Oh what a saga...

So I had a week off last week, and while doing jobs around the house and playing my new addiction, War Thunder, on the PC I got some painting done!  First up is a Hearthguard/Hirdman/Huscarl for Saga.  After seeing the fantastic looking Saga battle board at Colours this year, some of the group have been bitten by the Saga bug, so it looks a lot like we'll be getting into it...

This chap is one of the very old Norseman from GW (which have been recast as Vikings by Wargames Foundry, so you can still buy them) and he was a blast to paint.  I had a load of these miniatures lying about unused, so I have around 1/3 to 1/2 a Viking Saga force.  He was undercoated with black spray, so that the chainmail was a simple dry-brush of Army Painter Gun Metal, followed by Army Painter Shining Silver, then a little Nuln Oil in places to accentuate the "folds" in the chainmail.  

The sword, helmet and the metal on the shield used the same paints, I just painted them on carefully with a detail brush.  At this point, I washed the whole model with very diluted Army Painter Strong Tone ink, to give the metal work a slight sepia tone.

The red on the shield and clothing was a base coat of GW Rhinox Hide blended in to the black of the undercoat, then highlighted with GW Khorne Red, and a mix of Khorne Red and GW Balor Brown.  This gives a nice earthy red, that seems to fit a viking model better.  The green is GW Death World Forest, shaded with a little diluted GW Abbadon Black, and highlighted with more and more GW Ogryn Camo.

The beard is a base of old GW Tausept Ochre and the skin was based with old GW Tallarn Flesh.  Both were washed with GW Gryphonne Sepia, then the beard was dry-brushed with the Ochre and GW Karak Stone, and the skin was neatly highlighted with the base flesh colour and P3 Ryn Flesh.

The inside of the shield was based with GW Dryad Bark, then stripes of 1:2 mix of Dryad Bark and GW Steel Legion Drab, which was then highlighted with the Drab and Karak Stone, I did this in a rough "flicky" way to emulate a little wood grain.

I'm really pleased with him, and I have more based up ready for undercoating:

In the top row are three more Hearthguard to finish up the first unit. The two identical warriors will have shields on their backs, it will just be easier to paint them without them on.  Bottom left is a Bondi (unarmoured warrior), and bottom right is the leader of the warband (name to be decided).  I've also got 4 berserkers and another Bondi in a bath of Fairy Power spray, ready to be based up and undercoated.

However it wasn't just Vikings last week.  On our last visit to Firestorm Games, I picked up the Avatars of War "Lord of Pestilence".  He's the first Avatars of War model I've purchased, and I'm really impressed.  There were mould lines, but they were easily removed, and the model went together really nicely.  There's plenty of detail, without going overboard, and the "corruption" was restricted to holes in the armour and a few exposed entrails.  I'm not a big fan of all the pus-filled boils and grunge that most people do on Nurgle miniatures, so this model really fit the bill for me.

This miniature was a joy to paint, lots of small surfaces and clearly defined edges that made blending the highlights in a particularly pleasant experience.  I decided to try something new for the green, where usually I would have gone for a GW Charadon Granite base coat, this time I base coated the entire model with GW Dryad Bark.  This was washed with diluted Nuln Oil - I made sure I covered the miniature, but avoided flooding it, which tends to leave a chalky residue if you're not careful.  For the first highlight I mixed in a little Death World Forest to the base colour and blended it in to all but the deepest recesses.  I then mixed in more and more of the Forest, blending the highlights in until the upper facing surfaces were almost pure green.  From there I mixed in more and more P3 Thrall Flesh and blended this in to the top edges.  Job done and a new(ish) way of doing green, bonus!

The skirt didn't turn out quite as well as the green did, but it's not bad, and not very well shown off by the ropey photograph.  I did a similar thing here as for the green, but used Steel Legion Drab and Rakarth Flesh instead.  For the metallics, I made sure I kept them dull and rusty, using GW Lahmian Medium (which is brilliant I have to say) mixed in with the metallic paints before application, then using some (very) old GW Chestnut Ink and dry-brushing on some of the later highlights.

The symbol on the shield is apparently a corrupted obelisk, although it looks a little like a warped cactus to me.  It was painted in the same way as the skirt first of all, before painting the chain and the hanging trophies.  I've found GW Stormvermin Fur, shaded with Agrax Earthshade and highlighted with Thrall Flesh is a good way of doing dead flesh/zombie hide, I'm going to dig out some old GW zombies to test how it works on a complete figure.  I would definitely recommend Avatars of War miniatures as alternatives to GW character models, they're around the same price, and fantastic figures.  I'll be picking up the "Champion of Pestilence" model next.

So with these guys done, I have plenty more on my plate, including the Vikings above, a group of very old Wood Elves to finish off for a friend (it's kind of a "commission", but I hate that word, so its a "painting job for a friend"), some more Britannian troopers for Dystopian Legions, Dwarves from the Hobbit boxed set, Adora Belle Dearheart for Mrs Walker, more Dropzone Commander stuff, and Empire Greatswords for a funky little Warhammer project new group member Russ Veal has planned for us.

Plus whatever distracts me next.

So not a lot then...

As always, comments and criticism welcome!