New Army update two

Hey everybody,
My new Ossiarch Bonereapers army is coming along really nicely so far! I’ve managed to paint well over 500 points of stuff, which is quite exciting for the time I’ve been doing this! Contrast paints have definitely proven to be a big help here. I don’t think I’d be anywhere near to what I’ve got if I were painting these entirely the traditional way.

I’d talked about the first unit of Mortek Guard, on the left there, in my first update. Since painting these guys almost as testers, I’ve been able to see where I can speed things up, and make sure I’m not spending forever getting bogged-down in detail. As such, the second unit of Mortek Guard, on the right, were painted up pretty quickly, alongside the Mortisan Boneshaper, my first hero miniature!

Now, all of these models are done up to a tabletop standard, and I’m not going to be winning any Golden Daemons for my efforts, but I think they look good enough, so that I can have a painted force that is ready to play, whenever the restrictions are lifted and we’re able to meet up with other folks again! And I can always come back to these guys and add in extra detail, if I need to, in times to come. The Boneshaper in particular, I had no idea what to do with that stream of magic, or whatever it is, forming the skeleton in front of him – the box art has it as a sort of pale blue-green, but with me using teal for the cloth I don’t think that would have worked. In the end, I went for pale blue to provide a bit of a contrast, but I know I want to come back to this at some point.

Even so, I’m really pleased with how the army has turned out up to this point. I’ve been following the guide for Petrifex Elite in the battletome, and it’s working well for me so far. The skeletons are done with Basilicanum Grey, the cloth with Terradon Turquoise followed by a drybrush of Kabalite / Sybarite Green, and the armour is Flesh Tearers Red followed by edge highlights of Wazdakka / Wild Rider Red. I think this is the first time I’ve actually been edge highlighting for real, and it does produce a nice effect, given the sharpness of the armour plates.

The weapons have been a particular success, I think! It’s just Terradon Turquoise again, this time with a drybrush of Temple Guard Blue to help give a different feel to the cloth, taking the turquoise colour more towards blue than green. I think the drybrush technique helps to give the weapons a magical feel, as it’s much less precise than edge highlighting.

For any weapon hilts, I’ve gone with Skeleton Horde to help break up the model a bit. For the spears, I’ve used Snakebite Leather for the hafts, which has a beautiful coverage, by the way. The light grey armour, as different from the bone, I’ve washed with Nuln Oil so that it stands out as different.

The last detail, really, is the jewel. In the lore, I think this is a bit like an Eldar spirit-stone, it contains the essence of the warrior spirits used to recreate the construct. They’re usually black, but given the dark nature of the bone, I went for green – Warpstone Glow and Moot Green, with a Biel-Tan Green wash to help bring out a certain vibrancy. It seems to look okay, anyway, and I think the green fits in well with the teal while providing a nice contrast with the red.

For the big lad, I basically ramped this scheme up, and I’m pleased to say that it seems to work fine on the bigger models. I tried to give some visual interest by drybrushing some parts of the skeleton with Administratum Grey, while others around the cage on his back I gave a heavier wash of the contrast paint. Any bone that he’s collecting I have left as Skeleton Horde, because otherwise it could have just been a mass of grey!

So there we have it! The first steps in collecting the bone-tithe for Nagash have begun!

I’m thinking that I might have a break from these chaps, and paint either some Warcry or Necromunda. Or maybe something totally different. But it won’t be too long before I’m going to tackle the next unit, the Necropolis Stalkers!!