Underworlds Warband - The Faceless

Finally, my 'Stormcast' warband for Underworlds is finished. They are an effect of an idea I came up with maybe a year ago, to turn some of those golden champions into creepy and enigmatic knights in ornate, but neglected and faceless armor. The conversion process, both the design phase and the sculpting were the most taxing part of the whole project - you can see it all explained HERE, with all the inspirations, concepts and plans for the future.

The painting process was much simpler in comparison. I used this image as a direct example of what I wanted to recreate, inspired by all the miniatures and artwork that gave me this idea in the first place. I started with a dark metallic base, added several layers and colors of rust pigments, then applied some additional shades and bright silver highlights. More typical painting work was used on all the fabrics and leather - and then also covered in pigments and sprinkled with washes to get the dirty look. They turned out mostly how I envisioned them - the only problem that I noticed is that they are easy to mistake on the tabletop when standing near my Garrek's Reavers - they are both dark, muted and dirty! Well, I'll have just to deal with it, because I don't want to change the aesthetic concept just for gameplay convenience!

It always starts the same. First, all the vampires, undead, chaos worshippers, heretics and similar become too much for the nobles to deal with. Not wanting to use their own warriors and troops, leaving them weaker in internal conflicts, they instead organize a ragtag militia of peasants and poor townspeople to hunt them in exchange for money, titles and land. Those bands soon become obsessed with their mission of ‘cleansing’ Vechernya of filth, heretics, undesirables and they start a cult around it. Not long after that, strange knights start joining their ranks - ones that believe their purpose so much that they forge a whole military order around it. Frighteningly effective in combat, they achieve great results in fighting the dangers lurking in the land. All is well until they run out vampires and ghouls - then they start turning on the folk of Vechernya - slaughtering villages and burning people on the slightest of offenses. Growing in numbers, they soon turn out of control, forcing the warring dukes and nobles into forging an alliance and destroying them, usually at a great cost. Then, many years later the whole cycle will start again, spun by the dreams of the Withered King.

This time the knights are known simply as the Faceless - they hide their faces and identities behind elaborate masks and helmets, believing their mission to be more important than their old personas. The fact that nobody ever saw their faces or heard them speaking and lived to tell the tale only strengthens their enigmatic and sinister reputation. Small, yet dangerous groups of those ominous warriors wander through Vechernya searching for any sign of corruption and heresy, no matter how slight or hidden.

First all three faceless as the whole warband. They are all different and turned out pretty characterful, so below this one, you will find much more pictures of them individually.

Now, all the members - first, the leader. I turned Severin Steelheart into the Crusader, an unrelenting champion fighting to purge Vechernya of all the undesirables. The piece of cloth (backskirt?) behind him was a perfect canvas to really try out some dirtying techniques, with pigments and washes.

The next one is Obryn the Bold, which is known in my warband as the Bull - a very diligent, but impatient warrior. He was interesting to paint thanks to the combination of flat and highly sculpted areas on his armor. Weirdly enough, when I was reading the Shadespire cards recently, I was surprised to see that Obryn is described as "bull-hearted". Now I don't know if it subconsciously inspired me a long time ago (and/or I forgot about it) or if it was just an interesting coincidence.

And the last one from the band is Angharad Brightshield, turned into the Vulture - a vicious warrior willing to prolong the fight if it means hurting and tormenting her enemy more. Her shield was a delight to paint (as wood usually is for me) and the freehands on the ribbons flowing behind her were a welcome variation from her freehand-less bandmates.

I would love to have a much larger force of Faceless, but seeing how taxing and difficult it is to convert every single one of them, I probably won't be doing that very soon!

Underworlds Warband - The Faceless - WIP

Finally, the converting part of my Warhammer Underworlds Stormcast team is finished - now it should be much easier.

