CXVII. Swampfiends: Spawn Mother and Will o'the Wisp

When we last saw Spawn Mother she was a work in progress. Got her finished now, along with a Will o'the Wisp. With this I have the full starting crew for the campaign we're starting at my local club next week. I'll have to make Gupp swarms soon because, althought I won't hire any, I'll be summoning them during the game.

SPAWN MOTHER

Fish monster... I used the same colours as on the first Silurid.

Before painting I added a few bubbles made from balls of Milliput cut in half. The base was painted black, with lighter areas around the parts where legs and hand touch it.  I made ripples around the legs with Vallejo Heavy Gel. The base was then coated in several layers of Vallejo Still Water. The final touch was some foliage: flock, grass tufts and moss tufts.

One with a white backdrop. Some things are better visible in this one.

  *

WILL O'THE WISP

The Wisp gave me some trouble. I couldn't get the skin right. Originally I imagined it light blue with lights that have a greenish hue. Repainted it several times until I settled on this. Those wings, on the other hand, were fun to do. I liked the design from Will o'the Wisp boxart so I tried to emulate it.

It's supposed to have a glowing bum. Looks slightly better in person but still I see room for improvement. I'll try to do better on the second Wisp.

  *

I'll make a small display base for them. For now it's still in the planning stage.

CXVI. The Cult of Vvolos: Skeletons and Apprentice

From left to right: Ieronym, Albrecht, Ikorid, Wilhelm, Kettelhelm.

The Cult warband steadily grows. Last time we saw the meatier fighters of the group. Now they are joined by miserable bone puppets. And one of their yellow-robed controllers. 

 *

 

IKORID, NECROMANCER'S APPRENTICE

Ikorid follows his mistress and works hard on learning the craft. Some day, when the time is right, he will assassinate her and take over her House... 

The base was a classic chaos Stabb the Acolyte figure. I replaced his sword with a staff and did a few little changes here and there to make him unique.

His mistress, the Necromancer leader of the warband, will be converted from a Skaven model. What I need to achieve through conversion and paintjob is to make them fit together visually. A good trick, among others, is to repeat some details across both models. This will be very clear when I'm done with the Necromancer and I'm able to show them sidy by side.

Front and back shots.

 *

 SKELETON WARRIORS

Skeletal minions of the necromancers. Unlike living warriors, skeletons have the advantages of needing no food nor rest and never feeling pain. However, the magic that animates them requires a certain effort to maintain and their gear and bones ask for periodic cleaning and repairs. The latter is normally the task of apprentice necromancers. 

I really had fun painting them. I wasn't sure what to do with the quivers on the two archers. They begged for freehand but gave me a very limited and oddly shaped space. They ended up with tributes to two great artists: the left one has Albrecht Dürer's monogram, the rigth one a part of Hieronymus Bosch's signature. I took this into account when giving them names.

The archer pair used to be standard bearers. High elf bows and quivers replace banner poles. Pretty straightforward.

Kettelhelm's shield was painted before I even started the conversion. Shields are great for having fun with freehand.

The demonic face on the shield comes from this piece by Ian Miller. I just love this image. It's bonkers.

A group shot of skeletons with their higher undead comrades.

CXV. The Cult of Vvolos: Undead Footknights and Barbarian

These three were first made some time ago, with no particular purpose in mind. I had a few old chaos minis lying around and the conversions just sort of happened. Late 2016 I started seriously considering making an undead-ish dark fantasy warband with an old-school look and feel to it. Not tied to any particular setting, just a bunch of cool-looking gaming pieces that are aesthetically coherent. The most obvious inspiration for this was the art of John Blanche and Ian Miller. Old one-piece metal minis have this two-dimensional quality. I perceive a similar two-dimensionality in the phenomenal work of Blanche and Miller. This is what I had in mind when I made the background scenery they are posing on in the above photo, and this is what I'll try to stick to with each new addition to the warband. For that reason most of the base models for conversions will be oldies. I have acquired enough material and started making the warband I imagined.

Then, quite recently, AoS28 happened. In the vein of INQ28, the movement aims to explore the world of the new Warhammer with the same approach. AoS28 is still in its early days, so in time we shall see in what direction it goes. This new project of mine fits in there perfectly, I think. Regarding the rules - nobody around me plays AoS in any form, but rules are not what defines the movement anyway. Cult of Vvolos will see the battlefield as a Frostgrave warband. Frostgrave is a campaign skirmish game akin to Mordheim, where each warband is led by a wizard. The core rules are simple, there are not many special rules and soldier types are very generic. All of this allows for tremendous creative freedom in choice of miniatures. There is an official line by North Star, but people are encouraged to use whatever they wish/have at hand. I find that immensely appealing.  

The minis came first, but I'm gradually developing context for them.

Where they come from people live in numerous small feudal kingdoms - many of them just a fortified town surrounded with villages that feed it. The rest is forests and hills and bogs, with monsters and barbaric, wild peoples roaming about. The kingdoms often fight amongst themselves. Some kingdoms are ruled by necromancers. The Cult of Vvolos comes from one such kingdom. They worship a mysterious demonic prince who calls himself Vvolos. The Cult's core is a council of necromancers.   

Sir Bosc Machen, a death knight (Templar).

Sir Cain de la Mare, a death knight (Knight).

Gorostas, an undead barbarian. (Barbarian)

Can you identify the bits I used?

Now that I look at them I feel the trio's paintjobs could be better. I guess I'll go back to them at some point. But first the warband needs to be expanded with more evil dead.

Material for future warband members. Two robed figures (necromancer cultists: Wizard and Apprentice), a bunch of skeletons (Archers, Xbowmen, Men-at-Arms, Infantrymen), a couple more chaos champions which will be converted to undead knights...

CXIV. Swampfiends: First of the Catfish-People

To be ready for the upcoming Malifaux campaign at my club I have to paint a small starting crew (35SS). After a bit of thinking I came up with a list that includes Spawn Mother as the leader, Bad Juju, a Waldgeist, a Silurid and a Will o'the Wisp. I'll also need a few bases of Gupps because Mother can (and most certainly will) summon them during the game. This will gradually grow into a larger pool of models led by Zoraida.

 Two Silurids and a Wisp. They were all subtly converted - just changed some details I didn't quite like. The assembly was not too difficult, luckily. Malifaux plastics can be a real pain when it comes to that.

First Silurid painted. Most people go with green skin (I guess because box art suggests it). I wanted to take mine a different way.

I assembled Spawn Mother, too. She is smaller than I imagined. Even more now that I cut off her feet to make it look like she is wading through water. Again, there were some details that bothered me. Her claws and fangs were ridiculously long. And there was something about the shape of that dorsal fin that just didn't look right. I sculpted whiskers so that she would resemble Silurids more; Wyrd made her look like a completely different species for some reason... If you care to see exactly what I changed you can find good images of an unconverted version HERE for comparison.

Painting starts from a light undercoat.

Then I go crazy with washes and glazes. This is still early WIP.

*   *   *

After reading my Crew's stat cards I realised I'll be able to generate Burning tokens as well as Poisoned... Took care of that right away:

And I made a second Scheme Marker, as you can see all the way at the beginning of the post. I like the idea of painting a new one to accompany each new post. They make neat thumbnails. I'll see if I can go through with that. 

*   *   *

Before I sign off, just a small update on my Fae faction. Many thanks to Florian Wortmann for sending me 15mm Fairy swarms I originally wanted to use for the Piper's crew, only to find out they had gone out of print. He happened to have them and kindly offered to give them away. The Fairies arrived through the post recently and I quickly painted them so they can join their master. Thanks again, Florian!