Myself, Chris Tomlin, Aaron Bailey, and Paul Buckler have embarked on a second army building journey inspired by our last outing (From Ember to Inferno) which we have now cleverly stuck the number 2 after this time!
Shikami Devils - Month One
I would say that Age of Sigmar is certainly booming at the moment when it comes to army planning. Like many others I have numerous other projects on the go (not helped by the relentless release of fantastic army books) so when the opportunity came around to start a second phase of From Ember to Inferno I jumped at the chance.
To say I was a little excited by the release of the Ossiarch Bonereapers is a massive understatement, they are the first 'new' AoS army that has grabbed my attention from the early teasers right up until getting the first models in my grubby mitts. The major appeal for me is the combination of design aesthetics within the model range, these are not simply 'AoS Tomb Kings' but a blend of Asian, Mongol, Tomb Kings, Egyptian etc. themes which have created something very unique. It was the Japanese influences that I really wanted to push further with the army, I wanted my army to be use strong, clean, vivid colours and look as though they were campaigning across lush Rural Japan.
For the campaign we are starting with a first 'month' of 500 points (this is actually 2 months but we tend to find it's a great way to get everyone started) which we then add 400 points to every month.
My month 1 looked like this:
Bone-Tithe Nexus
Vokmortian - 180
10 Mortex Guard - 130
Total = 310
Obviously I've just mentioned that the first month is 500 points, however the Nexus is such a monumental paint challenge (that costs 0 points) and a certain character I wanted to add Month 2 goes wildly over the 300 point limit - so I needed to save points!
Vokmortian was the first model on my desk, and an opportunity to put my colour scheme into practice. I was also inspired by the YouTube video tutorials of Darren Latham and decided to implement some of his techniques. Firstly I did three 50/50 thinned coats of paint when basecoating each colour, this took longer than my usual 2 coats however it certainly created a stronger basecoat to work from. Another change to my usual painting style was applying the first highlight before any washes, I found this really allowed me to get a good feel for the model and where the washes would need to be placed. The major change I employed was not doing an all over wash when creating shade, normally for an area like the bone I would basecoat, all over wash, then start highlighting. Instead I just painted a 50/50 thinned was of Army Painter Strong Tone ink to all the areas I wanted to create shade, I repeated this a second time in the dark areas and then finished with Nuln Oil in the darkest recesses. This approach really allowed me to keep the vividness of the original basecoat without dulling down the colour.
I also don't like painting bone, I have always managed to create a bit of a mess, so I decided to trying different colours. I started with Baneblade Brown, then Karak Stone, and progressively added more White. I found this allowed me to paint Bone in my normal style, without having to use specific colours (like Ushabiti Bone).
Putting all these techniques into place really helped me create the overall look I wanted, then it was just a case of the basing. After an extensive ebay search I found all the flocks, tufts, and extra elements I wanted - including the Pink Blossom Trees! Many people have asked how I made these, and I can now reveal the secret - I didn't! I purchased them pre-made and simply painted the trunk: Ebay Trees
Mortex Guard were the next unit I needed to crack, I used the lessons learnt with Vokmortian on these models but decided I wanted to convert the models slightly to reinforce the Japanese aesthetic - so I created Conical Hats! I am really pleased with how these have ended up looking!
Bone-Tithe Nexus, please forgive the lower quality photo here as it is an absolute nightmare to photograph owing to it's size! This was a more monumental paint task than I predicted, every aspect of the model took around 24 hours longer than expected, mostly because each key area has 4 sides of detail that need painting! The Nexus itself is an interesting model as the main stonework is an area of detail which is not really duplicated on the range as a whole, so in this case I decided to go for the same Blue I had used for Vokmortian's candles, which I will then use for similar elements across the range.
With the Nexus finished I can now crack on with month 2! Expect another blogpost in February from myself, and a Month 1 post from all the other participants.