Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy (update w/Kroxigor Conversion)

Hello All,
I figured I would share the work on my new Lizardman army. I build most of the army and I am starting the arduous task of painting the whole thing. I figured I would share some of my conversions as well as the work in the painting process. Here goes!

BSB
First off my BSB. This is the TG standard with bits from the Steg sprue and a bunch of skulls. I plan on doing the same 'skull treatment' to my EoTG. This will be all metallics, mostly gold.






Oldblood
This guy is simply Chakax on a molded base but with Kroq-Gar’s head. It actually fits pretty well.






Skink Standards
They are both just regular skinks with standards made of bits of the Steg sprue. The more square one is chopped from the EoTG throne bit.






Skink Musicians
Again, regular skinks but with the horns taken from the High Elf spearmen sprues. The fit is pretty good, but I did a crap job at cutting the hole in the front of the horn.






Skink Priest
This is the little Skink priest from the EoTG with a molded base and a swap to be holding up some shrunken heads that were taken from the Saurus Cav sprues. Simple yet effective.






Saurus Cavalry Champ A
I wanted to use the new Dark Elf cold ones since they are so wicked looking. Since I had bought a pack of DE Knights I figured I would use some other bits from them in the conversion, mainly their lance tips. I also used bits from the Steg and Saurus Cav sprues to decorate the reins. I have a full unit of 5 that are converted along these lines.






Saurus Cavalry Champ B
I always liked the looks of the Godzilla style cold ones and I wanted to have two distinct units of cav. The only change here is that I drilled in the back-flags, I really like that look, and in the weapon. It’s one of the ‘lances’ from the Chaos Knights sprue. I plan to fill the gap in the cold one's neck that become super evident after priming him.





Soon I will post up more conversions, esp the EoTG when it's done, as well as some paint work.

Enjoy!

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

Hello All,
I figured I would share the work on my new Lizardman army. I build most of the army and I am starting the arduous task of painting the whole thing. I figured I would share some of my conversions as well as the work in the painting process. Here goes!

Skink Skirmishers Paint Scheme
I was looking around the net for a simple paint scheme and came across one done by the guys at Ibis Miniatures. You can look them up if you like. Anyway, the idea is simple. Paint them in a base coat of white, bleached bone, goblin green, mithril silver, and some other accent colors, and then apply the Medium Tone dip from Army Painter. I do this with a brush rather than a quick dip and shake. A unit of 10 takes about 2.5 hours to complete, with a 24 hour drying period (this doesn’t include basing, which isn’t complete in these images.













I am pretty happy with the results and will post up my Lizardmen next which will start tonight.

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

Looks good, I'm not a fan of how the dip ended up but ya, that's probably just me.
Just one small note, the DE cold one, it looks awkward.

Cheers!

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

I think your painting skills are very good, I'm glad we'll get to see different units up close and such. I look forward to seeing more.

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

This was my 1st foray into dipping. I like the wet look for the lizzies. As you can see from my Dwarf plog below, I usually do multiple coats, highlighting, shading etc. I will probably do the more traditional route for my heroes in this army, and still apply the dip after to keep consistent with the gloss wet look.

Honestly, this up close the skinks look fairly 'meh' but on the table so far I like the look a lot. Once they are based I will take a longer full shot of them all on the table. I am looking forward to seeing this on a larger model.

As to the DE Cold One being awkward. You think it just looks bizarre with the guy on in? I chopped a fair bit off the original saddle. Maybe I should have taken off more. Hmm? Do you think that would improve it?

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

I can understand that it looks 'meh' up close, mostly everything bar master-pieces do.
The thing I don't like too much is the shadows, they're inconsistent on some places. But they're skinks after all, no one will really pay much attention to the shadows on the table...
Nothing wrong overall though.

The cold one rider looks awkward purely because of the saurus's saddle kind of looking like it's levitating above the cold one.
If you manage to push him down a bit further it'll look great.

Cheers!

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

Wonderful conversions and what hellbreaker says regarding the saddle position is quite correct. However I must add that regarding the old cold ones - just say NO! Those models are simply nothing when compared to the detailed beauty of the new DE ones.

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

I absolutely LOVE the DE cold one conversions. How exactly did you get them to fit?

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

Nice work overall, some really cool looking models.

I second (third?) the comment about the white areas on the model. I suggest either trying a darker dip colour, or just giving them a second coat. They look very pale and somewhat undetailed, but of course it could be because the photo is so high resolution. I'm sure they look better on the tabletop. I think with some darker and deeper shadows they will look better though.

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

I just clipped the high parts of the saddle and filed the crap out of it to get it as low as I could, when I was tired I gave up and just put the dude on it. I will probably go back it to get it flush, given that it does look a little odd. On the table from above, it looks fine. From a low angle you can see the imperfection of it.

It's a costly conversion. If you can buy the cold ones as bits on eBay, or trade up with a DE player you'd most certainly save some coin.

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

Here are some more images from the army’s progression...

