BitzBox Warband Characters

To continue the slow work of finishing my bitzbox warband, I can now introduce the two lesser characters to accompany the previously showcased minions; 

Darn the Veiled (Marauder, Mark of Nurgle, Horns, Heavy Armour and Shield)

Araf (Level 5 Beastman, Mark of Nurgle, Bestial Face (dog) limb loss (leg), Demonic Steed (Skull Face, Horn)

As you can see I've rolled up the Chaos Attributes from the great Lost and the Damned tome and gone about converting them to match the rolls. I've now finally got around to painting them too:

You may recognise a few of the multitude of bitz used here (go on play the game, you know you want to), and you may also identify with where my inspiration came from for Aruf; namely the Groot character below, which I believe was modelled and painted by Mike Mcvey.

His steed is a direct copy of this Tony Ackland illustration from the Chaos Spawn section from the LatD. Originally I was going to sculpt on the scaly skin (I forgot), then I remembered and was going to use crackle medium (I forgot again) so in the end I painted a furry kind of texture to break up the large, flat areas of horse body. I wished I had sculpted the scales on though, it would have looked better and more in keeping with the original illustration.

Darn is a simpler conversion, using a Chaos Warrior body, with a Knight of Nurgle head and some greenstuffing to the new addition of a shield.

And the two of them gallivanting through some quite familiar territory. 

The next and final piece of my Bitzbox Warband is the leader mounted onto a palanquin; I'm slightly daunted by the size and intricacy of it, so it may take some time. I plan to finish a few other quick projects alongside it to break up such a large project.

Retinue Table: Chaos Warrior

For this entry in the Lost and the Damned warbands retinue table, there is a chance you could roll a Thug, a Marauder or a badass Chaos Warrior. So for the sake of completeness with my self-imposed challenge, I have painted one of each.

First up is the lowly Chaos Thug whose Chaotic bent has given him a slightly better weapon skill and initiative than mere human fighters. I love the unique and dynamic pose of this miniature:

I like his wild eyed stare, even if the overall paint job isn't my best (or the photo). The swamp reeds are just old brush bristles cut to size and superglued together in a clump. I've attempted a little freehand tattoo on his arm to break up the pale skin and I've also had a go at using the old citadel transfers on the shield and then painted over them with some highlights to jazz them up a bit:

Next up is the Marauder. Now I don't believe any models were released for Marauder's per se, so I've used a Chaos Warrior that didn't look to have gone too far down the path of damnation (ie. no mutations or chaos armour). Again he has a nice dynamic pose:

I've used a lot of my rust effect on him which I think works quite well on all the armoured areas and I've stuck an unwanted Mantic zombie head on his shield.

And then there's the Chaos Warrior himself; a classic Champion of Nurgle from that great range of sculpts (Jez Goodwin?). Not such a dynamic pose, but loads of character. He received a plastic orc shield with the orcish emblem carved off the back to have a simple, square wooden shield again with some fly transfers added in the Nurgle triangle:

Here on his armour I've extensively used layers of yellow ink as glazes over the white basecoat. But before I did that I painted on a layer of crackle paint onto the armour which gives the slight craking effect you can just about make out. After my yellow glazes I applied a very thin wash of green/brown over the armour which sits in the recesses of the cracks and helps define them.

I like the contrasts between the yellows, the greened armour and the rust on the sword. The jewels on his sword came out well too (I had to follow a little online tutorial).

Finally the three Chaos warriors together, visually showing the journey a servant of Chaos will travel as he progresses through the ranks of Nurgle:

Out of interest which shield do you like the best (if any!)?