Blog Janf's Painting Blog

Really like your temple guard. I have a set of five of those guys (no champion though), your do look incredible. Perfectly painted

Also like your background choices

 

Thanks a lot @Warden! I'm glad you like them. The champion is my favourite, such a cool pose There's actually a cute little lizard at his feet but it may be hard to see on the pictures.

 

Here is the group shot as promised! A lot of blue skin, skulls and jungle plants! I'm quite happy with the result. The match with my friend is tomorrow so they are done just in time (I'm glad I decided not to paint all 20!). Now I can only hope that The Old Ones will guide me to victory

 

Very cohesive and well painted unit you have there certainly worth stealing....I shall commence plans ...I get ahead of myself - (I joke) they are super cool

 

I thought that was a rock! Upon closer inspection it is an awesome little lizard, with brilliant camo capabilities!
The unit looks amazing! Your opponent should be scared!

 

@SlanntaClause
First my missing Lord Kroak and now you plan on kidnapping my temple guard aswell! The Old Ones will not be pleased learning of your villainous plans for their servants

 

@Bowser
Haha it does look a bit like a little camo rock! Or maybe a new chameleon skink baby on the rise!

 

So I'm just looking at my newly finished models and their awesome skull helmets. Then the thought struck me, is there any lore reason at all why they are wearing them? I've read all of the Lizardmen's army books and all their lore, but I do not recall reading about a reason behind these skulls.

Do any of you know of a reason? Or are they simple just there because they look super badass (a perfectly likely explanation)?

 

I think it's just super badass, but might be the skulls of great warriors from their spawning pool or temple city. A way to keep the dead warriors in the battle.

 

I like the idea @Bowser! And it would make some sense lore wise considering the Lizardmen mummifies and keeps their dead Slann masters. It wouldn't be too far of a stretch thinking they would keep the skulls (or maybe whole skeletons) of their great champions/ warriors aswell. Cool thought even though there may not be anything official

 

From the 8th Edition Lizardmen army book, page 55, Chakax's special rules:



Even though he is a special character with special rules, the idea seems to be inline with what you are discussing. It can be assumed that it is applicable to regular temple guard as well.

 

Yeah I was going to say this same thing @NIGHTBRINGER you beat me too it

 

Hmm... I thought that it were skulls of little stegadons back in fifth edition... Or were that the skink priests' masks?... Maybe "belongs to" means it was his helmet... Not his skull...
But the idea of the dead warriors still supporting their brothers after giving their lives for the great plan sounds nicely fitting for lizardmen...

 

Didn't know this one! Must have missed it.

There was an old rule/magic item? called the Sacred Stegadon helm, but now that I think about it a full grown stegadon helm would be a bit much for a normal sized lizardman to carry around.

 

Thank you @NIGHTBRINGER! This was exactly the proof I needed It seems very likely now that all of the helmets of the Temple Guard are from previous warriors. I really like the idea

@tom ndege
The 5th edition skink priest is really cool. Here the skull does look a bit different and could very well resemble that of a baby stegadon

@Warden
I'd love to see a skink priest putting on the skull of a full grown stegadon! It should grant him +1 armor save and 0 MA since he wouldn't be able to move

 

Here a picture of the fifth editon temple guard... The helmets look quite similar to the skink priests' ones... Maybe I was righter than I thought I was...

 

You're totally right @tom ndege. They look pretty much exactly the same as the skink priest's skull. I have to go back to the 5th army book and give it a read again. See if I can find anything about the helmets there. It does look more like a skull from a small stegadon/ ceratopsian dinosaur than a Saurus Temple guard. Especially considering the Saurus warriors of 5th edition had very different shaped heads than those of the later editions. They basically were just round and the skull therefore wouldn't quite fit the skulls they would have had... Hmm...
This is interesting. It could be that it was just a coolness factor in 5th and then was changed and brought into the lore... After all the Lizardmen went through quite a big change from 5th to 6th edition!
Who knows.
I really appreciate all the inputs of you fellow members!

 

A small update and a Skink!
My match this weekend went great. My friend won the first battle and I won the second. We had a lot of fun and my Temple Guard served me very well indeed
After the TG project I really wanted to paint a character as it's been a long time since I painted anything else but troops for regiments. I had a Skink Chief laying around just primed, so I picked him up and started painting. I finished him about an hour ago and I'm really happy with the result. I've done my best to highlight the skin and gold (The gold is hard to see in the picture. Maybe because a use a lighter gold as highlight instead of the more eye catching silver...). I had a lot of fun painting the little lizard, snake and frog that sits on him. I've tried making patterns on them. I'm only not quite pleased with his left pupil. It became more of a dot than a line. The right pupil went a little better I had some trouble with the lighting but hopefully he's visible enough on the pictures!





I hope you like him!

 

The little lizard stands out well on him - some paintings i've seen almost blend them into the models and you loose the detail but you've handled it nicley same with some of the other detials its a nice job for sure

 

Thank you @SlanntaClause!