Blog Scalenex's Paint Log and Fluff Piece Index

Re: Scalenex's Paint Log

Here is my entry for the Skinkathalon.



This is the first model I ever really tried to base and I'm hooked. I used some Lustrian Undergrowth from GW mixed with some dark blue, medium brown for the main coat of the water then drybrushed it with two successively lighter colors then I used a liberal quantity of gloss varnish to give it the wet look.

I plan to incorporate this basing technique into half of my zombies (the back half of units) to give the impression of a column of zombies marching out of swamp. I worried before that my non-Lizardmen zombies would look out of place in integrated units. I am fairly confident that swampy humans well be a good aesthetic fit. I already know interspersing human zombies between Skinks will help the models rank up more conveniently.

I'm working on getting all my prior finished zombies based. Well post pictures of all my swamp zombies together soon after finishing it.

In a related event, I'm trying to decide what color scheme to use for my undead army. The predominant color is dead flesh but a lot of the units have armor, clothes and banners and I'd prefer a unified color scheme (the flesh tones give me enough variety). I am ruling out blue and green since those are the main colors of my LM army. I'm ruling out brown, black, and grey because they don't stand out from my muddy swampy overtones enough. I'm leaning towards orange. Maybe Orange and purple. Any aesthetic advice before I start painting my zombie Standard Bearer? Milan did not inform me what color the fashionable zombies are wearing this year.

 

Re: Scalenex's Paint Log

How about something with yellow? Like a dirty old run down kind of yellow. It fits your skink's color.
In terms of armour there is also rusty metallic armour, which could also be applied to the standard bearer with a little imagination. You could make the rust in a sort of orange color?

Alternatively you could post a picture of the specific standard bearer which might make it easier to suggest a color

 

Re: Scalenex's Paint Log

Here's my Standard Bearer. A converted Saurus. Note I am thinking all future standard bearers will use the same color scheme as the first whatever I end up choosing.



And here is what 16 based zombies look like (okay 12 and a unit filler). I have five more Skink zombies in the pipe line and another unit filler almost done. Then I'm going to switch to human zombies for a while and see how well they look in mixed units when painted.

I need to experiment with non-swamp basing and start working on my basing my older models (and I'll eventually want some dry land zombies). That and giving my Saurus warriors shields, that's long overdue.

 

Re: Scalenex's Paint Log

Long time no post. I made about a dozen Warrior Caste Skinks and Blue Sauri with Yellow spots but they look just like the olds ones so there is little reason to post them. I also assembled my Troglodon, but I haven't painted it yet. It still looks impressive as it's much larger than everything else on myself.

I created a second Skink zombie filler, not as intricate as the last one, but I got this one done a lot faster now that I know the basic techniques.



Here's my newest finished work. Human zombies with swamp bases.



I used a fairly simple color scheme. Pale skin, brown clothes. Some exposed bones and wounds. Black wash to bring out detail and a deliberately uneven splotching of green wash was used to give them an emerged from the swamp look. I used a rusted metal painting technique I read from a guide on Carpe Noctern. Glob some metal paint on the model so it forms a bubble. When the skin of the bubble is dry, pop the bubble, then repeat the process. This creates a nice rough texture that you can dry brush rust on to easily. I'm going to try this with bronze later, but on the whole I like my bronze parts to be shiny to provide contrast for the model.

I think they look make a cohesive looking unit when grouped in with my Lizardmen zombies. Also humans help my Skink zombies rank up because the Skinks tend to have their tails and arms stick out forward and back but this rarely gets in a human's way. I have 25 fully finished and based zombies now.



My plan is to have roughly half of my zombies with swamp bases and roughly half with dry land bases. I'll put the back half in the swamp to give the imagery of emerging from a swamp onto dry land.

These four Skinks are finished except for the basing. I need to figure out a dry land basing that works well with the swamp.



Sadly I broke my Saurus zombie Standard Bearer while trying to adjust it so it wouldn't fall down. I decided I'm going to modify the Saurus into a regular zombie and figure out some other way to display my Standard. In addition to that Saurus, I have 13 human zombies over half painted, I should have them posted when they are done in about a week. I have a couple more Skinks, some goblins, and some Skaven in the zombie pipeline.

I've been experimenting with conversion techniques for adding small numbers of Dwarf units to my Empire army. I'll post those when I have enough done to show a decent photo. Fortunately if I REALLY mess up converting a dwarf I can move them to the zombie horde

I decided that I like Dark Elf Cold Ones so much better than ours that I'm putting all my Saurus riders on Dark Elf Cold Ones. But I'm a waste not want not person. I happen to loathe the official Vampire Counts dire wolves so I'm turning my Lizardmen Cold Ones into Zombie Cold Ones and plan to use them in place of Dire Wolves. Progress is slow. I have to add my usual post mortem wounds which isn't very hard, but Cold Ones require me to also remove any traces of the saddle and to green stuff spikes where the saddle was. I am fairly new on the green stuff sculpting thing but practice is the only way to get better.

