Lizardmen - Oxyotl the Chameleon Skink

 

A classic model I've been painting since last night. Finished him this morning and thought I'd post him on the blog as I've been neglecting to post much lately... again. 

Lizardmen were my first ever Warhammer army. Back then I couldn't afford the armies book at first and I remember leafing through it in my local games store and coming across the art for this guy and being blown away! Immediately I wanted one, but there was no model, so I set to work on a series of terrible conversions with old plastic skinks as the base - then dutifully painted them up in garish colours inspired by Buzizima the Chameleon from the PS1 classic fighting game Bloody Roar 2. Thankfully, some years later, the actual model came out and I bought him. 

As an old sculpt, he stands the test of time very well - I like him a lot more than the other iterations of chameleon skinks that came out later. Actually, I consider pretty much everything done to the Lizardman range after 5th edition to be pretty heinous to be honest, but that's probably a story for another time.

For a bit of fun, I used a coat of Vallejo transparent orange on his skin over a white undercoat which interestingly worked a bit like a contrast paint in terms of making a nice vibrant base. The little tree on his base was a bit of an experiment too, and is made of wire twisted together and coated with milliput. 

That about rounds it out on this guy. Interestingly, he seems to be worth about £40 at the moment on eBay - possibly attributable to Warhammer Total War, but as I've never played it I can't say. Either way, if you have a spare one, you're sitting on a small fortune!

Monster March Week 3 - Lizardmen Metal 1990s Stegadon ... Stega...done

Monster March is still in full swing. I finished my Dark Elf Dragon last week, and to follow it up I've been working on this metal 1990s Lizardmen Stegadon. After a week of work, the Stegadon is finished!

This is a classic model that means a lot to me as Lizardmen were my first army ever, and  the Stegadon was one of the very first models I ever owned. As with the rest of my classic Lizardmen, I've followed the colour scheme I used when I was younger, so the skinks are green and the Stegadon is a fetching dark red. 

In the end, it didn't take too long. It was a pain to build though. It's all metal, and I had to pin a lot of the bits - especially the Howdah to make it good and strong. When I was a kid, I mostly just drenched it with superglue and then painted what I could reach. I wanted to do a better job this time, so I painted it in 3 chunks - one for the actual Stegadon, then the howdah and finally the 6 crew. 

In addition to being a big nostalgia tank, this thing also weighs about as much as a tank. It's solid metal and is basically a house brick... with points on it. It also makes a big chunk of my 1000 point plan, and puts me in a good position to move the army on towards that goal. I've recently finished the skink cold-one riders. My planned list is almost done, with just 5 more saurus warriors to paint. 

The other thing that has been nice has been having this thing on a real base. The actual model never came with one, and was part of that era when a lot of metal things didn't have bases at all and just sort of rolled around on the green flocked plains of the old world. Anyway, it fits a chariot base nicely.

Well, that pretty much rounds out my Monster March this year. Maybe I'll just try to paint whatever I have about the place as a final pledge for the last week. I'm batching a bunch of Skaven right now, so maybe if I paint enough of them, I might get a final photo. I really should be working on those final saurus though. The horror of having so many projects on the go!

Head on over to Path of an Outcast to see how the other entrants are doing. I have to say, I was shocked to read last week's update as Gav Thrope has joined the event. Exciting stuff!

Path of an Outcast

Oldhammer 500 Point 5th Edition Lizardmen army - Painted! (again)

 

So, I haven't posted in some time - at least 6 months I think. I have been doing some hobby stuff though, but taking proper photos and making posts for the blog takes some time to do. Anyway, a while back I posted about maybe doing a diorama with some of my old Lizardmen. The project took a different turn, and I've started remaking the army as an actual force. I started messing around with some fantasy again, and one thing sort of led to another.

These are all models that I have owned since the mid-late 90s when they were released. I was quite young at the time, and as a kid, I made a bit of a horrible mess of building and painting them. It's surprising how good they look when you take off all the old paint!The scenery they're photographed on has been another lockdown project. I discovered the magic of hot-glue guns for scenery and it was pretty quick to put together in the end. 

In terms of their actual colours, they use a revamped version of my original scheme. At the time, they were painted with a liberal coat of the notorious oldhammer classic paint "goblin green" and given a hearty dollop of blood red for their claws, frills and, well... pretty much everything else. I took the same colour ideas, but did a new version with the actual details picked out and everything! My childhood self would be thrilled (but confused why my 500 point list wasn't a maxed out character's allowance with wither the hydra sword or frost blade equipped!)

As a special bonus in the photo above, if you look in the background, you'll see mountains and sky - an oil painting used as a backdrop which was another one of my lock-down projects. Bob Ross style (but a bit shite as I'm not an oil painter really!)

A bit of a zoom in on the skink champion for the javelin unit. I'm sticking with modern techniques for painting, so you can see little points of light on there. I've made them really vibrant. The movement trays are from Warbases - and are incredibly cheap and work great, so I really recommend anyone doing old-style units picks some up. 

The Slann is pink - he was originally green, but I wanted to match the accent colour for the army with him and make him stand out. 

I actually like this range of models a lot more than any of the later kits that came out - I've got the next 500 points planned out, but over half of it is a Stegadon, so that should make for an interesting project. I've also started painting my Skink cold one riders - which were originally a dogs of war unit when they were released and I bought the box set. Just for the record, Saurus should never ever ride anything as it's against the established lore - I used to love the background of the great crested Skinks as a kid - the only ones strong enough to tame cold ones (and with strength 4 on the profile and toughness 2 they were certainly interesting!). Saurus were too stupid to actually ride or tame anything - and were basically super-violent warrior crocodile men who were barely able to utter more than a few words. When they released those horrible Saurus riding cold ones models in the next edition it was tragic. Not only did they change the fun and characterful lore, but the models stank - with hunch-backed cold ones and the riding pose that looked like they were mating frogs...

