Introduction first. I am AlkIm, a player from izmir, Turkey . We have a Gaming club named Kule Sakinleri (Tower Residents). We are playing several different wargames including, WHFB, WH40k, Flames of War, Infinity etc. Also we play magic or run role playing games. You are welcome to visit us if you drop by. I have been playing WHFB for a while. I first started playing with Dwarfs, gathered many models, assembled most but didn’t painted much. At one time, i played with my friend Ogulcan’s long dusting Lizardmen and grow fond of magic and skirmisher potential. After a while, one day i found myself thinking on the environment the skinks live on and how they look like. Also i realized i could not go on playing Ogulcan’s models and asked myself why dont i build and paint my army and became a follower of The Old Ones. Here below are my adventures in assembling and painting Lizardmen. (Disclaimer: This is a huge text block with some links to our clubs forum. The text was first written in Turkish and roughly rewritten or translated to english, so some references might not be familiar or sensible in English. There are links to model photos from our site, but this post is not something to show my work. Again you might find other pictures of my models, as well as more talented people’s models there.) - My first tought was what i would require at start. Battallion is a fantastic package with 12 skinks, 20 saurus, 10 temple guard and 8 cold ones. Also i always liked to play with skink skirmishers so i ordered a box of skinks as well. Everything started in April 2013. - Eventough i didn’t paint much i had a sizable paint pallet on hand from dwarfs. What i lacked was mostly green tones and some washes. I defined what i would need to accomplish my dreams, I had gotten Camo Green to Paint some Infinity models, I ordered Knarloc Green for basecoats and thraka green for wash. I found a paint named biel-tan Shade, which i found that Games Workshop changed names of Paints and it was a wash paint same as Thraka Green! - In 2-3 weeks my orders arrived from gaming store Pegasus in Istanbul. I started with Skink box since i only knew what skinks would look like when i paint them. - Skink Box is nice but you can not assemble 24 blow pipers. There are 20 blowpipes 4 skinks have to be javelin throwers. Same is valid if you want the reverse. - When cutting from sprue you should use diagonal pliers. At start i used an old knife and cutting board. When cutting with knife, i broke a blowpipe in the middle and had to glue it. Then in the next bach i broke another and swore. And in the next batch i broke another. It was the same blowpipe in each sprue row, i think it was coming on to a space, so when pressing to board it was getting broken. Let’s go to hardware store. - I should use thimble to not to cut my fingers when cutting of the burr from the model. - Assembling was not hard, but i didnt attached shields of 4 javelin skink. - I am working on big dinner table and laying old newspapers over it. I used patex to glue skinks to their bases and lefted them overnight to dry on the table but without a nespaper . When i checked them on the morning there were 24 thin discloration lines on the table surface due to patex drying on the table. I couldn’t tell my wife for a week. - It’s fun to decide this model should go with this head and these additional things. Box supllies these extra parts. - Matte Black Spray paint for under coat. I would use green one but but my buddy Burak scared me that it might harm the model or paint might not stick to spray paint. It would be easier to paint tough. - I shy away from spraying models when they are in sprue since i fear i would not see the details when i am assembling. - Let’s start painting. These skinks live in jungle and dense forests they are very agile . They can not be seen easily, Jungles are mostly green, ergo skinks should be green and the dense jungle bottom does not get light much darker green is better. - I painted some of them. I like them so far. http://kulesakinleri.org/main/index.php?topic=2676.msg25596#msg25596 - I started with painting all of the body with knarlock green darkened with chaos black. Then dry brushed with normal knarlock green ( I shine my shooes 30 years i had never used a painting term and where it fits, Dry Brush ftw.) Then thraka green wash. Eyes are yellow. Above the head of the skinks there is a skin like a retractable membrane, I painted there with Camo Green, thin skin should allow light to get through. At top most there is something like a crest. It fills with blood when skinks are excited or angry so it should be blood red when it happens. - I don’t like the shape of javelins. In my opinion Javelins should be like a toothpick or like javelins like in track field. The javelin models look like spears. I can not chip them. Maybe later a replacement from toothpicks? They have to be painted with 2 colors for now. - My biggest problem is to overflow when painting to other areas. Don’t overflow! Don’t overflow. - When i posted pictures to our forum my buddies had additional suggestions for eyes. Devlan mud, thraka wash and yellow highliht etc. I tried on 1 model, i guess i failed. Now i can not segragate it from other 23... - The evening when i finished all 24, i called my wife shouting, "Come quick there is a lizard at home!" She rushed with a folded old newspaper to splat it. hehehehe.... - I started Skinks at 5th of may and finished on 3rd June. No flock to bases. - Battallion here we come... Batallion is nice but i only have painting scheme for Cold one Riders in mind. - First i assembled cold ones leaving riders aside. No breaking problems. Heads look funny like Miley Cyrus tongue out (Hence their stupidity.) Bodies are simple, heads are interchangable, they are standing on their back legs. - Now my target is to paint the body, shiny red. Cold ones are carnavaours/predators living in small herds, similar to veleciraptors. They don’t need to hide. Therfore they can be red, they ought to be red! - White Spray Disaster! To get a shinier paint i wanted to use white spray, it had worked for my metal infinity models. I don’t know if the mistake was mine or the brand of the spray, or the models are plastic. Surface of the cold ones became chapped. I have to use my old tooth brush extensively to get rid of white dust. - I assembled the riders also, i don’t know how to paint them yet but definately will use black spray. Models are beautiful. Bottom part with saddle, attaches to top part, then