Skaven Test Paints Finished - and what comes next

Sunday was a bit of a late one finishing off a few projects, and it was bed time by the time I'd finished uploading all my blog photos. So my Monday blog post is a little late, but in my eyes it's absolutely worth it because I finished off the Skaven test paints, and I'm pretty settled on what I want to do with the army.

(Should you want some of these miniatures yourself, they are Oakbound Studios Gnawlochs.)

As I finished up the last three, I experimented with basing a little bit. From left to right - just Aggaros Dunes, Aggaros Dunes and Warpstone Glow, and Aggaros Dunes and Plaguebearer Flesh. I felt that the Warpstone Glow effect was OK, but drew away from the miniature too much. I really liked the Plaguebearer Flesh one, as it gave the ground an unhealthy feel.

Once the contrast on the bases was dry, I washed it with Agrax Earthshade and drybrushed it with Wraithbone. At this point, I start liking the plain Aggaros one a lot more. I still don't like the Warpstone Glow base for this project, but I might use it elsewhere. I actually like the Plaguebearer Flesh base a little less in the finished version, as it loses some of the unhealthiness to the shade and highlight. I suspect I could improve on that, but at the expense of painting efficiency, which I will desperately need working with Skaven.

Skeleton Horde cloth is going to be the unifying factor across all my Skaven. I most like the effect from the fancy undercoating method with Wraithseer, which is the one in the middle.

"Use the fancy undercoat method" bears across with the colours I want to use for the Eshin, too. I much prefer the one on the right, although due to needing to do some tidy up, he also got two passes of Gryph-Charger Grey, and I think that darker hue really works - so likely two coats for the Eshin!

So, I need to sit down and write down my finalised recipes for my Skaven into a book this week so I don't forget them, and move on to my next projects.

Malifaux assembly proceeds slowly. They're fiddly models at the best of times. The second Viktoria is now done, but her sword draw behind her back involved lining up the head, the sheathed second sword, and then the two arms - with the final join being along the sword blade, so everything had to line up perfectly. It's done now, but I was pretty sweary!

So, with two models done, I'm going to get another three of the first ten done and then treat them as a smaller, more manageable batch. I'll need ten to play but trying to paint and assemble ten all in one go is not going to be good for my motivation!

I've grabbed another one of the Reaper figures off the shelf if I need a break. Having something I'm not emotionally invested in to hand is a useful thing to have. I had a couple of brain frazzles in the past fortnight where I nearly had a meltdown because I couldn't find anything low effort to paint at that exact moment. There's still a lot of boxes to go through and it's not all sorted.

I have, however, managed to find a bunch of models for Purge the Pit. I've decided to go Inquisitorial (it seems to make sense to do so) with a definite trend towards the Radical end of things.

The original plan had been to write a list and paint only the exact models I need, but this month's White Dwarf teased something Inquisitorial next month - so the new plan is to paint as much as possible between now and then and then bodge it into a force closer to the time.

Here's a few of the miscreants and trouble makers I'm looking to get painted up for the event. It may not be all of them, as I've seen some Arco-Flagellants and a Jokaero recently. I'd really like to find one of my Terminator Inquisitors too, if I can! There's also an Inquisitorial Transport or two sculling around somewhere.

And finally, aware I'm running low on my Reaper figures that are assembled and ready to go, I've washed a couple of resin models ahead of assembly for future casual paints. One is a creepy mimic, I think from a sculpting Facebook group that was a competition winner. The other is a scarecrow that was sold by JoeK Minis. I'm pretty sure it's out of print now. And I think it was something he got from an Oz inspired range in turn...

Still, a good couple of models for Halloween casual painting, I thought...