Realm of Chaos Sorceror

This is a scenario many of you will no doubt recognise. I started painting this mini in a flurry of excitement and inspiration. I blasted through the cape and added the decorative border in a couple of sessions and was really pleased with the progress. I had an idea on the skin and put down a base coat and then put it to one side, meaning to pick it up again later in the week. But when the allotted time came round I didn’t fancy doing it too much so I left it, get back to it next week. And then the next week came and I was busy with something else. And so on. Eventually, it was four weeks later before I finally picked it up and finished it off. So it took one month to paint one figure!*

This is a metal figure, a limited edition chaos sorceror released around 2002 (according to Stuff of Legends, who seem to know their, er, stuff). It’s almost 20 years old, by the gods I have been doing this for so long now. It originally had a tail protruding from the front of the cloak but I chopped that off, partly on a whim, partly because I don’t like having too much of the model hanging over the the edge of the base. Nobody likes massive dangly bits.

The palette was mostly determined by previously completed chaos warriors, but I flipped the dominant colour to a deep red. The pale skin was suggested by the face looking a bit vampiric, a bit like the Emperor of the stars wars movies. Most evil guys have a very sickly, pale pallor, they obviously spend far too much time secreted away in dark towers and deep dungeons. The green flames were a natural contrast to the red robes, and green flames just look magical.

Slowly, very slowly in this case, the chaos warband is coming together. With ten warriors at his side and ten little goatee men scouts, there is a possibility to play skirmish games at this stage. Ideally, there would be at least one more unit before gaming could start in a meaningful way. I have already built the next unit (see my previous post) and hopefully I can get them painted quicker than one model each month!

This last photo shows the sorceror alongside two of the chaos warriors. If we ever play games of Erehwon, these would be the bodyguard/acolytes. While the warriors were painted almost exclusively using contrast paints with no highlights, on the sorceror I did employ some traditional techniques, layering and highlighting. Is there a great difference in the quality of the finish?

* these days, I spend most of my spare time painting canvas rather than toy soldiers

Attack of the Mutant Goatmen

Over the weekend I built the next unit for the Realm of Chaos warband; a unit of beastmen gors, led by a shaman. There’s a nice mix of figures in this unit, including metals from the 90s, through to the latest plastics from the start collecting box set. There’s also a few bits from the latest chaos marauders set, for some variety in the weaponry. The unit leader, holding the severed head, I am not sure where he came from, maybe Mordheim, he was in my bits box. I am pretty happy with the way they turned out, the plastic bodies are all pretty much identical but variety can be found with a little ingenuity. I think my favourite pose is the gor in the front rank on the right, he has real menace.