The Dark Beneath The World (pt2)

so ive taken my first few steps. in creating the immense chaos troll that i wrote about in part 1.

firstly absolutely butchering a GW river troll that i had already glued up ready to be painted..but decided it would be best suited for this project.
pinned in a 3rd arm and roughly worked out what else i was going to be doing so here is the first few steps ive taken thus far.

as you can see. i have my arms in place.
also made a start on the 'gnarly skin as you can see on the forearms and over his right shoulder. this will continue over his back and shoulders
the chains are roughly in place. but not secured over the left shoulder as its still waiting for the gnarly rock like skin. ive decided that this troll was once a stone troll. it seems fitting for a dungeon dweller after all.
the chain will also be in place to hold the hammered warpstone into his flesh. and im hoping to get some nicely grotesque looks around these. possible with warpstone coursing between the rocklike skin like veins.

so my next steps will be to continue covering that skin up and then adding the details to the pincer to make it look like it was formed from chaos magics.

i may possibly add a few rough uneven spikes down his spine, sprouting through the rock like hide.

ive filed down some areas in readiness to add the boils and sores described. and once all of the skin is complete i will then be able to add further details like the baby head and so on.

now you will notice there is no head...because im going to sculpt this from scratch using a mish mash of ideas that have skipped by me over the last few days. these consist of a weird mash up of familar designs. but ultimately its all in aid of capturing that tortured beast look. pain wracked with agony. hate etc etc ill reveal more later once i get a better form of how it is going to pan out.
but for now heres a quick mock up of where i will be going next.

Skaven slaves (pt 2)

building upon my earlier start this month where ive been itching and itching to start painting skaven.  I decided to start with skaven slaves for my AHQ bestiary. havong painted the first 2 with a little trial i decided to continue.
making only slight variation changes to how I am painting them to see what bodes well for me.
im happy if the skaven slaves have no uniformity to them. as this would essentially be true to what they are.
and will hopefully in the long run help me discover what works best and so on for when i paint all of the others..because boy i have a lot to get through!

there is a weird transition on some of these between skin and fur. so i decided to mix up and try different things

obviously on the arms being a part where its hard to tell what is what and the back part where some are showing a little bit of a skaven booty! on this i decided to go with the for covered bottom and i felt showing more flesh on the top half would help show off those pustules.

This guy i decided to go for a base cadian flesh tone (all previous others have toyed with bugmans glow and ratskin flesh)
then washing the wole model with agrax earthshade then bringing the raised areas back upto cadian fleshtone.

honestly doesnt look much different from the others. but hopefully they all are subtly different enough to give some variation.

not a bad start so far. however i think im going to need to pick up the pace at some point. whilst my hobby time is limited these days. i do try to squeeze in a few hours a week....i just need to learn how to slap that paint on a little quicker i think :)

Goblin update

things have been slow on this front. im trying to change how i paint, as im finding im getting bored painting the same stuff over and over. so im going to be mixing up all of my projects and giving smaller updates as i progress.
so whilst ive got my chaos troll in the works.
and an army of skaven
im still going to progress with goblins as and when i fancy a change from the above. this should in theory yield more posts on my otherwise post shy blog :)

anyways enough yapping.
heres another gobbo into the dungeon.

i wanted to focus on the shield for this dude. the whole blue & white halves colour being a common theme from my previous Heroquest Henchmen. so i wanted to apply the same theme to this shield. as if a henchman was slain in this same dungeon many moons ago. his shield was looted and botched back together and now this goblin carries it!. simple

and here he is with the other already completed goblins.

rowdy looking bunch! i think on the work table. ive got about another 10 of these guys waiting to be painted. so expect further updates as i manage to get each one completed :)

and happy belated easter!! :)

Let the Chittering Commence

So. ive been working on a LOT of material for Advanced HeroQuest as of late. working with Slev on his AHQ:Reforged rules changes.
if you like AHQ. i suggest you check these out
HERE

as a result ive made a lot of graphical stuff to assist. (bestiary graphics, spellbooks etc)
now of course with a fleshed out bestiary. you need a fleshed out collection of models too. and whilst some may of complained that AHQ lacked figures and was created as a way to get people to go and buy more models (which is a totally just complaint) some of us feel compelled to go the whole hog and actually buy them. so you cant play AHQ and not have skaven.
so ive made a start finally.
about 2 years back i managed to grab the entire skaven collection from Island of blood for a very cheap price to get me started. unfortunately i never got any further than painting the rat ogres (which are awesome models)
ive since bought a clanrat pack also so i can have some skaven without shields (as all the skaven in IOB have shields already on them.

