16/08/2018

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...

26 comments:

  1. WooooW!One of the best conversion I ever seen! Love these atmosphere!. Great work mate!

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    1. Thank you very much! They look a little bit creepy, but that was the whole point :D

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  2. Wow, those look the business! I'll have to give this method a try - the results are outstanding.

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    1. Thank you! You can see I took the easy, lazy approach, you could say it's my trademark :P

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  3. Definitely something OOOOOOOOOOOOOO about these. They are stunning mate!

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    1. Thanks! I tried them to look spooky and menacing. The bulk of the armour helps, I guess. I never thought I could make a proper use of these armours, but on the whole they don't look that bad.

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  4. I love what you have done with these. And the lore is right there for it as well, as you say.

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    1. Thanks, it was a matter of finding a way for them to make sense within the general background -and just push a little bit forward. The bases help too; they have some decay vibe that contributes to the overall sense.

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  5. Those turned out quite fantastically! Very awesome.

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    1. Thank you! In the end it worked better than expected. Maybe I should have used pigments to add some texture, I really have to consider that for the future.

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  6. Replies
    1. Haha, thanks! I would have never guessed I was ever painting Sigmarines and here I am, two warbands so far :D

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  7. fua! me encanta el resultado!! Geniales!

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    1. ¡Gracias! Ha sido todo mรกs sencillo de lo que parece, la verdad, asรญ que yo estoy contento con el resultado :)

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  8. Fantastic! I love your work in this miniatures.

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    1. Thanks! The different way of seeing them was fun. Once I understood what I really meant for the minis, it was all pretty easy going.

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  9. Te han quedado geniales, yo los mรญos los pasรฉ al caos y estรกn a la espera de ser pintados.

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    1. ¡Gracias! Acabo de descubrir tu blog, voy a empaparme y echar un ojo a tus trabajos :)

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  10. Those are great conversions (particularly the female), and that paint job turned out really well!

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    1. Thank you! The halberd/spear/whatever that weapon is was something I wanted to do. If not on the female, maybe on the boss. But the pose was far more striking on her, so I decided to take that way. I like the aggressiveness it instils; pretty weird for a skelly, but fun anyway!

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  11. Fantastic conversions and fabulous painting! Really lovely!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thank you very much! They were quite a conundrum to solve, specially at the beginning, but once I envisioned the final result, it was all much easier :)

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  12. Stunning work on the trio Suber ... and on their bases too.

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    1. Thank you! I'm trying to achieve some sense of general decay on the whole thing -creepy yet stylish :P

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  13. They look amazing. Your ability to improvise something so cool is incredible.

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    1. Thank you! Now it's time to think about two Khorne bands, hmmmm...

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