bringing Mordor to my minis

I've absolutely loved painting the miniatures related to Warhammer Underworlds.

Since picking up the Embergard box set nearly eighteen months ago, I've painted nine Warbands and, thanks to their terrific detail, each one has been an absolute delight.

A big part of that delight has been the bases. Not being overally creative (choosing a paint scheme is about the limit of my artistic flair), my ability to use technical paints like Astrogranite, Armageddon Dust and Martian Ironearth is rather basic. Therefore, the sculpted bases that come with the Underworld line of minis are a godsend because they allow me to do be slightly more creative without deviating too far from my comfort zone.

I decided to continue this way of thinking with the Blood of the Bull who, as a Chaos warband from the Helsmiths of Hashut faction, gave me a sort of Mordor vibe. This was an idea I rather liked, especially after doing a whole Minas Tirith thing with Xandire's Truthseekers previously.

Going about it seemed pretty easy too. I started with the basecoats, where I used Doombull Brown for the dirt and Abaddon Black for the rocks (to hopefully give them a volcanic rock look like Basalt by the time I was done). I then also used Zandri Dust to basecoat the sandstone slab found on Zuldrakka the Hateful's base (which took a couple coats over the Matte Black primer). I finished night one of painting these bases with washes, applying Agrax Earthshade all over the dirt, while Seraphim Sepia was used atop the Zandri Dust.

For the second night, I was able to move onto highlights, by which was entirely done with drybrushing. First, I focused on the dirt (well, actually, I first focused on covering all of the boots and gold with blu tac so the drybrushing wouldn't ruin them) by drybrushing those areas with first Mournfang Brown followed a lighter going over of Deathclaw Brown.

Next, I moved my attention to the rocks by, first, applying a layer of Eshin Grey, before adding a lighter layer of Dawnstone to pick out the rock edges.

I finished by focusing on the Sandstone slab, where I drybrushed a layer of Karak Stone before applying a lighter Drybrush of Screaming Skull.

With that the bases were done.

Now, with some time left, I returned to the characters themselves, as I applied a base of Khorne Red over all of the weapon handles before moving to the sashes and cloaks with Screamer Pink. Unfortunately, the very watered down nature of the screamer pink (a paint pot I had previously resurrected) meant that I needed to apply a number of layers. This, of course, resulted in on a couple of minis having that colour applied, but the colour certainly stands out against the more natural colours of the rest of the minis, so I'm happy with the choice and look forward to finishing it next week.

So, with that, week three of working on the Blood of the Bull warband is complete. Next week I hope to finish the the basecoats and even the washes, getting them to a battle ready state.

Although, the biggest question I now have is; what colour are their eyes?