The Los Angeles battle bunker is having a Warhammer Fantasy informal painting competition this Sunday, so I whipped out a liche priest to enter into the fray. At the same time, I was purchasing tomb swarms for my army (5 max in army, 2 to a pack, talk about a racket), which left me with an extra tomb swarm base.

So, I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone, used a blob o' the green stuff to make a nice flat surface for my liche priest on the swarm, and gave him a nice, elaborate 40mm base, which is fine, really, since I find that liches don't often join up with regiments. Some time, some ballast sand, some paint, and some 'ardcoat later, he's ready for the case.

I'd love to hear your opinions!

Front images:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/Psionyx/Warhammer/LicheFront.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/Psionyx/Warhammer/LicheFrontClose.jpg

Back Images:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/Psionyx/Warhammer/LicheBack.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/Psionyx/Warhammer/LicheBackClose.jpg

Side View:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/Psionyx/Warhammer/LicheLeft.jpg

Base Detail:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/Psionyx/Warhammer/LicheBase.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/Psionyx/Warhammer/LicheTop.jpg

Ribbon Detail:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/Psionyx/Warhammer/LicheFlags.jpg

Cool. What colours did you use to paint the priest's skin?
PS. Hope you win the comp. :D

Painting looks clean. I like the runes on the banner. Overall the model is way to shiny. I would recommend hitting it with some dullcote or other flat varnish.

Here are some suggestions:

Since you are painting for competition I will be a bit more critical with the model.

1) I would definitely paint in the pupils. As it stands they look the same shade as the rest of the skin.

2) I would darkline between the teeth, around the nails, around individual pieces of cloth. This will help them stand out better. You don't need to go black but I would do a brown color.

3) The skull iconography on the figure looks flat. I would go back and start with a darker base, ink brown and work your way up to white from bone, ivory, etc.

4) I would take your highlights up a notch or 2. As it stands you can barely see some of the highlights and there are other areas that feel flat. This could be caused by the glossy look to the figure but it never hurts to take your highlights at least one level higher.

5) The base doesn't really work for the figure. Normally this isn't such a big deal but with a competition piece you really want to have the whole figure make an impression. The size of the particles on the base is much to large to represent "sand". It doesn't look quite right. The wood also doesn't lend to a finished feel. You would probably be better off putting it on a game legal base and if wanted build up a display base to set the figure in.

I really can't stress enough how a gloss coat will ruin the look of a figure. If you have never used a flat varnish - I guarantee you will like the results much better. Gloss adds more light reflection which will hide some of your highlights.

Good luck with the figure and hopefully you will have enough time to get it into competition form!

Cheers,

-Mike

Well, the 'competition' is very informal. I don't think the winner gets anything but applause, and I do intend for the model to be table played, so I didn't want to spend golden demon levels of time to paint it.

As for the shininess, that was also intended. I wanted the bugs on the swarm base to look glossy, and for the snake scales to have that 'living' appearance, and for the general metal bitz to be nice and shiny. I agree that the skulls around the collar and on the front of the headdress are rather blah looking, but then again, I'm not going for a demon here.

I shall definitely tone down the 'ardcoat a little with some Testor's, the photos were taken immediately after the gloss was dry. I will say that the photos I've taken don't show off the highlights that I can see with the naked eye, perhaps the lightning was slightly off, because you really can see a difference between NE viewing and the photos in terms of the highlighting. (For example, there's four distinct snake scale stages when looking at it NE)

Using finer-grain sand would have required me to purchase more sand that I didn't have, and using the tomb swarm base was an afterthought, brought on by having one more swarm than I could use in my army. :p

(Grin) It's really a table-play model-turned-impromptu-competition piece. If it were up to me, an absolutely gorgeous Von Carstein vampire count model, featuring a suspended green-flaming skull, beautiful false illumination around the cloak and nearby bats, and speaking of bats, about 30 or so of them in a spiral up around him from his feet. Unfortunately, he's DQed, since he works there. Beautiful piece, though.

So really, slorak, you should be judging it more as a table piece. ;)

PS: The skin was straight from the book. Black base coat, codex grey, 1st highlight codex+bleached, two extra stages, one of 1:3 Bleached:Codex and one of pure bleached on the highest parts of the face, joints and phalanges.

The 'Ard Coat spray is probably causing most of your problems in the picture. If you intend to have some areas glossy the best way is to spray with a flat varnish and then hand paint a gloss varnish over the areas you want glossy. In my opinion you would be better off hitting the entire figure with flat varnish. The gloss will cause unnatural light reflection at this scale. Even the beetles will suffer from this.

As for judging this as a gaming figure - You talked about it being in a competition - I approached it from this standpoint. Even informal you should always strive for your best as undoubtably someone else will. If you took my critiques in a negative light - I apologize. I was suggesting things that could be done to improve the chances of winning. Besides what is wrong with having your more important models stand out from the rank and file?

Cheers,

-Mike

Nothing whatsoever! And it wasn't my intention to take your criticisms in a negative light, and believe me, I'm certain they will help me on my future figures as well as this one. As for standing out from the rank and file, I certainly hope this guy looks to be more intricately detailed than what you would expect from your average skelly. :lol:

Just an update, the figure placed 1st in the single model competition, winning me a nifty Storm of Chaos T-shirt. :cool:

looks awesome

Yeah it looks great! Congrats!