Realm of Chaos 80s

Has it been a month? It feels like a year! Without going into too much detail (this blog is not the place, after all) the past thirty days have been the toughest hours of my life. Thank God for my wife, who got has supported me stoically. Sadly, my once steady hand is now as wobbly as a drunken jelly wibbling home after 15 pints of Carsburg Special Brew. The result of this is that holding a paint brush is a frustrating ( and largely pointless) experience. Splodges, streaks and blots are the order of the day with my miniatures now resembling the mad splashings of a demented 9 year old.

Still, you cannot give up. If you remember, I was working on a Nurgle Warband (as I already own a Slaanesh and Khorne Warband from a Realm of Chaos campaign) and had completed a minotaur, sorcerer and champion. After some practise runs, I set brush to paint and tried to work on a small unit of chaos thugs. Here are the first three...

The first is completed, though I am not that happy with the hair. I experimented with my old 80s citadel inks here after reading an old WD John Blanche article. The richness of the colours is outstanding, certainly when compared with the recent washes - though, of course, they are far harder to use as you need to water them down appropriately. Researching the range, the old Citadel painters did bizarre and crazy things with the colour schemes of these models and I hope to ape these in the future. The middle model (Octo, sculpted by one of the Perrys in 1987) is one of the few original miniatures I was bought by my father in 1988. I must have painted it four or five time and have never been happy with the result. I am still not, but these models represent a difficult period in my life and I am loathe to strip them. I still need to tweak the highlights on the belt and the leggings. The final model, is a 1985 Perry thug from the original release. I really is an ugly, ugly model and was difficult to paint due to damage and loss of detail through casting. I had a go at the chequer style on the shield as an exercise in keeping my hand steady. Obviously, the bases need finishing up and the miniatures need a tidy here or there but I am proud to include these guys in the Nurgle Warband.

I am currently working on two further thugs to complete this small unit. I have also just cleaned up some lovely 1989 Bob Olley Realm of Chaos Beastmen of Nurgle that will be painted up shortly. I also have a second minotaur to complete