Chaos Dwarf - Daemonsmiths & Magma Cannon Complete

 

The first ever dedicated Chaos Dwarf army book, collecting the White Dwarf articles of the early 90s.

The main purpose of this blog for me was to track my painting.  It lets me see how much I actually achieve in a month/year/whatever, and of course share my improvements with my hordes* of fans.

* Hordes in this case is being used in it's less well known context of "about five or six"

So, let's recap on what I've been working on for the last wee while.

These are Chaos Dwarf Daemonsmiths, who are the leaders and spellcasters of my army.  Ailsa got me them a year ago but I never got around to painting them as it felt stupid to have leaders before having anyone to lead!

This is the Chaos Dwarf Magma Cannon.  A Christmas present, it brings some lovely flamey death to my army.

These pictures show the bare resin, but what does the fully painted deal look like alongside my other figures?...

The new additions, hanging out on one of my comic book shelves.

After some last minute tweaking, here are the models ready for the table - based and varnished as appropriate, sitting alongside some of my other chaps.

As you can see the new style Chaos Dwarf Daemonsmiths are heavier on big metal elements than the old "big hat" models which means the unit seems more Green, the leaders more Brass.... but I kinda like that, makes it obvious who the boss men are.

Experiments with blending.

A difficult part of this figure was the magma, which I wanted to make bright and have some sort of blend effect going on.  I dabbled with a pinch of slow-drying medium added to the paints but blending is not a skill I've practiced much so the effect was pretty poor!

However, with a red glaze to tie it together, a retouch of yellow into the middle of the depressions and a swirl of orange around the sides of the yellow it seems to have gone a bit better.

Close-up of the Daemonsmiths

Basing, as with the Hobgoblins, was done with poppy seeds.  I didn't even bother painting them, just glued them in place then varnished them.  The poppy seeds had a natural gradation of colours from dark grey to almost white which I think actually looks more organic than a solid grey base.

All figures so far: 30 Hobgoblins, 20 Blunderbusses, 3 Daemonsmiths and 2 War Engines

So, now I have to pick my next project.  I still don't think this is enough to really throw down on the table so more Chaos Dwarfs is likely - a variety of eBay purchases means I have plenty to work on here, including Wolf Riders, Axemen, a Rocket Launcher and some Archers.  I have temptations to stray elsewhere - move back to Chaos Space Marines or Dreadball, perhaps even dabble in Dark Future - and I might let myself briefly cleanse my palette, but I really do want to properly play this army sometimes before the next Fantasy edition change!