Warriors of Chaos Khorne Lord - Warhammer End Times Project

The recent End Times storyline playing out across the Warhammer universe has coincided with a spark of motivation for a project I have been planning for a few months not - namely, a Khorne lord in a sacked Empire (or Kislev) city. I'm itching to use my new Scale75 paints more and paint some red!

The core of the idea comes from a chap called Andy Wardle - a talented painter who recently took a Golden Demon at Warhammer Fest with his Blood Angel space marines. But I have decided to take my interpretation down the path of the blood god and make him an angry Khorne lord.

As you can see, it's early days right now as I am still tacking things together, finalising the idea and various elements. I still have a fair bit of sculpting to do before he's finished, but I like how he's progressing. The conversion is turning out quite different from what I had originally planned (helmeted head, shield in the left hand etc), but this is always an organic part of the process on any conversion. You don't know what will work best until you try mocking up various bits and poses!

The torso and right forearm come from the Lord on Demonic steed figure, the legs and right hand come from the plastic Chaos Lord, the heads in the (to be sculpted) left hand come from the Skaven Stormvermin set and the chest guard piece is from the Skullcrushers plastic kit. Sculpting has all been done with a mix of Milliput and ProCreate (60:40) - pretty much my usual mix.

I'm thinking of replacing the spearhead with a double bladed axe head from the Chariot Lord kit and adding a cloak (likely sculpted from scratch) along with some more details to round him out. A rough mock up of my plans below (be warned, it's rough!):

The plan is to have him standing atop stairs in a sacked Empire city, reminiscent of various pieces of artwork such as those below:

All very WIP right now though, so expect more soon! As always, would love to know what you think. Let me know your thoughts (or suggestions for improvements) in the comments below.

Forgeworld Abaddon - Horus Heresy

I have had the Forgeworld Horus Heresy Abaddon vs Loken diorama kit for a few months now (think I ordered it for release, whenever that was) and have finally gotten around to working on it recently.

Both figures in this kit are very dynamically posed and loaded with fine details, as tends to be the case with Forgeworld figures. Abaddon is the best of the two sculpts however - the pose, arms spread wide in challenge, just seems to have more appealing lines, making him the better stand alone figure of the two.

For this reason he was the obvious place to start. After a couple of evenings cleaning up and filling/correcting/re-sculpting any casting flaws, I had him ready to paint. There were a couple of areas in need of work which I suspect will be the same on most versions of this cast. Namely, the topknot, the arch detail above the head recess and the inside of the rims on the shoulder pads. All had some form of casting defect, typically from mould slip. The top knot was by far the worst, with the small metal band piece holding the hair being so bad I ended up just sculpting my own to replace it.

Like most of my projects, I am painting him in sub-assemblies - the head, arms, sword, body and base. I have started on the body, making reasonable progress so far over a few hours or so of work.

Everything is still fairly rough at the moment as I am still trying to determine where I want the contrast to be, but I like how he's turning out so far.

I'm aiming for a fairly reflective looking black with a hint of turquoise (to tie in a little with the Sons of Horus green - important for when I get round to Loken), with reds in the shading to add some contrast. At the moment the left leg is the furthest along, but I do intend to go back and add more shading and an overall contrast to the whole piece once everything else is nearly done to focus the eye on key areas - mainly around the face.

I am thinking of trying some source lighting on the face similar to the classic piece of Horus Heresy artwork of Horus facing the Emperor. It's not something I have tried before though, so there will be a lot of trial and error - think this is a good plan? Let me know in the comments if you have an opinion.

Airbrushing, Photography and Miniature Painting DVD's

Well, since I've been a bit ill since Christmas, and busy in the build up to the holidays, I never got as much done as hoped - hence the lack of updates!

That will hopefully change over the next couple of weeks as some nice presents and a bit of rest have helped my hobby motivation return. So what were these gifts? Well, firstly I decided to treat myself to a portable airbrush booth to make sure I get more use out of the airbrush I bought last year. The booth I got is an Expo Tools Airbrush Portable Spray Booth #500 - a bargain at £70!


The booth is a nice, compact piece of kit with everything folding away neatly into a roughly shoebox like size. It is also modular, in that if you buy another of the same booth, they can be linked together to create one long booth for larger projects. The extractor fan is powerful enough to remove any fumes, yet silent so as not to disturb your painting mojo. I'm looking forward to giving this a whirl while spraying some Hellion skyboards.

I was also received a nice fold out photography light box from my girlfriend as one of my presents - which hopefully means better quality pics as I get the hang of it! I did a few hurried test snaps earlier (below) of my GD UK 2010 fantasy single entry and a current WIP to test it out. The lighting setup was a little hurried though so they aren't perfect.

Finally, I also received the excellent Miniature Painting with Jeremie Bonamant Teboul DVD from Figone. I've purchased and viewed plenty of painting and sculpting books and videos in my time, and while all have proved beneficial, none have provided me with such valuable knowledge and understanding as this has already.

There is over 7 hours of theoretical and practical examples and applications over 2 discs, along with a gallery of images. While the camera work isn't quite as sharp as say the Miniature Mentor videos, you can still clearly see everything that is being done and the technical demonstrations and theory are well explained.

If your looking to improve your blending and understanding of miniature painting theory then I'd thoroughly recommend giving this a look. Also, the guys at Figone produce some incredible looking figures (Furgol and Carlos being among my favourites) and from the examples in the DVD, they look a joy to paint.

So, its back to the DVD (got another 4.5 hours still to go!) and some festive drinks and food for me before I get down to some serious hobby time and begin planning the coming year's GD entries.

Hope you all had a good Christmas and have an even better New Year! (oh and here's the quick pic of my latest WIP)