“They Call Him Baba Yaga.”

"It's personal."

This 28mm scale resin model of Baba Yaga was produced by “Spectre Miniatures” and was only available as a special limited edition figure for a short time on the company’s website following “Salute” 2019. Obviously influenced by Chad Stahelski’s 2014 American neo-noir action thriller film “John Wick”, the sculpt bares an uncannily strong resemblance to leading actor Keane Reeves.

The “retired but deadly hitman seeking vengeance” was initially cleaned of all his disconcertingly visible mould lines and ‘flash’ prior to being undercoated using two layers of "Citadel" Abaddon Black. The paid killer was then roughly dry-brushed with "Vallejo" Heavy Charcoal before being almost drowned in "Citadel" Nuln Oil.

Slaughterpriest WIPs - The Khorne warrior is slowing having all of his detail 'picked out'

Hoping to provide at least a little contrast to the all-black attired anti-hero, I subsequently ‘picked out’ Yaga’s shoes, hair, firearms and shoulder-strap with pure “Citadel” Abaddon Black, and unsurprisingly applied a coat of “Vallejo” Heavy Skintone to his face and hands. These areas of flesh were later washed using a little “Citadel” Reikland Fleshshade, before being ‘lightened’ with a tad more “Vallejo” Heavy Skintone. Finally, some watered-down “Citadel” Abaddon Black was applied to Baba’s cheeks to (hopefully) provide the impression of his beard.

In addition to finishing my first ever figure from “Spectre Miniatures”, I have been slowly progressing the Slaughterpriest with Hackblade and Wrath-hammer I recently assembled in order to allow my “Age Of Sigmar” Chaos Army to utilise the Judgements of Khorne. This “Games Workshop” plastic model is absolutely packed full of detail, and resultantly has proved somewhat tough-going in comparison to my warhost’s more daemonic units.

Space Marine Statue WIPs - The Eighties plastic model has been re-based, primed and layered

In particular, the demagogue of Khorne’s wrathful will has a myriad of leg straps all hidden beneath his loincloth which have taken an age to carefully ‘pick-out’, shade and then paint around. To make matters worse though, I was rather keen on colouring the cloth protecting the dark prophet’s bare legs from their armour-plating in red rather than simple black, so have had to repeatedly return to these areas to ensure enough of the pigmentation is showing through to distinguish it from the hulking priest’s black boots and shorts.

Finally, I have ‘dug out’ one of the original plastic Adeptus Astartes I assembled from the Eighties Imperial Space Marine boxed set. Armed with a missile launcher, and unhappily thickly undercoated in black, I thought the model might enjoy a new lease of life on my tabletop as a bronze statue…