On the plus side I'm having fun using a heat gun to warp and distort my Cold Ones in pleasing ways. I feel like Sid from Toy Story.

Here's my best looking WIP Zombie Cold One so far.



I plan to actually get my Corpse Cart finished this Summer (better late than never right?). I assembled the chassis and my friend who has scratch several Orc and Goblin chariots is going to make me some nice wooden wheels. I'm using the hard to find derpy cow-like Dark Elf Cold Ones for my Corpse Cart. Once I get a better feel for altering the common Lizardmen Cold Ones I'll feel confident to take on altering the centerpiece Cold Ones. Fortunately they don't have saddles to remove.

I also primed and assembled Lord Renliss. I'll try to squeeze in time to paint him by the end of this Summer too. Once I get him, the Coprse Cart, 80ish zombies and some "dire wolves" I'll be about where I want to be to field a complete Storm of Magic Vampire Counts Pact force.

I have a huge to-do list, but I'm doing my best to focus on small complete-able projects. My kit bashed Abyssal Terror, Zombie Stegadon, Empire Bear Knights, the Quatlixa will have to wait.

I'll keep you guys posted here.

 

Re: Scalenex's Paint Log

I started work on several Quatlixa (stunted Sauri turned into ghouls by necromantic magic). I even made a last minute entry of some of the converstions into Carpe Noctern's Golden Bat competition.

I'll see about investing in a better camera so I can take some non-blurry pictures for a change. I should have a small number of painted Quatlixa and zombie Cold Ones to show soon. I also painted a (living) few Sotek caste Skinks.

My proudest recent WHF achievements are fiction related. I won the Underempire May-June Short Story Contest. I plan to enter the August-September one too. More than that though I wrote Legacies not long ago. Possibly my favorite LM fluff piece yet, but don't take MY word for it. Listen to these reputable sources.

"Best Story so far, best character definition" - Spawning of Bob

"Some of us minor named characters survived." - Choltehe Priest of the Stars

"I don't mind being unsure up until now." - Spawning of Bob

"What a great site! If you want to save lots of money on kitchen cabinets, try our website!" - - Spam Robot

"WHAT? Is that it ? NOOOOOOOOOO!" - Spawning of Bob

 

Re: Scalenex's Paint Log

I just posted Dead Water

I'm working on two more fluff pieces, don't when I'll have them finished.

Anyway this technically is a painting log, and I do have some newly painted and converted models (not as many as I should have done in the past few months, but some). I'll post them as soon as I can borrow my friend's light box and perhaps a non-blurry camera.

 

Makes sense, perhaps that friend of mine should plan to host a hobby night, or at least tell his other friends when he has a free evening.

 

I admit I haven't painted much in a long time. Admittedly I went on a modeling freeze in response to doomsaying about 9th edition rumors. Then Age of Sigmar did not thrill me. But hey, Kings of War is working on a scaly army. I can use my stuff for Oldhammer, AoS or KoW.

Here are the latest newly finished models, two Skink chiefs/Skirmisher unit champions and five Sotek Skink archers. I think I have six archers n this new batch but I couldn't find the sixth when I was taking a picture. I know it's not much but it's something.

They look very similar to my first Sotek caste Skinks but these are a miniscule shade darker. I mixed a bit of dark green in with the base coat on the rank and file and the two unit champions were primed in black instead of white as an experiment (well more that the used models I bought were already primed than an experiment).



I have two Salamanders that are finished except for the basing.

Now it's all about the base, 'bout the base, no circles!

I also started working on swamp basing for all my beast caste Skinks, my two old Salamanders and my two new ones. It occurred to me before I make the basing I should pin my Sallies legs to the base because I had to reglue my first two Sallies to the base several times after hauling them around. When I just painted my bases Goblin Green touchup was easy, but now that I'm gravitating towards textured bases I better have them secure. Hopefully I'll have that done fairly soon.

Then the next step is to finish work on my motley assortment of half painted Skaven, Human, Skink zombies and Saurus zombies. Then we'll see what I feel like doing from there.

Also been working on the Quatlixa, aka Saurus ghouls. My prototype Quatlixa look pretty good but the conversions are very fragile. I've had to replace spikes enough times I need a more permanent solution before I slap paint on them, especially the curlier spikes. I'm not a fan of the process of pinning but I think I need to build my spike sculpts around pins or resign myself to models weaker than glass.