so without further ado. the first 2 rat men that are no doubt going to get slaughtered at some point! lol

now ive never really painted skaven before. so skaven slaves seemed like the perfect opportunity to mix and match ideas and test out what works and what doesnt. if as a result they all look different. then nothing is lost. as they arent exactly a regiment are they. they arent supposed to look like a team. so usung these as my lab rats seemed like the way to go.....yes that joke was deliberate :)
so the slave above i tested out with a ratskin base colour built up with cadian flesh tone to reikland flesh for the pointy bits. also if knowledge serves me correctly skavens worth is measured in the tone of their fur. so i thought this would give me the opportunity to also toy with fur colours and would also help distance me from the uniformed look

this next one was done in exactly the same way as above but with a bugmans flesh base. built up with cadian fleshtone and reikland flesh.
now one thing is certain. after painting these. i gave them a coat of army painter anti-shine...why do you ask? out of habit. and as a result. this made the models shinier than they ever were!!!
but i like to protect my models. so im a little lost in terms of how i protect my models from now on..less spraying and more wrapping in cotton wool i think!!

about to get their asses handed to them by a halfling farmer.

so there we have it..my first 2 skaven out of about 80 that ive got to paint. i'll most certainly keep you all upto date as i work my way through them. ive got a total of 11 slaves to do. then its onto clanrats. these will look much more uniform. but hopefully will be a much quicker path too. hopefully laid by my experiences with these slaves.

they were fun to paint and will be a nice distraction for me to partake over the coming weeks.

enjoy :)

The Dark Beneath the World (pt 1)

I remember many moons ago, whilst in my early teens. and we were playing AHQ. White dwarf 125 to be exact, had a quest in it that captured my imagination.

"The dark beneath the world" 

whilst this was also my first exposure to Gotrek & Felix, whom would go on star in many books from the black library. it was one particular character from this quest that caught my imagination.

the description itself had my imagination running. some vile creature so distorted I'm sure even descriptions would fall short.
For years I always sought out to proxy this troll. but alas like many of my proxy ventures in the past, it never quite satisfies my soul.
so of course. now. whilst many more moons have passed I've decided to make my own.

now whilst the picture does show a pretty repulsive looking creature, I still don't feel that the image provided with the quest properly fit how my imagination perceived from the description.

so after reading the actual short story that the quest was created from, i decided that this whole creation of a chaos troll is going to be an adventure in itself.


"I have found it," he cried. "The lost blade, Karaghul. I have found it! Sigmar be praised!"

From behind the heap of treasure a huge horn-headed shadow loomed, twice as tall as Aldred, broader than it was tall. Before Felix had time to shout a warning, it tore off the Templar's head with one sweep of a mighty claw. Gore splashed the ancient stones. The thing lurched forward, pushing through the mound of treasure with irresistible power.

Felix had heard tales of trolls, and perhaps once this had been one. Now it was hideously changed. It had a gnarly hide covered in huge, dripping tumours and three enormously muscular arms, one of which terminated in a pincer claw. Growing from its left shoulder, like some obscene fruit, was a small, babyish head which glared at them with wise malign eyes. It chittered horridly in a language that Felix could not recognise. Pus dribbled down its chest from a huge leech mouth set below its neck.

The bestial head roared and the echoes reverberated through the long hall. Felix saw an amulet of glowing greenish-black stone hanging from a chain around its neck. Warpstone, he thought, placed there deliberately.

He did not blame Faragrim for running. Or Belegar. He stood paralysed by fear and indecision.

From beside him he heard the sound of Zauberlich being sick. He knew warpstone had created this thing. He thought of what Gotrek had said about the long-ago war beneath the mountains.

Someone had been so insane as to chain warpstone to the troll, to deliberately induce mutation.

