Lich Lord (not Lichemaster though) - review and walkthrough, part 2

So here's the second part of my adventure with painitng Lich Lord.

Painful adventure as it turned out...

The next step is basing:
in case of "ordinady" models (that is: minis which cooperate with me instead of just being pain in the ass) I prepare the base, mount model on it and even sometimes - paint it first. The matter of personal taste that's all, basing is just fun.

In case of this one everything was more tricky:
model is made of several parts, it's pretty unbalanced and heavy which made painting it already based impossible. Assembling it also wasn't easy (lots of greenstuff was used to fill the damn gaps and make bits stick together) so in my opinion painitng the parts separated and assembling them later would not me a good idea.
So the decision was made to paint a pony and dead girls already on the base and other parts - separated. Base itself will be painted as the last thing.

As you saw in the first part of the walkthrough I used placcy GW regiment base: it's big enough for a chariot and it also has borders around so it's fine for applying artifical water. Weird thing: I was taking pics from the very beginning but when pics were downloaded it turned out some of them were missing and other - very blurry. By some mysterious way autofocus was off. But I should've expected paranormal activity - it's lich after all...
Paranormal or not - I managed to save only pics below so as for stuff you cannot see you'll just have to believe in my babbling.

First the base was filled with cork (around place I chose for the "pond" to get irregular, natural edges) and ~5 mm thick foamcore. I must admit I chose foamcore only because it was easier to fill the space than cutting and assembling cork. Then everything was covered with 2 layers of white glue and sand.

Then I realised a wagon filled with dead corpses crossing swampy area would surely leave deep tracks rather than just gently step on the very top of sand layer. 

Like some sort of wicked necro-ballerina... Jumbo size...

Carving thick layer of sand would be pretty hard so just made 2 brownstuff "sausages" and made the tracks on the sand layer. In the end there will also be some vegetation, foliage and fallen leafs (lots of damp trash) so it should be no problem.

Everything as covered with sand again.
Damn you lich, damn you and your autofocus sabotaging!!!

I marked places where models will stand and drilled holes for the bars.

At this stage I was really happy I chose foam board: it's easy to work with but it's just great for pinning models into. Except in this case there will be not much pinning. Gamezone stuff I got is really thin and fragile I am quite sure any attempt of drilling would simply break the limbs. Pain in the ass.

And here's the first painting-patient: dead girl. 

Pretty wicked idea - you cannot see it on the pic but this litle lady is carrying skeleton doll on it's rigth arm. Some greenstuff was put into the hole in the base, then superglue applied, models was pressed into this and surface was masked with sand. Bulletproof bond.

This model will be kinda test model for swampy colors to be used. I want to keep whole thing in rotten / greenish hue but we'll see whan happens. Whan I know for sure is I will try to paint very dark, deep shadows on the chariot to hide all gaps I didn't manage to cover properly with greenstuff. Wish me luck.

Preatorian stalkers family

Back again,

This time it's something rather quick: an update to keep the bloggy alive and fit.

I've been waiting for this piece a long time and it's finally in my hobby-bookcase: all 5 Warzone 1st edition rulebooks gathered in one grimoire.

I don't believe there are people playing oldie Warzone (except for Poland that is) but that's not the point: those books are filled with tons of stunning artworks and Mutant Chronicles fluff. All safe now and still fully operational - next game hopefully next weekend.

I also have some books from Warzone 2nd ed but there are still Mishima and Bauhaus expansions missing in the collection (from what I know tere were those + Capitol, correct me if I am wrong). If I even manage to gather that stuff another grimoire shall be spawned.  

There's even more Warzone this week!

After long struggle the praetorian stalkers are painted. I have mixed feelings about the team:

I am happy to see them finished - that's for sure. I tried like 3 of 4 times before with no acceptable effect, apparently some models refuse cooperation. Nasty bastards...

But now there are here - oldschool cyborgs of Algeroth varnished and ready for combat. I like them alltogether but honestly they are just some metallics + smurf faces. Not really the special look I was expecting from elite squad painted after so many years.

Hope you like them anyway.
What's new is the picture was taken under natural light only (looks like some Satandamn cloud made right side of it darker) but it turned out pretty ok - there's no light reflecting from the back wall. I think to get rid of reflections in the future I should either apply more sand/dust on the back wall or maybe paint some graffitti. At this stage it's just an idea - wouldn't like to ruin display base to quick.

And bit more Warzone abomination: brass apocalypt.

The original artwork is medicore but it's still the best thing: fluff is silly and the sculpt - not even my twisted taste. But it's still Warzone piece - old one and according to rules it's also tekron's bodyguard (Whitney Houston / Kevin Costner thing you know). I like tekron so I also like his buddies.
Once again - daylight only.

That's it for now - the Lich Lord is calling! Lots of greenstuff and pain in the ass ahead...

Lich Lord (not Lichemaster though) - review and walkthrough, part 1

I just love liches,
the dead ones, not those disguisting bloodsucking worms.

These rotten bastards are the essence of dark side of fantasy, perfect as background of most RPG adventures and challenging opponents in the battlefield. In my vision that is.
I remember player could choose Lich as Undead general in Warhammer 4th/5th edition but those times each and every gamer preferred badass Vampire Lord. Who wouldn't?
Anyway years passed, since old and careless Warhammer days I painted lots of minis (2 Heinrich Kemmlers among them) and recently I thought it would be cool to see oldschool style evil force in the display case: shambling zombies, bat swarms, undead constructs and of course liches leading them. 

All in dark, wet and dirty colors - nothing like that ridiculous Tomb Kings of Khemri.

My first lich-thought was mr Kemmler of course. It's just friggin' ubercool model, I painted 2 and really wouldn't mind painting another (drop me a PM or comment if you have spare one). There's also damn cool lich from Otherworld miniatures but for the centerpiece I needed something bigger. Something like Gamezone's Harvester.

About month or so the order was placed and last Monday postman delivered something nice to my office. It's pretty large model so I decided to write multipart review + simple painting walkthrough. Finishing the piece might take some time.

To the model came in nice looking, cardboard box with comfy sponge inside - safe and sound. The box looks really nice so it's good idea for a x-mas gift. Or just any other gift.

The model is built of several metal parts - the sculpt is packed with details so painting it will probably cause some pain in the ass. But on the other hand spending some extra brush-time should provide really decent final result. It's the big boss after all!
There is only small placcy base for the pony but since I want it to be centerpiece the decision was made to put it on oldie EE regiment base. The model should be much safer pinned to such thing and besides there's lots of space for more themed details - tombstones or emerging zombies for example.

So far I haven't spotted any nasty mold lines but assembling whole construction will also require extra attention: the big elements simply doesn't fit as they should. There'll be lots of pinning and greenstuff used for sure.

At this stage I don't have some strict idea for the painting so if you have some suggestions - post them, there'll be some time until part #2 is ready.

Cheers!

EDIT:
For the part #2 - click here.