The Saurus command group were my first ever Warhammer models. I actually have the top of the blister pack stashed away somewhere for safekeeping! This was back when the champion was £3! 

Hopefully, I'll post again fairly soon. I also painted up a 500 point force of Bretonnians - with 10 archers, a small lance formation with mounted general and a level 1 sorceress. I may take some photos and post them later on.

Comment below if you like old crap, want to see some Bretonnia ride again, or if you are insane and in your deluded state want to defend the hideous saurus cavalry.

Oldhammer Project - Test Skink

It's back to the 90s today with the first bit of test painting from my diorama (As discussed a few months ago Here). I scrubbed off the old paint and to be honest I was surprised how good the model looked under all of that gumph.

For a project this nostalgic, not just any colours would do. He had to be really really bright and eye catching (so basically as saturated as possible). I also wanted to sort of update and recreate their original scheme which was basically goblin green skin and red frills. With that basic idea in mind, I busted out the airbrush and went to town.

Really old - and really bright!

I started off with a coat of Vallejo Emerald, which is a nice saturated colour that went on well over the black undercoat. After that came a highlight with Vallejo Foul Green, which I added white to and highlighted again. I did a pre-shade with white before blending the white in with Vallejo Fluorescent Yellow. The result was an almost migraine inducing green hue that can be seen several feet away even though the model is about 1cm tall! Pretty much exactly what I was aiming for. As I'm planning to put him in a diorama, the base is just temporary, and will be removed at some later date.

As this is an oldhammer project, I want to keep this bright with the other models. I'm going to use this scheme for the basic skinks, although I'm also planning some different skink schemes as well; particularly for the ones with different frills. It also feels a bit counter-culture; painting old models in really bright colours (when fashion is for Blanchitsu and grimdark) so I want to play with that and really push it to the max, so when the diorama is finished it'll be like a riot of fun and colour. Well, that's the plan anyway...

The Captain's Log Returns - Oldhammer Lizardmen Project Begins

When I first started this blog, I often had odd editorial's filed under the "Captain's Log" tag. As time has gone by, I've dropped a lot of the odd little articles that I used to do, some more due to a lack of time than anything else. Some I'll bring back with time (my terrible fiction will never die!), but it seemed a fitting title to use for this little snippet.

There have been a few years that I've considered entering one of GW's Golden Demon competitions, but I never really had a project in mind. I'm a good painter for sure, but I'm not really up to the standard of those people who spend their whole hobby in search of painting perfection and spend hundreds of hours on every model. The truth is that I don't have the stomach for it, and I've got  enough other things to be getting on with that I don't have that kind of time. With that in mind, my chances of winning anything are pretty low.

That said, it's one of those things that I'd enjoy doing, and would be a great place to test some techniques and work on some skills. I've often thought that it would make more sense to enter something that was more of a personal project - something I'd create to own and enjoy.

So, a few days ago, I got to thinking about my first army - 1990s Lizardmen. I've wanted to revisit them for a whole long time, and to have a go at stripping and re-painting some of the most characterful miniatures of the day. I know that most people probably have no recollection of what the sculpts even looked like back then, but a lot of the metal models were actually really nicely formed and had a lot of character. They'd also make a great palette for experimenting with bright tropical colours and jungle flora, which is something I've never done.

I also absolutely loved the diorama that was made for the Armies Book in 1997. As a kid, I spent what probably amounted to weeks of my life staring at pictures of that thing. It was just amazing at that time, and I recently had the chance to see it in person at Warhammer World too. I started thinking about the 40k Shadowsword that I painted, which was sort of a childhood dream since Epic came out, and I thought - why not really live the dream?

As most people don't remember the models of the time, here's a picture of that famous Diorama featuring them. 

Taking the basic idea, I thought that I'd have a go at making a prehistoric (get it, because they're so old) Lizardman diorama. Something like a jungle scene - a rocky temple backdrop for 2 sides of a base with a sort of central pond. Maybe a waterfall. My old Slann could be relaxing in a temple thing with a view of some type of fish hunting going on below. The idea would be relaxation, they've earned their retirement by now and deserve to enjoy it! I've got pretty much every model from the generation, so a Terradon sailing by somewhere in there, and a submerged Salamander would be easy enough. I'll probably add a bit of a sub plot in with some baddies sneaking up, but I'm still working on that part.

So, earlier today, I clambered through the darkest cupboard of doom. After being assailed on all sides by forgotten childhood memories, Goosebumps books and an old Nirvana cassette tape that nearly bludgeoned me to death; I finally reached my prize. A big box of ancient Lizardmen!

Upon opening the box, perhaps because of the bludgeoning, I became almost convinced that I was in an episode of American Pickers. Yep, I was junk drunk and surrounded by rusty gold. It had the patina, and the price was irresistible!

Oldhammer for the Oldhammer God! I won't be able to use everything, but I wanted plenty of options!

Anyway, I grabbed a bunch of the good stuff and prepped it for stripping. What happens next, who knows, who cares, but at the very least, I expect to enjoy painting a few very deserving models. With any luck plans will work out and I'll get a cool piece I can keep and display with all my favourite childhood models in it - and that'll be pretty priceless. I might even put in a few in-jokes (that Slann needs his Forbidden Rod and Amber Amulet combo for sure!). If it goes well, I'll enter it in Golden Demon just to put a smile on some faces that remember the good old days.

Original metal skinks! Collect the whole set. I know I did!

In some ways, these are the models that I owe a lifetime of fun to. They had hundreds of battles back in the day; probably thousands. I think it's time they retired with the full battle honours they deserve!