Arise!

Wow, I can't believe it's been over nine years since I painted Alexia, and I still hadn't painted the rest of her unit. That's just depressing. Well, with Alexia and the Risen being a pale shadow of their former selves, I'm finding it very hard to justify bringing them (in the rare event that I actually get a game). But it felt sad to put them away without ever having painted them, so I decided to try to knock the Risen out in a single week of speed painting. Spoiler warning: it took me a lot longer than a week. I did try to paint them as quickly as possible, but various stuff got in the way and I had to put them on hold for a few months. But hey, they're FINALLY finished!

And here they are with Alexia and her favourite undead servant:

The unit originally had twenty Risen grunts (well, due to a mispack my box actually came with twenty-one Risen), but only three sculpts (seen here with some missing arms):

In Mk4 the unit size was reduced from a maximum of twenty grunts to a maximum of ten grunts. This was a bitter pill to swallow, both in-game and also in terms of leaving me with ten (actually eleven) unusable models. But then I hit on the idea of converting them into a couple of units of Legion of Lost Souls. So I sculpted and printed some shields and glued them onto ten grunts. I chose two Khadoran Risen models to serve as unit leaders (which isn't actually a thing in this edition, but maybe it will be again someday, and it looks good aesthetically), and four of each of the others to give me an easy way to differentiate two units. I considered giving them some halberds as well, but decided it would be too difficult to fit them on to the models, at least in a way that looked good.

This left me with ten plus one basic boney boys for Alexia.

Risen:
I've never been a fan of duplicate models in a unit, so I tried to find ways to differentiate them. Luckily they were soft metal models and quite spindly, so I was able to do quite a lot by twisting and bending limbs. I also removed some body parts here and there. The Khadoran sculpt was an issue though, there wasn't much I could do other than chop the feet off at varying heights. Oh, and take off one guy's head. I'm sure he didn't need it.

In order to try to match the swamp bases I gave Alexia and the Thrall without having to spend a lot of money on resin bases (this was LONG before I got into 3D printing) I tried to sculpt my own swamp bases, with areas for water effects scattered across the textured ground (which I tried to make reminiscent of the ground on the other two's bases - some of which I had sculpted myself). I also drilled small holes of varying depth into the "water" areas, which I would use for the bubbles later.

For the Legion of Lost Soul's shields, I considered trying to recast the shields on some Precursor Knights I have lying around unassembled, or maybe just recasting the Radiance of Morrow on the fronts of their shields, but ultimately decided to digitally sculpt it myself, using this image as a refernce:

I wasn't too hard to get the basic shape, modifying it very slightly for better printing. I have uploaded the design to Thingiverse. For the shield I ultimately settled on a design by KillMeForPrizes on Cults3d. I wrapped the Radiance onto the shield, printed them up and glued them onto the chosen Risen models.

My plan for painting was to try to use very quick and easy techniques; I wanted to try to use mostly airbrushing and a dip, with maybe some drybrushing. The idea was to just use paint everything in faded brown colours so I wouldn't have to paint different colours for the different sculpts. I figured I might as well use a zenithal, but figured I'd go for green as the shadow colour rather than black.

So after priming the shields I airbrushed a basecoat of Green Stuff World 1796 Acrylic Color Kraken Green thinned with Green Stuff World 1747 Acrylic Thinner over the entirety of all the models. I then airbrushed Vallejo 71.287 Model Air Ija Kakhi Brown from above as the main brown colour. I carefully airbrushed Vallejo 71.132 Model Air Aged White onto the bone areas - or tried to. I thinned it with the acrylic thinner, but I still had a very hard time getting a consistent spray. I airbrushed the shield faces with a turquise I had mixed up from various blue and green acrylic inks a while back for a different project that I ended up not using (so I have a lot of it lying around). It ended up being very close to Citadel Layer Temple Guard Blue. Finally I airbrushed the bases with thinned Citadel Layer Doombull Brown.

