Tramps Ver'men skaven

Tramp

Member
Hello, so I signed up on November and I've been lurking on this forum ever since, I love all the stuff that's going on and the quality of the work is amazing. As I said in my introduction,

Tramp":1h3qa6kq said:
When I was a teenager me and a group of friends used to play WHFB, we talked about it a lot but didn't play much and my painting skills left a lot to be desired, but I enjoyed collecting. When the fad finished for us, I boxed my minis up and forgot about them, now 17 years down the line I purchased an old white dwarf magazine when on holiday. It inspired me to break out my old minis and re-paint them, I used to collect skaven but acquired bits of all sorts. I've just started stripping and painting my old minis, but I've also been buying some extra ones from eBay. I've also bought a few harlequin ver'men to swell my ranks as when I was younger I seem to have concentrated more on characters than on base troops! I like the older style troops, as most of my skaven are mid 90's. At the moment I'm just enjoying painting my minis and putting together an army. Not that I plan to play or anything.

So I've been slowly learning how to paint again, my work is far from fantastic, but I am enjoying painting (when I get the oppertunity to do it) and I've just ordered another lot of ver'men (harlequin) from black tree designs,

I thought I'd share a few pictures of what I've been doing, there don't seem to be overly many skaven collectors on this forum?

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I'm currently working on a doomwheel and a screaming bell that I purchased from eBay,

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And I'm also working on a unit of slaves to push the screaming bell, the last few models I haven't been overly happy with so I'll not show the photos as I would just be embarrassed!

Thanks for looking,

Tramp
 

Tramp

Member
ramshackle_curtis":104gfoku said:
THat skaven with the wierd helmet is great. COnversion or official model or what?

That guy is a ver'burna, an old harlequin cast available from black tree design, a lot of the harlequin casts look to be knock off's of the maurader range, so according to GW these would be warpfire throwers. The thing I like about these harlequin models is the funny little touches, like the candle on ver'burna's helmet. Another example is the ver'gunna, the slave that supports the gun has ear muffs on. It's the little things isn't it?
 

Tramp

Member
So at the moment, I'm slowly plugging away at my slaves, also working on my Jed Goodwin doomwheel, I'm maybe 1/2way through now & thought I'd share some WIP photos,

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I also got another parcel from EOE orbis, more slaves to push my screaming bell, the other ver'burna cast, some poison wind globeadier & a vermin lord - which I am very happy with
 

Tramp

Member
So not much progress on the doomwheel or the slaves, instead I've been working on an entry for the underempires painting competition, unfortunately I didn't read the guidelines overly carefully so I made my diorama to big, luckily I was still ok to enter the competition.

I titled it 'Döldurf Mine'

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The idea behind it was an abandoned small dwarf mine that I could use as a scenic piece if I ever play a tabletop game!
 

Tramp

Member
Thanks for the positive comments! Yeah the water, I haven't illuminated it, I must have just caught the lighting right for the photo! To be honest, this was my first time modelling a diaroma and it's been a bit of a learning curve, I was not happy with my first attempt of the water, I used the plastic granules that you melt on the hob, I was worried about the heat melting the polystyrene substructure so I let it cool a little before pouring, this basically let it gloop out, the water was appalling with extra drips on the surface, luckily because it's a thermosetting plastic, I used a gas powered soldering iron (with the heat tip) to blow on the surface and melt the top layer, I found with this I could smooth it out and even add ripples which I was pretty chuffed with, everything else is pretty much by the book polystyrene covered in filler, then painted, the scattered. The tree is a wire covered in green stuff, painted and flocked & the rocks are from my back garden (I had to break up a larger rock to get appropriately sized stones)
 
Really nice looking models and the mine entrance is a really nice terrain piece, sure dwarfs may have used it but who knows what lurks within its walls now? :)
 

Tramp

Member
Thanks, so I'm still slowly working on my little furry fella's, I finished my old 4/5th edition doomwheel, I had a play with some green stuff and tried to make the base a little more exciting,

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I k ow there is a casting mark on the wheel, I really did try to get rid of it but I was sanding it so much I was loosing detail from the wood, so I opted to leave it,

Whilst playing with green stuff, i converted some of my ver'men slaves to hold flaming torches instead of axes and maces, I wanted something to break up all the weapons in the slave regiments.

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I also managed to painted up my harlequin packmaster and a few giant rats, I've still got more giant rats to paint but it shouldn't be long before the units finished, I know the pack master is a little 'pink' but I set out to give him a little 'puppy pink' stomach and the palette just continued throughout,

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Gallivantes

Member
Yeah those wheel tracks are a real nice touch. I really like conversions and basings like this that capture the appropriate sense of movement and weight of a model.

