[PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by cultofkhaine »

Thanks for posting - I have a pile of these to paint at some stage it will come in handy :D
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Catrine »

You're welcome!

I also hammered out this thing:

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I'm not generally a fan of chariot models, and sadly this one is no exception, they're always kinda fiddly, difficult to transport and don't look all that imposing on the battlefield, add that to the fairly lacklustre rules and it's kind of a lame duck. On the plus side it's pulled by dinosaurs, which is pretty rad!

Mostly I've done this one to fulfill the requirements for the Ebondrake Battlehost formation, though, as far as I can see, that seems a little lacklustre in and of itself. Re-roll ones to wound in combat is a nice little bonus, but it also allows the units to make a once-per game charge move during your hero phase, but then doesn't let them actually pile in or attack once they get there, this seems more than a little pointless seen as, if I wanted, I could just move and then charge seen as it's my turn anyway. Unless I'm missing something. I guess it let's the Black Dragon get more models in range of it's unimpressive breath attack?
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Amboadine »

Regardless of battlefield performance , you have put together a nice looking chariot there.
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Gnosis »

That there is the best lava base I've ever seen.
Count them:

Painted in 2013: 500
Painted in 2014: 600
Painted in 2015: 854
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by cultofkhaine »

Yes really nice work!!
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Catrine »

I did the photos for this several days ago, but haven't had chance to post; a tutorial for lava bases ala Catrine.

Again, nothing fancy, you could almost certainly achieve better effects via, I dunno, wet blending or glazing or something, but this is how I've been doing it.

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First of cover all your bases with a few layers of watered down PVA, enough to obscure the base texture and leave a smooth surface.

For construction you just want to use corkboard, I use heatproof mats of the sort you use in the kitchen to stop hot pans ruining your work surfaces, it comes in various thicknesses and is cheap, you can crumble it with your fingers. I use a craft knife to get decent shapes, then just glob the bits down with superglue and leave to set.

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For bubbles I use some plastic beads from a necklace making kit, chop them in half and glue them down, you could also use green stuff, ball bearings, etc.

For the bases without the big hopscotch rocks it's just standard sand and PVA, nothing new to anyone here I'm sure, just make islands with it instead of covering the whole thing, you can make channels by scraping away the sand before it dries.

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Prime black, then paint any rocks with Mechanicus Standard Grey, followed by a heavy black wash.

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Wait for the wash to dry fully and then drybrush Dawnstone over the rocks, putting particular emphasis on the edges.

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For the actual lava start with a base coat of Mephiston Red, try not to get any on the rocks/sand, this is just a base, so it doesn't have to be neat really.

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It's very important to wait for each layer to dry here, otherwise things go all splodgy. Next is a secondary basecoat of Mephiston Red/Troll Slayer Orange.

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The actual technique used it just layering up red through to white-yellow, which you might note is backwards of how it should be; the brighter, hotter colours should be towards the middle of the lava, my goal when painting these is to add a sense of directionality, imagine how the lava flows through and between the rocks, and from which direction. Normally the aim in most painting is to hide your brushstrokes, but in this case I make them quite obvious, more like I'm doing a 2D picture of flames than a 3D representation of lava. Work up through orange, yellow/orange, yellow, yellow/white and pure white, each step making the brush strokes smaller and more intense. In the later stages you can work to add little currents, eddies and ripples to the surface.

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Every time I paint bases like this I think, "Oh, God, it looks awful, I'll have to start over," but it'll come together in the end. The final step, the black, is essential for this, firstly you can add black to hide any dodgy bits you don't like and secondly it provides a sheer contrast to the bright colour of the lava and helps break up what could otherwise be an overwhelming orange-y mess. You'll want a fine brush for this, and then just practice your pointillism and put some speckles of black around, varying in size and shape. I prefer to do them in little clusters, or larger clumps breaking off of the rocks, you can add more directionality here as well by making the black grains follow the 'flow' of the lava you've created. Finally paint the base rims black as well, to hide and spill-over.

