Sword of September - painting topic

The dry brushing is looking good, plenty of texture to work with. I find the same thing with the Mantic giants. They have a lot of detail if you want to take the time over it, which perhaps can be daunting for a newbie, however, it is so well sculpted that a wash and then some careful dry brushing will do a lot of the work for you.

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Thanks @Nav and yep I found careful drybrushing to work really well on most Tree like things. On the Forest Shamblers as well.

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Ghoul troop 2 based

Got a ‘mini anvil’ regiment

Working on troops 3 and 4 for a whole horde, another mummy troop and if I can squeeze in the time a horde ( 2 regiment bases) of skeleton warriors.

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My goblin army finally got an expansion. 1st regiment of rabble. (first half of a horde) . I’ve been painting goblins on and off for a year now and suddenly I happen to have 44 rabble finished.

I do love the new Mantic goblins. They are funny little sculpts in themselves with three options (bow, spear, sword-n-board) but they combine wonderfully with a lot of ahem GW stuff from my bits box.

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Those gobbos look great Vince! The blue and yellow really pop nicely. Good use of height as well.

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Sweet, @Vince . i know what you mean. Those old Night Goblins by ahem, from The Battle of Skull Pass are timeless. Over the years, I’ve lost a few of them, in particular the archers and fanatics, but i still have enough Spear stikkas and spider riders to put a 2k army together.
However, the Mantic goblins are some sweet sculpts too, whether that is the rabble, spear or Spitters, and thats not forgetting the Luggit gangs, Fleabag Sniffs etc. Some great troop options, and some excellent HQ and unique options in there too.

And this is probably why i have 2 Goblin armies rather than one. Will power can only hold back the temptation so far!!!

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Great to see them all together on that lovely base now!

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This is exactly the reason, why I have two human armies…. I keep telling myself the 2nd army is available for sale, but for some reason, I never get around of actually selling it.

As for the goblins, I have plenty of gw human stuff laying around and they match nicely. I have a particular love of my two gun-wielding gobbos:

They are conversions of the new Mantic Goblins and GW human (this time outrider and free company) bits. As you can see, the arms match perfectly in size. As for the swords, on the first, I gave him a human-sized sword (from the knight spue, I think) but this is greatsword-sized. For the other, I chose a perry twins 28mm napoleonic saber, which matches the size far better.

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loving the smurf gobbos. I stole a lot of my Skull Pass and other GW Dwarf guns pistols crossbows etc when converting gobboes into grots for 40k

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Ghoul troop 3



Ghoul troop 4

Ghoul horde finished

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Mummy troop 2

When added to Mummy troop 1 to complete
Mummy reg 1

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They are coming together @coOk_pAss_BaBtridge . The mummies in particular, are working well on those bases.
The ghouls with the sewer base too, but i’m not quite sure about the barrels… too much brown perhaps? It can be hard to see it in a picture, as i’ve learned from my own experience. Your ghouls are brightly coloured and are working to defect it, but maybe a couple of tufts of grass might help. Just a thought.

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Thank you @Nav, I know what you mean about the barrels they were in front of me when I was basing and without thinking I just grabbed them and stuck em on, i’ll definitely be adding some sort of plantlife and bushes to all the bases at some point.

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I was in two minds to say anything as i didn’t want it to sound like criticism, so i’m glad you know what i meant. There is a rule of thirds in photography, that helps find proportion and focus, and can be helpful in painting too, i think.
My son has always been fond of the undead, and perhaps he initially picked them, at least to some extent, thinking they would be easier to paint as you don’t have all the lines to keep your brush within. But i think that at least to some degree, the likes of ghouls and zombies are more dificult to do justice with. It is easy to throw a bit of paint at them and hope for the best, but if we study the models carefully, there is a lot of detail and texture hidden away, that some light washing and gentle dry brushing can coax out. My first units of Northern Alliance Human clansmen were a disaster, for the very same reason. They are brimming with detail, and despite my best efforts, i made a total hames of them, and had to scrape as much as possible off and start again. By the time i was finishing off my last models, i’d become much more sensetive to them, in order to capture them as best as i can. i hope that i did them justice.

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I notice that you’re Ghoul troop base is a light gray at the back, and brown at the front. Rock/Mud. Now, without actully seeing the base in clean daylight, it is hard to judge, as the camera often ignores our best efforts at shading etc. I’m guessing rocks at the back, and me, i love to paint rocks to look like… well rocks! if you just grab a pile of light gravel off the road and stick it on the base, it looks like rocks-ish, but add a light dry brushing of white and they really pop. The same can be said for a lighter or darker shade of mud. Even a dry brushing of pink, which was until recently the only pot of Citadel Dry that I owned, can do wonders for bringing up the textures. A light wash might do the same. Experiment.

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Relax @Nav I know what you mean it’s cool.

Yeah I thought the same thing with my Undead and EoD, I thought they would be less trouble to paint being just skeletons, ghouls in rags and zombies etc but I was wrong, my EoD was the 1st lot I painted and I made them bland, just bronze and blue paint slapped on with missed details they need to be repainted, that tought me to be more careful with my Undead even though they are not professional and still missing some details there is a massive difference between my EoD and my Undead.

The zombies were difficult but they were enjoyable to paint i’ve still got 2 troops to finish painting for my second legion.

I agree with the ghoul base with the rock I don’t know why I didn’t use real rocks I got a pack of gravel I bought off ebay a while ago which is crazy cos my back garden is all gravel there for the taking.

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i wouldnt worry about whether the rock is real or not. i use both real gravel, (i found a spot where i walk my dog that is really fine stones.) or foam. You will need to be more selective with glue/spray paint on foam, but once you have it shaped and primed, it’ll be great. Another alternative is charcoal flakes. Excellent for larger chunks of stone. Again, once primed to seal in, it’ll make great bolders or dolmens. For tricky adhesives i use nomorenails. btw. The grey you have will work fine though, it just needs to be broken up with some dry brushing / shading wash and some colour blending.

Last weekend, i couldn’t get parking within a ten minute walk for our local gaming event, so i had some carrying to do. Those stones add up when trecking any distance with your arms full of models, terrain and rule books.

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hehe, I use regular split gravel too. Here’s a bit of a tutorial how I incorporate them into my multibases: (Summary: clean, glue into place, black ink, grey highlights)

On another subject: I tallied my hobby progress from the last 12 months. it happens I painted a grand total of 143 minis and I’m quite happy with the various projects I’ve finished during that time! As I’m quite proud on my achivement, you can find them all again here:

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Some sweet work there @Vince

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Pretty happy with this guy…



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