Manic's Slow Skaven Project
- Thread starter ManicMan
- Start date
twisted moon
Moderator
ManicMan":1x12nvu5 said:
learn something new every day.
ManicMan
Member
I'm trying to tidy up stuff so I got some space to paint figures and store them in a decent way but it's gonna take a while i think.. either way here is the first batch of stuff I got painted up.. can't say i'm 100% on some but lets have a look
My Unit of 5 Gutter Runners. these are all citadel ones, mostly gotten pretty cheap.. sometimes, if you aren't 100% picky about the very sculpt, they aren't too hard to get a decent batch.. with some luck.. All Goodwin sculpts of course. Well.. some are kinda under the marauder banner but.. yeah.. ranging from the late 80s to ones which were kept into production till about 1997.
I don't like painting thick blacks so i mostly use a dark grey which i then shade down.. much happier doing it that way. Mixture of Dark Greys, Dark Reds, Dark Greens and Dark Blues mostly. The middle figure, Backstabber/ Kruhl Backripper isn't one of my favorite sculpts.. something about him.. probebly with the chains/ropes which.. it's not horrible but.. not my favorite at all.
My Plague Monk standard and Clan Rat Unit A Standard
not the best images but.. the Plague Monk standard is in fact a modern sculpt from Little Soldier from there 'Alice in Geründerland' range. It's a Ratling. I had these on pre-order since i liked the look of them even though they wouldn't fully fit with most of what I got. Hadn't decided what to use them for then i thought, with there robes, they would work as great Plague Monks. They are a bit shorter then most ratmen I got but that's no problem. Plague monks are full of disease so they are stunted ^_^
The Clan Rat standard is an old Citadel one, so a Goodwin sculpt, which I had from the 90s. most of the paint was crap and damaged too, so I repainted it keeping the same colour scheme, which as it's fine for what I want, that's no problem. I was going to use him for the Army standard but decided I wanted someone with a far bigger standard for the main Army one..
now.. I'll talk about the Banners.. I can't paint them. I tried two attempts resently for them.. one totatlly freehand, one which I printed lineart for and then painted.. both were rubbish. So I decided to use something I tried but didn't quite get right in the past.. Printing onto cotton. Using some 'freezer paper', you can just load up the cotton into a normal inkjet printer and print. they come out a little bit faded, but that might just be my printer (I don't really use on-brand ink cartridges ^_^
but they are pretty goood. The Clan rat one taken from an image Jes Goodwin did for.. i think the third compendium.. whichever one was the first Skaven. the design was still shown in 3rd Ed but seam to be dropped from 4th. Still, i like the 'We shall Inherit' bit which I think was dropped from later Skaven stuff. I haven't painted the back of the banner, so it's still white and I ruffed up the edges to make it look like a damaged banner. The Plague Monk banner is based on I think it's the 4th Ed lineart based on a 3rd Ed banner design which i messed about with colouring and doing some stuff. I did paint the back of these one yellow. I think the one cut is pretty bad on that banner though.. might try to rough it up a bit more or just leave it like that.
So.. Current Army List stuff done:
Gutter Runners - unit of 5 with Nets - 65 points
Clanrat (A) with standard - 12 points
Plague Monk with standard (in light armour) -16 points
I do have a couple of other bits which were painted long ago (not my be, but by a friend) which i'm not gonna repaint cause they are decent jobs (though I seam to have lost the back of the DoomWheel drivers chair right now) but I'm not gonna include them on this list right now.
My Unit of 5 Gutter Runners. these are all citadel ones, mostly gotten pretty cheap.. sometimes, if you aren't 100% picky about the very sculpt, they aren't too hard to get a decent batch.. with some luck.. All Goodwin sculpts of course. Well.. some are kinda under the marauder banner but.. yeah.. ranging from the late 80s to ones which were kept into production till about 1997.
I don't like painting thick blacks so i mostly use a dark grey which i then shade down.. much happier doing it that way. Mixture of Dark Greys, Dark Reds, Dark Greens and Dark Blues mostly. The middle figure, Backstabber/ Kruhl Backripper isn't one of my favorite sculpts.. something about him.. probebly with the chains/ropes which.. it's not horrible but.. not my favorite at all.