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And that's that, nothing too complicated, but I think it looks alright in the end.
The next update will be with the finished models that belong on those bases, hopefully, til then!
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by cultofkhaine »

Thanks for posting the tutorial Catrine - most informative :D

I have not tired cork board before for rocks I will have to give it a go (normally I used dried out wood chip)
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Shadowspite »

An excellent tutorial. I have just realised what your lava bases remind me of: the Deadlands from the TES IV: Oblivion game. It's the slightly tarmac/concrete look of the non-lava parts of the base that does it. Sort of a combination of 'natural' volcanic terrain and post-apocalyptic wasteland. Very appropriate for Age of Sigmar, of course. :D
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Catrine »

Not a game series I'm particularly familiar with, but video game lava level was part of the intent with these bases, so I'm glad that came across.

If I may I'd like to pick some brains for a moment.
I grabbed a Cauldron of Blood kit up as my next project, which, of course, also means I can make a Death Hag and Medusa, plus, with some kit-bashing and spare bits, maybe a mounted Sorceress/Morathi stand-in as well, jury's out on that one for now.

Anyway, a couple of queries;
-Looking at the pieces and instructions here it seems like the best way to make sure I don't go insane painting it is to leave it almost entirely unassembled, it looks like if I glue it together there'll be all sorts of trouble trying to get paint where I want it, can anyone confirm/deny?
-Khaine's a cool guy, but his statue is, well, I don't like it, I'll be using the mirror thingy instead, which raises the question; does anyone know how to paint mirrors, large, flat surfaces scare and confuse me.
-I'm probably going to want a second Medusa, but I don't want to just scrounge for the components from somewhere cos I don't want two identical models, however, I d have some spare Sorceress torsos and bits from the Black Dragon kit, which really just means I need a suitable snake tail. Any ideas where I can find something like that?
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by cultofkhaine »

-Looking at the pieces and instructions here it seems like the best way to make sure I don't go insane painting it is to leave it almost entirely unassembled, it looks like if I glue it together there'll be all sorts of trouble trying to get paint where I want it, can anyone confirm/deny?


I have not painted this myself yet, I do have it assembled ready to go. I left the central section and top pieces off the main carriage and intend to paint it that way.

-Khaine's a cool guy, but his statue is, well, I don't like it, I'll be using the mirror thingy instead, which raises the question; does anyone know how to paint mirrors, large, flat surfaces scare and confuse me.


Airbush if you have one might be good for this, other wise I'd paint it white or bight silver with a light blue wash on it.

-I'm probably going to want a second Medusa, but I don't want to just scrounge for the components from somewhere cos I don't want two identical models, however, I d have some spare Sorceress torsos and bits from the Black Dragon kit, which really just means I need a suitable snake tail. Any ideas where I can find something like that?


I think greenstuff would be a good option for this. Mould it over a wire frame.
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Catrine »

Green stuff would certainly be the cheapest option, but I am not hugely confident enough in my sculpting ability to make that look any good. Plus, having looked at the Medusa model more closely the torso is really too big for a Sorceress stand-in not to look out of place, so back to the drawing board on that one I suppose.

Here's how I've got the cauldron broken down at the moment:

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Plus the Death Hag, currently being painted, I could've left more of the spiky bits off of the main chassis too for ease of painting the various nooks they create, but decided not to tempt fate lest I lose them.

I've also finished painting a second unit of Cold One Knights, which lets me run the minimum requirements for the Ebondrake Warhost formation, which mostly just gives everything re-roll 1s to wound in combat, which, in fairness, is not a terrible bonus.

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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Catrine »

I've found the time to finish up some stuff:

A Death Hag, using the Sorceress head from the Black Dragon kit cos I like it, I was tempted to use the ponytail off of the statue of Khaine instead to make it look like she'd tied back all her witch elf hair, but this look okay I think, the hair is blowing in a slightly different direction to her skirts, but I don't think it's too noticeable.

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A Bloodwrack Medusa. I feel this should be a Bloodwrack Gorgon? I guess Medusa sounds better, whatever. Neat model, I just wish it was poseable in any way. I'm not a big fan of all the sculpted blood drips, I get that blood is kind of her thing and all, but I painted it as lava instead. My primer was sprayed in non-ideal conditions unfortunately, so it's gone a little fuzzy, same on some parts of the Cauldron, but it's not too bad.

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A Cauldron of Blood. All the big kits are designed as centerpiece models, of course, but the Cauldron in particular seems designed with that in mind, very ornate, very fiddly, makes me wish I was any good with an airbrush for all those smooth curves. Not my best painting work, I've never been that good at inorganic lines, it looks alright hopefully.

