salamanders and handlers finished this week. The one with the orange isn;t finished yet, I just need to get the other two to that stage before moving on.

Ok I think the Salamanders themselves are finished, once I get the handlers done I can post a picture of them to Itza as my first entry













I painted the thagomizers on the tail the same way as the spikey axes on my classic saurus. I imagine skinks gather them from slain salamanders to craft them into axes.

I'm also planning to do a similar swampy style base on my Kroxigors, though I might need to get a new bottle of the Green Stuff World UV resin I was trying out for this.



I'm also hoping to finish up my two Stegadons soonish but I'm going to switch to HE spears after I finish the Salamander handlers so they are behind them in the queue (unless I get really sick of painting white robes).

Beautiful work on those Salamanders! The sails and scales turned out so vibrant, really like how you painted them

Thanks, the greens and blue left them a little closer to the Saurus and what I want for the Kroxigors than I had planned. Hopefully that won't hurt my other dinos like the Stegs, Carnosaur, Terradons and cold ones when I paint them with different colour schemes. I am really chuffed with the sails though. I kept putting them off because I didn't think I'd be able to get what I was imagining without it looking awkward but I think it integrated fairly well.

I've finished up the handlers now and a unit of javelin skinks (just have to do the basing but if I do then I can't spray them with ardcoat later, but they are probably small enough to be fine despite being metal)

To celebrate I set up a little mock game and played against my High Elves who are probably next on the queue for painting stuff.

The Ziggurat is still not finished but I wanted to test it practically as a terrain piece and I think it worked and made for a nice climatic final battle for the game. It definitely needs a little filler on the lowest level and then to be painted up in brushed grey like the upper two. Then I think the icons should be painted to be colourful, maybe a set of steps should be added as a removable piece, and some overgrowth added as the jungle tries to reclaim the stone. I'll definitely be re-reading Nick Davis' classic terrain article in WD223 a few times while finishing this up.

Firstly, wonderful to see more of those old school Lizardmen! Those salamanders are cool.

Secondly, I have had similar troubles with the temple guards. I had a hard time getting them to rank up facing forward, but I solved it by carefully sorting out which ones fit in front/behind each other while also twisting some tails. I did not have to cut the slots. It was a procedure but it was worth it in the end. I have the finished unit here: https://lustria-online.com/threads/walters-paint-log-5th-edition-lizardmen.24273/

With that said I hope it works out in the end.

That sounds like a really good idea. Not to mention the first pic in your link is a really nice looking set of old school Kroxigors. I'm definitely going to have to read your whole blog for some ideas and tips

emptyscale said:

That sounds like a really good idea. Not to mention the first pic in your link is a really nice looking set of old school Kroxigors. I'm definitely going to have to read your whole blog for some ideas and tips

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Thank you! I really like those old school Kroxigors, and it is awesome that you have so many of them! Will you play with all 15 Kroxigors in a unit? Very excited to see the end result.

I've written up a couple of speculative lists for them in the 750 point unit. A friend and I said a bunch of years ago that we'd play a battle with the many Kroxigors against their O&G army that I had just traded some trolls I'd painted too. Maybe we'll get to do that in the future

One of the things that was letting my photos down last time I set up the lizards was the unfinished ziggurat so I've done a bit more work on it. Filling in some of the gaps on the lowest level and painting it from foam grey to drybrushed paint greys.


Just waiting for the decorations to dry and I'll attach them. Then after that I was going to add a splash of colour to the glyphs. I was thinking the Slann faces could be themed around the 8 colours of magic and the nipple looking discs set up as rising and setting suns. Then it is just a case of adding on some overgrowth and possibly making a set up steps for it.

Edit: Got the discs painted up and they are gluing onto the lower level now. Hopefully they'll stick alright since I'm using PVA rather than hot glue (which would probably have worked better)

I snapped a couple of pics of them laid out since they are now distributed across four facings.

I took a couple of pictures of the zig the other day.



I still want to add on some foliage and maybe a base to the bottom. I'm also thinking of changing the top band of icons to solid gold rather than worn down colours.

I did setup my game board to see how it looked in its element but I was distracted by the jungle coverage feeling too sparse so I've been turning some more of my unused AoS bases into jungle terrain. All I need now is for the water effect to dry fully and the new plants I ordered to arrive so I can stick them in.

Very nice work, I love your jungle parts and the small terrain features.
The Ziggurat looks promising, good areas to play on

Keep up the good work.

Grrr, Imrahil

emptyscale said:

I took a couple of pictures of the zig the other day.

I still want to add on some foliage and maybe a base to the bottom. I'm also thinking of changing the top band of icons to solid gold rather than worn down colours.

I did setup my game board to see how it looked in its element but I was distracted by the jungle coverage feeling too sparse so I've been turning some more of my unused AoS bases into jungle terrain. All I need now is for the water effect to dry fully and the new plants I ordered to arrive so I can stick them in.

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Your scenery pieces are amazing. Really natural looks to them.

Otherwise, keep going wtih your models! You're really making a beautiful army!

Thanks. The ziggurat is still showing the joins a bit more than I'd like but I think once it gets some sand, flock and vines on that it will get disguised. I just want to put it on the table and use it in some test games before I fill it up with details that look cool but limit the use as a game piece.

I'll post a picture of the table set up when I get the plastic plants.

This week I've been cutting up A4 sheets of 3mm MDF to act as forest bases. I've already got my jungle base stands but moving them to accomodate models during the game makes it hard to tell where the forest actually is. I've used 5 of them to act as a footprint for Lustrian jungle, the other 5 will be for temperate (OW) forests once I get the trees for them.



I'm also really close to having a nice terrain setup with two nearly finished 2,000 point armies to play with. I played this out as a dummy game since I haven't played anything for a while.

emptyscale said:

This week I've been cutting up A4 sheets of 3mm MDF to act as forest bases. I've already got my jungle base stands but moving them to accomodate models during the game makes it hard to tell where the forest actually is. I've used 5 of them to act as a footprint for Lustrian jungle, the other 5 will be for temperate (OW) forests once I get the trees for them.

I'm also really close to having a nice terrain setup with two nearly finished 2,000 point armies to play with. I played this out as a dummy game since I haven't played anything for a while.

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Are those your Rot Flies?!?

Yes, they need a small amount of work done on them to finish, just the colour blending on the claws and a layer of the legs, the rotted heads are just a flat Rakarth colour right now and the riders should get a small amount of Nurgles rot and then they are done.



I made extensive use of colour shift paints from GSW for my daemons so they can look a bit different depending on the light and angles, and largely metallic with the flash on.

They are as awful to rank up as they are super cool.