Painting a Beast 09 Conversion

Recently I had the pleasure of painting a converted Khador Beast 09. I decided upon a color scheme of white, red and gray. Let's see how we did...

Those Elemental Troll Nights

"The three trolls came back home, but they did not know how to find the best opportunity for showing their skill, so they sat down and consulted together."
 
When presented with the first three light beasts of the elemental persuasion, I was afforded several opportunities to break with the usual muted color scheme I'd been going for. This meant using some different painting strategies than normal, and my first foray into literal model fire.

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Sword (and Hammer)

Sword-play is an odd thing; you don't really use your mind, it is much too fast for that. Your wrist thinks and tells your feet and body what to do, bypassing your brain...
Hammer-play, on the other hand, is reasonably straightforward.

The Fennblade Kithkar was a late addition to 'blades, and while the model itself was a bit of a hack (and slash) job, my compatriot channeled everything he learned painting the unit here and produced a really fine result.

Never Cry Troll

"They call me Mad Jack, and if there is anybody in these mountains that knows the real story about the Trollkin Skinner, that'd be me. So I'm putting it down in writing just how it happened in hopes of setting the record straight."

The trollkin skinner is a model for which I knew I HAD to do a conversion as part of this project.  With his Crockettlike coonskin cap and a knife large enough to impress an Australian action hero, it's a goofy model by any measure - but also an endearing one.

Propitious Prognosticationism

"Like the others, you were strong and swift and brave. A natural leader. But you had something they didn't. Something no one saw but me. Can you guess? 
"Luck."
"Was I wrong?" 

Calandra is another one of the warlocks I completed a conversion for relatively early on.  It's only a head and an arm swap, but it did present us with a new challenge as the first of the female trollkin models we'd added to the lineup.  As it turns out, the GW style orc heads we'd been using are not, as a rule, especially feminine. 

Blades in the Bog

"And when all the most renowned in the ancient sagas are named, the Fennblades must be counted the foremost in strength and accomplishments, in zeal and valor.

In keeping with the theme of coming back to start up activity in this blog once more, I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss some of the first models that I ever painted (and my namesake on this blog):  The Fennblades.

Grim Hunts Us All

"Then Angus, with a quiet expression, spoke to his companions in the hunt as they wandered through the solitary wilds. 'Friends, our spears and nets are drenched with the blood of our victims, and the day has been fortunate enough."

Hello, welcome back to another riveting¹ edition of The Ravening Kriels paint articles. Today's story: Grim Angus. Our story picks up where our talented sculptor left off,  a heavily modified, reposed model made from ork bits, original work, and filled gaps. The end result however, really gives the model a well-travelled look fitting for the Hallowed Hunstman.™

Hungry Beyond Mortal Ken

"No recognised school had animated this terrible creature, yet centuries and even thousands of years seemed recorded in its dim and greenish surface of unplaceable stone."

If ever there was truly a flagship model to this army, it would be Mulg. Our crack team of scientific experts have already proven Mulg's potent position of palpable primacy, and we persist to placate your plaintive pleas for a paintjob with plenty of panache.¹

To that end, I present this exposé on what was, in all seriousness, a solid weekend of painting and something I always love to drop on the table to strike terror into the hearts of heavy warjacks.

Labyrinth II: Still Lost

Nor did the creature keep him waiting, but struck suddenly and started in; he grabbed and mauled a man on his bench, bit into his bone-lappings, bolted down his blood and gorged on him in lumps, leaving the body utterly lifeless, eaten up hand and foot.

As we have mentioned before, gentle readers, the troll light warbeasts in this project have been replaced with custom made minotaurs. These products of my esteemed colleague's skillful hand presented numerous opportunities to bring  several distinct looks to models that might have otherwise faded into a unified, and ultimately boring, color palette. However, creatures so adept at defying gravity and conventional physics should have similarly distinctive paint jobs.

The Future Belongs to the Mad

"We must be bound to one another... bound by hell-forged chains and fate-haunted circumstance. Well, then let it be thus so—and men will have cause to tremble and flee when they hear the names of the Madrak Ironhide and Rathrok, his axe."

The first warlock model I wanted to tackle was the first warlock that I learned how to play, the straight fightin', skull splittin', kriel leadin', world endin' Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain. This was done after I had accrued a healthy amount of experience painting the infantry size models. At this point, I had painted roughly half of my Fennblade contingent (stay tuned for that post, there's a lot of Fennblades).

Mauler: Red and Green

"Oh! Are you hungry?" she asked, turning to the Troll, who was just then yawning so widely that he displayed two rows of terrible teeth and a mouth big enough to startle anyone. "Dreadfully hungry," answered the Mauler, snapping his jaws together with a fierce click. "Then why don't you eat something?" she asked. "It's no use," said the Mauler sadly. "I've tried that, but I always get hungry again."  

 

As suggested by my colleague colleague, the first warbeast I wanted to tackle was the Dire Troll Mauler. It offered me the chance to get into summa dat good exposed troll flesh and work on building up some techniques for painting large amounts of beast, muscle tissue, and different textures when compared to the infantry. Aside from that, painting a warbeast is always a genuine pleasure since they can  each quickly become a centerpiece for forces of small to medium sizes.