EDIT: Now fully available, some parts that I've made and you can 3D print! Bits for conversions or scenery, have a browse and get theme here! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gOKwqDklu2YZESAAPqfSVYgkq2rooj3N?usp=sharing Before the End Times there was a... well, to call it an army would be excessive. Let's call it a scouting force. Twenty-Four Saurus following their Scar-Veteran, and a considerable forty-two Skinks under the oversight of Seer-Priest Charybdis. They were adept at finding intruders into the nigh-impenetrable jungle's boundaries. They were not, however, adept at removing them forcefully, and had no real victories to their name. Following the End Times, the scattered spirits of these lost lizards have been rediscovered, and are being amended a little by the Slann into something a little more representative of the Seraphon's true strength. Their place in the new Great Plan is going to require their existing forces to be brought up to strength before any new assets are assigned to them, so the ancient mage-priests study what the force is currently capable of. This... this will take some work. Many of these troops are going to take extensive work to be proper Seraphon, although the blank canvas they represent is promising. Some of the more... practiced warriors however... Sotek's spit, the Hunt-Leader's eyes are melting! Well, the Great Plan must move ever forward. Time to get started. *** Okay, narrative aside, welcome to this blog! This is my collection of Lizardmen that technically started about ten years ago, but haven't had a whole lot of effort put into them. There were some no terrible ideas, like the white-and-ice-blue lizards (they're COLD Ones, get it?) and at least one idea I'm genuinely proud of, but there wasn't a lot of skill or effort put into them. The army sort of got a reboot about five years ago, with a second unit of Skinks and one of the then-new plastic Stegadons being added, but again, nothing much happened after assembly and simple spraying. So let's list off what we've got. - 16 Saurus Warriors with a mix of spears and hand weapons, and full command staff, based black. - 1 metal Saurus Scar-Veteran, based black (little spotty, could use a second coat). - 24 Skinks to form a Skink Warriors unit, based black and sprayed Enchanted Blue, unassembled. - 12 Skinks with Blowpipes and hand weapons with Leader, poorly painted and based. - 12 Skinks with javelins and shields with Leader, poorly painted and based. - 3 metal Chameleon Skinks, based black. - 8 Cold Ones, based black and then about six coats of white. And then blue ink over one of them which looks awful. And then scales inked blue and drybrushed Enchanted Blue, which looks okay. - 8 Saurus Riders (not pictured), unassembled but based black, and body parts sprayed blue. - 1 Stegadon, based black. Assembled save for weaponry, which is a choice between the big crossbow or the Engine of the Gods. Was hoping to do something with pins/magnets to make them interchangeable. - 1 Skink Priest, Charybdis (not pictured because I can't find him right now). Charybdis I'm actually pretty proud of. I'd rather explain with pictures, but long story short I decided on him having a Feathered Cloak before the "with feathered cloak" model for them came out. So how did I represent it? He's got a pair of Bretonnian Pegasus wings fixed to his back, via doubled-over staples glued inside drilled holes. The gaps between are then covered up with Green Stuff molded to look like a two-split cloak hanging over them, connected to the usual necklace that the priests wear. Anyway, concerning things I can show, I'm planning to start with those unassembled skinks. Them being simply sprayed and unassembled, they seem like the unit with the most done right and the least difficulty involved, with a few interesting options for customising. Skink Warrior units used to have options for a standard bearer and musician, but the sprues never contained anything useable. The Stegadon, however, came with some very appropriate bits! The standard looks like an easy job, but not sure what I could do with the Great Blowgun to make some sort of oversized horn (or I could just mod one of the regular blowguns while everyone else uses javelins...) If any of these units have changed significantly with the switch to Age of Sigmar, feel free to mention - I've not actually checked the rules yet, as I was kind of getting the itch to model rather than play. Also, if anyone's interested, I have two metal Salmanders and a metal Kroxigor that I've neither assembled or painted, and remembering how much of a pain metal models are for both purposes I'm not likely to. If you're in the UK and don't hate metal lizards, feel free to PM me!
So first off, the Skinks. I'm planning one keeping it simple for the first unit, and just drybrushing their flesh an Enchanted/Ice blue mix and drybrushing their scales in Midnight blue, or a slightly less dark colour. Both with a blue ink wash, most likely, but I'm not sure if I should do that before or after the drybrushing... After that I can handle their arms and weapons before gluing them on, and then all they need is basing! Later I might look at doing things like painting their eyes and teeth, or giving them yellow sails, but again I'm going to keep it simple for now. Even then, I'll probably give the existing Skinks a redo first and then add more detail to all 48 at once. I'm going to be scouring the forums for help and hints for a little while first, but hopefully I can start painting tomorrow!
I'm in the us and I have no bias to metal lizards. Otherwise, a good start. I would clip off bases, throwing a container of LA's totally awesome and start from scratch
That'll strip the paint off? Only thing I've heard anyone mention before involved a risk of melting the plastic model, which I was understandably concerned by.
LA's totally awesome is the best paint stripper I have used. Plastics for 8-12 hours submerged, metals for 1-2 hours and your good to go scrubbing with a tooth brush from the $1 store On the plastics you may have a tiny bit left.
If you are in the UK Dettol is your stripper of choice........ ...... Unless @NIGHTBRINGER , my best friend ever, is free
You mean rounds... as long as the unit has the same overall foot print and it is easy to discern their facing, it makes little impact on the game. I know some people use specialized movement trays that are designed for round bases.
No sir, I mean multiple models based to a particular group frontage and using some tracking method for casualties if the game being played calls for individual casualty removal (ICR)
For example. This is a WIP, but represents a unit of 20 individuals on standard 20mm bases. It will have 15 miniatures all tolled.
As long as the movement tray/base is representative of the unit's footprint, it should be easy. Although I'm not sure how you could change unit formations with such a system.
Okay, so time for a brief update! Long story short, initial plan didn't go as, well, planned. Trying to recover the Ice Blue proved difficult, so I took the plunge and picked up some of the Imrik Blue drybrush paint! Got some new glue and a Nightshade wash while I was there, just for completeness' sake. The good news is the Imrik Blue works great, really easy to paint with! The bad news is that it's not much like Ice Blue. It's actually closer to Enchanted Blue, the colour I'm trying to highlight. So after a more invested attempt to recover the Ice Blue and make it useable, I managed to get ten of the Skinks done before it dried up. I think I'm going to have to pick up the modern replacement, Lothern Blue (maybe even Teclis Blue, not sure) and try with that, but I'm going to apply a second coat of Imrik beforehand if that doesn't go too well. If the worst comes to the worst, backup plan is to strip paint, spray with Lothern, drybrush the back scales with Imrik and then apply the wash. Will make the whole process a lot simpler, I think.