Daemons of Chaos army

[boredoom]

I'm scratch-building a Tzeench daemon army based on the art of Scott C http://inkmountain.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/cutehunterwooslady-copy1.jpg?w=450

The cute pink horrors of tzeench.

That's going to be interesting!

[boredoom]

The Plaguebearers are coming along:






This is how they look after I've made good on my plan to drench them in washes. The only covering paint I've used has been white spray primer. Then I've used homemade washes in green, brown, yellow, blue and red. The next step will be to drybrush on various colors for their carbuncles, zits and buboes, then on to the detail work.

[cawshis]

That's sexy as all heck, boredom!

[Falgrim]

Yes indeed. Terrific job so far.

[boredoom]

So the Plaguebearers are going great: some drybrushing with yellow and red, topped off with a last wash of blue-green did it. Now details left. But I screwed up my vintage Bloodletters and am stripping them again. I had sprayed them with a Krylon red, thinking that I'd save myself the basecoating step. I washed them with black and started highlighting, but it just wasn't working. The spray was cakey, textured and slightly glossy, and I don't think any amount of covering paint would have fixed it. Now that the Plaguebearers have raised the bar for me, I felt I had to go back to square one.

The plan is to try the light undercoat/dark wash method I used on the Plaguebearers. I'll prime white and basecoat sloppily with light yellow or yellow-green, then wash heavily with red and maybe purple. This is the reverse of the standard GW method, which calls for a dark undercoat on top of which lighter colors are layered.

[cawshis]

From what I've learned:
Black undercoat for fast and ready armies.
White undercoat for the best looking armies.

[boredoom]

From what I've learned:
Black undercoat for fast and ready armies.
White undercoat for the best looking armies.

But regardless of which primer you use, you basecoat with a shade that's somewhat darker than you want for the finished model, right? What I did with the plaguebearers was avoid the basecoat alltogether and let the washes bring out the color. For the Bloodletters, the yellow or green basecoat wouldn't be light, and not reflective of the overall color of the basic model, which should still be red.

None of this applies to the Plaguebearer swords, though. So... how would you paint a rusty, pus-dripping sword?

[cawshis]

Instead of base coating, you dropped layer after layer of wash to build what is essentially the basecoat and shading at the same time. It's a more advanced technique than just slathering blue and dry brushing a lighter blue. The results speak for themselves as your demons are great looking. My Crimson Fists look like smurf-turds next to your demons of nurgle!

I don't know if washes would work on armor like a space marines...but for flesh, it just looks amazing!

For a rusty sword, I'd go with: Black prime, Reddish brown base coat and orange spots/highlights...I'd prolly RE-Prime the rust spots with black first so as to get some faux-depth to the rust. But I'm all about rough and ready armies rather than the spectacular looking models you've got going here.

I guess for washing, I'd use browns and then oranges, but I'd worry that it would look muddy rather than rusty. Maybe add some texture to create those pus/rust spots and then wash them? And orange up against the red of a bloodletter might look muddled....maybe go with Green? So go for an oxidized bronze look instead of rusty iron look.

So more like Tomb Kings Necrosphinx and less like Plague Gyro-Thingy.

But then again, that plague thing looks awesome. Green swords might be perfect to build up some rust on them.

[boredoom]

Thanks! Yeah, oxidized bronze is tempting. But since sharp, rusty things give you tetanus, I'll probably go with that. Also, my Bloodletters have greenish, ethereal Hellblades already.

You bring up an interesting point about the pus: texture. Maybe I could tint some thick glue green-yellow and have it dry in gobs? But most glues dry down so much. Something like GW's Water Effects, maybe?

Games Workshop finally released plastic Plaguebearers in new sculpts this week. I don't dig them, though, so I feel fine about striking off on my own. They look too much like goofy aliens, and I hate the exposed entrails.



That flute is pretty great, though.

[cawshis]

What's up with the bright red butt cheeks on that nurgling????

Papa nurgle must be into some seriously old-school style disciplining!