#1. 90’s Big Hats to be fielded according to 8th ed. rules.
#2. Build slow and steady, this stuff is expensive.
#3. Try to collect the artwork, the boxes etc. in the process and make that the center of the livingroom.
#4. Start with a 1000 point armylist and get a playable force finished before lashing out like usual.
#5. To not buy anything new until I’ve finished painting what I have.
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The story so far:
01-01-2014
Approaching my thirties and was thinking back on my childhood, back then me and a friend always ran to the local gamingstore after school and marvelled at the Warhammer boxed sets and armybooks. Raised in regular middleclass families with many children we obviously only got miniatures on birthdays and christmas, I collected Beastmen and he ran Chaos Warriors. Upon discovering that girls looked weirdly at guys into fantasy we eventually forgot the hobby, we never really played anyway with the rules being in English and all, and life moved on.
01-02-2014
I discovered that the hobby is quite popular these days and that there are at least 2 gaming circles in the close proximity who play Warhammer Fantasy. That evening we met up and started talking about getting into the hobby again and drank to our never-swaying allegiance to Chaos. It was decided then, almost 20 years later, that we were getting into the hobby again. He decided to field an army of albino Malal Beastmen and I decided on the most beautiful army ever made, 90’s Chaos Dwarfs in that classic color-scheme.
02-13-2014
Registered here on chaos-dwarfs.com. Marvelled in wonder at the developed community (Word of Hashut, Podcast, The Market Place, Golden Hat, Slaves etc. etc.). Everyone is really nice, I’m home. :hat off
02-25-2014
Trimmed my beard and cashed my paycheck. Got a really sweet deal on a Sorcerer on foot and a boxed Great Lammasu from Redbullsonparade’s thread in the marketplace (Wish you all the best with getting that water out of the basement man). Got wasted on a mix of whisky and nostalgia and ordered the 90’s armybook, boxed Big Hat CD warriors, Hobgoblin archers in blisters and miniatures to build a “90’s feel” K’daii destroyer (Thereby breaking rule #4 and continuing to lash out as usual). I trust Hashut has a great plan for me indoors this months as I will now be forced to eat my shoes. x.x
Unpacked my first ever Chaos Dwarf, none less than 1985 Drum & Drone Olsen themselves. I realise that the model is far to small for the double-headed Tzeentch-touched Double-Hatted Sorcerer-Prophet of Hashut I initially intended to convert. If anyone is interested in this one, let me know! 2 weeks until the other models arrives…
and I decided on the most beautiful army ever made, 90's Chaos Dwarfs in that classic color-scheme.
02-13-2014
Registered here on chaos-dwarfs.com. Marvelled in wonder at the developed community (Word of Hashut, Podcast, The Market Place, Golden Hat, Slaves etc. etc.). Everyone is really nice, I'm home. :hat off
MadHatter
I really enjoyed your introduction and I'm looking forward to seeing more of what you'll come up with. And yes! The most beautiful army GW ever made was the classic 4th edition Chaos Dwarfs (with my apologies to all my helms/masks Dawi Zharr friends).
And I agree with you that everyone here is really nice, there are people here that I have never met, who live on the other side of the world, but I consider them my friends :hat off
So, welcome MadHatter, glad to have you here and always glad to see another blog...your idea of the converted two headed Chaos Dwarf is disturbingly brilliant, it will be interesting to see more stuff from you :cheers
That’s a brilliant idea for a conversion. Sure you can’t make it work?
Nice introduction for you blog and project. I like it when people put some of their “hobby thoughts” into the blogs, it adds so much more to the whole thing.
Everyone is really nice, I’m home. :hat
And I agree with you that everyone here is really nice, there are people here that I have never met, who live on the other side of the world, but I consider them my friends :hat off
I really enjoyed your introduction and I'm looking forward to seeing more of what you'll come up with. And yes! The most beautiful army GW ever made was the classic 4th edition Chaos Dwarfs (with my apologies to all my helms/masks Dawi Zharr friends).
And I agree with you that everyone here is really nice, there are people here that I have never met, who live on the other side of the world, but I consider them my friends :hat off
So, welcome MadHatter, glad to have you here and always glad to see another blog...your idea of the converted two headed Chaos Dwarf is disturbingly brilliant, it will be interesting to see more stuff from you :cheers
Fuggit Khan
Thank you and thank you :cheers
I read in the Word of Hashut (Must say, the best magazine in all the Dark Lands) about the possibility of the Dark Father once having broken free from the service of Khorne (therefore Juggernauts). I thought it an interesting thing speculating on this theory on the similar approach to magic shared by both Khorne-followers and the dwarfs. Wouldn't it joy a Lord of Change to reach out to a Sorcerer-Prophet of Hashut, meddling through a third party with both Khorne, the conservative dwarfs and the Dark Father himself at the same time? Also I would like my opponents to have to refer to my general as "Them". Hehe... :)
That's a brilliant idea for a conversion. Sure you can't make it work?
