Gnome Assassin

Struggles with painting a flesh tone

I’ve been working on a new project, the Gnome Assassin from Miniature Madness sculpted by Leonardo Escovar "Poisonauta". This characterful bust was an online ‘impulse’ buy but it’s been waiting my attention for years. I kept it in reserve as a ‘filler’ project but, even though I had it primed and ready, the moment never came, until now. After finishing Akito I was in the mood to experiment further with painting flesh tones and the Gnome Assassin’s small size meant that he shouldn’t be too much of a time commitment. He would probably take me months rather than years!

 

 

I’ve had plenty of time to consider this project and had some ideas for how I was going to treat him. My big idea was to present the Gnome as though he was peering out from between the branches of a tree, alongside an animal companion or two. Long story short, after many attempts I abandoned this idea as I just couldn’t nail the composition. Nothing I tried quite looked right and I think that’s because I was trying to turn the bust into something it was never suited to be. It’s another case of a big basing idea that would have overwhelmed the model. So I’m keeping things simple and concentrating on painting the bust.

However, while working on the woodland base idea my thoughts for the overall scheme came together. I decided to create a cold looking winter setting which seemed to go well with my thoughts on how to paint the Gnome. I’ve always pictured him as having a greyish skin tone and white hair. This comes from two early influences. My teenage experience of Dungeons and Dragons where I played as a Gnome and the afore-mentioned colour scheme stuck in my memory. But even earlier than that is the book The Little Grey Men written by Denys Watkins-Pitchford under the pen name ‘BB’. Memories of the book were reinforced by a 10-part animated series, adapted from the book in 1975, called Baldmoney, Sneezewort, Dodder and Cloudberry. A couple of years ago I re-read The Little Grey Men after discovering it in a charity shop and was charmed all over again!

 

 

I began to experiment with colours for a palette that would create a greyish skin tone in a cool light. Once again my trusty notebook came in handy. I first laid down a possible palette of colours and then experimented with how they behaved together. My first mixes were too purple and too saturated. I gradually shifted my mixes until I came to something that I felt would give me a good basis for the flesh tones. Dark Sea Blue and Black Leather mix together to make a very dark grey that is easy to shift from warm to cool by varying the mix. This would be my shadow colour. To this I gradually added Bearing Blue to create a lighter cool grey. Into that I then added Basic Flesh. This moved the colour into the midtowns and gradually warmed it up. To shift into the highlights I increased the Basic Flesh and introduced Ice Yellow and then Ivory White for the extreme highlights. On paper this gave me a very promising skin tone that shifted from cool shadows into warmer highlights.

 

 

Figuring out a colour palette in advance is very helpful, it builds familiarity with the colours and how they work together. However, it’s another thing entirely when you put these colours onto a model and my ‘greyish skin tone’ would prove to be very problematic! I quickly came to dislike the results I was getting as the skin tone looked dead, dull and desaturated! On consideration I’d made two mistakes that were causing the problems.

 

 

Because I wanted to create moody and dramatic lighting my base colour was a fairly dark blue grey. This shifted the overall colour range towards the cool shadows which was made worse by my being too timid with my colour mixes. I needed to go from the cool shadows into the warmer mid-tones with bolder steps because the cool dark base colour was desaturating the colour I put on top of it. I could have started over with a lighter and brighter base colour (Rakarth Flesh) but I prefer to try and resolve problems by working through them. I liked the blue/grey shadows so I focussed my efforts on the mid-tones and highlights. I set to making them lighter, warmer and more saturated.

 

The final selection of colours used in the colour palette.

 

I’d always planned to use glazes of warmer and more saturated hues over the flesh tones. Because of this I already had the colours I would need in my palette.  I’d now have to incorporate them in my mid-tone and highlight layers because glazes would not be bold enough.Those colours were very familiar as I’d recently used them for the flesh tones on my Akito bust. The application was to be very different though as my lighting scheme was far more dramatic than on Akito. Both Golden Skin and Pink Flesh would be vital in adding warmth but the most significant additions by far were Bugman’s Glow and Fiery Vermillion. The introduction of these colours into the mid-tones created a bolder shift into warmer hues.

