The Enduring Legacy of the Realms of Chaos

Remember those amazing illustrations from the original Realms of Chaos books, by artists such as Adrian Smith, Paul Campbell etal, the ones that provoked so many ideas and fleshed out some of the possibilities and potential within 3rd Edition Realms of Chaos? I still love looking at them today and often feel inspired to try and convert my own miniatures based on the characters depicted within them. But I don't have to so much anymore because the Games Workshop of today (which has more recently seemed like quite a different beast as to what I grew up with) has released some models that are so obviously steeped in and inspired by some of those very illustrations I alluded to earlier.

I rarely venture onto the GW website, so I am somewhat behind the times, but I saw someone else had painted this model (Sloppity Bilepiper) and assumed it was a conversion, but no, this is a bonefide GW release that is clearly based upon some illustrations from GW of the 80's, specifically the Realms of Chaos. I just had to buy it (and make a bit of an adjustment to make it fit a bit better with those illustrations and lose the, quite frankly, ridiculous staff);

The musical element, the dynamic, dancing poses (especially the Nurgling) are just so evocative of those early illustrations, especially the Dance of Death. The older Nurgling I added to Sloppity's hand is a reference to that era.

I had forgotten about my scenic photography backdrop, so I dusted it off (I actually had to and was surprised by the versatility of static grass) and used it again here:

 Before converting and painting this modern model, I just had to reach for my Lost and Damned book and look for the specific illustrations that I saw the link to in these sculpts. The two images were by Adrian Smith and Paul Campbell from the Nurgle pages in the Lost and Damned Realm of Chaos Tome, specifically the Dance of Death and Nurgle Calvalcade pages. Have a look:

So, as I was researching some of this post, I discovered that GW is releasing a game called the Realm of Chaos. It's not aimed for me, but it is nicely reassuring that my favourite era and output of model miniatures is seeing something of a revival for a new generation of gamers/painters. I'm looking forward to some new plastic models to paint and then sit alongside my original lead ones and hope they all are happy lined up alongside each other.

Tutorial: Nurgle skin painting guide

A few people have asked me how I paint the skin on my Nurgle models, so what better way to respond than by doing a step by step photo guide. I've sensibly chosen to work on a model that has lots of skin for this guide on how to paint skin, so I've gone for an old school Plaguebearer; here's the finished article:

Now this chap didn't turn out as well as usual, or indeed as I hoped! That's partially because I tried out something new and also because I lost my rhythm a bit as I had to keep taking photos. Excuses out of the way, here are the steps to achieve this type of look:

1.  Halford's White Undercoat/primer

2. Carroburg Crimson wash. I added a glaze medium and a touch of washing up liquid which helps make the paint more transparent and flow better respectively. This smoother application prevents pooling and tide marks and helps bring out the details (as the wash sits around theme) which ultimately makes the highlighting steps easier as the detail is pronounced.

3. Same as stage 2 but this time I've added a little Nuln Oil tothe wash. This one is applied to the darkest recesses and shadows. I don't always include this stage, but may instead re-apply stage 2 to deepen the wash colour.

4. Highlighting. Because the washes are very transparent, the general colour of the flesh at this stage is of course very pale due to the white undercoat. Therefore the highlighting colour is based upon the original wash colour (Carroburg Crimson) but only a small amount with a large amount of white. I apply this to the raised areas (and also I imagine where any light source is coming from - usually from above).

5. Subsequent highlight layers are added, each time a greater quantity of white is added to the mix and applied to a smaller area of the raised detail, so that the previous hue is apparent. By adding some glaze medium to each highlight the paint is quite transparent which means that some of the colour of the underlying coat shows through - which helps blend and unify the highlights.

6. Now this was the experimental part. (I did have some prior success on a Chaos Warrior - scroll to the bottom of that post) where I used some crackle medium. In that post I applied the crackle medium straight onto the model. In this case I mixed it with a touch of Nurgling Green in the hope that the separating nature of the crackle medium would reveal the crimson undercoat between the cracks, like so:


Imagine the cracks here revealing the crimson colour beneath a pale nurgling green layer - here seen as brown.

Alas the addition of the paint and it's own medium combined with the crackle medium, seems to have counteracted the effects of the crackle medium so the Nurgling Green layer has ended up appearing just like a glaze - not what I was intending - but it still looks ok.

7. So I continued on (but more experiments are needed in a future post), by working in some highlights for the uppermost layer of skin. Adding larger quantities of white to the Nurgling Green for raised highlights.

8. To create a greater contrast between the skin layers and the open sores, I mixed up a bloody combination of red, purple and black inks and applied several thin layers into the relevant areas. Again a touch of glaze medium and washing up liquid was used to help improve the flow.

9. Finally some Tamiya Clear Red was applied to small spots of the open sores to create a glossy, oozing feel to the wounds.

10. The teeth and horns were painted with layered up yellows (from Bestial Brown to increased amounts of Sunburst Yellow and white). I think I may have gone a bit too yellow and should really tone it down with some Bleached Bone. But that will never happen - I rarely go back to a miniature when it's completed! The tongue is painted with Titillating Pink. Any excuse to paint with it and name check it in a post.

11. The basing tutorial in all it's detail.

So the completed model. As I said it's far from my best ever paint job, but serves a purpose in sharing how I paint (if anyone is still interested!). Furthermore it shows my enjoyment of experimenting with new and different techniques, even if they don't always succeed. But I will persevere.

As an Art Teacher, I'm often asked how we mark artwork, well some of the criteria are:

• how students (hopefully successfully!) experiment with a range of materials
• how students realise their intentions
• how students have developed their work, often through looking at how other artists have worked.

Well with regards to miniatures, the later we all do I'm sure - who doesn't have a folder of inspiration on their PC? Or at least we have all looked at an 'Eavy Metal article / Golden Deamon paint job from a White Dwarf of yore and based our own work on that. The last two criteria I haven't been so successful with here, so I certainly wouldn't mark this highly - I'll give myself a C.

I may go into this link between "successful" GCSE/A-Level art and miniature painting in a bit more in a future post, stay tuned, I bet you can't wait!

Back catalogue - Plaguebearers

So my hobby output is very slow at the moment, the usual combination of work and general life stuff pre-Christmas getting in the way of what I would like to be doing!

Therefore to fill the void I was looking back through my Photobucket account and found loads of old pictures that I uploaded (or didn't) onto various forums and I thought that for completeness and to share them with you, my new audience, I would post them here too.

So I start off with some plaguebearers from a range of different GW eras, all of which have been slightly converted with new weapons or in the case of the last one, wings:

I've used my tried and tested pastel palette for these and tried to add some contrast too.

I've also converted this banner bearer from a Forgeworld Herald of Nurgle by giving him a tentacle with which to hold the banner triptych. I've tried to combine the image with the skull head atop the banner and gone for old-school Nurglings within the Nurgle symbol (the images are based loosely on illustrations from the Lost and the Damned itself:

Over the next few days I'll be posting lots more of my previous work to try and complete my oeuvre of work over the past few years. Be nice to have it all together, even if only digitally.