I am actually making two Lord Renliss models, one on foot one on an Abyssal Terror. With lots of imagination you can see what I'm going for. I cut the base off my "spare" Renliss figure.



Here's my base material. A small Reaper Bones Dragon and some wings snatched from a Reaper bones demon named Ral-something





I'm going for a Frankenstein monster look. I want a monster stitched together from dead dinosaurs and mutants. My original plan of using Crypt Horror arms is a no-go. They are too small even if small is what I'm going for. Also I'm open to suggestions on what would be a good head swap for the Abyssal Terror.

I'm also working on my most ambitious fluff piece ever. I don't know if it will be my best, but it certainly turning into my most time consuming one. Hopefully I'll start posting it in a month.

 

Okay I haven't been setting a good example. I have a lot of barely started WIP models and I have even more on the sprue. I'll wait till they amount to something before I talk about them more.

I originally promised to get my Corpse Cart done in 2014, but now I'm going to do it for the Golden Serpent 2016, and there is a deadline to motivate to get off my butt.

So here's the chases of the Corpse Cart assembled exactly as every other Corpse Cart begins. To the left you see see some decapitated old school Cold Ones with post-mortem damage. To the right you see my Reaper witch doctor that's going to drive the Corpse Cart.

The chases and probably the bell or cauldron that sits in the back is all I plan to use of the original kit. The wtich doctor is replacing the normal driver. The Cold Ones are replacing the impaled human corpses. I haven't decided whether I want to impale my Cold Ones, give the a yoke or a fairly simple rope harness. Probably the latter.

The Iron shod wheels that come with the Corpse Cart box have to go. Not primitive enough for my Lustria Corpse Cart.

@eron12 helped me make some wooden wheels. By "helped me make" I actually mean "gave them to me in exchange for some bits he wanted for one of his own projects." I knew I wanted different wheels and when I saw Eron's scratch built Orc and Goblin chariots, I wanted those wheels.



This is actually slightly nicer than the wheels on Eron's greenskin chariots. The wheels are two layers of corks. The two bands are made of plasticard. The subtle nail/rivet effects are from him tapping the other side. Very ingenious innovation he came up with on our hobby night. Now that I have too excellent wheels the next phase is to attach a spoke. I haven't ruled out using the original spoke that came with the kit, but I'm thinking using a cut piece of wood will let me customize the width. I think I want the wheel span to be a little wider than the official model.

The most time consuming part will be altering a bunch of Skink and Saurus bits to looks like zombies writhing from a collective mass of corpses. But that part will be fun, I like converting zombies. I have some Skaven, Dwarf, Elf, and Human zombies supplementing my Lizardmen zombies but I'm thinking I'll go about a 50/50 mix of Skinks and Saurus. I have a spare Stegadon head but that won't fit. I don't want to put a Cold One in the cart when they are pulling it. A Kroxigor, Salamander, or Razordon torso-head combo in the cart would be awfully expensive bit. If someone suggests a really awesome idea I'll consider an exotic fiiller, but I'll stick with Skinks and Sauri for this one. I can branch out more for Corpse Cart #2 (since I have two extra zombified Cold Ones and another witch doctor waiting to be on Corpse Cart #2).

So that's the gist. If anyone has any ideas for flair let me know. Time permitting I may consider adding a banner (though I don't know Renliss' banner should look like. I also might try green stuffing a jaguar or Saurus pelt. The original Corpse Cart comes with various human heads on pikes. It will probably a simple manner to throw on a few Saurus or Skink heads on pikes.

I noticed relative to my newer Cold Ones, these Cold Ones have rounded smooth backs. That kind of fits with their proverbial role as oxen but they are supposed to be the same species as this zombie. I could add a rough of semiregular raised spikes similar to this guy.



(I now have well over a dozen models like the above)

I could also go with longer and more irregular back spikes like on these beta Quatlixa.



Speaking of beta ghouls, my very first Quatlixa is holding up nicely but my betas spikes are crumbling off. I think if I want larger greenstuff spikes to hold up the weathers of being placed and removed from my carrying case, I probably need to place in shallow pins and green stuff around the pins rather than just attach blobs of green stuff to the model's back. Did I mention I dislike pinning?

Would adding a row of green stuff spikes enhance or detract from the coolness of my Lustrian Corpse Cart? That's a question I need to figure out before the July submission deadline.


