I suppose you can not actually see much in the picture... but I am using a more yellow-brown skin wash this time, and the fur is darkened a little more by means of a wash there too. Not entirely happy with the result at this point, but I suppose it IS a middle stage, and there is far to go still.
Basecoated the fur on all the beastmen. Striking how little fur there is on the Kev Adams beastmen while the unknowns are closer to the current GW gors. Evolution, perhaps. Or Nair.
I went for a more reddish brown this time. The minis will be dark enough with the addition of black cloth bits and shading, and the reddish tone will hopefully set off the green quite well.
Some skin needs more in order to cover the undercoat, and I have to work on a lot of pouches that I was too lazy to remove, but the painting still seems easy.
Quick surgery: one gor got an oven mitten. Everyone knows beastmen love baking.
Early days still, and this is just a first coat. No coats on the goats, just the warriors at this point.
This is normally my go-to colour for greenskins, actually. I was not going to paint this team green to begin with, but I went with an impulse. It does make them reek a bit of Nurgle, but I am sure they won't mind.
I am quite pleased with the warriors at this point, and they should be fairly easy to paint up.
Now... to think of a good name.
I went to work with the saw and the green stuff. I had a few issues to work on before the warriors could be considered done:
- warrior 1's helmet. It looks like a big piercing in his helmet, Gary. Do not want. I first cut the ball, started making 'proper' horns... Still did not like it, so cut the horns altogether. This lead to...
- no one having horns. I sawed them off warrior 4 who kinda looks like he is riding a horse. It pleased me. Warrior 2 had already lost his cartoony horns, and warrior 3 got to keep the spike on his head.
- warrior 4 had another issue, as do many from that generation: too knightly in the armour. I can't have any warriors playing ball while looking like they are chasing Shaggy and Scooby. So he got football boots, ie his greaves got a once over, and his feet are no longer pointy.
- warrior 3 with the spike on his head who had an arm cut and repositioned got a brand new biceps and triceps on that arm. He only had a pin till now, so the improvement is quite tangible.
- fingers and such touched up with green stuff.
Normally, I would be happy to do a strict "NO MORLEYS!"-policy. I still think Gary has created some of the most arse-ugly minis I have ever seen, and moreover thereby wasted immense opportunity, seeing as the characters and stories were cool and deserved cool minis. Instead we got a giant skeleton in a bath robe... The blood bowl teams look like they were all done over the space of a weekend or so. The poses are lame, the variation minimal, and proportions are often... well, these folks would be "challenged".
All this said - again - Gary Morley has actually produced some nice minis, and it would be a shame to discard these out of prejudice. I like the warrior on the left, actually. Fist in the air in the land of hipocrisy? It is not as awful a pose as it could be. It shouldnt be cool, but I think it is. I am tempted to cut the horns off though...
The other one is not cool as such. The sculpt lacks detail, especially on the backside. I hated the horns, and off they went. Two fist-pumpers is at least one too many, so his arm is cut and repositioned. Gary? One hand is bigger than the other. Just so you know.
So... should these boys be allowed to play?
I was told that my previous attempt to add the oomph to the team in the form of chaos warriors, was perhaps too modern for a somewhat old skool team. So I looked at some warriors I tinkered with a few years back, and tinkered with them some more...
This is what I got. Snips, repositioning (hand and arm) and a little green stuffing to do still. If anyone knows the designer or designers then please let me know.
The headlines are catchy, aren't they?
No, I have not technically stooped so low as to be kitbashing with space marine parts. The torso that one might suspect is in fact a freebie and therefore obviously not GW.
Converting or bashing chaos warriors is made difficult by the enormous sizes that some warriors have. As if the dark gods without fail will think "oh I like this champion, but he must be bulked up!", and in some cases it means the proportions get silly. Example? Willy's ogre sized giants with tiny heads, GW's Forsaken in numerous ways, or the short torsoed Avatars of war. Combining them is easier said than done at times.
Also I did not want a warrior smaller than the gors or bigger than the minotaur. So... this is what I managed to glue together. Is he right for this team? He still needs a little green stuff...
