Exit Chaos Dwarfs, Enter Hobgoblins

The first casualty in war is innocence.  (Also ceiling tiles.)

My trusty palette!  An old ceiling tile, as given to me by my dad when I was painting.... er.... sometime as a teenager, finally left the world at this weekend when I was walking out to wash it after painting.  The end result: shattered into a few pieces and lost to the ages.  And as my Chaos Dwarfs were almost complete!



So, I trekked into town today and picked up a new palette.  I would have been happy with just another bit of junk - a cheap plate out of Tesco, maybe - but Ailsa suggested I get an actual palette since I like to mix up colours, so I went to independent Glasweigan art store Millers and picked up a wee palette there.

Now I can pretend I'm a real artist.

Admittedly, this makes me look a bit stupid, since I've got the hand-eye co-ordination of a fig but armed with a palette I look a right ponce.  Sorta like a Smeargle.

A Smeargle, yesterday.

But then, I don't really spend much time worrying what other people think of me - after all, I'm a sideburned gangly nerd who paints Warhammer figures, plays D&D, watches Doctor Who and Star Trek, reads comics and plays Pokemon.  If I got worried about looking stupid, I'd get nothing done.

So briefly deferring to another palette wielder...

.... lets get back to the Chaos Dwarfs, shall we?

A no-prize to whoever can correctly identify which figures are metal and which are resin in this lineup.

After the base colours and a little tidying up, little was really left to be done.  I dry-brushed the armour in Warpstone Glow, a lighter green Citadel colour to bring out the scales and also to brighten up an otherwise quite dark model.  (I experimented with my Jade Green Coat D'Arms paint here but it was just too pale - the end result didn't "pop" as well for me.)  I also dotted the rivets  and lined the trims of the flat hats with this same lighter green.

Some other angles for you.

The whole models were covered in Dark Tone Quickshade; the bases drybrushed in Astronomican Grey to flesh out the texture.  Otherwise, that's pretty much all she wrote.

I've got to cast up some more blunderbuss figures - I'd really like a unit of 20, which may be points inefficient to use often but mechanically the unit gains special rules when at that size.  I'll also need some command figures - champion, standard bearer and musician.  That's a little trickier, since they go for a bomb on eBay - I might go third party for those, since a company called Russian Alternative make some nice "Dwarfs of Fire Canyon" figures.  They've got a similar-ish aesthetic, and are pretty affordable - only problem might be the shipping time from Russia to Scotland, and whether or not my figures try to annex Crimea on the way.   BOOM THAT WAS A POLITICS JOKE.

Bagpipes!  Bagpipes!  How can a Scotsman say no?

But for the time being, I will probably work on a different sort of base troops for my Chaos Dwarfs: Hobgoblin Auxiliaries.  I have ten models of these, and have started casting with..... mixed success.  I've tried to repair with Milliput and spare parts - after it's all dried, files and painted let's see if it's any use.

Operation: Hide Behind The Greenskins is underway...