Some Malifaux Zombies and Current Projects

Hello all,

Two Death Marshals

So it's been a few days since my first post and it's about time I put something else up here for you chaps and chapettes to have a look at. As I've mentioned before I do a good deal of commission painting and this 'Dead Justice' set from the skirmish game Malifaux was one of the first jobs I got through the guys at Heroes and Legends.

I had a lot of fun painting these miniatures, the sculpts were really nice and there's always something darkly humorous about the models that Wyrd produce. I must say however, I had rather a lot of difficulty with a certain zombie who seemed intent on removing the various arrows and spears from his body that were making him into something of a pin-cushion. Honestly, I'm pretty sure every single extremity of this miniature was intent on falling off... Anyway, a lot of super-glue later and I had a model that would actually hold together long enough for me to get some paint on it. Talking of extremities, I was somewhat surprised by the size of Lady Justice's, shall we say, 'weapons'. I'm very much of the opinion that such over-sized additions to female miniatures are somewhat unnecessary and don't do a great deal of good for the way that the war-gaming hobby, or its main players (I mean the companies) are viewed by others. That aside, I realise that Wyrd's approach is often comical and tongue-in-cheek and quibbles like this aren't a serious problem.

Lady Justice and her blade-swinging compadre

As you can see, the three dead Death Marshals are painted predominantly in shades of brown, against which the blue flames of the chap emerging from his casket, and the gore of the fellow having a little snack, contrasted well. All their skin was done in a similar style using mostly Citadel's Rotting Flesh with some shading in purple hues and a highlight up with Bleached Bone. I wanted to keep the colour palette fairly limited in the same way that the guys at Wyrd had painted these models, which limited me to browns, reds and blues, along with the grey of the metal and the coat of the zombie on the far left. I wanted to maintain a realistic level of lighting and kept the overall tone rather darker than the style in which models like this are sometimes painted. As I hope you can see from the above photo, I'm trying to learn that not every fold or crease on the clothing of a miniature need be highlighted, it can just be a little bit too much sometimes. I won't take you all through an exhaustive stage-by-stage painting process as it would be far too long and boring, but if you have any questions about the techniques used please feel free to comment or drop me an e-mail and I'd be more than happy to share what I did with these models.

All three Death Marshals - guess which one caused me the modelling trouble!

The above set of models are the standard to which I paint my commissions for such games as Malifaux, Infinity or other skirmish war-games where the squads are small and the models are somewhat more expensive than your average plastic infantryman for games such as Warhammer. I charge the box-RRP for painting commissions such as these.

Work in Progress

As for my current projects I have a Leman Russ on the painting table, to be added to my (ever so slowly) burgeoning Imperial Guard force. So far I've given it a Catachan Green base-coat, a cursory drybrush and a light wash of Badab Black in the areas that needed more shading. I've picked out the metal areas, which have been washed with black also and the first layer of the mud on the tracks has been painted. There's still a way to go with this girl but hopefully I can have her looking battle-ready soon.

Deathmarks on the desk

For my next commission, I have a squad of Necron Deathmarks to paint for a friend of mine. I have already painted 20 Immortals and a Lord for his army (pictures of which will have to wait I'm afraid as they've not immediately accessible, being around 350 miles away), as well as the Cryptek which I posted a few days ago. These guys will be done in a similar scheme with a few small differences to mark them out from the rest.

Thanks for reading, let's get to work.