22 October 2016

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Second Chaos Warrior

Time for a guest spot from someone half-human, half-warhead, all idiot.  It's Curis.

Let's do a dungeon-bash quickie between big projects!  To recap, the three Scale Creep commandments of the project are:
  • Paint a charmingly basic model from HeroQuest
  • nO cRaZy CoNvErSiOnS
  • Replacing the sausagey rectangle base is encouraged.
I picked a Chaos Warrior. To the 7-year-old boy learning words from game components, but not pronunciations: a "Chouse" Warrior.

"Hoots mon!  There's a chouse louse about this house!"

Theottovonbismark has already shown off Slambo and the 4E plastic Chouse … ahem … Chaos Warrior.  Here's the HeroQuest dude alongside Battlemasters and Legend of Zagor Chaos dudes, for no reason other than to showcase the breadth of my vintage Chaos.

Prejudiced against gorefs, means he's a gorefist.

Otto's updating of this old plastic has freehand and a jazzy base.  My version is painted so tamely in comparison. I've gone for the red-and-metal scheme which you might think is a homage to the original HeroQuest art, but is really so he ties into my 1980s Chaos Warband. Being a 1989er *I think* he is actually the newest miniature.   Everything is relative.

"Oi HeroQuest! Bet you're so young you don't remember POGs!"

After modern-style crisp highlighting you start to realise the limitations of the miniature – a combination of 1989 plastic technology and 27 years of man-handling ("manchild-handling"?).  So to hide the dalrymples I painted some textures: sponge-chipping the armour; fluting on the horns; notching the axe blade; and blood-spatter over the finished piece.  I've recently become aware that competition painters like different textures on a miniature to provide interest and contrast, and to showcase their skills.

He's left many a nasty axe wound.

The texture I'm fondest of at the moment is the blood-spats.  After a lot of trial and error with a Blood Bowl team recently I've hit upon the following method: load up a tiny brush with your blood-effect paint of choice, put it right in front of your lips, and blow.  You instantly get realistic spines, satellite spatters, cast-off patterns and other terms I'm just regurgitating from a CSI episode.

Guess this means he's the Herald of the ApocaLIPS.
(•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)
That's all for now!  Next in the chain we have a man who goes where no ordinary rabbit would dare – Geoff Solomon-Sims.

17 comments:

  1. Gorgeous painting Curis, he looks tight.

    Good decision to tie him in with the Frostgrave force.

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    1. Annoyingly the red is a different colour and the base is a different colour. That's what you get for painting something six months after the rest of the batch.

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    2. I understand how that can be irritating, but it's the sort of thing that only you will notice and eventually forget about I hope.

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    3. I've got a few more gangly Knights that were half-painted and abandoned six months ago. I should be able to work it out for them.

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  2. I don't think the miniature is that bad for a basic plastic figure from 1989; the only thing that's a bit wonky about him is that the shoulders and the back of the neck don't make sense.

    Anyway, nicely done!

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    1. The edges aren't crisp and sharp like modern miniatures. There's a few of areas where you can see how the pieces of putty the figure was made from layer over each other. I was painting this alongside a modern plastic marine and the differences were marked. Doesn't matter for high gaming quality though!

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  3. Great update! Fantastic paintjob, brilliant write up, and extra bonus points for the nod to Bucky O'Hare!

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  4. He looks bloody great ! Bloody, y'see? Cuz he's, y'know, well bloody erm...

    Great Job.

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  5. I absolutely love his horns!

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    1. Minor challenge with the horns is how to work with their undersides. They project backwards into the body so the steel mould has no undercuts. Do you paint the extruded bits as horns too or do you paint them as heavy shadow?

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  6. Nice work, Curis. He's suitably old skool and extremely well executed.

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    1. Thanks! I had fun doing him. Just gotta resist the temptation to do another three…

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  7. Lovely. I think for a plastic HQ fig he holds up very well, and you've painted him up just marvellous. The chipping, horns and BLUD all jazz him up tremendously, I guess at his age getting a little extra work done to keep you looking good is no shame.

    There's something unsettling about that pic of you blowing. It's just... not right.

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    1. He holds up all the more for not having a face. Helmetted figures age better.

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