Next I drybrushed the various metal bits with Scalecolor SC-72 Viking Gold, a sort of aged brass colour. I had some painting videos on in the background as I worked, and funnily enough after I finished I was cleaning my brush and glanced up at the video only to see Broadsword Wargaming painting Stormcasts, using almost the same blue/teal on their shields. Small world. I went over the Radiances and the Khador Anvils on the Ushankas of the Khadoran models with Scalecolor SC-73 Dwarven Gold to brighten them up a little.

By this point I felt a lot of the cloth had been covered up by the drybrushes and I wasn't really liking the colour that was showing anyway, so pretty much on a whim I brushed some Formula P3 Bootstrap Leather over any cloth areas with a drybrush... but then I decided that it was blending into the brass too much in places so after a few models I switched to Formula P3 Rucksack Tan and want back over the painted ones and continued with that. This wasn't exactly a drybrush as the brush was loaded with more paint than I would use for a normal dryrbush, but it wasn't exactly a regular painted coat either; it was sort of something in the middle.

I drybrushed over the "ground" areas with Formula P3 Hammerfall Kakhi to give it some contrast. Finally I "drybrushed" (again with a more loaded brush) some aged white to fix some bone areas that had gotten covered up. Most of the visible colour on the models now was from "dryrbrushing" rather than from the airbrush, so I kinda feel like the whole "do most of it by airbrushing" plan was a failure. Still, I had mostly drybrushed with a downwards motion so some of the original green shadow was still visible, and I had finished it all fairly quickly - MUCH more quickly than if I had painted all the basecoats on in my usual way - so that's OK.

I shaded them using The Army Painter Quickshade Dip Strong Tone, using a brush to clean up excessive pooling before it could set. When this was dry I airbrushed the "water" areas of the bases in Vallejo 72.729 Game Air Sick Green, but I wasn't able to get it down cleanly so I ended up going back over it with a brush, rather carelessly throwing it on. Most likely it would have been faster and less frustrating to just brush it on in the first place, although in retrospect I think I shouldn't have painted it up to the "ground" areas as sharply.

I carefully dryrbushed the Dwarven Gold over the Radiances on the shields to try to get them to stand out a bit more, as they weren't as bright as I would have liked after the shade. The result was subtle, but it did make a difference. I airbrushed spots of Vallejo 72.732 Game Air Escorpena Green onto the "water" areas, trying to create an "organic" looking undercoat for the water effects I was planning to apply.

Decades ago, back when I was in school, I used to write with a fountain pen that used standard ink cartridges. I discovered these had small clear plastic agitator beads inside. On a whim I started collecting these beads, amassing a reasonable number before I got tired of it. I still have them after all these years, and I had put them in my bits box when I got into the hobby. I glued them into the small divots I had originally drilled in the "water" areas (I did this after painting to maintain their transparenccy and to make sure there wouldn't be any unpainted base visible through them).

After painting the base rims black I varnished the models using Mr. Hobby Mr. Color GX 112 UVCut Gloss then Mr. Hobby Mr. Color GX 113 UVCut Flat. I marked bottoms of the bases with Rotring Drawing Ink White through an old Koh-I-Noor, I believe it's a Rapidosketch 0.35mm. Some of the beads did not pick up enough of the green colour from the base, so I glazed them lightly with Citadel Glaze Waywatcher Green.

For the water, I added a little bit of Woodland Scenics C1228 Earth Colors Liquid Pigment Green Undercoat to some Woodland Scenics C1211 Realistic Water. I ran a brush through it a couple of times, than added it to the bases with the brush. I didn't want it well-mixed, I wanted streaks of colour in the hope that would make it look like streaky swamp water. But that didn't exactly work, instead the paint seemed to sit on top of the water effects, so when I applied it to the bases I was picking up a lot of colour at first, then less and less as I worked through the unit. So the first models I did had darker looking swamp water, with more green particles, while the later ones had lighter, clearer swamp water.

While not what I had intended, I think it's fine, the difference is barely noticeable irl. Still, I think next time I'll try adding the water effects first then picking up a tiny bit of colour with a toothpick and swirling it in, or something like that. The water effects shrank a LOT; it feels like it loses at least half its volume. Also it doesn't help that there is a lot of capillary action pulling it up the sides of the models. After the first application dried it was very thin, so I gave them a second pass of water effects.

