Big boned Sigmarites

After the Shadespire Sigmarwhatever I finished a couple of weeks ago, I tried to find nice ideas for my own warband. I wasn't lucky.

First of all, I made some conversions with the weapons; I wanted them to look different and cool, and not to repeat what I had just done. But I didn't find what I was looking for. I was too short-sighted and only thinking in getting an Oldschool looking. So it was all about this kind of heads...

It may work, but I wasn't getting that 'ooohhh, this is it' vibe

Testing all my Empire heads

Then I saw it. Pure coincidence, but I found what I was looking for, although I hadn't known until then:

Ooohhh, this is it

Stormcast Eternal warriors are heroes from beyond time and space, reforged by Sigmar himself and brought to life again and again to fight the eternal war. But in the city of Shadespire mighty Nagash struggles with the very fabric of time. The whole fluff was too tempting. What if something has gone slightly wrong? What if these powerful warriors fight beyond expectations... but in the reforging process something went terribly wrong and they are encased in their forgotten armours, condemned to serve in this unsettling appearance? Say no more, I had a warband.

Leaving the heads and background apart, you can see the conversions I made. All the weapons come from the 40K Grey Knights sprues. They work fine on these models and give them a pretty distinctive looking. The sword and halberd were easy, but the two handed sword was kind of tricky, and I had to make some additional work on the wrists.

After many experiments (many! I could flood you with pics of failed ideas) I came to this:

Mr. Brightskull

I was quite tempted to use the large shield with some sculpted motif (as in the Knights of the White Wolf). But I really didn't want to repeat essentially the very same mini, so I used the other sword.

His twin

What's that?

This is my first attempt with the GreenStuffWorld's Chainmail Plate. I still have a lot to learn, but the possibilities are endless...

How do you know this was a male skull, eh? Are you assuming my gender?

So next step was taking the brushes. My most obvious reference about what I was intending to do was, of course, the amazing Corroded Plate Tutorial at Gardens of Hecate. All the work Ana does is out of scale in awesomeness; if you are not familiar with her blog, please go there. Right now, I mean.

I used the materials I had at hand; no pigments and no special stuff. I lacked the patience to go to the shop and wait for days; I wanted them painted now. My steps are really simple. So the results are obvioulsy way worse than Ana's. But I can live with that, of course.

The base layer is a mix of black, dark brown and silver (all Vallejo).

First wash, using leather brown.

Second wash, with a mix of dark brown and German camo green (Vallejo again). That gets you a true matt looking.

Third wash, generously apllying a mix of dark brown and orange. Make them look dirty. really dirty. BTW, note to self. If you are painting any heraldry whatsoever, do it before all these steps; that way you'll avoid to repeat the whole f@#%ing process. Ahem.

They don't look that impressive, do they? Well, after this, I used the base colour again on the armour and then applied a black wash between plates. That's it. The rest is just paying attention to skulls, clothes, etc., etc.

So in the end...

Mr. Rustyskull

I'd love to live in Castle Grayskull

That thing on the halberd? Well, I'm going to the supermarket, you know

What do you mean if the shield is mine?

Yup, the chainmail is mine too

The armour is not hollow, I was already big boned when alive

I'm not fat, my chest has just slipped a bit

I have to keep up my bones to wield such a sword

This is going to be our next black metal album cover

So this is it! Two Sigmar warbands. Now I must start to think about the Khorne guys, both my friend's and mine. That will be another day, I still have tons of other ongoing projects. No idea of what will be next...