The unquiet spirits of ancient warriors once again heed the summons war. Blasphemously tethered to their mortal remains they march from crypt and barrow beneath the tattered banners of a bygone Age.
Shambling from their tombs this week, a rotting regiment of Blanchitsu inspired skeletons. Continue reading
Lithe as quicksilver and as elusive as the wind, the Aelf Realmscout is ever but a fleeting shadow in the peripheral vision of her quarry. What is it that drives this exiled traveler to stalk the nebulous hinterlands that link the Mortal Realms? Does she seek truth behind the legends of vanquished gods or to avenge the shaming of her sundered race? Perhaps she seeks only to survive…
This week I’d like to share one of my favourite miniatures from my collection. Age of Sigmar really encourages players to open their imaginations, and the cannon of the Old World is no longer a barrier to creating your own narrative. Here at Technasma, we love playing Pathfinder: Adventure Card Game, and this figure is inspired in part by the fabulous Iconic Characters illustrated by Wayne Reynolds. She started out as more of an RPG type character, rather than anything from the established Warhammer lore.
There’s a bit of Xena, Warrior Princess, Merisiel from Pathfinder, Arragorn and even a hint of Link from Legend of Zelda!
She’s converted from predominantly Warhammer 40,000 parts, so it was a fun challenge to make a miniature that didn’t look out of place in a high fantasy setting. To make her battlegear more lowtech, I opted for leathers, ivory and metallics, but picked warm bronzes and golds for an exotic aesthetic. To compliment this I opted for bright textiles – jade green for the cape and trousers with a splash of lilac for the sashes and fletching.
I used True Metallic Metals (NMM style but using metallic paints) on her weapons; a lethal looking scimitar and paired dagger known to the Aelves as glimmerblades. Under her hood you can see her defiant expression and a few locks of blonde hair.
Games Workshop certainly design their models with converting in mind. There’s such cross-compatibility in their kits, that its very easy to create something unique and special without hours of cutting, filing and putty work. My Realmscout is living proof of this – a product of six kits from two gaming systems. Finishing touches were applied with a ruined statue from a Scibor Basing Kit and some Agrellan Earth.
Have you been using the creative freedom of Age of Sigmar to kitbash your own iconic heroes and villains? Let us know in the comments – we want to see pictures too!
Head over to our Instagram to see work in progress pics of some of my other Aelf Iconics.
Manical from an eternity of stasis-slumber, the Phaeron of a long-forgotten dynasty rides to war. Behind him, vast and implacable hordes of machine-vassals march in unison. Once again the galaxy will face the wrath of the Necrontyr!
Time for the second installment of our collaborative project – The Necrons of the Derelict Planet – inspired by the fantastic artwork of Pascal Blanché! It’s back to 40K this week as we present the superb Necron Catacomb Command Barge. If you’re into vehicles then this is a real joy to paint. It has organic curves – perfect for fades and blends – as well as crisp edges for sharp highlighting.
As with the Necron Warriors we painted the Command Barge together over a few sittings. The colours are intense and vibrant, built up in successive layers initially using sponge and drybrush, with more controlled glazes and edge highlights deployed towards the end.
The underside of the Command Barge is left the dark teal green colours of the basecoat and picked out with Sotek Green. The style is inspired by the bold colours of Pascal Blanché’s Derelict Planet art, but we hypothesise that the underglow is from the craft’s grav-repulsor force-field. (That or it’s just a pimped out ride, fitting of an insane Terminator Space-Pharaoh!)
The Necron Phaeron was a perfect opportunity to try out some advanced painting techniques. His War-Scythe and Ressurection Orb were embellished with glowing blue non-metallic metal effects. We’re pretty happy with how they turned out. We used the iPhone app Snapseed to work out how to light the War-Scythe before painting it, to ensure the lighting looked correct. We’ll feature this in a future blog, but here are some close ups.
As ever we’d love to know what you think of our work, your feedback sustains us!
Also, we’d like to thank Pascal for tweeting our blog last time – great to have some engagement from such an inspirational guy! We highly recommend you check out Pascal Blanché’s art on his blog or excellent art book Derelict Planet.
When The End Times: Glottkin came out I was pretty happy that you could build an army using all of the Chaos factions. The Beastmen have some great models including this guy, the gnarled Great Bray-Shaman, and I was glad to have an excuse to add him to my collection. I painted him up in the same magenta that I used for the wizards and heroes in the rest of my army.
I converted his staff with an icon of Tzeentch from the Burning Chariot kit, the eye of which glows blue with clairvoyant power. If you look closely you can see blue Object Source Lighting from the baleful eye glaring out from beneath his hood.
I freehanded runes onto his hood, inspired from designs found on the Chaos Warshrine. Here’s a better view of the Chaos Star over his left eye. I glazed his cloak with Reikland Fleshshade and Druchii Violet to create a patchwork of flayed skins.
I really pleased with how this model came out. To me he’s a real throw back to the creepy old 80’s artwork from Slaves to Darkness and the Lost and The Damned. In fact I enjoyed painting him so much that I got a unit of Bestigor bodyguards for him too – more to follow! What do you think of him – tell me in the comments below!
A malevolent spirit returns from beyond the grave in today’s showcase! The Cairn Wraith is one of those wonderfully understated models – very simple design but perfectly executed and full of macabre character.
This is the first of several Undead miniatures we want to share with you. The palette is inspired by the reds, sepias and burnt umbers of John Blanche’s evocative Vampire Counts concept art. It was good fun to use a limited range of colours, starting with initially quite messy applications of brown and crimson, working up to successively more refined glazes of bone and off-white.
I like how the wraith seems to have manifested into a bloodsoaked death shroud – an effect that was completed with a few spots of Tamiya Clear Red.
Given Games Workshop’s obsession with vanitas and memento mori symbolism in the Warhammer world (a big part of what makes it so cool), this model is something of a homage (an homage?) to John Blanche. I added the tongue from a Bloodletter to give it a creepy twist, and freehanded the checkered pattern around the edge of the wraith’s cowl – a motif ubiquitous in Blanche’s artwork.
Hopefully this guy gave you the chills! We love to hear your feedback, so feel free to let us know what you think in the Comments below!
Technasma 