 

 

This didn’t come about easily. I constantly had to push myself to go with the warmer and more saturated hues. Throughout the process I tended to be too timid in my choices and made a lot of extra work for myself. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the process of figuring out my Gnome’s flesh tones. It’s the sort of problem solving I enjoy. The final result isn’t the ‘Little Grey Man’ I’d first imagined but it is my take on a Gnome and I’m happy with the result. 

What’s more the process helped to drive home a very useful lesson. It’s something I’ve always known but never really consiously experienced. When building up highlights it’s a good idea to focus on going brighter rather than simply going lighter. Even after forty six years of painting, there is still plenty to learn!

My Gnome is pretty much ‘out of the box’ with one exception. His original knife had a spiral Celtic style design on it and I didn’t really care for it. I felt it was too sophisticated for the rustic Gnome I was imagining. So I replaced the knife blade with one carved from greenstuff. The new knife was faceted to look like a knapped stone blade. I then painted it in green tones to contrast with the flesh.

This was an enjoyable little project and it feels very satisfying to finish a model that’s been on my to-do list for so long. I’m pleased with the final result but can’t help feeling that the dark blue/grey base colour was not the best choice.  Once finished I decided to  enter it into a couple of painting comps in the early half of the year. I didn’t expect stellar results so I was very pleased with a Silver at the Hammerhead Painting competition and a Finalist pin at Salute! 

 

 

Looking back on this project there are some lessons to be learned. I think it’s much better to go in bold and then have to tone things down as opposed to being too cautious and then having to add saturation and contrast later. If you start off bold something of that will always remain ‘baked in’ to your painting scheme and will show in the final result.

Specific to the Gnome, I don’t think this bust is especially suitable as a competition piece due to the limited range of materials represented on it. Adding a backdrop and an animal companion sat on his shoulder, a few tattoos or warpaint might have brought something extra. All of these options are still open to me but, for the moment, I’m happy to call the piece done and move on to the next project.

 

Aeldari Voidscarred Corsair, Part Four

Painting and repainting the Shade Runner

 

With forty six years of mini painting experience I should know better than to rush a paint job in order to meet a deadline! After all, my No.1 personal painting rule is ‘take as much time as I need to paint a model to my satisfaction’. But alas, my most recent Corsair fell foul of short cuts and I didn’t even realize it at the time!

The Corsair in question is the Shade Runner and I’ve been working on her since August last year. However, I‘d put her on aside in late October and didn’t get to work on her again until late January. The deadline in question was the Hammerhead Painting competition on February 28th and I had four weeks to get into gear and finish the model. I quite like the occasional tight deadline because it energizes my painting and keeps me on my toes. I do, however, have to be very careful as I never do my best work at speed. But I thought I had just enough time to finish the model properly.

This was, after all, the third of my Corsairs so I was familiar with my colour palette and scheme. Indeed part of the reason for the hiatus was a touch of boredom as I started to get that ‘been there, done that’ feeling about the paint scheme. One solution was to shake things up a bit. I’d always planned to vary the armour colour of my Corsairs within the overall scheme. Those with higher status would feature more gold armour and the rest would feature more red and black with less gold. 

I decided to figure out what the lower end of the range would look like and apply this to the Shade Runner. The black armour is not, in fact, a true black but rather an extremely dark grey green. I think of it as a soft black and Dark Sea Blue from Vallejo once again proved itself an invaluable part of my colour palette. I decided to restrict gold to the knees, vambraces, buckles and helmet. All the Corsairs will have gold helmets. The red was kept fairly minimal by restricting it to the belts, holster and one pauldron. In order to test this scheme out I made a quick sketch using the colours from my palette which was an incredibly useful step to help consolidate my plans.

As a result the painting of the miniature was pretty straightforward and enjoyable. The dark armour gave me an opportunity to introduce colours into it from the overall palette and experiment with reflections from other areas of the mini and the wider environment. Black armour can be uninteresting but I think these reflections added a lot of nuance.

One other thing that I thought would add some variety was my choice of head for the Shade Runner. The ‘standard’ head for this model has a hood over the helmet giving it an assassin like vibe. I went with this option but modified it by adding the ‘tail’ from the hood of the Harlequin Solitaire model. This played into the ‘over the top’ aesthetic I wanted for my Corsairs.

