Some of the first few figures that I finished this year, as part of my recent drive of
“This fricking thing is almost finished and has been for a year or more – just get it done!”
Reaper Bones 77171: Stone Golem and Harlequin Zombie “Buster Rotvessel”
First up is the Reaper Stone Golem, who I decided to paint in a Sandstone kind of scheme, ostensibly for the Egyptian-themed contingent of Marouda’s Undead army. Originally, the plan was to have the bronze/gold armour pieces as part of the magical mechanism keeping the golem animated/enslaved (pick one!) and to additionally feature chipped and worn paint on his skirt in the traditional blue/yellow scheme everyone uses for Egyptians based on Tutankhamen’s Death Mask. The thing was that I was never entirely happy with the idea, so the figure just sat in almost-finished limbo for over a year. So recently, I decided to just bloody finish it. I used the same Citadel Technical Nihilakh Oxide over white for the eyes as I did on the Bronze Bull, though this one was finished a week or two earlier. (And this was used as one of the examples for Marouda to choose the Bull’s eye style from.) I see I’ve missed some overflow below the belt line on it’s skirt. Probably from when I’d planned to paint the skirt. I’ll have to go back and touch that up. Maybe.
Rear view. Just look at that arse-crack! That’s an arse-crack for the ages!
The second figure in this update is the old Harlequin Miniatures Zombie. Somewhat of a classic figure in many ways, mostly due to his distinctive “exploded” torso. I picked up this figure in a single blister many, many years ago. Long enough to qualify him as an “Oldhammer” figure? Maybe just on the fringes, since it would likely have been into the mid-90s, when GW stalwarts like Kev Adams and others had started to move on from the company. This guy seems to have a name “Buster Rotvessel” (see what they did there?) and apparently had a whole unit to back him up back in the day. Sadly he no longer appears to be available from Black Tree Design, who currently own the old Harlequin sculpts. Still, I’m sure he’s relatively easily available on eBay and from other sources. Still, the silly name they gave him makes me keep thinking of Busta Rhymes. And giggling. 😛
Not a perfect figure by any means, his ham-hands and the tree-trunk handles on his weapons are both somewhat ridiculous, and indicative of the WHFB4-era’s aesthetics that he’s very much a part of (despite not being an actual Citadel figure) but his obese, corpulent, exploded physique add a lot of extra character to the model overall. He’d been sitting around in various stages of partially painted for several years (5?) before I finally pulled my finger out and finished highlighting the skin and picked out the exposed bone. A week later when I was blooding up some Zombivors, he got finished up with the same batch.
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Nice paint jobs, turning these flawed sculpts into such a characterful duo. The zombie would fit in nicely with my Vampire Counts army, which contains a bunch of ’90s zombies from Games Workshop. I’ll have to search for that regiment.
The golem has just the sandstone colour I am hoping to achieve for my Tomb Kings terrain, and the bronze goes well with it too. What paints did you use on it?
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Thanks! I believe the base coat was Bubonic Brown (old GW-HMG hex-pot, but still pretty available within the CDA/Vallejo ranges) shaded down with Snakebite Leather/XV-88 (stupidest paint name, EVAR) and highlighted with Bleached Bone. It was awhile ago, but it would have been from those colours, and they’re 90% interchangeable anyway between the specific ones.
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The zombies weapons are goofily gigantic, but he has a lot of charm nonetheless: I like him. Great painting on both models, both of which are now ready for gaming with, which is the most important thing.
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He does have character and charm, which is why I like him despite the silly weapons. That figure is very much a product of its time. While theoretically I could have rebuilt the weapons (and even the hands) I do often like to keep the “integrity” of the original sculpts when it comes to older, OOP models rather than cutting them up and converting them. It’s a silly thing in many ways, I know, but there it is.
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I think that you are right. You have to ask yourself if work such as modifying weapons like that to make them more “realistic” is really a good use of time anyway.
The model is what it is, a bit daft but a lot of fun and now it’s nicely painted and ready to game with. Next!
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I love both of them. The sandstone turned out perfectly! It looks very realistic and the shadows and highlights are nice and smooth. While the gut dude has quite a tree trunk weapon, it kind of suits him. After all he has his guts hanging out, maybe he just made a makeshift axe out of a tree trunk and a piece of metal ;). This technical colour you mention really works well for glowing eyes. Could you describe its properties a bit more? Do you think one could replicate it with Vallejo?
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I don’t think it could be easily replicated with Vallejo. Verdigris Glaze – the Vallejo product that I have – has a consistency like toothpaste, and needs to be thinned down significantly, and even then behaves in a rather unusual manner. Citadel’s Nihilakh Oxide has a different, very liquid kind of flow, as well as very dense pigment. I’ve used it, and it’s easy flow properties to line directly over black in my (unfinished) Obsidian Golems. I think it’s well worth picking up. I’m no fan of what Games Workshop has become over time – especially over the last 5 or so years – but this is simply a quality product that does something a little bit new in a very user-friendly manner.
I’m equally taken with their Lahmian Medium – which we all know is just paint medium without pigment – because again it has a very friendly and easy to use “behaviour”. If we could find out the exact mixture/product it is, I’d be more than happy to purchase it from Liquitex, etc, but it’s again a worthwhile addition, and different to other mediums and mixes I’ve used. Kind of how Devlan Mud and the Army Painter washes behave differently to the Vallejo Product and even the current range of GW washes and glazes.
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