The Warsmiths Known As Armators..."

"...Craft the Iron Golems' imperious battle plate and brutal weaponry."

This 28mm scale model of an Armator is one of the eight multi-part plastic miniatures which can be found inside the Iron Golems "Warcry" warband boxed set by “Games Workshop". "Hailing from the Ferrium Mountains in Chamon", this figure proved surprisingly simple to assemble, considering the Nottingham-based manufacturer's reputation for overly-complicated kits, and literally just consisted of a head, torso and 28mm circular base.

Once built, the duardin was primed using a double-coat of "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna, and had all of its numerous pieces of armour, as well as some small symbolic hammers dangling from his metal wrist-guards, painted with a combination of Brass and "Citadel" Reikland Fleshshade. A number of these areas were subsequently treated to a layer of the "Citadel" Contrast colour Flesh Tearer Red, which I 'watered down' using some Contrast Medium.

"Warcry" WIPs - Three Iron Legionaries assembled, primed and being worked on

This mixture gave the brutal warrior's leg plates, gut-protector, shoulder-guards, helmet and spiked gauntlets a distinctly reddish hue, but simultaneously allowed some of the "Vallejo" Brass underneath to peek through; especially once the model had been gloss varnished. I then pigmented the diminutive fighter's chain-mail loincloth, face-plate, chain-link belt and spiked hammers with some "Citadel" Ironbreaker, before shading them with some Nuln Oil. Both the Armator's weapons and loincloth were later dry-brushed with (more) Ironbreaker.

The Iron Golem's hammer handles were simply given a lick of "Vallejo" Heavy Blue and significantly darkened with a splash of "Citadel" Nuln Oil. Lastly, I started working on the dwarf's flesh and initially tried to replicate the warband's 'official' pale grey pallor with a couple of layers of "Vallejo" Heavy Bluegrey. To begin with I actually thought this choice was going to work out great, and actually got to the stage where I had started to wash the skin with some watered-down "Citadel" Nuln Oil.

Teen Titans WIPs - Raven, Beast Boy (Eagle Form) and Beast Boy

However, having set the figure aside to dry I swiftly came to the conclusion that the mixture wasn't working out as well as I expected, so changed tactics and went for a deep rich "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna and "The Army painter" Strong Tone Quickshade combo instead. This last minute turnabout looked a lot better in my mind, and gave me the added bonus of not really needing to pick out all the short metal spikes protruding out of the savagely cruel killer's limbs due to the palette's dark shadowing.

In addition to my first "Warcry" figure, I have also managed to find a little time to progress my recently purchased "Teen Titans" Bat-box for the "Batman Miniature Game" by "Knight Models". I'm really struggling with the soft detail on these ultra-light resin sculpts, so in many cases am simply going to rely upon a base-coat, shade and dry-brush in order to get the majority of their detail highlighted...