Oldhammer: Hess Poison Breath

I have no regret. The clues are numerous, and it is reasonable that the truth should exist in proportion to their number. -Kōbō Abe

When building my Undead warband for Mordheim 2019, I got my hands on two ancient Citadel miniatures sculpted by the legendary Jes Goodwin. Both were Chaos Sorcerers from the mid 80s. While one, Sli’ith Ironlung, was converted slightly and turned into a dreg from the undead warband, the other, Hess Poison Breath, was left unused. A month or two ago, I started to paint some of fantasy miniatures we got from Ana Polanscak’s Kickstarter, and realized the model would fit nicely alongside of them as some manner of necromancer. With this in mind, put the model on a base and decided to paint him/her!

The black was painted with a series of diluted Black Templar Contrast paint.

Like the kickstarter models, I primarily used GW Contrast paints to paint the necromancer. The robes were initially painted with a 1:1 mix of Black Templar and Contrast Medium. Then I went back and darkened the recess more with undiluted Black Templar. I then put a light wash of Nuln oil over the robes, diluted substantially with Lahmian medium. All of the metal areas were painted with Vallejo Model Metallic Air paints, either the darker Gunmetal (71.072) or Steel (71.065), before adding a coat of Nuln oil, diluted with Lahmian medium and a touch of Black Templar Contrast paint. I then put a light coat of Agrax Earthshade over everything, before doing some edge highlighting with the original silver. I also added a small amount of Ammo of Mig Streaking Rust Effects (A.MIG-1204) to the armor, and then removed most of it using a new brush with Enamel odorless thinner.

As a single-piece metal model, the Necromancer was really relaxing to paint.

The bone was approached in a similar way to the black, starting with a 1:1 mix of Skeleton Horde and Contrast medium, before going back with additional contrast paints to darken the recesses (mainly Cygor Brown and Black Templar). Finally, I did a few minor edge highlights with Screaming Skull. The red eyes were painted with successive highlights, starting with Vallejo Model Color Burnt Red (70.814), followed by Mephiston Red, and finally Evil Sunz Scarlet. The base was painted with a series of Vallejo browns that I drybrushed on. To unify, but also modulate the brown, I added patches of enamel washes from Ammo of Mig and then blended them with Odorless thinner (Brown Wash for German Dark Yellow A.MIG-1000;Tracks Wash A.MIG-1002; Slimy Grime Dark A.MIG-1410; Slimy Grime Light A.MIG-1411).

The Necromancer with with two bone constructs, including a lessor Blood fiend.

The models fit quite naturally next to WilhelMiniatures bone trees.

With the Necromancer complete, a small warband of misshapen flesh and bone constructs is starting to take shape! Next, I plan to continue painting some of Ana’s other Kickstarter models to slowly grown the unsettling looking group. Maybe sometime in 2020, they will even be used in some manner of game?!

- Eric Wier