Purple Polearms

Hard to think of a paint scheme for a unit named 'The Black Guard' that isn't pretty black-reliant.

Sticking with the Slaaneshi purple and pink theme, though, I decided on high contrast flare for the black armour. Otherwise they're not straying far from the paint scheme that I used on the crossbows. I only got them done this week by a combination of being ill myself and staying home when my daughter got the same bug, otherwise the fiddly edging on the armour flourishes would have seen me through to next week too.

There's a mix of converted spearmen and the newer Black Guard models here. Although the spearmen lack the huge armoured carapace of their larger chums, they mix together very well. Sound conversions, too. Not sure whose work exactly (you, Kas? Or someone on eBay you bought it all from?), but I hadn't spotted that they were chop jobs until I started painting them.

The unit command get the latest helmets. And I got the painter's equivalent of a death march - forty dark elf eyes in deep helmet recesses. Aaaargh. I have no answer for the resultant popeye legion. It's a bugger to do, and it didn't turn out great. Luckily, the helmets hide the worst of it, and from a distance you can't really see what a squinty bunch of goggle-heads they are.

I'm gutted about the bannerman. Not totally, because the banner image came out much better than I was expecting. It's my rendition of the image below, which is one of the cards from a recent illustrated copy of the Deck of Many Things. Just right for a bunch of moody perverts, I thought.

Get Well Soon, DnD-style

But when I was taking the photos, I realised that the head is now partly obscured by a fingerprint of glossy blood! I must have handled the pole decoration before the coat of BloodForTheBloodGod had dried. Damn - although the weird glowing-eyed face that has resulted isn't bad, exactly. Still, I'll go back over it at some point and restore it to its intended state, then I'll update this post with a new picture.

What did we hang? What did we hang?

[Edit - Aw, bum. I just can't get it to look like the first time I did it. I've gone through editions faster than WFB, this is number four already and maybe the last. Third Ed, after an unlucky swipe of black, came out looking like they'd hanged Hitler. I figured that's the last thing Dark Elves would do, so that had to go. More if I can face it...]

Current Edition

Paint Guide -

• Basic colours mostly as for the crossbow unit
• Purple armour: Amethyst highlighted with 50:50 Amethyst and Runefang Steel
• Armour Trim: Pallid Wychflesh with White Scar edging
• Chainmail: Abaddon Black with Brass Scorpion highlights
• Gems: Scab Red with Wild Rider Red highlights
• Halberds - Mithril washed with Deadly Nightshade, then highlighted with a mix of Polished Blue and Runefang, then just Runefang

An awkward moment at the Ball:
"But I said I was bringing a severed head!"

Not content with having my chunks of graveyard to break up the painting, I also took on a warmachine and a character.

Giant crossbows need strings. They look fine without, really, and I can see that sculpting them would be fiddly and make the model prone to breaking. Tying on bits of thread restores those issues, of course, but also makes some tiny internal compulsionist part of me let out a deep, relaxed breath.

What greater ignominy for your foe than getting shafted by a big pink arrow? #SlaaneshiDoubleEntendre

Also, a little freehand to break up the armature. Free hand is getting less scary for me. I read some very good guides on how to go about it (start with big crappy blocks of colour and slowly paint over them with gradually lightening), and it's really not as hard as I used to believe.

This last, a Sorceress, is a Kas conversion, I'm pretty sure. Arms from a Bloodwrack Medusa, Morathi body from the same kit. Not sure of the head. Do GW do a Scarlett Johanson blister? Close up, it looks a bit like her, right down to the irritating smirk.

Let's play Tickle Fight!