Monday, June 19, 2017

AoS28: Stormcast Eternal

“By day fantastic birds flew through the petrified forest, and jeweled crocodiles glittered like heraldic salamanders on the banks of the crystalline river. By night the illuminated man raced among the trees, his arms like golden cartwheels, his head like a spectral crown…”

The Crystal World (1966), J.G. Ballard

In some forgotten grottos and neglected glades of the Mortal Realms, a singular transformation is coming over all organic matter. Living or dead, all blossoming into vitreous spurs of crystal. An inexhaustible tide, physically and psychologically. White static on periphery of conscious thought, beckoning all to return to face absolution. A new horror to add to the many that plague the Mortal Realms. But perhaps the capacity for it has been present all along, since the World’s molten core was placed within the firmament, some antediluvian certainty finally coalescing into being?

Having successfully painted Freyvid Hafnar, the Kharadron scientist investigating the crystal blight, I turned my attention to painting the first afflicted individual that I built, a Stormcast Eternal.

The goal for the model’s color scheme was to create a bleaker and grimmer version of the commonly represented Hammers of Sigmar.
When depicted by Games Workshop in illustrations and miniatures, the Stormcast Eternals from the different Stormhosts are shown as mighty heroes glowing in polished battle armor. My primary goal when painting the crystallizing Stormcast Eternal was to take the gleaming and unblemished hero look and turn it on its head. This Stormcast Eternal needed to appear broken and defeated, necessitating a worn and weathered paint scheme. I decided to base his color scheme on Games Workshop’s most commonly portrayed Stormhost, the Hammers of Sigmar. Their abundance of gold and blue promised plenty of room for weathering. All of the metallics on the model were painted with Scale 75 metallic paints. For the gold, the initial coat was done using the darkest gold available (Necro gold) followed by series of washes. The first was with Vallejo dry rust, followed by GW Agrax Earthshade, and finally GW Nuln oil. After the washes, I highlight the raised areas with a range of brighter and brighter golds. These highlights were painted with a stippling technique to get a beaten look. The final highlight was with silver, tracing the edges of some of the more obvious dents.

The size of the Stormcast’s hammer was reduced and his shield was dented.
Special effort was taken to make the gold armor looked dulled and stressed from the wearer’s final battle within the crystal forest.

An Age of Sigmar Skirmish force is slowly building! 
Currently I am planning to continue exploring the crystal affliction theme by creating an Age of Sigmar Skirmish force. Next I need to paint the orruk model that I converted previously. After that I think I will convert a few crystallizing Kharadron Overlord models to go along with Freyvid Hafnar. If you have any suggestions of crystallizing warriors that I could look to add to the warband feel free to voice them! 

-Adam Wier

14 comments:

  1. It's beautiful!!!Any chance to see a crystallized zombie? Gore and crystal could be nice!

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    1. Thank you for the kind words! I have been meaning to convert some traditional humans crystallizing. I started work on one a little while ago from some of the pieces from the Corpse Cart from the Vampire Counts range. Having a few zombie looking models would be neat. I will think of adding more blood to some of the models too. Thanks for the suggestions!

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  2. Nice! Great pose.

    How about a crystallized beastie of some sort? You can invent a funky new species, native to the crystal-afflicted forest.

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    1. That is a wonderful idea. I should convert some wildlife in the crystal forest. Some crystal birds and lizards would be awesome. :)

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  3. How about the Bolshevik heroine on the top?

    http://badsquiddogames.com/shop#!/Bolshevik-Heroines-4/p/73079792/category=20887957

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    1. I need to have some normal humans crystallizing. Some of those models you linked could work. I wounder how they scale to Age of Sigmar models...

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  4. Really enjoying this theme! Will there be victims that are sentient?

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    1. All of the victims are sentient for a while during the infection. Though after a while as the infection spreads their mind is clouded into nothingness!

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  5. Excellent painting it really captures the beaten gold look perfectly.

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    1. I am glad you like the gold; I was quite pleased with the end result too. :)

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  6. Lovely stuff. Really, quite lovely. The gold reminds me of Kelfries Magnus - the way she did the dirty gold. Cracking work .

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    1. The gold on this Stromcast does share a lot of similarities with the model of Magnus that Kelfries painted. :)

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  7. Excellent work those metallics look great! Cant wait to see more of the crystal forest and its unfortunate victims.

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    1. I look forward to spending more time on the force. There are a lot of ideas to explore!

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