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There's a magnet under the top step, and the Death Hag has a length of paperclip between her heels, so she is removeable, as is the blood mirror thing on top, just to make storage and transport easier. The goblet on this Death Hag comes from the Isabella von Carstein model. You might note I haven't used the killer Hellebron head sculpt, I'm planning on using that for an eventual 'Morathi' kitbash when I find the necessary components.

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I've never been a huge fan of the wheels on the Cauldron, to me it makes it look too toy-like (Well, it is a toy, obviously, but more like something a young witch elf would tug along on a string.) Back when it had to go inside a unit at least you could maybe imagine the witches pushing it along, though they seem like the type more likely to indulge in extraneous backflips than actual physical labour, now that it just moves around under it's own power some alternative locomotion was necessary, and what else are slaves good for if not carrying things?

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Fairly rushed paintjob on the slaves, they're just chaos marauders with their faces occluded and the various spiky bits chopped off, probably something that works better in concept than in execution, but I like it well enough. Unfortunately there's no space left on the base to fit a slave-master goading them along, although, looking at it, maybe I could squeeze one in on the side? We'll see.

Anyway, that's all my Daughters of Khaine stuff so far, more to come!

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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Shadowspite »

Very nice! I especially like the Medusa. The bone staff/spear with brass serpents works really well - I would never have thought to try that. And the lava blood, too. I agree that the sculpted blood drips look a little naff if painted as regular blood, but as lava they look just right.

I also like the 'mirror' on the Cauldron. It looks like a portal into a realm of roiling blood-coloured mist - perhaps whichever heaven or hell Khaine is currently chilling out in? ;)
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by cultofkhaine »

Nice job - I like your death hag and the slaves on the altar look good.
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Amboadine »

Nice job indeed.
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Catrine »

I've been a tad ill lately, which doesn't leave much motivation for painting, though I did pick up Silver Tower as a self-pity purchase, so I'll be working my slow way through that when I can.

In the meantime I did this thing, counting as Morathi, or some sort of High Sorceress, or something, mostly it just seemed a shame to let the statue of Khaine go to waste.

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This model went through several iterations in my head, originally having the Sorceress on the statue, then maybe on a horse alongside it, or on a cliff above it, but this was the result that best balanced effect with my laziness.
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Sabious »

I think your laziness gave a very dynamic look to the thing. Really good work
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by cultofkhaine »

Looks like Khaine is walking out of the lava - nice job!
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Catrine »

Looks like if my local store starts sticking to the points system in the new handbook (when it's released) then I'm gonna need some more basic infantry grunts to make most legal armies, so I guess a couple of boxes of Darkshards will be my next project at some point.

In the meantime I'm chewing slowly through the Silver Tower miniatures, these things are super detailed and not necessarily suited to my 'eh, close enough' style of painting, but I think I've done a decent enough job so far, I'm really looking forwards to getting the whole lot done and play some proper games, so far we've just had the models lying on their backs, which is really not as impressive.
The game is real fun by the way, probably the best of the GW board games that I've played, except maybe Space Hulk.

Here are the hero miniatures from the box, I'm doing a bit of visual coding by having red as a spot colour on all the heroes, and only on the heroes, with blue the same on the enemies, so that anyone looking at the board can easily see which models are good and which are bad, mostly just to make things easier for anyone unfamiliar with warhammer or miniatures in general.

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I'm not very good at armour, but I went for a black and gold scheme on the Knight Questor to play up the bit of art deco styling the Stormcast iconography has a bit more.

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Barbarian guy, he's a barbarian, not much to say other than I'm real bad at skin tones, I should probably have varied up the metal parts as well.

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Most dwarf models don't do much for me, hard to get good sculpts on something that is mostly beard with stubby limbs and giant weapons, this one at least has a bit of movement to it.

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I like this guy cos he's trying just so hard to be edgy but failing at every turn, sure he's got the knife fingers, the skirt of flayed skin, chains hooked in his flesh, but it kinda looks like he's gonna get tangled up on his own accessories the moment he makes a sharp turn. Nice hair though.