After that the swamp water ended up looking too plain and flat, even with the bubbles; it didn't look swamp-like tbh. So I decided to try to add something to the water to give it more detail. I took some strips of leftover paper strips ("Double A Premium" 80gsm white A4) from cutting out some cards I made using my card creator, and painted both sides with a heavy coat of acrylic ink. I wanted to completely soak the paper so there wouldn't be any white edges showing. I used a sandy-coloured mix I had leftover from a previous project, which was made of Amsterdam Acrylic Ink 227 Yellow Ochre with a little Amsterdarm Acrylic Ink 275 Primary Yellow. I then tapped an old paintbrush loaded with the yellow ink to splatter it onto the paper for mottling. I mixed some of the Yellow Ochre with Amsterdam Acrylic Ink 735 Oxide Black; this somehow turned out quite greenish so I added some Amsterdam Acrylic Ink 369 Primary Magenta to get a darker brown, and splattered that on top. Then I splattered some yellow on top again. I punched out a bunch of leaf shapes using two different Green Stuff World leaf punches (1300 and 1310).

I might not have given everything time to dry fully, as when I collected the leaves in a pile, many of them stuck together somewhat and I had to pry them apart with tweezers - which luckily mostly worked OK. I then picked up individual leaves with the tweezers, dipped them in the same water effects and positioned them on the base, immediately painting another coat of water effects on top, covering all the swamp areas again. The leaves unded up quite bright, perhaps distracting somewhat from the models (and also making them stand out a bit from Alexia and the Thrall, who didn't get the Autumn treatment). The green on the bases was already competing with the models for the viewer's attention tbh. But I've never used my leaf punches before, so I'm glad I got the chance to try a new technique, and I honetly think the makes the models more visually pleasing overall.


I've had a lot of fun with Alexia's unit in Mk2 and Mk3, so even if they don't get much more play in Mk4, I'm still glad I finally finished painting them. They deserved it. It might be a slightly muted colourscheme using very lazy painting techniques, but I think it works for them. I tried a lot of new things while painting these models, and it's the largest unit I've ever painted, so this was kind of an accomplishment as well as a learning experience for me.

Strak Attack!

He's finally done! I actually enjoyed painting Strakhov more than usual, I think it's because it was a relatively easy model to paint and I wasn't trying to do anything too fancy so I didn't run into the occasional frustrations that I do trying to do fine work on some more detailed models. At the same time I was experimenting with colour combinations and mixing paint, so it was still interesting. And of course there was this waiting at the end:

I stuck pretty close to the studio scheme in the end, mainly because I quite liked the whole "shades of grey" thing the official paint-job has going on with his... skirts. I tried to stick to darker colours, using a darker red for his armour and trying to use predominantly darker browns and metals, and using black leather in many places where the official paint scheme is brown. I think it turned out quite well to be honest.

Other than the base, the only conversion work was to fix a couple of areas that bugged me about the original, namely the receiver of his gun (I don't even know what's going on with the original model there), and that stupid chimney he has sticking out of his back. I mean, a chimney, really? Exhausts wouldn't have been so bad, but it's a genuine chimney. The chimney is genuinely larger than the funcional areas of his backpack! It's not even coming out from between his shoulders, it starts at the small of his back! Good grief, I hate that thing. This may be presumptuous of me, but I much prefer the lower-profile "generator" on mine.

Just for fun, some darker shots of "the Hoff" with some more of his army:

"No-one will see us coming!"

You know a swamp is evil when it glows green!

I had hoped to finish these two a few months ago, but I've been very busy and suffered some setbacks (plus that last model took FOREVER), so it took me a lot longer than I'd hoped. My goal was to finish them - and another couple of models - before the Powered Play guys put out their new powered bases in March, so at least I've managed half that goal. Anyway, I give you Alexia and a Thrall:

And now for the important bit:

Green was obviously a big part of the colour scheme, I decided my second colour would be purple. This was partially because I thought it would work well with the green, partially because I wanted to use it for the Thrall, partially because I'm just on a sort of a purple kick right now, and I think partially because the model reminds me so much of this:

I used two different shades of purple for her clothes (Liche Purple and Warlock Purple), then gave them the same wash (Leviathan Purple) to tie them together. While I'm happy with how the colours turned out, overall her clothes didn't have much of the usual sculpted folds that make detailing cloth much easier; my el-cheapo method of washes and drybrushes did not give good results here, but after trying a couple of different things I decided this was good enough.

