Time once more to look at the progress of my Skaven army this month. To recap once again for anyone new to this blog, I set myself the challenge of adding, at minimum, one completed model to my Skaven army every month in 2017. So successful was this at transforming the grey unpainted mass into finished models that I decided to repeat it in 2018. This month’s output however also counts towards Azazel’s September challenge – to complete a long neglected model – as it’s been crawling across my painting desk since way back in May of last year when this plague priest first put in an appearance.
Close observers may have noticed that I based him on the little platform that he uses when riding on the plague furnace. An old-fashioned square Warhammer base is hidden underneath allowing him to be fielded separately from his vehicle.
It really is past time however for that vehicle to be finished. Last month I painted up the monks which pull the brazier so all I had to do this month was concentrate on the rest of the ramshackle structure. For a while there I worried I might not make it, having spent a lot of the earlier part of the month batch painting greenskins. However a last-minute flurry of activity, accompanied by shoving gobbos onto the back burner (something any Skaven would approve of!) saw it completed.
The green smoke was surprisingly easy, being built up from a combination of Hexwraith Flame and Nihilakh Oxide over a white undercoat.
And now you see why I had to paint those horrible plague monks just to push him into battle!
The main thing is, now he can twitch his tail with pride even next to that show-off Grey Seer and his swanky bell.
Right, now to see if I can’t get a few more gobbos done before the end of the month. I’m running an underground arms-race here after all!
September 29th, 2018 at 12:21 pm
Excellent work, especially considering your use of that trickiest colour: yellow.
Interesting that the Priest has to have a base but the Furnace (and the Bell) don’t come with one at all. It’s been a long time since I played Warhammer Fantasy Battle but I thought that would have been an integral part of the miniature for gaming purposes.
Overall I like the effect with the brightness of the yellow robes and green magic-stuff showing up well against the more naturalistic tones of the vehicle itself.
September 29th, 2018 at 12:50 pm
Yeah, the yellow was “interesting” at first, although once I managed to get my head around it I don’t think it’s any harder than any other colour, it just takes getting used to.
As for the overall scheme I really wanted to play to the extreme ends of the spectrum. I tend towards dirty, organic colours and I wanted to use that as a backdrop for the brighter stuff, to really emphasise that the Skaven are messing around with unhealthy and unnatural sciences! 😀
Regarding the bases I think you’re quite right, the bell and furnace should be on bases. However I got them second hand and the bases were missing and I never bothered to try to track down replacements. Partly it’s because I’m more used to 40k where vehicles like tanks don’t have bases. I doubt these will see the tabletop in anger any time soon but if I do get a friendly game in with them it should be pretty clear where the base should be, the model has pretty much the exact same footprint as the base would have. If I manage to lay my hands on bases for them at some point I’ll do it but it’s not a priority 🙂
September 29th, 2018 at 4:13 pm
Great work mate, truly love it. The priest is great both as a figure but also as a paint job, very nice. The machines are awesome and I presume quite a size given the figures shown alongside. All very impressive.
September 29th, 2018 at 7:54 pm
Thank you! The priest is a really nice model, I knew it was going to take me a while to get around to the furnace but I couldn’t resist cracking on with him, hence why he was painted long before the rest of the piece. Just checked the height, the furnace stands roughly 17cm (about 7 inches in old money). Bit bigger than the usual stuff I do certainly 🙂
September 29th, 2018 at 4:20 pm
Nice work dude! Love the work with the smokey green mate, really effective
September 29th, 2018 at 7:48 pm
Cheers man, ludicrously simple to do too 😀
September 29th, 2018 at 10:57 pm
Looks great! I like how you made him removable so he can run around on his own when you want. The fade in the smoke coming from his brazier looks cool, too.
That pic at the end made me think of the two of them doing some sort of Fast & Furious type drag race, except that they have a top speed of about 2kph.
September 30th, 2018 at 3:48 pm
That would be simply amazing! GW should do a spin-off version of the new Speed Freaks game based around it 😀
September 30th, 2018 at 4:49 am
Oh wow mate, well done. It looks super impressive. Love all the combinations of timber, metal and rust. Great work!
September 30th, 2018 at 3:53 pm
Cheers man – it was great fun to paint (and only slightly nerve-wracking!). Looks like an absolute beast now it’s up on the shelf next to the rest of the rats!
September 30th, 2018 at 6:56 am
Stunning work. Loving the contrast of the yellow and green against the warmachine
September 30th, 2018 at 3:57 pm
Thank you – I’m really enjoying playing with the combination of bright, garish colours and muted, organic tones 🙂
September 30th, 2018 at 5:11 pm
That green paint jobs mate , thats the green i see everytime i read a novel with the skaven in. Great job visualizing it even beter for me.
September 30th, 2018 at 5:22 pm
Thank you! It’s the green I see as well, I’m really happy to have captured it 😀
October 1st, 2018 at 5:18 am
[…] the lofty ambition of completing all of my spearmen and archers although as it turned out, with the plague furnace to finish off as well, this proved to be biting off more than I could chew. Luckily Azazel’s […]
October 1st, 2018 at 8:48 pm
Wow, that’s an awesome piece to get done for your army! I like the colors, but my eyes keep going back to the machinery itself. Something about the way you do your wood, rust and metal tones that sets it apart from others. It’s like a dirty oil stain that covers your work. Nice one!
October 2nd, 2018 at 7:17 am
Thank you! I use a rich brown a lot, both for the basecoat on the wood and then as a wash over the metal. Then I drybrush the wood with orangey-browns and sponge-weather the metal with orange rust so the two harmonise quite well without blending together. Then I mix in a tiny bit of variation on the wood (so there’s green and even blue in there if you really hunt for it) which doesn’t really show up unless you’re looking for it but should make the whole piece look more natural. I’ve got a lot of practice at it by now but for me it’s the key to getting these right, it’s the frame that the brighter colours are hung on and makes the army look organic rather than garish.
October 2nd, 2018 at 9:42 pm
It definitely seems to be your own style. I imagine we all do things a bit differently, but I’d say yours is set apart a tad from other GW stuff I’ve seen.
October 3rd, 2018 at 9:50 pm
Well thanks again 🙂 I think you’re right, we all develop our own style over time (I’ve been painting miniatures for 15+ years now) and there are definitely certain ways of handling colours that I know and fall back on. The main thing for me is that I feel I’m still improving even now, but at last I’m happy with my work. If it’s unique into the bargain – well that’s a bonus!
October 4th, 2018 at 1:01 am
The hobby encompasses so many things, that I imagine there will always be something to improve on.
October 8th, 2018 at 10:57 am
That is some great looking ramshackle Skaven machinery!
October 8th, 2018 at 6:49 pm
Thank you!
October 10th, 2018 at 11:10 pm
Not much that I can add that has not already been said here, so I’ll just go with fantastic work on a very impressive piece.
October 11th, 2018 at 6:39 am
Thank you very much! 🙂
October 20th, 2018 at 10:19 am
[…] Convert or Die completed a pretty impressive centrepiece model in September – a Skaven Plague Furnace. I’m aware of how redundant it is to mention when an enormous amount of work goes into a […]