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Warpriest is a cool model, I like him, and his pet is at least twice as cool. I'm really, really bad at white cloth though, so this is more of an off-grey, but it's hard to keep up with the laundry in a Tzeentchian hell tower.

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Mistweaver is another great model, probably my favourite hero sculpt, looks a little worse from the back cos her leg is a little weirdly twisted, but still great. Really pleased with how the mist came out considering I was more or less blindly experimenting.

Working through the villains of the piece currently, more pics to come as and when I finish a batch.
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by cultofkhaine »

Nice work on the models from ST. I think they work well together.
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Shadowspite »

Nice work! I would maybe do an extra highlight layer on the faces of the Knight Questor and Warrior Priest to make them stand out a little more. Ideally, a character model's focal point (the part your eye is first drawn to) should usually be the face, but at the moment it is the KQ's lion shoulder pad and the WP's chest, since those parts are so much brighter than the models' faces. The human brain naturally looks for faces in things, but you need enough highlighting to trigger that part of the observer's brain to say "this is a face". In the case of the KQ in particular, my brain keeps trying to tell me that his lion shoulder pad is his face.
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Amboadine »

Some nice stuff in this update.
Nice to see some of the Silver Tower models.
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Catrine »

I finished up the Silver Tower minis, ended up rushing over the last few familiars to get everything done in time for a trip to Warhammer World, but it looks much nicer now that everything is done and based. I'm no good at the vibrant blending Tzeentch stuff tends to favour, so it is perhaps a little plain looking, but I'm pleased enough with it.

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As the heroes all had red as a part of their paint jobs the enemies all get blue of some sort.

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The Gaunt Summoner is a little weak paint-wise, it needs a better contrast between the blue and pink I think. Also their horns got all bent on the sprue, which is a little disappointing.

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Cool model with a great pose, I should probably have done the tattoos/sigils in a more contrasting colour.

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First Skaven I've ever painted, didn't come out too bad I think.

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At first I thought that there didn't seem to be a huge number of models in the game considering the price-point, but when it came round to painting them it seemed to take forever!

Anyway, now that that's all done I'm back to Dark Elves for a spell, picked up a box of Darkshards to boost up my Battleline units, shouldn't take too long.

After that I am enticed by the new Beastclaw Raiders, I already have a fair few Ogres, but big monsters are rather my thing, so I may dig them out and rep Destruction for a bit, though they'll need some round bases, I'll try something a little more creative than the current model sand and snow flock affairs that they have now. If I can work out a good way to make some frozen lake bases I'll give that a shot, we'll see.
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Amboadine »

I like what you have done with the models. Some good colour work.
Also pleasantly surprised on the amount of models you got with the game. I might have to look at investing.
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Re: [PLOG] Catrine's Paledrake Asterism

Post by Catrine »

The price-point on Silver Tower is pretty high, no question, but I would say it is worth it, the game itself is a lot of fun, good for both warhammer vets and general boardgaming, and the miniatures are top notch, plus you can use them in AoS if you want, I'd say it's especially worth it if you have any plans to run some sort of Tzeenth themed army at any stage.

I've been quite ill lately, so not much painting, I did manage to finish a unit of 10 Darkshards, giving me three battleline units, but I haven't got pictures of them done. Also, whilst I was down at Warhammer World, I picked up some of Forge World's Angron Red clear paint, this is designed for airbrushing and is supposed to be applied over metallic paint to provide a tinted surface, however, in this case I just brushed it straight over all the red armour/shields of my dark elves to create a glossy, lacquer look which works well with the gold ornamentation. A little tricky to photograph, unfortunately, I'll try and dig out a better camera at some point.

With that done I've decided to put the elves to rest for a while; I don't want to go crazy building and painting tonnes of stuff when there's no real way of telling how any potential AoS updates might shake things up. So, in the meantime, I'm dragging my Ogres off their space on the shelf, with the release of the Beastclaw Raiders they get some fun new toys, and I get the joy of trying to snap off a bunch of square bases, hooray...

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Conveniently my Ogres already had a vaguely Scandi-wegian theme, which fits the Beastclaw stuff quite well, and these new citadel textured bases are really quite good, shame about the repeat designs, but that's my only complaint.
I'm experimenting with some clear crackle medium to get ice effects, a little tricky to get it to do what I want, but I'm pleased enough with the results so far.
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