EDIT: Am I breaking the anonymity rules? Who else is going to make a contest entry based on Skink zombies? Gee, is it the frequent poster with a zombie Skink avatar, who entered zombie Skinks in the last contest, writes fluff pieces about zombie Skinks, writes lengthy tactics about Lizardmen using the Lore of Undeath, and makes comics with Skink zombies.

 

I'm hoping my very late Lustrian Corpse Cart will not be my only major modeling accomplishment in 2016.

I am most excited about my prototype jungle huts.

Fluffwise Skinks set up huts along common patrol routes so they don't have to sleep on the ground every night. I figured a Skink Hut would just be a thatched hut on stilts with a rope latter. The huts are at strategic intervals so Skink patrols don't have to sleep on the ground while away from the city (at least not EVERY night). Also a good place to store supplies. The stilts are to keep heavy rains from washing away and to keep the smaller biting predators away from the Skinks while they sleep.

Figured a miniature Pringles can is about the right size and shape.

Step One: Eat the potato chips
Step Two: Strip the shiny coating to remove potato chip smell and so glue doesn't slide off
Step Three attach legs.



Note, no floor, of the hut. That won't be visible on the finished product and no floor allows a greater surface area to glue the legs on. They shouldn't come loose barring someone deliberately pulling on the legs.



See, from this angle, you can't tell it has no floor!

Step four is to paint the cans light brown so the red doesn't show through. I don't have a photo of that yet which is fine because it's a really lousy paint job that's going to be 99% covered up. Even then, I think I'll want to add a second coat even though I already skipped to step five.

Step five is to make a frame for a slanted roof out of popsickle sticks. No pictures yet.

My original plan to was to drape my faux fur over the frame to represent the thatched roof, but that looks like an amorpous blob. I need to cut the faux fur into overlapping triangle slices so it's all going the same direction with my frame. But before I can permaently attach my faux fur faux thatch I need to paint the stilts and the bottom rim. I don't want to accidentally drip paint on the fur.

Step Six, paint the exposed wooden parts.
Step Seven, apply the burlap (lower right) to be the main texture of the walls. I plan to cut a Skink shaped hole in the burlap for a door and drape cloth for a curtained door.

Step 8. Cut the fake the fake fur (left of the Pringles can in the photo above) to the roof to simulate the thatch.
Step 9 Make a rope ladder out of string.

Probably two or three hobby nights with @eron12 away from completing my first two huts. One hobby night if I can stay very focused, so you know two or three because it's clear that I can't stay focused.

I'm not sure how to make a watch tower look like a Lizardmen watch tower. I don't want a pyramid shape, too bulky. Probably a square tower Not sure what kind of stone I want it look like that but that can be accomplished towards the end.

I recently finished painting two new Salamanders. I now have two males and two females. But I'm not ready to post them yet. I want to swamp base the. I swamp based 12 Skink handlers but I found a hiccup. Almost every time I take my Salamanders in my carrying case, at least one of them comes unglued from the base. That's no biggie when their base is just painted Goblin green, that takes two minutes to fix, but if I create my swamp texture and add three or four layers of successively lightler dry brushing with a glossy wet finish, that would hard to fix if it came unglued. So I need to pin them, then base them. Did I mention I dislike pinning.

I actually finished a Skink standard bearer of the Sotek caste that I haven't taken a photo of yet. Not exactly a stellar accomplishment but not nothing. I am working on a command crew for my blue and yellow Saurus. I field two Saurus blocks in many games but have one painted command crew. Yerch.

I'm working on two or three Skink chiefs at once. While I am not converting the models, I am going to designating my Beast Caste Skink colored one as Belrikt for my fluff fans or at least "young Belrikt." Eventually I'll end up recreating most of the cast from Divided We Fall. Old Belrikt needs some conversion. That's a project for later. I don't want to start a new conversion project when I so many half finished stuff on my shelf.

Lots of zombies, I have a big pile of human zombies awaiting paint jobs. I have a small pile of Skaven zombies with early stage paint jobs. I have Skinks in early stage WIP painting and unpainted Skinks. A couple Saurus too and a fresh attempt to make a Saurus standard bearer that doesn't fall over under its own weight and ranks up.

I have 15 or 16 zombie Cold Ones ready to stand in as Dire Wolves. They've already played that role in a few games! But they need paint jobs and basing. And some of them like to come unglued from their cavalry bases. They need pin work too. So do my Quatlixa (Saurus Ghouls). My many metal Kroxigor need preventive pinning too.

That about covers my WIP that I feel reasonably confident I can finish before 2017. New projects I'm likely to undertake relatively soon include mass conversion of 5th edition archer Skinks into javelin toting Cohort Skinks, still more zombies, and a Huan-kai conversion.