The idea went through several stages and evolutions, but the source of it was Ana's (from Gardens of Hecate) brilliant take on the same kit, which can be found HERE. I wanted to do something similar, but also not copy it blatantly. Then I saw THIS artwork and I realized that I can make heavily armored counterparts to the cultists that I made for my zombie legion. At that point, I decided to get a Shadespire box to try this idea out. There are only 3 Stormcasts there, a perfect amount to test out this idea. Besides, I heard good things about the game itself, so trying it out was a bonus. Then I spent several months developing the idea in my head, sketching various options and looking for inspiration on the internet.

The Faceless were the final result of all that deliberation. Heavily inspired by Dark Souls aesthetics, I made my Stormcasts into creepy, otherworldly knights that hide their faces and identity behind elaborate, sculpturesque armor. Each one has a leading motive, starting with the helmet which then affects all other parts of their equipment. As their name suggests, there will be no faces on their helmets - only animals or geometric/abstract shapes, the more inhuman, the better. I have many, many more helmets/themes planned, should I someday decide to expand on this idea.

As a side note, this was probably the first time when I was doing so much precise sculpting on such (relatively) small infantry miniatures. It required different methods and I learned a lot during this whole work. Hopefully, future projects will benefit from this.

EDIT: The painted group can be seen HERE.

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The whole warband, the Faceless:

As a comparison, the original ones, as envisioned by Games Workshop (not painted by me, pictures taken from GW's website).

Now, the individual knights. First comes the leader, the Crusader. He is obviously inspired by the Pyramid Head from the Silent Hill franchise (especially the movie version) and the artwork I linked above - but he was also thought as a knightly variant of my zombie cultists. In the beginning, I wanted to make the whole team look like that, but I had too many interesting ideas for other knights to just dismiss them like that - the Crusader remains as the only one left from that first idea.

The second one is the Bull. It was this idea that made me scrap the concept of making everyone a pyramid head. He was partly inspired by Smough from Dark Souls, especially the part with the 'fat armor' and helmet visors being hidden in its 'neck'. The rest are my original ideas.

And the third one, the Vulture. This one I made the last and was inspired by THIS and THIS artwork. I had the least ideas for her and made her last, but as the sculpting progressed I was getting more and more into it and I am pretty happy with the final result.

And a bonus, here are the renderings of some of the more geometric helmets that I have in mind for the future, mostly the ones that I could model digitally. Many of them are taken from various pictures found on Pinterest. It's also a quick example of what color I have in mind for the Faceless - well, maybe a bit rusted than that, but you get the idea.

And to add even more to this already long post, this is a 52nd regular weekly post. This means, that I managed to keep up the pace and have at least a bit of progress every Sunday for a whole year. Let's wish for another year like this!

Zombie Legion - The Lost One

Part of the Zombie Legion

An idea came to me one day - to convert one of the controversial Stormcasts into a small, lousy zombie filler. I bumped him a bit, scratched, crippled his hand, stuck a stick in his neck, covered with mud and added some patina - and here he is! The one that got lost in the WFB universe. Painted in November 2016.

This giant, armored knight stumbled into the forest one day, looking somehow lost. Without a word, he got into a battle with the undead forces as soon as he saw them. While he proved to be a tough opponent, zombies just kept coming and after all the cuts and jabs, he was felled down just like any other and was quickly incorporated into the same horde he so valiantly fought. Constantin considers him an interesting curiosity in his horde.

Zombie Legion - WIP #2

Two fillers for zombies I did by converting Age of Sigmar miniatures. First one is a sigmarine / Stormcast Eternal - I really liked the idea of turning one of those into a lousy zombie filler.

The second one is the so-called 'Bloodstoker' - that guy looks pretty gruesome on his own and isn't yet another steroid monster like other new khornates - actually a pretty cool mini! He was way too fancy for my army, so I started simplifying him - by making his 'fake arm' much more proletarian. After that, I thought, why not go for something more - so I turned him into a fat cossack. A fun mini that was fun to convert.