SKAVENTIDE for Age of Sigmar

Had to postpone the Cities of Sigmar project. Maybe I went for it a bit too much full on? Too many working hours in a short period of time, and all the sleepless nights spent on thinking what unit I should add in next. Too many good options to choose from. Trying to fit them in the army organization charts while maintaining some if any synergies they might have on tabletop. Dozens and dozens of old scrap miniatures to choose and convert pretty much anything from, so the options were just mind boggling. Should the hats be red, or just the scarfs? Analyzed too much all the time. It's a good thing to do every once in a while, but might be bad when it hinders the creative flow. So the orderly humans and their allies had to go on the shelf, waiting for better times.

And that was when I heard the old familiar call from down below. The bells chimed thirteen times and rattling of tiny claws crept through the walls. The lights glowed green before dying out. Scratch-scratch... Cut-cut...

It's no secret that THE Skaven army by Andy Chambers has been a huge inspiration for me since the early 90's. I was so happy to find out good quality pics of them from the internet, to go along with scans from the old White Dwarf magazine I unfortunately do not possess an actual copy of. In addition I flicked through several other Skaven armies by other people, and watched a couple of speed painting videos from YouTube. So armed with the inspiration and refined knowledge I dug up the vast piles of bits boxes and set to work.

I really like hordes. So there has to be a hundred Clanrats at least, right? I also found the good old metal Vermin Lord, so he's gonna be the leader of the army. Then I'd like to have swarms of the little rats, and a pack of the slightly bigger ones. Why not the gigantic ogroid ones as well? And how about the Hell Pit Abominations? Three or four should be good. Anyways, I starteed with something simple. 10 Clanrats without much converting, just to build up the numbers and try a paint scheme.

One thing I also noticed when painting the Cities of Sigmar last week was that I spent quite a lot of time painting their bases. The results were nice and simple, but the methods maybe a bit too slow to use on a horde army like the Skaven. So I decided to not paint the bases that much this time, and let the materials do the work. Just glue in some sand and flock and that's it. Well, I ended up putting down a single layer of Army Painters quickshade wash on them, but that's about it. Really cool bases, fun and simple to do!

Oh, the painting! Again I lined on the table all the paints I thought might be useful for these. What the hell, close to 60 paints?! Wont go down that road this time. So remorselessly I discarded any comparable ones among a few others. Then I had maybe a dozen paints and over twenty brown washes and some contrast paints on the table. Did a little test palette of them on a piece of paper and chose a few, between which I'll be switching. Took notes to try and refine this plan I had:

1) Matt Black - Dead Flesh - Matt White spray primer, painted with zenithal highlighting effect.

2) Block main areas with contrast paints/washes/quickshades. Mainly browns, with occasional yellowish/reddish/greenish shades or greys thrown in. This time I went for Aggaros Dunes (5 models) & Nazdreg Yellow (the rest 5) on the robes. Then Guilliman Flesh & Army Painters Mid Brown (split between models) on the skin, fur and wooden parts. Weapons and armour were covered with Basilicanum Grey and Strong Tone (again split between models). Next time I'll try to manage with only two different layers here. So yellowish robes and everything else just brown.

Because pretty much all of the relevant weapon/armour areas were then covered with:

3) Typhus Corrosion.

4) Drybrush Tyrant Skull & Underhive Ash (split 5/5 between the 10 models as before) everything but the weapons/armour. It might be better idea to paint on the Typhus Corrosion only after this layer, so wouldn't have to worry so much about the neatness when drybrushing.

5) Drybrush/stipple areas of weapons/armour with Ryza Rust.

6) Drybrush Army Painters Centaur Skin on skin/fur/tail. The tail, ear and muzzle were given extra attention to get a bit stronger pinkish tone on those parts.

7) Athonian Camoshade recess shading wash and reinforcing some of the lines between areas.

8) Carroburgh Crimson wash tails/ears.

9) Drybrush Necron Compound on weapons/armour. Gun Metal on small areas where drubrushing would have been difficult (collars for example).

10) Plaguebearer Flesh eyes/pimples.

11) Vallejo Game Color Pale Yellow eys/pimples/teeth/claws. This one is surprisingly important.

12) Clan symbols and markings with Pigma Brush black archival ink pen. Off White middle of those areas, then outline again with the Brush pen where necessary.

13) Fuegan Orange a few spots here and there. Mostly blending in some rusty areas. Will try other colours here later.

Miniatures done! With so few layers, I think it'll be possible to paint one miniature in 15-20 minutes. Maybe even less, 'cause there are so many steps that don't require that much care and attention, and the Skaven are so small. Then of course there is the BASING!

14) Glue sand on the base top with PVA glue. Then glue dark-mid-bright green flocks on top of that. Leave to dry thoroughly.

15) Wash with some mid browns, such as Army Painters actual Mid Brown, Flesh Wash or Soft Tone. Paint the base rims Black.

And then it's time for a spray Matt Varnish allover. DONE! I thought about carefully drybrushing the bases with some very pale brown / grey / off white, but decided not to, since the bases look really nice already. Not gonna waste time to try and paint sand look more like sand and fail at that.