Nice introduction for you blog and project. I like it when people put some of their "hobby thoughts" into the blogs, it adds so much more to the whole thing.
Everyone is really nice, I'm home. :hat And I agree with you that everyone here is really nice, there are people here that I have never met, who live on the other side of the world, but I consider them my friends :hat off
Fuggit Khan
Agreed!
Bloodbeard
Thank you :hat off what a warm welcome!
Hmm, yes... your right. I will have to make it work. Perhaps another body or a ton of greenstuff. Perhaps one can simply remove both heads and replace with others? When the models arrive ill try to see what can be done.
In other news I broke rule #5 and ordered a blister of decals for the shields, a Man-o-War Great Taurus to crown one of the hats on one of the heads on the Sorcerer-Prophet, and a 5th ed. battlebook to be able to frame a map of Zharr-Naggrund and the Chaos-Dwarf artwork. I need to stop smoking anyway and who really needs electricity? I can stop whenever I want :cheers
Can't wait for the stuff to start dropping in now...
So… Its been quite a while and I’ve broken my buying rules repeatedly. During this first half of the year I’ve been buying and buying without even owning paints or glue This month I atleast ordered a starter paintset and using all colors in it save green I decided on the uniform and got my first set of 8 axemen done! This was all done using the starter brush (damn it to the deepest slavepits).
When I get some more colors and better brushes I’ll revisit these guys but I won’t feel bad about fielding them at this standard, for the moment being atleast. I decided to start with the core to define uniform aswell as to practice, these are after all my first painted minis since the 90’s…
I guess this counts as the “basing”, any tips on further improvements on the painting would be highly appretiated!
Nice basecoat colours! Since you purchased heavy duty tools for cutting up metal miniatures you might also want to convert future plastic warriors. You could always add a few beard decorations like the Hellcannon crew has got for variety if that is sought after, or make weapon swaps. Some hat spikes could likewise be switched for sculpted tiny bulls’ heads if you’re ambitious.
I’ll give you some painting thoughts in case anything is of interest.
These are not pro-tips, but rather ways to get decent to good results relatively quickly. In case it helps, here’s a paint range compaitbility chart if you need to translate all the oldie OOP paints to the current stock.
What paints do you have? Washes are your friend at any rate. They’re much easier to use than the old inks, though the latter had their good sides. I usually paint red and many other colours by highlighting through the layers first, and then wash it with a red-brown “flesh” wash (Reikland Fleshshade IIRC) to bind the layers together. To make it pop it’s usually worth the hassle to add some fine highlights after the wash.
Red-brown washes can also work well for gold and bronze metal areas, although normal brown washes are the preferred and more reliable method. If you highlight flesh colours with mere beige or even white paints the flesh wash will help pull it all together as well.
Likewise for highlightning you’ll probably want to highlight the beards, eyebrows and hairs first, and then give them a (black) wash. The same would be true for any black areas, since it’s easier to highlight black by applying grey or whatever colour you fancy, and blackwash it, rather than highlighting up through layers of dark grey. Don’t be afraid to paint quite stark highlights, because the washes will knock back the lightness.
For bone and teeth you’ll probably want to shade it with a light brown wash, Gryphonne Sepia it was previously called, and then re-highlight with light beige and pure white.
This would also be a case of subtle individuality in the unit, but you could always use thinned purple wash on the eyelids of some miniatures to simulate lack of sleep and give depth to the face. Professional painters usually add a lot of different colours subtly to the skin, but I find it enough to have some purple eyelids and red noses.
Don’t forget the pupils! One trick which is often used for eye painting is to first paint the white of the eye with a light beige, like Bleached Bone mixed with a little Skull White (whatever those colours are called nowadays), and then paint the pupils carefully with a dark brown or dark blue.
This is because simple black-and-white eyes stick out a lot and don’t look that natural. You might however want to use white for the tiny off-centre dot of light reflection in the pupils which often makes or breaks painted eyes.
As for bare brown wood, in case it would feature somewhere, you’ll probably want to avoid pure brown by mixing in some streaks of Catachan Green or similar grey-green-brown paints to give it a more natural look.
