The Coven of Verminlord Skrax - The Comic Book

I have something very exciting to share with you guys. I commissioned my brother to illustrate the comic book which will tell Verminlord Skrax' story. I wrote it out and did a basic layout and storyboard for my brother, and my wife edited the text. And so I bring you the comic book:

 

These are all the pages of a booklet I will be giving away while my board and army are on display at the tournament. I just got to get them printed, folded, and stapled and everything for my army is good to go! After the tournament I will provide a report of how well it did.

Forthammer Clan Throng - Drake Dunsson (Cogsmith)

One of the featured models for my Duardin side of my AoS army (for the LVO) will be Drake Dunsson, the Master Cogsmith. I featured him here, as I talked about using him in Silver Tower. Well he went through a redesign, which I love.

This happened when I took off his original head. I am fond of the Irondrake heads, but since my Forgesworn Eternals were all to use those heads, I didn't want my Duardin to use the same, opting instead for different available heads. Then I purchased the Gyrocopter kit, which I plan to use for another conversion. In going through the bits, I found one of the bits for the front fuselage gun-mount used on the Gyrocopter variant could be turned around and put on a body to look like a really cool mantle. Also I really liked one of the pilot heads, as it would be perfect for the eccentric engineer that Drake is. I also redesigned the back unit. I liked the gear assembly up top, but stick it on a few engniney bits from my collection, and ran hoses to the pistols, to look like they were feeding it.

I think this makes a more unique looking engineer model, and I can't wait to show it off when painted.

Forgesworn Eternals - Painted Models Part 6

Another short painting update. My Knight-questor from the Silver Tower set is done.

And this completes the painting (before the basing of course) of my Forgesworn Eternals. I like the method I used for painting them because it's simple enough and worked well for their theme. Now I will start dedicating my resources to working on my Duardin portion of the army. I have some ambitious plans for it, but attainable goals I feel.

Verminlord Skrax' Lair - Title Plaque - How I did it

Doing a painted title plaque was a last minute idea for my display board. I wanted originally just to do a simple print of the army title and stick it on the base. However I knew it would look cheap and unimpressive, even if you find the perfect font for it (which is Dark Crystal font, by the way).

I thought of this idea because I wanted something hand painted to title the whole board. So here is the process of how I went about doing it:

Start off by printing off the text onto label paper. Label paper is just a big sheet of paper with a sticker backing. It's primarily meant for printing labels onto things. I kept the size of the font so it would fit within the 1" thick base of the board. Luckily the font I donwloaded had an outline version, which made this so much easier. I cut out a sizeable portion of the label paper and stuck it on a piece of plasticard, then stuck the outlying sticker on a piece of wood that I usually do my cutting and painting on. This is to prevent curling and a hard back for the painting. As the paint would dry, the whole thing would want to warp. You can see the outline of the plasticard underneath the label.

Next I painted within the text and the background of the title, trying to keep within and without the lines as much as possible. I purposefully painted outside the boundaries of the plague because I knew I was going to cut it out, and it would be better than having white within the cut.

Using the colors of my army's armor and warpstone, I painted a reflection type gradient. This was easier than I thought because I didn't bother with any sort of wet blending, just applying layers of the right colors.

Next I applied a layer of a lighter red surrounding the text to bring it out a little more. It still blends well enough with the background.

To finish the text, I used a fine tip black ink marker to recorrect the original black outline. It sharpens up the details. Then I give the whole thing plenty of time to dry, so any tendency to warp would be done by now.

I marked out the borders with a fine tip pen and cut it out using a hobby knife and a metal ruler to ensure the angles were as right and edges straight as possible.

Then using a black I painted a thin uneven border around it just for effect. Some warping still happened, but not as much if I hadn't use the label paper to keep the whole thing down. Also I painted along the white edges of the plasticard so it wouldn't stand out, that can really distract the from the overall feel of it.

Then I gave the whole thing a quick coat of spray on matte varnish to protect it, and glued it to the display board.

Forgesworn Eternals - Sunforge Hammers and Wings - How I did it

This is a simple painting guide to how I did the Sunforge effect for my Retributors and Prosecutor wings.

First I start off by painting the base color of Averland Sunset (Citadel). Not pictured, but the same base color is used on the sunforge hammer, of course.

Then I did a layer of Flash Gitz Yellow (Citadel) over the base.

Next I made a wash from White Scar (Citadel) by mixing it with a bunch of water. You are pretty much looking to make milk with it. The stuff should wash on and fill in all the recesses and show the yellow through.

Then drybrush Flash Gitz Yellow (Citadel) heavily over it, keeping the white in the recesses. You can allow the following drybrushing colors to end up on nearby parts because they help create a glow effect.

Using Fire Orange (Reaper) I drybrushed over the hammer head, but lighter so as to not cover the white and yellow. On the wings I started partway down and drybrushed to the ends.

A similar step, I used Phoenix Red (Reaper) and did a lighter drybrushing, to create a gradient showing the material cooling.

To finish the effect I very carefully and lightly drybrushed Abaddon Black (Citadel) to show the coolest areas of the hammer and wings. If I felt an area needed more black, I was still very careful to lightly drybrush to build up to the level I thought looked good. It is very easy to do too much black and screw the whole thing up, so be careful.

And that's it! The finished product should look like a piece of iron heated to a white hot in the furnace, and slowly cooling, which of course starts on the outermost edges and works its way to the core.

Forgesworn Eternals - Painted Models Part 5

Painting complete on the Lord-Relictor, Volstrad Runeseer.

Verminlord Skrax' Lair - Display Board Finished

And now the finale, the display board of my Dark Eldar Haemonculus Covens army I will be taking to the Harvester of Souls.

The green pool was made using Water Effects. It took several pours and sets to get to the depth that I needed. All the grimy floor is made with a mix of sand and Spackle.

The big red Skrax symbol was done by making a stencil and sponging it on, to create that weathered look. A lot of the painting on this board was done using sponging. Dripping water and stains were done using GW washes.

You will recognize a lot of the bits up top as miscasts from my Zone Mortalis project. The top layer is the surface of the world, where the ruins of an imperial manufactorum remain, and the lower part is the vast toxic sewer system underneath.

Now for some shots of it all together.

You may notice all the small rats scattered about. They are a mix of rats miniatures from Reaper and Mantic.

The Verminlord delivers a sermon to his huddled masses.

I am pretty proud of the title plaque on the bottom. I will do a how-I-did-it guide for it later.

I am so excited to take this to Spokane and show it off.