Friday 4 October 2019

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...

12 comments:

  1. I like your Iron Golems dwarf, very nice. You seem to have had a bit of a journey with it though! I do like those Teen Titans, I think the models look great and seem quite detailed from your photos. Nice Borg picture for your monthly banner by the way!

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    1. Thanks very much Undercoat. Now the first Iron Golem is finished I hope to get the others finished quite a bit faster. Perhaps unsurprisingly I've already begun finishing some of my Teen Titans figures.

      The Borg picture comes from a "Star Trek" comic book cover of an issue I reviewed. In it the Borg battled Captain Kirk from the Kelvin Timeline. It was pretty good stuff too :-)

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  2. No, no , no, dont paint dwarves. first its the star trek, now dwarves...i love u man.

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    1. LOL Mr Martin. Sadly, the Armator is the only dwarf in the Iron Golems. But obviously I have a fair few more "Star Trek" minis to come this month :-)

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  3. I have to say the design of those Iron Golem's are awful, nice job on the paint though.

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    1. Cheers Phil. Long time sufferers of this blog will remember my battle to paint up a scouting force of Boromites by "Warlord Games", and these Iron Golems are clearly the "Games Workshop" version. They're just far too detailed imho...

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  4. Such a great character, love the colour scheme Simon.

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    1. Thanks Michael. Probably my favourite of the Iron Golems, tbh.

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  5. Nice job Simon. The Warcry range has some really nice models in it.

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    1. Cheers Simon. It does indeed, and hopefully I can showcase a few more of them off over the coming months.

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  6. After your patience getting the colouring you wanted for the Golem he does look excellent.

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    1. Thanks Joe. One down, several more Iron Golems to go :-)

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