By this time I’d been painting between four and six hours every day for over a month. This had been an incredibly productive period but a little bit of mental fatigue had started to set in!  I’d constructed a base at the start of the project and had it primed, base coated and ready to go. This was just as well because I only had a couple of weeks left to paint it. This was simply a matter of repeating my scheme so I forged ahead. I would normally spend almost as much time thinking about painting as doing it but that was a luxury I didn’t have time for. However, the model was finished with a couple of days spare and I was happy with the result … mostly.

Something bothered me about the overall scheme and it took a while for me to pin it down to the head. I’d spent a lot of time converting the hooded head and liked the result. In itself the miniature was fine but not as a part of a larger unit. I came to realize that the hood skewed the colour scheme of the Shade Runner away from that of the planned unit. It introduced a dominant bright blue element to the front of the model. In addition the helmet, showing only it’s faceplate, did not have the same bold impact as the other models with their tall gold helmets. I decided that for the sake of my long-term plan I would have to replace the helmet. That, however, would be after the competition.

It felt strange to enter a competition with a model that I knew I was going to change. But I was pleased with the Shade Runner as a stand alone model. I was even more pleased when it was given gold in the Sci-Fi Single Miniature category!

After the comp, I had the chance to chat with the Judge Matt Parks. Matt had some incredibly helpful feed back for me. In short my basing ‘was not up to my usual standard’. I really hadn’t seen this and even when pointed out it took a bit of time for it to sink in. After all the model had just won Gold but what I came to realise was that, although okay, the base was very basic! This was not as disappointing as it might have been because I already intended to rework the model. This time I would work at a more considered pace.

Removing the head was a nasty job with the potential to cause some damage but I thought through the process and worked cautiously. I realised that the safest way was to sacrifice the hooded head and remove it in pieces. This was a shame but I had a bigger picture to concentrate on. I had cut a small notch out of the blink pack when I fitted the hood so that also had to be repaired and repainted. Milliput was the filler of choice here as it could be sanded more easily than green stuff. The job was certainly fiddly but the area was easily accessible so I was able to make the repair with no slip ups.

For the new head I selected a helmet from the Drukhari Raider kit. It had a set of ‘fins’ running down either side that helped to give it some visual impact. I painted the helmet and then glued it onto the body. It made a huge difference to the appearance of the model! It had been a drastic step to remove a perfectly good head and replace it but the new version of the Shade Runner feels far more in keeping with the overall scheme I’m creating.

It was then time to scrutinize the base. It was indeed rather basic and that wouldn’t do at all. I decided to add some fallen statuary and rubble to create a bit more interest. This was done with minimal disruption to the existing work so then all I had to do was paint it. Or so I thought because once I started painting I realised just how right Matt was about the base not being up to standard!

Studying my earlier work, I discovered that I’d missed many stages of layers, glazes, washes and highlights. The Shade Runner’s base matched my earlier work on a superficial level but lacked depth and nuance in it’s painting. So I set about repainting the entire base. This time I would not be cutting any corners. 

Even when fully painted to my satisfaction I felt that the base and the figure needed something more to tie them together involving the colour scheme. So I added a green trophy/trinket to the models belt (as I had on the Felarch) and some blue ferns to the base. With that I’m now far more satisfied with my Shade Runner. The model and it’s base feel visually cohesive and painted to the same standard.   

Feedback can be difficult to accept but it’s always worth considering. Matt Parks’ advice saved me from failing to do my best and I’m very grateful for it!

Finishing Akito seven years after I started her!

Ever since Salute in April life has been incredibly busy! Once I recovered from the inevitable post event cold there have been many trips, weekends away and even our first holiday abroad since 2019. However, I was determined to have a new project ready for the Fen Model Show (FMS) at the end of July. The obvious candidate was my next Aeldari Corsair, the Shade Runner. But who wants to be obvious?

Finishing Horticulus Slimux was an extremely positive experience and fully rekindled my enthusiasm for painting. I’m enjoying the Corsairs but, as I predicted, I fancied a change from what is a very long running project. That change came in the form of another model that’s been haunting the back of my cabinet, since January 2018. Like Horticulus Slimux, it got off to a good start but stalled and was then sidelined.

