Sláine: Kiss My Paintbrush!

Each of my forces is being expanded by the addition of a big thing.  Not in the rules but very evident in the graphic novels and hopefully this will work at the slightly expanded scale I’m planning on playing the game at.  The Earth Tribes will get Slaine’s war chariot and the Drunes a sky ship.
First up then the Fomorians with a mammoth.  Here’s the art that inspired this choice:

The mammoth is a combination of a 3D print acquired at the Legionary show in Exeter last month and a Citadel Savage Orc shaman from eBay.  I wanted a model with widely splayed legs holding something up vertically and this one fit the bill.

A bit of Greenstuff to cover the hole in the raised foot,green stuff a slight gap between rider and beast and a massive base and we were ready for painting.

Mammoth was painted in the same way as the ombre graduated wet-blend I used on Slough Feg.  The mammoth started darker with neat Dark Wood on the underside and inside lower legs; blending into Hardened Leather to about 2/3 of the way up, and the trunk; then Sand Golem mixed in until it was virtually neat Sand Golem across the forehead and down the spine.  Tusks were Palid Bone and then decreasingly heavy dry brush coats of Dheneb Stone, Bone White and Ivory focusing increasingly on the ends and upper portions until the last colour was just on the very tips.

Fomorian was painted the same as the others although the feathers on the cloak were Zealot Yellow with a dry-brush of Vallejo Flat Yellow.

Alternative Armies had a very good offer on their Erin models before Easter and Gavin was very helpful in sorting out the best deal.  They even threw in a free skull pile.  Great delivery turnaround too.  Highly recommended.
I overindulged somewhat, getting Fir Bolg, Sidhe and Fomorians.  I’ve painted the latter now and baring some extra bases that will arrive Monday I’m done.  They are painted with Plasmatic Bolt in the way I described in the original Fomorian entry earlier in this project.  The NMM bronze effect on the shields and armour panels is a mix of Palid bone, Dark Wood and Speedpaint Medium.  Verdigis is stippled Nihilakh Oxide Citadel Technical paint with the upper surfaces wiped back to the bronze tone.

I’ve got a group of three with Spear and shield.

Two smaller Fomor called Pucci in the Erin range.  These will make ideal companions to Fomorian characters in the same way as dwarves do for the human factions.

This is the skull pile I got as an extra gift from AA, thanks 🙂  Palid Bone then a drybrush of Citadel Foundation Dheneb Stone.

Now the witch’s guard with their long swords and shields and capes to match their mistress.  The capes are Blood Red.

And finally a collective shot with one of the Warlord Fomorians for scale.  I think they look great together and give less uniformity to the Fomorian force which fits better with my idea of what they are like from the graphic novels.

I got the Sessair done, including the Red Branch warriors with their funky weapons.

The main feature colours are Zealot Yellow and Absolution Green.  Kilts have had the pattern picked out in Vallejo Flat Blue.

Tattoos are great fun.  I did them the first time in my Celt-Iberian project and I use thinned down Vallejo Prussian Blue for the woad like colour.  You need a good brush with quality bristles to make things easier.  I find this proto-Celtic “Tribal” style pattern quite easy.  The basic principle is to work from the middle towards the edges of a design, from thickest part to the thinnest.  I pick a large skin area, then start from the middle of the pattern and press down slightly to get the wider part and then lift the pressue whilst moving outward in the curve of the pattern, lifting until only the very tip is is contact and exagerating the curve back towards itself to finish.  Then back to the wider section in the middle and off again curving in another direction.  I try to follow the raised contours of the musculature as this makes the pattern easier to see.
The raised parts of the pattern are highlighted with a 60% add mixture of white, keeping the paint quite thin using ink or an Air type paint.  This can be used to cover any unevenness in the width of stroke from the first application.

Give tattoos a try, you’ll be amazed at how easy they are 🙂

Ran out of layouts on the last post but still have more comparison shots:

I’m using non-Warlord miniatures in my project and @demonsub has asked to see some size comparison shots.  There have been quite a few Sláine adjacent ranges over the years so this will take a few photos.  Firstly, the Warlord models are 32-35mm sized but how big is that?