While the shading is a little flatter than I would like, and her eyes didn't quite turn out as I'd hoped, I think that this is the best face I've painted so far. I'm quite happy with it overall. The lips might look a little bit puffy up close, but that's mostly just the model itself. I mixed Elf Flesh with Warlock Purple to try to get a colour that would not clash with her skin or clothes, which I think worked quite well.

The glow on the sword was done with a couple of quick drybrushes and a some watered down white, but it came out looking better than I expected and is one of the highlights of the model in my eyes.

I've already posted about the base, but I might as well recap a little here. The base uses a clear resin insert from CoolMiniOrNot's Groundwerks series. I cut along the base topper that comes with Alexia and filed the bottom a little to reduce the height, then glued it to the resin base insert.

I then cut away the top of the plastic base where needed and carefully installed the components in the base. The idea was not to point the LEDs upwards, but to leave an empty space surrounded with white underneath the clear resin to allow the light to diffuse and illuminate the whole area. I drybrushed light green at the bottom of the resin to further diffuse the light.

Needless to say I had to work very slowly and carefully to fit the components while leaving enough room for the LED to light up as much of the resin as possible. While I tried to solder components before gluing them in, there were a couple of things that just had to be soldered in place; as a result I managed to melt part of the rim (as you can see in top right of the above photo), and had to repair it with greenstuff later. Another complication was that I wanted to pin Alexia to the base through both legs, so I had to work around where the pins would go. I then carefully blended Alexia's base to the resin with greenstuff such that there was no exposed resin that wasn't picking up the light.

I think the rear LED ended up a little mis-aligned, as the front part of the base ended up looking much brighter than the rear, but it's better this way than the opposite.

The second model was the Thrall. I absolutely love this model; it's by far my favorite Undead miniature. In fact I bought this guy a long time before I actually bought Alexia, just to paint him. I call him Solomon.

An of course, all lit up:

Comparing him to the Risen, I imagine in my head that he was no common soldier, but an ancient and powerful warrior-king who has retained some of his dignity and bearing. That's actually quite a fancy sword and armour when you think about it, after all. I decided that I wanted to paint him up to be quite ornate and impressive, rather than decrepit, so I went for black and bronze on his armour. As discussed I thought purple would work well with the green, but I also thought it fitting for him since it's considered a royal colour.

I still wanted him to show some wear and tear, so I painted all the steel surfaces with orange then drybrushed them with Boltgun Metal to give them a hint of rust. The sword was given a feathering of chainmail along the edge to give it a scratched look. This was my first attempt at verdigris for the bronze, I mixed together some blues and greens to get a colour that I liked then watered it down and tried to apply it randomly. I considered drybrushing some bronze or even gold on top but ended up skipping that step as I was afraid it wouldn't look good. Finally I applied some weathering to the black armour. The ground, bone, leather and bronze were shaded using Quickshade Strong Tone (ditto for Alexia btw).

The base was another CoolMiniOrNot Groundwerks clear resin insert. This one was easier to do as there was much less fitting and blending involved, and also the more limited "swamp" area meant a single LED and diffusion space, making the insides much easier to put together.

You can actually see the green drybrushing on the resin surface.

Here you see the plasticard piece that was used to diffuse the light.

You can see here where the pins come through the plasticard.

Overall I do like how they came out. There's actually still a little bit of work left to do: namely I want to add some gloss varnish to the swamp areas and the gem in the sword, but I'll get around to that. I do have a second Thrall model that came with Alexia's unit; I would like to give him a similar base, but I just don't know when I'll have the time. I'll have to convert him a little bit so he doesn't quite look the same of course. Then there's 20 Risen models to paint (well, 21 - seems they accidentally gave me one extra). Obviously there is NO WAY I'm giving them all lit bases!