 

In truth the ‘good start’ was a part of what put me off! This model is very challenging for me as it’s unlike anything else I’ve ever painted before. Initially I was experimenting and taking a risks but, with success, came caution. I’ve noticed that if a paint job goes well the fear of messing things up increases and that can become a barrier to painting. However, I think it’s far better to take risks and get a project finished, even if it’s not 100% successful. At the least you can chalk it down to experience and learn some lessons; but an unfinished project is a far less positive experience. 

The mystery model that’s been bothering my conscience for all these years is Akito the C Girl and it felt incredibly good to get her out of the cabinet and back onto the desk! Both the subject and scale are things with which I have limited experience and she is no less a challenging project now than she was in 2018. But its a challenge I was up for.

Before starting on the second phase of my Akito project I needed to study the model closely and come up with a plan of action. I’d achieved more on Akito than I thought. The bulk of the flesh tones were painted, the leather jacket was all but done and I’d made a good start on the hair. What remained to paint were the arms, sword and hood. This didn’t sound like a lot of work but I felt that there were also many parts of the earlier work that would benefit from some finessing and refinement.

For clarity I’ve broken my progress down into the following stages. But, as ever, the work is much more a matter of going back and forth than this would suggest. Progress is almost never linear with the earlier work needing subtle adjustments as the overall scheme develops.

The Overall Colour Palette

I wouldn’t usually start a project without a firm idea of my color palette but in Akito’s case the palette developed organically as I progressed. With the exception of the pink spot colour the palette consists mostly of blue grey, browns and the flesh tones. All are relatively desaturated and veer towards being neutral. I don’t think this is a palette I would have cooked up in advance of painting as it only came together in the later half of the project.

Flesh tones

When I’d put Akito to one side I felt that the skin on the face and torso was finished. I’d come up with and implemented a palette of colours that helped me to create the pale soft looking flesh I intended. On reviewing the work seven years later, that remains mostly true but I felt there was room for some improvement. I pushed a few of the highlights just a little further but the biggest change was on the face. I added some extremely subtle red glazes around the eyes, nose and cheeks. The paint was little more than tinted water but the addition of the red brings a bit of warmth and the feeling of life to the face. I used Fiery Vermilion from Army Painter for this. It’s an intense colour I look forward to further experimenting with.

 

Even with the face and torso finished I still had to paint the visible flesh on Akito’s arms. This was a daunting prospect as the final flesh tone is the result of glazing, layering and stippling a variety of flesh tones from several paint ranges; however, I was able to refer back to my own articles and blog posts to refresh my memory. Broadly speaking, I worked from pink hues in the shadows to gold hues in the highlights. Once I implemented this principle the flesh tones came together surprisingly quickly.  A key factor was the use of Rakarth Flesh both as a base colour and an element of my colour mixes. It’s a warm grey that helped to calm down the saturation of the overall pallet and unite the different hues.

Jacket & Hood

My first thoughts on Akito’s clothing was to create a very sci-fi look. I intended to use blacks and shiny textures. I began by painting the bikini top this way and was pleased with the result but changed my mind about her jacket. I decided that a more eclectic style would suite her character and it would be more interesting to paint. I painted the leather jacket brown and added lots of texture to make it look old and worn.

 

The first step was to find some reference pictures and they proved to be very useful. It took a lot of dots, dashes, stipples and strokes to build up the texture in a variety of browns. The hues I chose were also affected by the texture. Smoother shinier areas have a cooler hue as they are reflecting more of the sky than the rougher areas. Where the jacket was especially worn I used an orange/brown to show where the darker surface was wearing off. Overall the jacket was one of the most enjoyable parts of the model to paint!

 

I decided to paint the hood grey. This decision was made fairly late in the process as my overall color palette began to come together. The hood was stippled to create a soft looking fabric texture. The hood’s lining was painted in a desaturated pale blue/grey to add interest and variation to the range of greys used. To make it look as if it was a silkier material than the outer hood, I painted brighter highlights and subtle pink reflections from the adjacent hair. The hood was the last element of Akito’s clothing to be painted but the jacket required one last touch.