Lastly, base your miniatures before undercoating if there’s no very good reason not to do so! I always recommend it to people. This don’t apply if you’ll use flock, of course, and modelling grass/flowers/bushes would naturally be glued on after painting.
Paint the sand/whatever you have on the base first of all, because that’s the messiest part of the whole miniature.
Good luck with painting that small force for the tournament! Will the Bull Centaurs eventually be based on the new Demigryph base standard, or will they retain the traditional cavalry bases?
Nice basecoat colours! Since you purchased heavy duty tools for cutting up metal miniatures you might also want to convert future plastic warriors. You could always add a few beard decorations like the Hellcannon crew has got for variety if that is sought after, or make weapon swaps. Some hat spikes could likewise be switched for sculpted tiny bulls' heads if you're ambitious.
Admiral
Glad you liked the basing, phew. I'm not really after variation because I'm alot into the suggestive boardgame style more than any kind of realism, however some skulls sure would work well for those beards... Hehe, we'll see, some variation sure would give even more character, and in WHF one can't have to many skulls hehe :)
I'll give you some painting thoughts in case anything is of interest.
These are not pro-tips, but rather ways to get decent to good results relatively quickly. In case it helps, here's a paint range compaitbility chart if you need to translate all the oldie OOP paints to the current stock.
Admiral
This is gold, thanks!
What paints do you have? Washes are your friend at any rate. They're much easier to use than the old inks, though the latter had their good sides. I usually paint red and many other colours by highlighting through the layers first, and then wash it with a red-brown "flesh" wash (Reikland Fleshshade IIRC) to bind the layers together. To make it pop it's usually worth the hassle to add some fine highlights after the wash.
Red-brown washes can also work well for gold and bronze metal areas, although normal brown washes are the preferred and more reliable method. If you highlight flesh colours with mere beige or even white paints the flesh wash will help pull it all together as well.
Likewise for highlightning you'll probably want to highlight the beards, eyebrows and hairs first, and then give them a (black) wash. The same would be true for any black areas, since it's easier to highlight black by applying grey or whatever colour you fancy, and blackwash it, rather than highlighting up through layers of dark grey. Don't be afraid to paint quite stark highlights, because the washes will knock back the lightness.
For bone and teeth you'll probably want to shade it with a light brown wash, Gryphonne Sepia it was previously called, and then re-highlight with light beige and pure white.
Admiral
I only have the 9 colors of the base paintset, I've ordered Hashut copper aswell as greenstuff, since it's Hashut and all I'll kind of be forced to include it... Ill look into the washes, I'd love a darker wash to get into all the detail of the models and then perhaps do some drybrushing with lighter colors like you say!
This would also be a case of subtle individuality in the unit, but you could always use thinned purple wash on the eyelids of some miniatures to simulate lack of sleep and give depth to the face. Professional painters usually add a lot of different colours subtly to the skin, but I find it enough to have some purple eyelids and red noses.
Don't forget the pupils! One trick which is often used for eye painting is to first paint the white of the eye with a light beige, like Bleached Bone mixed with a little Skull White (whatever those colours are called nowadays), and then paint the pupils carefully with a dark brown or dark blue.
This is because simple black-and-white eyes stick out a lot and don't look that natural. You might however want to use white for the tiny off-centre dot of light reflection in the pupils which often makes or breaks painted eyes.
As for bare brown wood, in case it would feature somewhere, you'll probably want to avoid pure brown by mixing in some streaks of Catachan Green or similar grey-green-brown paints to give it a more natural look.
Admiral
Nice, great tips for the eyes, I'll need a detail brush first but then it would be great to do the eyes, I thought about having yellow iris and then perhaps use the dark blue you suggest for the pupils, but I'd almost certainly need to base the pupil black to get that black border around the iris in that case and it might be I'm not skilled enough... I'll test on the core units hehe, I can always hide them ;) No bare unpainted wood in this army! Every handle in red or yellow!
Lastly, base your miniatures before undercoating if there's no very good reason not to do so! I always recommend it to people. This don't apply if you'll use flock, of course, and modelling grass/flowers/bushes would naturally be glued on after painting.
Paint the sand/whatever you have on the base first of all, because that's the messiest part of the whole miniature.
Good luck with painting that small force for the tournament! Will the Bull Centaurs eventually be based on the new Demigryph base standard, or will they retain the traditional cavalry bases?
Admiral
Will be using flock, came with the start-kit and it's how I used to do it :) I'll be using the traditional cavalry bases, if that's not okay with my opponent he can find another player to game with, I don't want to ruin those old models by making them look silly small (I do not support the size of the FW BC anyhow for that matter) I guess I'll be at a loss aswell when loosing a couple of stomps?
