I started building my Chaos Dwarf army about a year ago and sadly stopped almost as I began.
I think the idea of converting Dwarfs (with limited GS skills), buying ebay models (at great expense) or collecting FW models (still pretty spendy) put me off, so they got boxed and left in the attic to collect dust.
Anyway, I have always loved the look, fluff and models for the Dwai Zharr and I couldn’t stay away any longer.
But, I do have a question about painting. My Chaos Dwarf army will consist of any models I can get my hands on; be that original metal CD models, FW models, Russian Alternative etc.
I am hoping to unify this army by the way it is painted and how I intermix units with models that I can blend together, but I was wondering;
As the old plastic CD axemen are not the most detailed models out there, I was wondering if anyone had any painting tips to really make the old school plastic guys shine?
I am thinking that washes will help to define detail that (may not ) always be there, but is there any other thing that can be done to try and make these guys blend in more with the other great sculpts now kicking about?
Thanks in advance
I feel pretty shamed that I haven’t made more of my CD army but if I am being honest the sheer enormity of buying up all this stuff, converting it with GS, trying to buy up old rule books etc etc just scared me so I bowed out. For that I can do nothing more than apologize, and I hope that starting a blog and posting up pictures of progress will make up for my tardy start to my CD army!
Not being a great painter, I’d be re-miss if I tried to give specific advice.
But put all that aside, my first efforts all revolve around having once decided what main colours I wanted and then spending hours combing through the Army Blogs and Showcase sections to see what I liked. The members here are always giving great tips on how they have painted or converted their stuff.
You can find plenty of old school Dwarfs on this site.
First and foremost, the biggest issue with these guys is ranking them up. They are far too big to fit on 20mm bases, but fortunately we have this tutorial that might help you out!
Now, let’s talk about uniformity! There are two ways of achieving this. First, you can use the same basing techniques on all your miniatures ( and they will look cohesive) Here is an example of what I mean! As you can see, Lew’s Ogres don’t share the same colors, but the huge snowy bases really tie them together.
Second, is to paint all your army using the same scheme. This isn’t an easy feat to achieve with old Plastic CDs, because their beard covers the armor almost entirely. This means that you are left with shoulder pads, axe and hat to pait them in your army colors! My biggest advice is: paint a couple of figures, experiment! Dark colors really do wonders on CDs, although bright colors balanced by a gray/black beard look great too!
Finally, you might be surprised at how pleasant is to work on these guys. They might not be the most detailed miniatures ever produced by GW, but once you have worked out what is what, they are pretty fast to paint!