 

There is a rectangular back panel on the jacket that cries out for some sort of embellishment. My first thought was to create the graphics for the panel in my illustration software then print it and glue it onto the jacket as if it were a patch that was sewn on. This would be executed in the same way as I create the labels for my plinths. Then I had second thoughts as, although I would have created the graphics myself, it felt like an easy option and not in the spirit of a project intended for a painting competition. This called for a freehand design. I decided to paint Akito’s name on the back panel in a graffiti style as though she had painted it herself and the prospect was daunting. However, I was forgetting my own roots! I am, after all, a fully trained Graphic Designer with 30 years of industry experience and this task took me right back to my college days. I came up with a letter style in my Illustrator software so that I had something to refer to but then painted it onto the jacket freehand. This enabled me to tweak the design to better fit the scale and area I was working in. Once I started doing this I loved the process! I had to take some risks on this project to make some progress.

Hair

I’d made a start on painting the hair during the first stage of the project. I’d mixed up a base colour, highlighted it with the addition of ivory and shaded it with Screamer Pink. This pink colour looked alright to me but also a bit lifeless. What I now needed to do was to bring some dimension and interest to the hair.  The addition of Blanched Berry deepened the shadows and the use of Bering Blue added a reflective quality to these areas. I painted further highlights but felt they looked a little washed out and desaturated. To counter this I glazed dilute yellow ink onto them. This warmed up the colour which had been a little too cold and it also brought some saturation back into the mid-tones and highlights. I think the hair now has some subtle variations of hue that make it more visually interesting than the initial flat looking pink.  

 

Metallics

Both of the arms needed to be painted in the second phase of this project. Because the arms would feature the largest metallic components of the bust they made up the most significant elements of the new work. I’d decided to use true metallic back in the first phase of this project. I prefer to paint non-metalic metals rather than true metallic metals as the final look is more in my control. However, I think true metallics can look great on larger scale models and this is something I wanted to explore more. It’s a choice I would regret at times as the metals proved to be a struggle!

I’ts been some years since I’ve used metallic paints and it took a lot of trial and error to decide which paints to use. I experimented with different combinations of metallic paint, ordinary paint and inks. My final choices were all from Scale Colour as they gave me the result I liked best with my preferred method of application.

 

I built up successive layers of metallic paint and ink glazes. This enables me to create deep rich shadows with a soft sheen that helps to sell the illusion of a patina. The mid-tones and highlights are built up with metallic paint to create texture and shine. I used varying combinations of black, blue and chestnut ink. The combination of these three colors gave me a great range of hues including blue/greys, browns and dull greens. The combination of these hues brought a lot of variation and interest to the metals

 

I didn’t want a dirty or corroded finish but neither did I want the metals to look pristine. I think a patinated look gives the metals some character and definition without being too grungy.

Sword

If the metals were tricky to paint the sword proved to be a nightmare from start to finish! Akito’s original resin sword had warped slightly and had a definite kink in it. It was easy to straighten the blade with a little heat but over time the kink would return. This was another reason I’d put the project on hold as I needed to find a replacement. I took my time and considered multiple options. I could carve a new blade from plasticard or source a new blade from another kit. I began an exhaustive search and although there were other kits with swords of an appropriate size nothing seemed quite right. However while searching online I came across an interesting possibility. Listed on Amazon as ‘Vintage Metal Bookmarks, Charm Pendants Mini Sword Knife’ was a set of metal alloy swords in what looked to be the perfect scale. They were priced at an affordable £8.99 so I decided to purchase a set and see if they were of any use.

What arrived was a set of seven surprisingly sturdy metal swords of an almost perfect size. The greatest advantage I saw in these blades was that there was really no way they would bend or warp. What was less perfect was that, for obvious reasons, the blades were not only blunt but had somewhat thick edges. It was time for me to purchase a new set of files and get to work on the metal blades.

The metal was surprisingly hard but this meant that the work of refining the blade would be easier to control than if it were made of a soft metal. The job was straightforward and after a couple of hours of careful filling I had a suitably sharp looking sword. I cut the (rather too long) sword to length and then drilled and pinned it in place. I wanted a big bold sword but I’ve had feedback that it’s too long and, in retrospect, I agree as it unbalances the composition. However, I will chalk that down to experience rather than going back in and trying to change it.