My Plague Monk standard and Clan Rat Unit A Standard
not the best images but.. the Plague Monk standard is in fact a modern sculpt from Little Soldier from there 'Alice in Geründerland' range. It's a Ratling. I had these on pre-order since i liked the look of them even though they wouldn't fully fit with most of what I got. Hadn't decided what to use them for then i thought, with there robes, they would work as great Plague Monks. They are a bit shorter then most ratmen I got but that's no problem. Plague monks are full of disease so they are stunted ^_^
The Clan Rat standard is an old Citadel one, so a Goodwin sculpt, which I had from the 90s. most of the paint was crap and damaged too, so I repainted it keeping the same colour scheme, which as it's fine for what I want, that's no problem. I was going to use him for the Army standard but decided I wanted someone with a far bigger standard for the main Army one..
now.. I'll talk about the Banners.. I can't paint them. I tried two attempts resently for them.. one totatlly freehand, one which I printed lineart for and then painted.. both were rubbish. So I decided to use something I tried but didn't quite get right in the past.. Printing onto cotton. Using some 'freezer paper', you can just load up the cotton into a normal inkjet printer and print. they come out a little bit faded, but that might just be my printer (I don't really use on-brand ink cartridges ^_^
but they are pretty goood. The Clan rat one taken from an image Jes Goodwin did for.. i think the third compendium.. whichever one was the first Skaven. the design was still shown in 3rd Ed but seam to be dropped from 4th. Still, i like the 'We shall Inherit' bit which I think was dropped from later Skaven stuff. I haven't painted the back of the banner, so it's still white and I ruffed up the edges to make it look like a damaged banner. The Plague Monk banner is based on I think it's the 4th Ed lineart based on a 3rd Ed banner design which i messed about with colouring and doing some stuff. I did paint the back of these one yellow. I think the one cut is pretty bad on that banner though.. might try to rough it up a bit more or just leave it like that.So.. Current Army List stuff done:
Gutter Runners - unit of 5 with Nets - 65 points
Clanrat (A) with standard - 12 points
Plague Monk with standard (in light armour) -16 points
I do have a couple of other bits which were painted long ago (not my be, but by a friend) which i'm not gonna repaint cause they are decent jobs (though I seam to have lost the back of the DoomWheel drivers chair right now) but I'm not gonna include them on this list right now.
Eric
Administrator
Interesting technique with the banners. As I was looking at the pictures I was thinking - I wonder how they'd been done - so quite pleased to find out as I kept reading. I'm rubbish at "artistic freehand painting" so have generally over the years opted to print out banners (either cheeky copies or more "graphic design" (over art) ones I've come up with) and then dirty them down and so forth to make them fit better. Doing the banners is well worth it however - as is repeated lots in old White Dwarves - a good banner really makes for a great unit.
KingOfTheLeadPile
Member
Really like the banners, too. Looking ace! Need to give this approach a try. What's this freeze paper you are referring to? I am not familiar with that term. Do you have a link to that?
ManicMan
Member
Thanks ^_^
the stuff i got is:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00EME5KZ0? ... ezer+paper
on Amazon 'Reynolds Freezer Paper' Sounds like its meant for.. well, wrapping stuff for a freezer. It's plastic coated one side. what you do is you cut your cotton (i think you can use other stuff but cotton is a good price and not hard to find, also takes the ink pretty well). Making sure the cotton is flat via ironing it, place some of the freezer paper ontop of the cotton, plastic side down. Then iron it for a minute or two and it basically slightly melts the plastic enough so the cotton sticks to it. I then cut the top so it's level (I found if the paper started before the cotton, or the cotton before the paper, the printer wasn't happy).
For printing, I told the printer it was thick photo paper and printed in best quality (trying to see if I can tell it to put more ink down or not but seams to be okay). load the paper in the single paper bit (cause mine has a paper tray or a back loading for more special paper). Due to chance of getting it stuck, try to have what you want to print lined up so you can do straight cuts but print it and mostly fine. I get the odd ink mark outside of things, but i get that a bit with my printer anyway (It's a little old but i think the main problem is to due with needing a damn good clean and it not linking the odd bend or anything so if the cotton isn't flat enough, the odd ridge gets a bit of ink mark). pretty much dried when it's done so easy to cut and all. Like I said, I painted the back of one and I might paint the back of the other, paint doesn't seam to show through the material (brought at a local craft shop.. well.. textiles shop since most craft shops don't seam to apply to my idea of crafts).
