Dinosaurs riding dinosaurs. What's not to love right? When I finished my Skinks, I had my eyes on the other Start Collecting Seraphon with Saurus in it to diversify a bit my forces. I knew the models were old and that they were "old school sculpts" (chunky pieces, not the new tech GW has). But I decided to get one box anyway, mainly because I knew that someday I would want to paint the big guy on the Carnosaur and, looking at prices, getting a bunch of Saurus, Saurus Knights and a large amount of bits for a few € more was a good deal. I decided to start with Saurus Knights because they're playable in Warcry and have a decent profile. And you can get a leader: the Scar Veteran on Cold One which is rather okay in Warcry as well. So I wanted to get them done first and paint the whole unit. Well, to say the least, this wasn't the best painting experience. When assembling the models I realised how old the sculpts were, and the problems these models have: Saurus have weird proportions with tiny tiny feets, way too big hands, a long body that does not really make sense and ...Cold Ones look... goofy? Saurus at least are kind of believable, have ok heads and barring the proportions issues I mentionned, I don't have too many problems with them but once you put them on the Cold Ones I feel like they lose the menacing and brutal feel they should have. Not to mention that actually putting them on the Cold Ones does not work and leaves huge gaps. It's really a shame when you see how good the new generations of Saurus look (the hero of Carnosaur, the guy from the Warhammer Underworlds warband). I heard about the conversion with Dark Elves Cold Ones but chasing them and buying more models just to get the Saurus on new mounts was a step I wasn't ready for. And the Dark Elves Cold Ones, as cool as they are, look more elvish beasts than dinosaurs from Lustria (which is normal after all). I quickly considered getting Knights from 3rd parties but, I know nothing about 3D printing and I play as GW stores so it wasn't an option and I already had the models. And I was afraid that the 3rd party sculpts wouldn't fit with the GW aethetics. I painted the first Knight and it wasn't too bad, I started to actually like them a bit. With a proper paint job, he actually looked pretty decent and I caught myself thinking that this old school look wasn't hat bad after all as it was reminiscent of the old Lizardmen army which I was okay with. The second Knight went okay but they took a long time to paint and motivation was dwindling. Maybe my painting process was too long (highlighting each scale and getting proper colour transitions) but I really wanted to make them look good and not rush them. As expected painting the actual Saurus was rather okay because they grew on me but painting the Cold One was the hard part. Every brush stroke was a chore because no matter how hard I tried, they still looked "off". It took me days to paint the 3rd one. Then one day I went to the store to get my plastic fix and ordered a Stegadon, a model I actually wanted to paint for the army, and I pledged to finished this Knights unit before even opening the Steg box. This week end, the Steg arrived, got it at the store and just powered through the unit. My wife was away this week end so it was me versus me, with the whole week end to finish it. After a saturday morning run to get the blood pumping and clear my mind, I sat down and started painting the drummer and the icon bearer, the last two models. Got discouraged quickly, I had no podcasts left to listen to and I had already watched all Caleb Hastings videos and it took a long time to move forward on the paint job. Saturday went by quicker than expected but by the end of the day, the drummer was complete. Sunday, I spent most of the paint time painting the icon and having a nice enough blend of colours on the Dragon's tail because that would be the first thing you see on the model. I called it a day with just the last Cold One left to paint. Monday night was the end of the tunnel, I left the office early, with the intention to get it done once and for all. I am very happy to present you the unit, finally done. Overall, I like how they look as a unit, they do have this Warhammer battle look because the Cold Ones look the same and you see they were sculpted with the intention of having them grouped into a unit with square bases. But, I did not like painting them, sadly. Spoiler Now, let's paint a Stegadon!
That is some pretty impressive painting you have done. I like the shading and highlighting, very nice contrast between the dark and lighter parts of the models. Lovely unity of Knights it is! Grrr, Imrahil
Excellent! And I feel your pain. Those models didn't look that great even when they were new, and haven't aged the best... but yours have turned out beautiful!