Alright, I Did Finish the Summer Plaguebearers

Plastic and metal plaguebearers by Games Workshop, including sand, rocks, and Secret Weapon Realistic Water.

The autumn summer plaguebearers are here! I had zero energy to work on much of anything hobby-related last month — between the new job; wrapping up some large, document-related things I was doing for a friend; and the general vagaries of life, I just sat on these guys for a few weeks. (I did do some work on the knight, of course, which I'll post soon; I've also been rebasing Seraphon lizardmen for Age of Hammer: Warsigmar — and I have the gruesome, hobby-knife-inflicted wounds to prove it. Cut away? I ain't no sissy.)

These guys, as you might recall, were supposed to be an autumn color scheme, but they were turning out far too vibrant. Fortunately, the former summer ones had a nice matte finish with a strong orange as the primary color — done, we can rock those as autumn. It all works out in the end.

Initial base color on the plaguebearers. I was shocked to discover that this would be too bright.

After my typical priming routine — Golden High Flow acrylics, starting with Carbon Black, then Neutral Gray, then Titanium White — I hit these with Naphthol Red Light, which is a (n obviously) bright red. I honestly thought that the repeated layers of purple and brown inks would tone these down, but physics is often stacked against our best intentions.

Metal and plastic plaguebearers by GW.

This photo jumps ahead quite a bit — you can see the orange highlights, the stark reds on the eye and gross bits — but you can see how I used purples to tone down shaded and recessed sections, as well as the arms and legs. I'm actually happy this didn't work out as I planned; I like the seasonal switch-up quite a bit.

In any case, here's another shot of the final:

Plastic and metal plaguebearers.

Up next: The four models in the command section. It's an icon bearer, a musician (metal with bells, of course, flutes are for people who breathe), and a pair of plagueridden. They'll be spring-themed, as all of the most powerful plaguebearers will be — so we're looking at green, green, green.