Probebly could use coloured cotton but I've a CMYK printer.. so without White ink, it's better to print onto white.
the stuff i got is:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00EME5KZ0? ... ezer+paper
on Amazon 'Reynolds Freezer Paper' Sounds like its meant for.. well, wrapping stuff for a freezer. It's plastic coated one side. what you do is you cut your cotton (i think you can use other stuff but cotton is a good price and not hard to find, also takes the ink pretty well). Making sure the cotton is flat via ironing it, place some of the freezer paper ontop of the cotton, plastic side down. Then iron it for a minute or two and it basically slightly melts the plastic enough so the cotton sticks to it. I then cut the top so it's level (I found if the paper started before the cotton, or the cotton before the paper, the printer wasn't happy).
For printing, I told the printer it was thick photo paper and printed in best quality (trying to see if I can tell it to put more ink down or not but seams to be okay). load the paper in the single paper bit (cause mine has a paper tray or a back loading for more special paper). Due to chance of getting it stuck, try to have what you want to print lined up so you can do straight cuts but print it and mostly fine. I get the odd ink mark outside of things, but i get that a bit with my printer anyway (It's a little old but i think the main problem is to due with needing a damn good clean and it not linking the odd bend or anything so if the cotton isn't flat enough, the odd ridge gets a bit of ink mark). pretty much dried when it's done so easy to cut and all. Like I said, I painted the back of one and I might paint the back of the other, paint doesn't seam to show through the material (brought at a local craft shop.. well.. textiles shop since most craft shops don't seam to apply to my idea of crafts).
Probebly could use coloured cotton but I've a CMYK printer.. so without White ink, it's better to print onto white.
Fimm McCool
Member
That's a top tip! Ace work.
KingOfTheLeadPile
Member
ManicMan":2hi5qbwk said:
Thank you, the descriptions sounds like what butchers here use to wrap your purchases. Need to find out the German name for that.
ManicMan
Member
No clue ^_^ but it seams Amazon germany have it
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Reynolds-Cra ... C69&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Reynolds-Cra ... C69&sr=8-1
KingOfTheLeadPile
Member
Thank you.
ManicMan
Member
Being a bit rusty.. Anyone know base size rulings for 3rd/4th Ed (mostly doing set up for 4th).. My Skaven Giant Rats I got from the official stuff can fit one giant rat on a 20mm square base, but I wanna use some nice big ones which would use cavalry bases more so.. 20/25 x 50. Can't remember what the various base rules are.. I know a swarm is 40mm base.. but then, alot of the rules on bases aren't rules really, but mostly what makes sense for the model.. (like don't stick a single foot solider on a 60mm base.
twisted moon
Moderator
giant rats go on 25mm square bases in WFB3, if i remember correctly.
ManicMan
Member
quick flip through 3ed Army book.. Giant rats would probebly come under Clan Moulder's Wolf-Rats which the big boys seam to match.. 25x50mm bases for them.
Looking in the rule books more.. yeah.. Giant Rats in 3rd are 25mmx25mm.. However, Skaven can have Wolf-rats which are 25mmx50mm and are the big boys.. This don't seam to appear in 4th at all.. neither do base sizes..
Looking in the rule books more.. yeah.. Giant Rats in 3rd are 25mmx25mm.. However, Skaven can have Wolf-rats which are 25mmx50mm and are the big boys.. This don't seam to appear in 4th at all.. neither do base sizes..
ManicMan
Member
this is going.. a bit faster then expected in a way.. Haven't got photos right now but.. I've now got half my Plague monks done.. Well, that's 5 out of 10, though two i need to do the bases but for standard troops, i just use a simple grass matt base.. it suits them fair enough.
Anyway, that 5 is the standard (already shown), a musican i've decided to add since i had him, and 3 normal plague monks. All of this unit are from the 'Ratlings and Vermin' range from Little Soldier. Offically, they all have hand weapons and light armour, but figure wise, a mixture of short spears and edged/sword weapons (so swords, the odd small hatchet, something which is probebly a sword). There is one which has a flail which.. I'm thinking would sit with my two Censer Bearers, putting that to 3 out of 5 I have.