Thanks alot for the many hints and sharing your experience, here have some slaves :hat off
I’ll be facing WoC, High Elves and Wood Elves, 16 small battles and then one Good vs. Evil, which will be played out during the course of a weekend. I’ll naturally be making bat. reps. hehe So… I’ll try to reroll the rocket to bang down elfs and perhaps demolish the enemy general, hold the line with the IG and flank the BC into stuff and draw attention away from the warmachine/DS, I don’t expect to win though, we’ll see…
EDIT: I went full cmd on the IG and GW on the BC to handle the WoC battle, he’ll likely bring Warriors and not so many marauders so I’ll need can-openers and not sure if the Deathshrieker will do much with s3 on those guys, more likely try to snipe his general straight from the start.
So… I had no plans at all to field a destroyer but my cousin (the chaos warrior) said that was BS and gifted me a porcelain bull-statue which fits perfectly on a 150x100 base… I naturally had to give a rough basecoat on the spot. On came some greenstuff…
Yes, I added teeth to get a nose-ring effect without making it domesticated. I go for the look from the front-cover of the white dwarf presents - chaos dwarfs http://whfb.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/thumb/8/85/Chaos_Dwarfs_4_Cover.jpg/220px-Chaos_Dwarfs_4_Cover.jpg now I’ll just have to wait for it to dry until I can add lips and more detail to tail, hoofs and head! All suggestions would be most welcome both on sculpting and for the model itself.
Hahaha! That’s insane, but in a good way. Your cousin knew what he was doing!
I’ve always shied away from porcelain, ceramics and glass in models, because they’re all too fragile for my taste. I hope it will withstand the rigours of gaming in the years to come.
Hahaha! That's insane, but in a good way. Your cousin knew what he was doing! :)
I've always shied away from porcelain, ceramics and glass in models, because they're all too fragile for my taste. I hope it will withstand the rigours of gaming in the years to come.
Admiral
Thanks :) yes I'm a bit worried about that it's fragile but it's quite thick and I'll have to be careful. If the twins get their hands on the army it's all lost anyway... Next I'll work on the details, especially the hait on the tail and head :cheers
The cover to the old Chaos Dwarf book is a real classic…good to see it being an inspiration for a Destroyer…keeping it vintage, keeping it classic! :hat off
Thats a cool looking model with a bad ass mouth!! With that mouth and teeth it will struggle to eat soupe… lol, I guess it doesnt matter anyway since soupe is off the menu, and flesh and bone is back on;)
I really, really like this :cheers The cover to the old Chaos Dwarf book is a real classic...good to see it being an inspiration for a Destroyer...keeping it vintage, keeping it classic! :hat off
Fuggit Khan
Real happy that you liked it! Keeping it vintage and classic is my creed aswell :hat off
Thats a cool looking model with a bad ass mouth!! With that mouth and teeth it will struggle to eat soupe...... lol, I guess it doesnt matter anyway since soupe is off the menu, and flesh and bone is back on;)
Yodrin
Thanks Yodrin, haha I guess the occasional regiment of seaguard will help keep it's fires burning ;)
To make it more Warhammer more detail was needed... Here's todays work :)
That’s the spirit! Is the green stuff still fresh? Here’s a few tips to make it pop:
In case of fresh putty, attack the edges of the hairy horn bases up on the head, because right now it looks a bit like a piece of headgear with that neat edge. You could also smooth out the edges of the rune’s putty (you might already have done so, it’s tricky to see on pictures) and perhaps try to get a little more sharpness into the rune’s edges? The putty is bulging in some areas.
Also, there seems to be a notch into the left horn’s putty. Fill it, and the horn will look better. Perhaps you might want to fill the edge of the green stuff on the horn as well, and get a smoother transition. Smoothing green stuff is one of the things I struggle with, but the trick seems to be having a little water on the sculpting tool, and press the green stuff thin “into” the areas around it. The outline of the smoothed green stuff should often be thin enough to hint at transparency.
Another trick is to “brush” some super glue around the border to be smoothed with a piece of newspaper. This might have to be repeated a few times, but the super glue will often be enough to smooth things out by filling out sharp edges. Only do this at dried green stuff. The same method can be used to get a smoother surface anywhere on a sculpt, since the glue fills up crevices. It’s tricky and requires care to handle, but it’s the lazyman’s way past all that smoothing!
So… I’ll try to reroll the rocket to bang down elfs and perhaps demolish the enemy general, hold the line with the IG and flank the BC into stuff and draw attention away from the warmachine/DS, I don’t expect to win though, we’ll see…
