The Deceiver – Golden Demon UK 40K Monster Silver, 2002

Once upon a time the Golden Demons were a special event, held but once a year.  They were at the end of September, which meant late summer for me was a rush of endless painting to get everything done – usually the end of the debauchery of Reading Festival meant time to ‘knuckle down’.  Like many other GD winners I had always left it too late and was painting until 5am the morning of Games Day.

2002 was different.  I had actually managed to complete the intended projects early, and had a day and a half spare.  Was I going to rest up and take it easy before Games Day?  Nope!  I proudly declared to my housemate Dave (Palmer, GW Reading Overlord) that I was going to paint another entry in time for the event!  He scoffed, called me something mildly offensive and got on with his computer game.  I was determined to prove him wrong.  My Deceiver (for my Necron army that never got past 10 or so models) had already been built, so I was going to paint it…  In a day and a half <Note – at the time a model was taking me 6-7 weeks on average>.

 GW's original Deceiver:

 

I had always had the idea of the C’Tan emerging from some portal, rather than the original pose which I felt was fairly static in comparison.  The conversion was probably more simple than it appears – most of the work was done by bending the ‘robes’ so he appeared to be moving forwards.  The pointing right arm was repositioned keeping it parallel with the right leg to give more of the impression of forward motion, with the fingers removed and replaced as a fist.  The left hand was given some sculpted flames to balance the model out a bit and the arm repositioned to again follow the lines of the body, as was the head.

 

Our joyful alien friend was undercoated black and painted exclusively in GW paints.  GW painted their version gold, and I liked the metallic look for him (especially as he was part of the Necron army) but thought dark silver would suit the model better, especially with what I had planned, allowing the colours and stars to stand out from the darkness more.  Plus silver is relatively quick and simple to paint, especially since I only really painted highlights on this one.  I used metallic paints – I am not a fan at all of the Non-Metallic Metal style – there are perfectly good metallic paints so why not use them?  Plus I prefer my metals to look grim and dark; not every surface needs to be gleaming to a mirror shine!

 

 

After the skin it was mostly the detail left.  I painted all of the skin so I could choose later where to place the lozenges.  The lozenge pattern was a lot simpler than it looks; I painted the pattern in thin white first (so some of the shading showed through), one lozenge at a time, then randomly coloured them in, following the shading I had already painted on the skin.  I wanted them to appear radiating and falling and fading away from the body, so I painted the first lozenge in the centre of the chest and used that as a central point.  I then painted a number round the body and tops of the legs, following which I painted the patterns in lines in different directions round the body, some growing bigger and fading, others growing smaller and disappearing.

 

 

The ‘cloth’ was given a faint grey highlight, again so the stars would stand out better.  They were painted in a variety of colours (not all stars in the sky appear white!) starting as little dots nearer the body, growing in size and complexity, with a few nebulae, as they moved closer to the base.  After that some green spot colour, a simple base so as not to detract from the portal to deep space in the centre of the base, and that was it!

 

A matt varnish followed by a gloss varnish gave him a bit more shine.  I didn’t sleep the night before Games Day, but I did finish this fella in time.  A record for any model, let alone one this size!

 

I didn’t expect much from this model at the Demons.  I had painted him simply to challenge myself to see if I could finish him in time, and I knew how relatively simple it had been to paint.  Imagine my surprise when he picked up a Silver in the category (it had to be, for this metallic monster!  Then again, maybe I should have painted him gold after all?).  He came second to Matt Parkes’ Ork Warboss Ghazghkull Thraka - which went on to pick up the Slayer Sword - so who would I be to complain?  Interestingly Karsten Radzinski picked up bronze with another C’tan conversion, far more complex than mine!

You can see the winners here:
http://demonwinner.free.fr/uk/2002/golden_demon_winner.php?categorie=4

 

I even got my photo in the 2003 GW event programme!

 

 

My hair is also silver these days…

 

Thanks for reading... thoughts, tips, questions and comments are welcomed :)

Rat Ogre - 2015

 

 

For me the GW Skaven Stormfiends were an example of the ‘creep’ of Warhammer towards 40K, which finally culminated in the ‘40K lite’ Age of Sigmar – all those sci-fi-esque weapons, mind controlling brain rats and so on just didn’t work with the way I see the Warhammer World.  They did get me thinking about creating a monster that showed the pinnacle of some crazed Clan Moulder experiment... which is how this Rat Ogre was born.