Perhaps it was the rat-men, the skaven that Gotrek had mentioned. The troll had been down here since the war, a festering abomination changing and growing far from the light of day. Perhaps it was the desecration of their tombs by this warpstone-spawned monstrosity which had caused the dwarf ghosts to walk? Or perhaps it was the presence here of the warpstone, of pure undiluted Chaos.

The thoughts reverberated through his mind as the roar of the mad thing echoed through the vault. He stood unable to move, transfixed by horror, as the monster came ever closer. Its stench filled his nostrils. He heard the hideous sucking of its leech mouth. It loomed out of the gloom, its pain-wracked, bestial face hellishly underlit by its glowing amulet.

(From Gotrek and Felix - Trollslayer)

That is pretty much all the description we get. so why do I feel so compelled to create such a little written about character?
God knows. but it sounds like its gonna be pretty cool.

so a little chop down on the descriptive features

- Horn-headed.
- Hideously changed.
- Gnarly hide covered in huge, dripping tumours.
- Three enormously muscular arms, one of which terminated in a pincer claw.
- Growing from its left shoulder, like some obscene fruit, was a small, babyish head which glared at them with wise malign eyes.
- Huge leech mouth set below its neck.
- Chain warpstone

thats plenty to go off right?
plus I like the idea of a description like this. it allows the mid to run wild. and with that. im going to allow my chopping and putty skills to go wild also!!


so lets break down the descriptions into something visual.

Horn-headed.

Nurgle Bile Trolls

now these are quality models. that. by any means would be the nearest proxy possible for this character. however. I aint about to spend 50 quid on 3 trolls. But I like how the horn sprouts out of the side of the face giving a horrendously distorted look. so will take some sort of approach like this.

Hideously changed.

I think as long as i stick to something along the design of the forge world figure above. then this should be cool

Gnarly hide covered in huge, dripping tumours.

so first thing that springs to mind here would be Throgg the troll king for the gnarly hide

that rough textured skin mixed with the odd spike with sore and boils like something seen on a nurgle creature would work really well.

Three enormously muscular arms, one of which terminated in a pincer claw.

ok 3 arms is easy..the pincer?

im thinking something along the lines of Slaneesh deamonettes and keeper of secrets

Growing from its left shoulder, like some obscene fruit, was a small, babyish head which glared at them with wise malign eyes.

OK- straight away i think of 1 thing here..then get thrown off scent.

firstly i am not going to be putting a "obscene fruit" anywhere on this figure. but i will put a babies head. and the thought here was of this thing/dude

yup Kuatu from total recall. that should do the trick.

but definately not sprouting from some obscene fruit. (ill let your imagination help you decide why i wont follow the exact description here lol)

Huge leech mouth set below its neck.

ok so this confuses me. it could be a second mouth like seen on throgg's stomach. or it could simply be a huge lumbering jaw that hangs down from the head.

yet the 'leech like' description throws me completely off scent. i think i will go for the 2nd option here 

but leech like? im not sure.

mierce miniatures have a few models that in my mind fit this leech like description

but alas. im still unsure. so i think i will be playing this one by ear and seeing how it goes so this will most likely be the last thing i do on it. as i will want something that 'fits' so seeing how it all pieces together will be a better option.

Chain warpstone

there are a few options i could take here. throwing a chain around its neck with some warpstone amulet. but this would be relatively hindered by the head and the mouth.

chains wrapped around the troll with warpstone embedded would add to the whole tortured and transformed beast.

IF skaven had of done this. they would of hammered warpstone into the troll.

so im going to keep it relatively ambiguous on this front. I like the idea of chains wrapped around the troll. but i also like the idea of tormenting it further with the warpstone.

so i think ill go for both with the hammered warpstone. held in place by chains!

i feel this will give an overall. "slave to chaos" sort of vibe.

so where do i go from here.

firstly. im not going to sculpt this from scratch.

as i already have some river trolls sitting doing nothing in my vault of mini's

this will be a heavy modification of a river troll.. but as you can see these are good models. and its always good to have a good foundation.

over the next few months ill post updates on my progress and see if i can infact create this creature that has been lurking around in the deep for so so long.