My eventual checklist is to complete pieces for this chart. I have forests and swamps but they are pretty subpar. The huts will be my first A-list terrain. Next in line is swamps and lakes. Ideally I can use a similar technique for my zombie and Salamander swamp basing to make an actual swamp.

2-Inpentrable Jungle (raised impassable feature) ONE
3-Wizard Tower or Acropolis of Heroes ONE OF EACH
4-Lake (1-3 Ordinary, 4 Boiling Flood, 5 Necrotic Ooze, 6 “River” of Light) TWO LAKES
5-Building or Ruin FOUR HUTS, ONE WATCH TOWER
6-Mysterious Forest (1-2 Venom Thicket, 3 Abyssal Wood, 5 Fungus Forest, 5-6 Wildwood) SIX FOREST BASES WITH REMOVEABLE TREES, small removable decals to show venom, fungus, etc.
7-Ordinary Forest
8-Hill (1-4 ordinary, 5-6 Scree Slope) THREE HILLS, one that is obviously dangerous terrain
9-River (1-4 ordinary, 5 Raging Torrent, 6 River of Light) THE THOUGHT OF MAKING RIVERS TERRIFIES ME!!!!
10-Mysterious Marsh (1-3 ordinary, 4 Khemrian Quicksand, 5 Earthblood Mere, 6 Mist-wreathed Swamp) FOUR SWAMPS
11-Obstacle (1-3 Fence, 4-5 Wall, 6 Blessed Bulwark) 2 WOODEN, 2 STONE
12-Sinister Structure (1-2 Sinister Statue, 3-4 Banestone, 5-6 Charnel Pit) SOTEK ALTAR, STONE OBELSISK SURROUNDED BY DEFOLIATED JUNGLE, TARPIT WITH DINOSAUR BONES.

And of course I really want my Chronicles of Verrick novella done before 2017. Ideally before Fall.

 

Oh no, they found me!

I have not added anything to this thread in a very long time. Because I have not painted or sculpted anything in a very long time.

This is not only not news, it's so old, it's got dust on it. I suppose I owe my fans an explanation.

Lustria-Online has painters and sculptors who never bother to play the game, and that's fine. Lustria-Online has gamers who never bother to paint a model, that's fine too. We have everything in between. When I joined Lustria-Online, I was like an 80% gamer, 20% painter, 5% fluff enthusiast, now I'm a 20% gamer, 1% painter, 79% fluff enthusiast.

I am a slow painter in the best of times, and we are not in the best of times for painting. But how did I move from slow to stopped?

I have a group of friends that I have been hanging out with since before high school. We are still friends as adults and we hang out regularly. The first of these friends to have children (twins) is the one I see the least. Go figure.

But anyway, this friend we don't see as much as I'd like went to great effort to twice a month organize hobby night (he has dreams of playing Warhmmer with his sons when they are old enough, he used to have five armies, but he trimmed it down to three so he can theoretically play a free for all with his two oldest sons). We would go to his house and bring some minis (one of my friends did not play Warhammer but he likes model planes which is close enough.).

Anyway we would make hobby stuff together, give constructive encouragement and have some light conversation. A good time was had by all. Our twice a month gathering encouraged me to do SOME hobbying by myself so I'd something to show my friends later.

Due to this struggles of being adults, our twice a month gathering became once a month and then stopped. Two of my friends were very recent converts to Warhammer. One officially quit after hobby night dissolved and one put it on hiatus indefinitely which is almost the same as quitting.

That was years ago, I have barely touched my stack of unfinished projects since. I haven't sold my minis or thrown them away, but nothing has really happened in this aspect of the hobby wise in years. It doesn't help that I barely ever get to play a game.

I have done a little bit of modeling since then, but it wasn't very noteworthy. I didn't paint or convert anything, I just assembled some models because they were on the sprue an absurd period of time. I still have a gazillion models on the sprue now.

But mostly I'm a fluff writer now. Plus I'm transitioning from writing WHF fan fiction to writing my own fiction.

Perhaps if I cut out computer games I can have more time to model without impacting my writing. In hindsight I have more lasting satisfaction modeling and writing than from video games, but don't hold your breath.

I do like to encourage others to paint. Fortunately the other moderators have been picking up my slack. I am pleased beyond anything that @Itepixcauh has created so many how-to painting guides. I can feebly say that I put forth his name as a possible moderator to the Red Devil (long may he ribbit). And of course @Crowsfoot has been guarding our paints for some time
.
My thoughts was that Itepixcauh was that it would be helpful to have an active moderator who is well versed in Kings of War and considered his love of painting a large bonus.