head and arms are attached. Since they are modelled a bit leaning front as if they are riding, there is a deep space in the middle. It will be hard to paint without touching other places. My friend Salih suggested to start painting from inside to outside to avoid touching. - I base coated coldones with darkened blood red. Then dyr brushed (again that term!) with blood red. Colars, saddles, i painted with gold brown. Saddle is only gold brown. But i did burnished gold on colars. Burnished gold does not coat the surface very well. Either i need to paint multiple layers or like this to get the gold effect. Body got purple wash afterwwards. - After the second beer, i overflow the paint more than normal... - Note to myself control the lid if it is closed well before shaking the paint bottle to mix it, especially if it is a wash paint! No harm done except my hand and the clothes on me. - Horses are done, mah. I started in fifth of June and finished at 24th of July. Summer season, discouraging white spray added to the delay but biggest reason is that i didn’t used the right brush for the large surfaces of the horses. - In the meanwhile we learned that new Lizardmen army book is on its way. Luck! - We talked of rumours about 3 weeks and the book is out. I ordered a Bastiladon, a ripper/terradon box, the book and magic card supplement. - Bundles without a discount. Mah! - When i started painting the first cold one rider, i tought a lot on color scheme since i would use the same scheme in infantry also (Saurus Cavalry=Saurus Infantry+cold one). Green definately, but it shouldnt be same as skinks. Now, these are the main muscle, main troops, they don’t need to hide, they are there to smash. They can be lighter colors so camo green over black spray, spines dark green (knarlock green), Devlan mud, thraka green and nuln oil wash on necessary places. - New bottles of new Games workshop does not close well. My new Nuln oil dried up. In contrary, 3 year old Valejo paints are still in prime condition. I watered Nuln oil with tap water. I guess we would get an original effect if calcification occurs on models. - Overflow again! - Time for procrastination. - It is hard to restart painting after a break. One evening i only setup the table, and decided i did enough. Next day i started painting. - My tought process on Weapon colors are like this: Our infantry has low Weapon skill but If main duty of Saurus is close combat, they should be able to use weapons pretty well, then why low WS? Because metal weapons are build from inappropriate or low quailty materials. Why? Because you can not find metals in the jungle, so steel and iron is scarce, but bronze is there. Gold is plenty, so is jewels, but no hard metals. Best quality materials can be in hands of best warriors (Coldones, templeguards, heroes, Lords). We don’t need to paint jewels, we are not magpie bird to have soft point for shiny things, (reasoned it from low initiative, you say hi to a saurus he will answer back next week.) - My friend Semih gave me a tip on cheap toys which can subsitute for some modeles. I bought a Carnasour and Stegadon substititute from a toy shop for a total of 10 Euro. - At one point i tought what would the bastiladon look like. It should definately look different than saurus and i have used all the green tones i have, except temple guard blue which i save for them. It shoul be green but a different tone. Bastialdon is a herbivore, so its body and armor might be the colour of a weed it eats constantly. I have a green tone i have been using to paint a leaf feature on saurus models. So that could be it when time comes. - I don’t have bronze colour. I am not sure what bronze colour is as well. I mixed dark flesh abd hairy brown (The brown colour which i don’t particularly like), and get a something similar that is on the google images. Ofcourse no two instance of mixture gives same colour. Some of the mixtures created a very interesting rust effect. - When you mix colours you get used to tone differences. I don’t want to think of paint overflows and it happens frequently to me. - You squish valejo bottles in the middle to pour them on the pallet. Tip of one was getting constantly choked up, which i used some needle to open up. This time i couldn’t do it well, i squished hard and plop... Half of the all paint is on the pallet. I painted every point which needs gold brown. Neverthless i noticed later i forget one model. - For Banner of Coldeones i had 2 choice and i choosed the chinese dragon version, it seemed it would give more flowing in the wind look. Only If i could do a freehand highlight... - I need to change my brushes. I can not use bigger brushes. Even 000 brushes is too large for me, have i said i overflow much? But if i use thin brushes, everynight it becames 10000 strokes of brush before bed. - I can form my murphy rules of painting. - Let’s say i will use a colour to paint a specific place on several models. I get some paint and put some on the pallet. Then 1 by 1, i take the models to paint where i intended. When i switch to another colour i discover that i missed 1 model with previous colour. - Did i overflow? When i do the correction, i overflow it to another colour. - When writting this text, it occured to me that at some points it would be easy to put a photo to tell what i intend to. Example,tip of the Valejo bottle. It would be definately easier to understand. However to explain by script, writer has to know the words which tells what you want and reader has to know those words, hence literacy. To be able put photos instead makes it simpler and idiotic. (Drawing them is not idiotic Bob, it is talent.) - Patex tubes always glues itself after i use. There are several at home which i can not open anymore. How to use it properly hmm? - I have finished Cold one riders at last here is a photo. http://kulesakinleri.org/main/index.php?topic=2676.msg28962#msg28962 - Riders does not sit still on the cold ones. They were before i glued the shield arms etc. I can not glue riders on Cold ones since it will make carrying around difficult. - I started on Cold ones as a whole on 5th of June and finished on 26th of October. Too long...On to the Saurus infantry... - to be continued...
I have a question for you I got some stegadons off ebay and they were glued already any idea how to get them apart?
It depends on the glue that has been used, if superglue you could try to put the stegosaurs in freeze for few hours and then take them out and try to divide the glued pieces