Realm of Chaos Spawn

This is a figure I have had in my collection for a long time. I cannot remember the date it was bought, early to mid 2000s I would hazard a guess. Back in those days, I was an old fogey in the glass cabinet section of the Warhammer forum. I bought the pack and split it with [fiend], a fellow painter on the forum, the idea being we would paint half each. I never got round to it for whatever reason, until all these years later. It’s kinda sad that it took so long.

I did make a start back in the day, it was glued to a square base and I had a notion to paint it as a Nurgle spawn, so it was already based in light green and bone colours. But my painting style has moved on. I wanted to give it more interest and more contrast, so I started adding hues and they developed at random. The left head I thought looked a bit alienesque and was shooting for a silver grey look, like a shark, but overdid it with the blue, decided I liked it and stuck with it. The right hand head stayed green and yellow. The middle head I was trying for a flesh colour but it turned out angry pinks, but again I quite like it so stuck with it.

Finally, here’s the chaos sorceror of my warband, to give a sense of scale. I am hoping to play games of Warhammer using the old fourth or fifth edition chaos book, in which there is a possibility that a character will be turned to a spawn for the amusement of the chaos gods (and my opponent, no doubt). At the moment the warband contains just one character, this sorceror, so he had better make sure he impresses those fickle deities!

Realm of Chaos Beastmen

Another unit painted for the Realm of Chaos warband. These twelve figures are a mix of metals from the early 90s and plastics, from the later 1990s I think. I reckon the plastic Beastmen to be one of the best kits ever released by Games Workshop, and with a few extra bits they really look the business. More info on the build in this post.

Painting was problematic at first. I tried a yellowish skin tone but it did not work. Then I tried a ruddy flesh tone, again I was not happy with the result. So I decided to make them similar to the ungors, but with a darker skin tone, it was meant to be a mid grey, but it has ended up more blue than I would have liked, but I just went with the flow (otherwise I would have given up completely). Finished but flawed is better than unpainted and abandoned.

The banner was another thing that did not go to plan. I knew that I did not want an elaborate design, that doesn’t fit the background for me, a crudely scrawled symbol was my choice. I added some runic script, copied from the chaos warriors shields, but it looked a bit amateurish, so I obscured most of it with some dark washes. It looks okay now, like the banner has been continuously draped in the blood of slaughtered enemies. 

Those problems aside, I am happy with the unit now it is finished. I have always liked the beastmen plastics and it feels good to have them as part of my collection. The warband feels more like a warband now. A leader, some scouts, some average troops and some elite fighters, just about enough to go raiding. I would like to expand on the scouting element by adding some hounds, still pondering over the choice of figures. I have a couple of quick and easy cheat units I can add in the meantime.