I also already have a shop painted plague monk from back in the day (Local shop, before they went stupid and went under in the early 2000s, had some shop painted miniatures which were pretty good price and FAR better then child me could do, so I got a couple. I think they were £1 each and mostly older models. Can't remember if the shop had them in stock unpainted at the time.. C47 'Wyrde Banebreath' and 'Gnawdoom'. Would like to pick up a few copies of Banebreath as the only problem I have with the shop paint is they left the scroll blank and I don't want to go edit someone elses paint job when it's fine as it is.. but the price these days ¬_¬ i'll wait.
Anyway.. wither he'll be part of the unit or not I haven't 100% decided.. I'll see how it goes.
Anyway, that 5 is the standard (already shown), a musican i've decided to add since i had him, and 3 normal plague monks. All of this unit are from the 'Ratlings and Vermin' range from Little Soldier. Offically, they all have hand weapons and light armour, but figure wise, a mixture of short spears and edged/sword weapons (so swords, the odd small hatchet, something which is probebly a sword). There is one which has a flail which.. I'm thinking would sit with my two Censer Bearers, putting that to 3 out of 5 I have.
I also already have a shop painted plague monk from back in the day (Local shop, before they went stupid and went under in the early 2000s, had some shop painted miniatures which were pretty good price and FAR better then child me could do, so I got a couple. I think they were £1 each and mostly older models. Can't remember if the shop had them in stock unpainted at the time.. C47 'Wyrde Banebreath' and 'Gnawdoom'. Would like to pick up a few copies of Banebreath as the only problem I have with the shop paint is they left the scroll blank and I don't want to go edit someone elses paint job when it's fine as it is.. but the price these days ¬_¬ i'll wait.
Anyway.. wither he'll be part of the unit or not I haven't 100% decided.. I'll see how it goes.
twisted moon
Moderator
looking forward to seeing them.
ManicMan
Member
going a bit faster then expected.. in a way.. Just gotta finish the final two Plague monks... I'll take a couple of photos after that.
Did some experimenting with plastic stripping.. turning out suprisingly well..
got some cheap Meths (Methylated spirits) which is about 93%. First tried three different era of plastic figures. FR Skaven, AHQ Skaven, and 4th Ed Skaven. 10-20 miniatures a piece, and then using a toothbrush (kinda need a harder brush one.. I do have one.. someplace). no damage noted to the figures, got alot of the paint cleaned off, which is good as some of that paint was.. kinda glossy but I don't think enamel.. either way, pretty much as successful as i have with alot of metal stripping. So results are good.
I then tried to do something I didn't expect to do much.. A cheap "Ultrasonic" cleaner.. found a cheap one.. while you can get them fairly cheap now, this was.. cheaper then i expected.. As you might be able to tell from the quotes, it's hardly ultrasonic. pretty soft plastic (ABS maybe), runs on 2 AAA and is in fact... two vibrating motors which when powered, vibrate the whole thing, and due to the soft plastic, cause the water in the tray to vibrate though due to how it's made, it vibrates the water.. but you get .. well, most of the effect on the surface of the water. the figures slightly move in the water but far from another to help remove paint from them plastics.. I tried it with a little bath of Meths and then with water. Either way I will say, I think it'll do the job if i put in water and put in a metal figure which has been in some stripper so the paint is starting to flake.. might vibrate enough to help clean that.. I'll also point out it wasn't sold or claimed to do stuff for figure stripping.
Oh, and mines already modded.. didn't want to deal with the 2 AAAs, so it can now run from 2 AAAs or USB (USB port attached to a 3 volt regulator circuit). (oh, if you don't know, a true UltraSonic cleaner uses an ultrasonic motor which a piezoelectric motor and completely different.. I could probebly see about fitting a small one to this but.. not worth it)
Did some experimenting with plastic stripping.. turning out suprisingly well..
got some cheap Meths (Methylated spirits) which is about 93%. First tried three different era of plastic figures. FR Skaven, AHQ Skaven, and 4th Ed Skaven. 10-20 miniatures a piece, and then using a toothbrush (kinda need a harder brush one.. I do have one.. someplace). no damage noted to the figures, got alot of the paint cleaned off, which is good as some of that paint was.. kinda glossy but I don't think enamel.. either way, pretty much as successful as i have with alot of metal stripping. So results are good.