I thought my troubles with the sword were all solved but I was very wrong! My first intention was to paint the sword metallic using a very bright silver. I experimented with Molotow Liquid chrome and it certainly delivered as promised. One heavy coat applied carefully but confidently with a brush gave a mirror like chrome finish, however, when I tried to apply some shading with my inks they just beaded on the surface and wouldn’t lay smoothly. On further consideration the chrome was probably too bright for the model anyway, so I applied a coat of regular silver paint to the sword and started shading with my inks. Everything behaved as expected but I hated the look of it! The silver looked too dull and too similar to the silver on the arms. I decided that if I couldn’t get a shiny silver I should go the other way and paint the sword in NMM finish with some true metallic chipping for a bit of wear and tear along the edges. The idea being that the sword has a coating of some sort over the metal finish.

I painted the sword with the grey and blue hues from my colour palette and included the black, blue and chestnut ink I’d used earlier in the mix. This gave me an interesting range of hues and also tied the look of the sword in with the metallic areas. Everything was going very well! The sword had blue/grey/green hues that were very pleasing to me. I’d highlighted the sword with an ivory colour but it looked a bit yellow, so I worked on lightening the highlights a little more. All to no effect because the highlights continued to get more and more yellow. All of the ink had been mixed in with the paint but I realised that yellow pigment from the chestnut ink was leeching out into the top layers. This continued well after all the paint was dry.

It was looking like I would have to strip the sword and start again but before that I had one last thing to try. Much of the work on the sword still looked good and I wanted to try and save it. So I applied a layer of matt varnish to see if I could seal the yellow stains beneath it. This was an even worse disaster as the varnish drew the yellow out more than ever!

In an effort to get the still wet varnish off I took a clean dry brush and quickly removed the varnish wiping it from the brush onto a paper towel. This worked and I was shocked at how much yellow had leeched into the varnish. The varnish was literally drawing the yellow out of the paint which gave me an idea. I repeated the process several times applying a heavy layer of varnish and then removing it until there was no more yellow staining the varnish. In effect I washed the sword with varnish. I then let the sword dry completely.

I repainted those areas that needed it and this time the yellow stain did not return. I will keep an eye on the model as the stain might return in time but so far, so good. I also threw my chestnut ink in the bin! I’ve never had this problem before but I certainly don’t intend to risk a repeat!

 

With the sword finally done Akito was finished. I’m still relatively inexperienced at painting larger scale models and I definitely have a lot to learn. But I enjoyed the process and I feel that this is something I can explore in the future. In the meantime, I’m very happy with how Akito turned out and it’s extremely rewarding to finish a project that’s been sitting around for so long. Seven years is a very long time to wait to finish a model (even for me) but it’s been well worth the effort!

 

Unfinished business!

Horticulus Slimux – Part 6

I suspect that every miniature painter has a few unfinished projects that sit neglected on their desk or in a cabinet. It’s a frustrating situation but one that’s all too easy to fall into. One such project for me was Horticulus Slimux and I was shocked to realise that I last worked on him in March 2018! I can’t even remember exactly why I put the project on hold, though I suspect that I was chasing deadlines on other projects. I’d painted Horticulus Slimux to a standard I was very happy with but the project stalled with his giant snail, Mulch. Other projects took precedence and after finishing my Daemon Tank I was suffering from an overdose of Nurgle themed painting. So Horticulus remained forgotten at the back of my miniatures cabinet.

Forgotten by me that is until a couple of weeks ago when he came up in conversation at the Hammerhead painting competition. The upshot of this was that Horticulus was taken out of the cabinet and re-considered. I think he’s too good a piece to remain neglected and unfinished but the snail is a problem. Considering my current commitments and the potential time it would take me to paint Mulch, I decided to let go of that idea and come up with something else that would finish the project to my satisfaction. I could see two options. First I could find a new, smaller and quicker to paint mount for Horticulus. Second I could base him up as a single miniature. 