I guess many models simply don't allow much exploration of this kind because they're characters standing or moving over ground with no greater impact on it. Hence this aspect maybe is often overlooked by miniature painters out there? All of the focus end up being on the painting techniques. Sometimes I have seen some model (often in Golden Demon contexts) painted to an impressive standard but the way it's been converted, built, posed has made me cringe.

An easy enough exercise to do those wheel tracks in greenstuff perhaps, but oh so effective. I don't think I would have thought of that. Filing away idea for future ripoffs :)

Two thumbs up from me. It's not just a Doomwheel model anymore, it's a Doomwheel trundling relentlessly forward and will smush anyone it runs over. And that's much better isn't it? :grin:
 
I agree - those tracks from the Doomwheel look really great, and you can even see the trace of woodgrain in the dirt. And I didn't even notice the casting line until i read about it. I always try to remove casting lines, but on the other hand I usually don't remove them completely, since I don't want to spend too much time on that.

I also like the swapping of the weapons with torches, I think it gives the unit the sort of "angry mob"-feel. That color scheme of the giant rats reminds me of this card, 'Bog Rats' from Magic the Gathering: http://www.cardkingdom.com/mtg/chronicles/bog-rats (That's a game in which I have found much inspiration for the Warhammer hobby :) )
 

Tramp

Member
Thanks for the comments! Yeah the basing on my doomwheel was easy enough to do, a spread of green stuff and a spare doomwheel wheel pressed into it to make the tracks, it's something I'd been thinking about doing for a while and I'm pretty happy with the result, that's just what I was going for, a heavy machine churning up the mud as it trundles along, so thanks for the positive feedback! I really appreciate it.

Yeah the slaves, the castings I've been collecting from eoe orbis are nice, but I can't help but feel they are a bit too well armed for slaves, in battle the purpose of these slaves isn't really to fight, more to just snarl up the opposing and then for them to die. To that end I feel a lot of them wouldn't be armed well, except maybe a few who had picked up older weapons disused weapons they had found. All the slave casting came armed so I decided that a number of the slaves that are wielding axes or maces (i.e. Which are easy conversions) will be having their weapons heads removed and replaced with fire, sticks are free so I imagine plenty of slaves will have them, it should add a bit of colour to the unit as well as adding a little more veriaty into the minis poses too.

Thanks for the tip on 'magic the gathering' I hadn't seen those cards before, it's nice to see other points of view and other related hobbies, your right those things can inspire you!

My latest work is on my unit of giant rats, I decided to progress these as I was getting fed up of slaves, also these were something that I could turn around quickly and get finished. So work commenced, as part of this unit, I also wanted a movement tray for these guys, I'd seen a blog article about magnetising minis and tray creation & I thought I'd give it a go, so for each of my giant rats I placed a magnet in the base and glued it in, then I made a start on the movement tray,

3mm steel plate with a 2mm plasticard lip,
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I then chamfered the edge of the tray and primered & laquered it,
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Then when my unit was finished, i based my giant rats & I based the tray to suit,
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The only thing I was disappointed about with this unit was the lacquer, I was using aresol lacquer I hadn't used before and it was supposed to be a Matt finish, and it's ended up glossy, someone suggested using GW Lahmian Medium to tone it done a little, next time I call into GW I'll pick some up and give it a go,
 

Fuxxx

Member
Oh, almost as I do mine (only with thermoformable steel -as google tells me- normally used for cars). Looks almost like a small mirror in your hand :grin:
Did you shake the finish enough? I didnt once and now my Varghulf glitters like right out of twilight :?
 

Tramp

Member
Fuxxx":25jy6k3n said:
Oh, almost as I do mine (only with thermoformable steel -as google tells me- normally used for cars). Looks almost like a small mirror in your hand :grin:
Did you shake the finish enough? I didnt once and now my Varghulf glitters like right out of twilight :?

Your not the first person to mention that, I thought I had, but maybe I hadn't shaken it quite enough! Yeah, the movement tray is ok but it's a little heavy, I think I'll try for a thinner offcut next time, although it is nice to have a bit of weight to it (it just feels more robust - that's why I don't really get on with the plastic miniatures) I think maybe next time I make a movement tray I'll make the lip in x2 parts, or even x4 strips, cutting out the middle was a pain and I felt like I wasted a fair bit of plasticard keeping it a single sheet.

I wanted to share something I've been working on, it's an eoe orbis kev white ver'men sorcer sculpt, some of the minis in this range have a bit of a middle eastern feel so I thought I'd expand upon the theme by mounting him on a plasticard flying carpet,

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Its certainly not my best paint job, but I'm relatively happy with how it turned out, I've not painted light coloured robes before and struggled getting the paint to cover without leaving brush marks,
 
That's a nice conversion! I think that the pose of the sorcerer fits very well with a person flying on a magical carpet. I have often though about making a warband with a sort of Arabian Nights-esque theme, but I never got that far.
 
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