Saurus Test
First off, I applied the same painting style, with the dip, to a Saurus as a test, and went with Hawk Turquoise over the Goblin Green. I am pretty happy with the result. I also took the advice of going heavier with the dip application to get greater shadows on the lighter parts of the model. Here are the results. I have to do up the shield and base him still.









Saurus Cavalry Unit
Here is the full Saurus Cavalry unit that is riding the DE cold ones. You will notice that some are better molded together than others. It was hard to get a consistent result on the conversion for me so far. I like the added touch of the lizardmen bits on the reins over the DE bits. The other change is the swap of the spear heads with DE lance tips. The standard also has some extra bits glued to it, nothing special though.





















Saurus Champion
I had some extra TGs so I used one as my unit champ for my Saurus big block. I just shortened the weapon, but added the back flags from the cavalry sprue. I find these back flags to really be cool looking and help keep characters standing out from the rest of a unit.



Old Blood On Carnosaur
For this guy I just head swapped with the Chakax model (who’s skull head I love) and cut the spear tip from the back and replaced it with a dino-head ornament from my bits pile. It’s a shame the Chakax head looks down so much, but it looks like he is going to ram someone.







That’s all for now. As I get more painting and basing done I will put up some updates. I am also going large EoTG conversion using the metal BSB banner and Tenehuain as the priest. It’s still in the early stages, but I am excited about the possible outcome. Thanks for checking this stuff out!

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

Wow I really like the contrast of colors on the saurus and skink, though its a bit hard to see the teeth on the saurus.

Those DE cold ones make me want to drool...No fair that ours are only like 30% as cool as those are. I guess their strange underground-cave breed are more awesome looking for some unknown genetic reason. Oh no, wait...GW is just retarded....

Seems like you also use alot of random bits to make your standards, and I don't see how you can destroy an EoTG chair and the howdah just to make banners!! Maybe its just cause I'm not made of money...

Your conversions are great, keep up the good work...

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

First, thanks for the kind words. Maybe I will also apply more dip on the mouth areas.

Second, I ended up getting a great deal on 3-Steg package on eBay for like 25$ a steg. I'm making 2 EoTG and an Ancient Steg with the twin blowguns. I just can't justify the 3BS for one shot with the giant bow, I am just not that lucky on one-die rolls and thusly passing on the normal steg. So I end up with loads of extra bits. Those boxes are stacked to the hilt with stuff, I love them!


ALSO, here is a comparison from the base paint job I did and then the application of the dip. It really cuts down painting time especially if you are in a rush to get an army on the table...

Dip Example Comparison




Note, the dip on the shield is still wet, freshly applied...

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

[quote="Arsenal] I ended up getting a great deal on 3-Steg package on eBay for like 25$ a steg.[/quote]

You b@st@rd...

Lol, I'm just playin'. Thats a really lucky deal, and I can see your using those bits well. Keep painting, I'm really enjoying your painting schemes and I even made a skink priest Albino to semi-match your skink skirmishers.

Later...

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

Here is where I got the original inspiration to under take this army. Sadly I can't claim this look as being original at all, but I am changing a bit to not be a total clone. Heh.

http://ibisminiatures.com/page8.htm

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

Looks really good for such a simple and fast technique, good work. I'm liking the saurus with the slightly darker shade of dip, I would be tempted to go a little bit darker still but thats just me. The details are starting to show nicely now.

some pretty cool conversions, and very nice photography skills. You are rather snap-happy.

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

Thanks for the tips on going darker. I think it works as well. It's actually the same shade of dip, just more liberally applied.

Also, as for all the pics, I love to browse hammer paitning forums and see peoples work nice and high res. I guess I am just catering to folks like myself. hehe.

More to come soon. Hoping to get some basing detail on the skinks and get some shots up this weekend.

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

I approve of this line.

Now the shades look MUCH better to me, almost perfect, for my own odd tastes of course...
The blue works well too, nothing that I can possibly claim as bad, except the DE cold ones... But i'm going to shut up about those and enjoy people who actually paint their armies!
-looks at self-
>:

Keep on, keep it up and inspire the newer painters among us with your effort.

Cheers!

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

Cool stuff, can't wait to see more!

 

Re: The Legion of Abraxas - IMG Heavy

Hello again. Here is a little update now with the skink unit based and complete, and the saurus unit, with full command, with everything done but the basing.

Based & Completed Skinks
I did my 1st attempt at the 'reeds' effect with some twisted up tall grass. It came out ok but I want to try without twisting it so much in the next go.







The Painted Saurus Champion
He is just an extra TG mini with a shortened weapon, and the back poles from the cavalry sprue.





Painted Musician and Standard Bearer
The musician is a Saurus using the drum and arms from the TG sprues. I hid the difference in the arm sizes with the shoulder pad bits. The rest is all standard.





The Full Painted Unit
Here is the full painted unit. All together I am happy with the results. I just need to base them and get a based movement tray for the lot of em.





More updates soon & all comments and tips welcome! Thanks!

Oh, and by the way, what should I paint next? The chameleons, a steg, or the cold cone cav?