Stormfiends:                                                

 

 

Not a Stormfiend:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The idea of a huge armoured Rat Ogre was interesting enough, but I started thinking about a crossbreed with some other creature to make it even more imposing, and quickly settled on a porcupine.  I mean, a giant rodent Ogre encased in armour is one thing, but one covered with spines?  Imagine meeting that down some dark sewer! 

I started to experiment with bitz and blu-tac using a Stormfiend as the base model.  None of the arms worked for me, so I whipped some off a Rat Ogre from the Island of Blood set.  The pose of the upper body and arms looked a little odd, as if this beast was just flexing his muscles, so the addition of a weapon made the arms look more natural.  The model was beginning to look like he fulfilled some sort of armoured guard role, so a halberd seemed right, with a huge metal ball at the other end to make it look a bit more balanced.

 The build took almost as long as the paint job!  Because of the way it had to be built and sculpted I wasn’t able to paint it in smaller sections, so it was completely built then painted.  I added a few armour plates and blades from the Stormfiend set, but all of the spines were from my bitz box or carved from plastic rod.  The spines were the last to be added so that they could be positioned in a way that flowed more naturally with the pose of the Ogre.  I also had to position them in such a way that they would not get caught in tunnels, so the natural spines point behind the model… he’s not able to walk backwards down tunnels though!

 

 

Where possible I use bitz rather than sculpting new things with Green Stuff (mainly out of laziness!), but a lot of hair was sculpted to cover gaps and holes, as well as to sculpt those areas where the spines had ‘punched’ through the armour.

 

Undercoated black with spray highlights of grey then white (I’m too much of a luddite for an airbrush) this was painted with Vallejo paints for the more earthy colours, while the colourful areas (red, blue, etc) were GW paints.  I also like to do my washes with the pretty good GW Shades range rather than inks.

 

When deciding in which order to paint I would always advocate starting on the inside and working out… skin, then hair, then clothing, then armour, then weapons, then base.  It means you are less likely to get paint on something you’ve already done, but also makes it easier to cover up any mistakes.  This model was slightly different in that it is hunched over, so the ‘inside’ was also the front of the torso and I had to account for the belt, belly, etc when determining order of painting. 

 

 I don’t paint blue very often, and thought it would make a nice colour for the armour in contrast to the big areas of skin and hair, as well as looking nice next to the ivory coloured spines.  The armour was always going to be rusty and scratched, but when doing this I prefer to paint the area up as if it is fairly new and clean, then add the dirt and rust and damage – it means I don’t have to commit to the areas of damage early on.  When adding damage it is important to think about how the model moves and fights and where damage might naturally occur; edges and corners are more likely to be scraped and worn than the centre of armour plates which may be more likely to be scratched and dented.   This big fella moves down tunnels so is bound to have lots of paint worn off the edges of the pauldrons (shoulders)  and vambraces (lower arms).  Enemies are more likely to be in front of him – you’d never squeeze past him in a tunnel - so there should be less battle damage at the back!  To get the damage effect the areas were painted first with a terracotta/ orange mix then silver, then I went back and painted little blue highlights to show the edges of the chipped paint.

 

 

 

Little areas of red add a nice spot colour and I think the paint scheme flows nicely through the red, purple and blue spectrums.

 

 

 

 

 

As ever while building and painting the model I was thinking of the overall ‘story’ of the model.  The original Stormfiend had one foot on a rock (which GW seems to love almost as much as they do models jumping off rocks!), but my model was in some subterranean vignette – I came up with the idea of him in a two-level sewer or similar.  Which meant I had to find him a two-level sewer or similar!  Unable to locate anything to suit my needs I ended up building him one with little bricks I purchased online, made of hard plaster or similar.  Each brick was painstakingly weathered at the edges and glued in place, a long slog but definitely worth it, especially when I was able to add a little drain cover!

 

 

 

As I worked on the model I realised that there would be a big open space at the front of the base.  Never a fan of a big open space on a model I added some rats, emerging from the sewers, emboldened by their giant friend!  They were painted in dark colours so as not to detract from the Ogre, but certainly something that would reward the person who took a bit of time to look at the piece!     

 

 

 

 

This model was entered into the Golden Demons Competition in 2015 and was one of the last I entered before retiring from the Demons due to the time constraints of work and family.  It didn’t make it into the second round of the competition.

 

The following year I went to Salute in London and took this fella along – he was a finalist in the peer-judged Salute Painting Competition, of which I am very proud.  I love this big spiky rat fella 😉
You can see some of the other entries here: https://www.beastsofwar.com/eventslist/salute-2016-painting-competition/ (apparently my model looks wicked!)

 

 

Thanks for reading... thoughts, tips, questions and comments are welcomed :)