Compare to standard reference monopose Space Marine and GW Gondorian swordsman:

Alternative ranges I’m planning on using are from:

Alternative Armies Erin, Brigade Models Celtos, Fantasy Forge/Harlequin (some of the Roy Eastland sculpts are available through North Star Figures), Wargames Foundry 2000AD range (oop),Warlord Chronopia (Target oop) and  Confrontation Sessairs

First up, the main man himself:

So we can see that ranges aren’t even consistent to themselves, Warlord’s two unwarped versions are different sizes and there is a huge difference in the various Foundry models.  So far so unclear.

Next up the Fomorians:

First finished miniature from another manufacturer.  This one is a Celtos miniature, now sold by Brigade Models.  Same AP Speedpaints as before – loving the Orc Skin on the snakes which I brightened up with some Plasmatic Bolt.

I’ve had a big order of Alternative Armies Erin miniatures arrive.  I bought some more Fomorians, Fir Bolg and Sidhe to be able to add a couple of extra factions.  Super excited about getting them done.

Finally there is some extra scatter from Ainsty Castings.  Standing stones and a dolmen.  Standard reference Skull Sword for scale purposes.

A Wicker Man is featured in a number of storylines.  Warlord’s publicity table setup features this model which is called Alan and is from Ainsty Castings.  He comes with an alternate head to make a wickerman monster and a Green Man mask for any folk horror weirdness you may want to get into.  The basic version is great for us.
Black undercoat and then drybrushed with a makeup brush in progressive layers of: Citadel Khemri Brown, Vallejo Flat Brown (patchy), Vallejo Japanese Uniform WWII (patchy) and then a light drybrush with Citadel Dheneb Stone.  It takes a while to build up the depth of colour that looks right and the two patchy colours provides a bit of colour variation across the surface which doesn’t show so well in the photos.  Woodwork has been overpainted with Contrast Snakebite Leather and the wood around the feet has been tinted with a range of different brown colours, thin glazes to ensure the highlights show through.
The model is huge – 250mm/10 inches tall.  Standard reference Skull Sword for comparison purposes.

The Warped version of Sláine was zenith undercoated and then I worked a blend of Citadel Contrast Magos Purple and Vulpus Pink into all of the grey undertones that escaped the white zenith.  The idea behind the purple is that the Warp Spasm must cause an enormous blood pressure rush and therefore the complexion will be very purple.  Once this was dry I switched to Speedpaints again and started with Purple academy to blend into the low-lights.  I then mixed this into some Crusader skin for the mid-tone and painted this into the deeper muscle recesses.  Remaining white areas were covered in neat Crusader skin.

As this is a character model some additional attention was paid with Vallejo Tan being used to highlight the upper areas of shaded muscles.  This was then blended into some Vallejo Pale Flesh to create a lighter highlight which reinforced some mid tone upper muscle areas. The popping and bulging veins were reinforced with the pink/purple contrast.  Then a final highlight withe the lightest skintone, and on the highest areas a very thin glase of pure Pale Skin.

Other details were painted with the usual speedpaints, Gravelord Grey and palid Bone for his axe, Brainbiter.  The cloth is a blend of Sand Golem, Palid Bone and Zealot Yellow.  Hair is Grim Black.

The eye sockets had a nice deep pink/purple from the first contrast layer.  Eyeballs were picked out in white for a good effect.

It was the Exmouth Club’s Legionary Show on Saturday.  First show I’ve been to since before The Event.  A highlight for me is always the Bring and Buy.  Once again the Fates shone kindly and I spotted these in a ziplock for £8.  Thank you Earth Goddess!

These three are from the now OOP Foundry 200AD range.  The Horned God and Sláine the King in the front and Warped Slaine behind.  Now I can paint up the other Warped One and we can compare and contrast.