I then tried to do something I didn't expect to do much.. A cheap "Ultrasonic" cleaner.. found a cheap one.. while you can get them fairly cheap now, this was.. cheaper then i expected.. As you might be able to tell from the quotes, it's hardly ultrasonic. pretty soft plastic (ABS maybe), runs on 2 AAA and is in fact... two vibrating motors which when powered, vibrate the whole thing, and due to the soft plastic, cause the water in the tray to vibrate though due to how it's made, it vibrates the water.. but you get .. well, most of the effect on the surface of the water. the figures slightly move in the water but far from another to help remove paint from them plastics.. I tried it with a little bath of Meths and then with water. Either way I will say, I think it'll do the job if i put in water and put in a metal figure which has been in some stripper so the paint is starting to flake.. might vibrate enough to help clean that.. I'll also point out it wasn't sold or claimed to do stuff for figure stripping.
Oh, and mines already modded.. didn't want to deal with the 2 AAAs, so it can now run from 2 AAAs or USB (USB port attached to a 3 volt regulator circuit). (oh, if you don't know, a true UltraSonic cleaner uses an ultrasonic motor which a piezoelectric motor and completely different.. I could probebly see about fitting a small one to this but.. not worth it)
Eric
Administrator
FWIW I've switched to using Fuze Biostrip 20 now for all my mini paint stripping needs. Works very well. Not the cheapest, but it seems to get a lot more off than other methods I've tried. Not tried on resin yet however.
Looking forward to seeing your pictures.
Looking forward to seeing your pictures.
ManicMan
Member
My regiment of 10 Plague Monks is done. Need to Varnish but that can be done later..
The complete Unit
The Backrow just so they can all be seen.
For standard stuff, I normally just do a simple base, just a bit of grass matting, but these were a bit of a pain just due to the intergal bases and I didn't wanna risk cutting them off.
Anyway, that's a unit of 10 Plague monks including standard and musican. Light armour. Only hand weapons so them short spears are short ^_^. while techinally probebly not right, I gave the rock tips of them more of a warpstone feel. (also, i noticed two back row spear guys didn't have some of the rope attaching the tips painted right.. so I tweaked that afterwards).
I might go back and add a bit more detail later, but i'm fine with them right now. I've also included this image
which while not great, shows one of them with a Citedel plauge monk i got years ago. As you can see, these are a bit smaller, so they are probebly more stunted by plague and disease. I went with the Army book describtion of the brighter colours (well, it says that use 'sickly greens, purples and blues, these bright colours contasting horribly with the weeping sores, bony growths and fluide-filled blisters which mark their flesh' but yellow was also a colour used in 3rd and 4th ed photos and fine with me. Skaven are meant to get there clothes mostly from scraps they find in battle.
I also didn't notice until after I had painted him, I have two figures in the same colour scheme (two with purple hood and yellow robe).. that's kinda annoying but oh well.
The complete Unit
The Backrow just so they can all be seen.
For standard stuff, I normally just do a simple base, just a bit of grass matting, but these were a bit of a pain just due to the intergal bases and I didn't wanna risk cutting them off.
Anyway, that's a unit of 10 Plague monks including standard and musican. Light armour. Only hand weapons so them short spears are short ^_^. while techinally probebly not right, I gave the rock tips of them more of a warpstone feel. (also, i noticed two back row spear guys didn't have some of the rope attaching the tips painted right.. so I tweaked that afterwards).
I might go back and add a bit more detail later, but i'm fine with them right now. I've also included this image
which while not great, shows one of them with a Citedel plauge monk i got years ago. As you can see, these are a bit smaller, so they are probebly more stunted by plague and disease. I went with the Army book describtion of the brighter colours (well, it says that use 'sickly greens, purples and blues, these bright colours contasting horribly with the weeping sores, bony growths and fluide-filled blisters which mark their flesh' but yellow was also a colour used in 3rd and 4th ed photos and fine with me. Skaven are meant to get there clothes mostly from scraps they find in battle.
I also didn't notice until after I had painted him, I have two figures in the same colour scheme (two with purple hood and yellow robe).. that's kinda annoying but oh well.
twisted moon
Moderator
looking good.