 

 

I quickly decided on the second option but that’s not without it’s challenges. He is, of course, designed to fit onto Mulch and sculpted in a sitting pose, so I would have to find a way of accommodating this pose on the new base. Horticulus was still going to have to be sat on something, but what? My first thought was to sit him on a severed head. I’ve no idea where this idea came from but it didn’t seem an appropriate setting for Nurgle’s gardener. So what about having him sat on a rock, taking a rest, in the garden surrounded by a profusion of plant life?

With this idea as a starting point, I began to think about the specifics. The timescale was a major factor to consider. I wanted this to be a relatively quick project so I set myself two rules. I would finish the model in time to take it to Salute this year and I would only use materials and parts I already had. This gave me six weeks to work on finishing Horticulus which felt like a good amount of time to get the job done without rushing things. Next up was a thorough rummage through my modeling supplies and bits boxes. This provided both parts and inspiration. 

I had quite a few mushrooms of various sizes left over from old projects and these were perfect for my purposes. In addition a couple of tentacles and some skulls (of course!) would help to populate the terrain. The best find was the head of a fallen statue from the Dominion of Sigmar:Timeworn Ruins terrain. I quickly discovered that Horticulus Slimux could sit on this with very little work to make him fit perfectly! This meant he would be sitting on both a rock and a severed head combining my ideas into one.

 

 

Luckily I had one plinth of the correct size left after I’d use all my others for the Corsairs. The stone head required a little modification before being fixed to the plinth. Then I used a combination of cork, plaster fragments and Stirland Battlemire to build up the terrain around it.

To keep a cohesive feeling, I used the same pallet of colors to paint the base as I’d used on Horticulus Slimux. Thankfully I’d made a note of these colors on an earlier blog post and so was able to fish them out. Once again I’d be using Black Leather from Scale Colour as a universal shadow color. This has a warm pinkish hue that contrasts with the greens and harmonises with the reds. Indeed with the base painted the finished composition has an overall subtle red/green colour contrast. The dominant red area is on the mushrooms but there is also quite a lot of it worked into Horticulus Slimux’s skin tones. This is especially true of the shadows which are very warm with the highlights being cooler in contrast. I used a similar warm/cool contrast on the stone head but with desaturated/grayer hues.

Horticulus Slimux is quite fantastical enough on his own so I decided against taking a highly fantastical approach to the plants. Mushrooms, plants that grow on decay, seem especially appropriate and work well with the Nurgle theme. These would be supplemented with an assortment of grasses, moss, mould and lichen. I used a narrow range of green hues to keep a coherent feeling while relying on texture contrasts to add visual interest. The three large red caped mushrooms are resin and from Blacksmith miniatures. Their large size brings a small touch of the fantastical to the basing. All the other mushrooms were sculpted by myself out of green stuff.

Fixing Horticulus onto the base was very straightforward. He fitted into place well and balanced perfectly, so I was able to attach him directly with epoxy glue - and no need for pinning. However there were a few small gaps underneath him as his backside did not conform exactly to the contours of the statue. I filled in this space with a ‘cushion’ of moss and mould. Like many other Nurgle miniatures, Horticulus has an open belly with his guts hanging out. There was a gap between the guts and the statue that, although not catastrophic, bothered me. Instead of filling this gap with more moss I decided to extend the guts with green stuff. This filled the gap in an appropriately gruesome manner.

 

 

The final touch was to make a label for the plinth. Partly to finish off the composition but also to hide a blemish on the front of the plinth. Putting Horticulus Slimus’s name on the label felt a bit obvious so I opted for his job title ‘The Grand Cultivator’ instead. After resurrecting my long neglected graphic design skills to style the typography, I experimented with different colours. I then used the method described HERE to make the label.

 

 

It’s a shame that I didn’t get to finish Horticulus mounted on Mulch as originally intended. However, I now have a completed model that I’m very happy with and that’s miles better than having him unfinished in the back of the cabinet! And of course, I still have Mulch who could easily become the focus of a future project.

Finishing Horticulus Slimux was an enjoyable process with a satisfying result and six weeks turned out to be more than enough time. So the only thing remaining is to take him to the Salute Painting Competition. This will be my first Salute since 2019 and I’m experiencing an interesting mix of anticipation and nerves so fingers crossed for a good outcome!