I have been going back and forth between Dwarves and Orcs a bit over the past couple of months. Well, rather than break that pattern, I’m going to continue with it while I get a bunch of models on my desk completed. Hopefully without adding too many more to the queue.
I recently decided to dig out all of my metal Slayers with the intent on working my way through them. In that batch are a pile more of the mid-90’s range, as well as a bunch from the Marauder range.
The Original Troll Slayer “Wild Nyjhul”
I was never a big fan of the Marauder Slayers. They were just a bit random for my taste, and a bit cartoony to boot. While the Slayer look wasn’t as fully defined at that stage, the archetype that will always work for me is “Wild Nyjhul”. The Marauder Slayers were overall a bit far from that.
WD scan via Stuff of Legends
I don’t think the painted examples helped too much either (grey beards and orange hair just looked – and still looks – odd). Finally, I just didn’t like the Morrison’s Dwarf sculpts as much as I did the Perry’s. Some of their other Dwarves are very fine, but their Slayers just aren’t as good. Citadel’s Dwarves have always had wonky proportions, but the Marauder Slayers were overall a step a little too far towards them just being heads with arms and legs attached.
Now that I’ve spent the last 5 minutes slagging them off. The act of painting them has warmed me to these models a bit. I also like the fact that they’re not all armed with the typical axes. After all, Dishonoured Dwarves would have come from a variety of walks of Dwarven life, and so I see the other weapons mixed in – particularly the swords – as a reflection of that. Particularly for the (let’s face it) less impressive models like the Marauder models that can be viewed as representing Dwarves who have more recently taken the Slayer’s Oath.
I’ve included a bonus shot of the naked slayer, to show off his dragon tattoo. I think I may have to go back over it with the blue to redefine it though. The thin layer of flesh to embed the tattoo “into his skin” seems to have worked a little too well…
For the wounded slayer, I considered adding fresh blood to his wrappings after varnishing the models. I decided against it, instead going for more of a dried blood stain on them than a monents-fresh set of wounds. Think David Wenham in 300.
I decided on a group shot of all my currently-finished Slayers, to see how they looked together. Also including the rebased-on-32mm Stonehaven Dwarf Berserker, who I think looks much better on the larger base.
Then while putting them all back onto the shelf with the new three, I noticed that I actually had enough for a complete KoW regiment, plus the two heroes on their 32mm bases. So, having accidentally achieved Numberwang, I took them down again and mounted them on a unit base and took a couple more photographs. They’re guaranteed to be juggled around as I complete more of the metals. The later Giant Slayers will be condensed into their own regiment along with standards and musicians, while the smaller models – Troll Slayers as well as the Marauder and older Citadel models will end up on their own regiment base. But for now, they’re ready to kick some arse as a single unit!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Cracking job mate – I agree that they ain’t the best sculpts out there, but your painting certainly elevates them and they do add some nice variety to the unit. Oh, and ‘Numberwang’ makes my day 😀
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Ta Alex. They’re not the best sculpts but they’ve got a bit of charm to them. At least they do to me now that I’ve painted them up… 😉
Good to see another M&W fan out here – I was hoping someone would pick that up!
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I always think of M&W WWII Germans sketch when I look at all the skulls on Imperial troops… “hang on, do you think we might be the baddies?” 😉
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Wow! Love the color scheme and the highlights, really excellent and wish I was around to get in a game with them, super cool!
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Thanks Mark. If by some strange quirk of fate you ever find yourself in Melbourne with a spare day to kill, let me know and I’ll set up a game of something for us! You can play as the Dwarves if you like. 🙂
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Same to you if you are ever in New England!
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They are neat. 🙂 I agree that the gray beard and orange hair is odd-looking.
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Thanks Ann. I think this pic manages to pull it off, but I honestly don’t know if that’s the quality of the artwork, my own nostalgia or some combination of both.
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Heh, it is kind of funny, I have to say. Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. 🙂
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That combination is odd. But it makes sense. They are older dwarves that dishonered themselves. It makes sense that they don’t have natural orange hair, but rather dye it with something. It does look odd in a model, though. Maybe one could add some orange highlights to the beard. While they worked on the hair some pigment got in touch with the beard or so.
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Oh, the dyeing of the hair (and beards) a firey orange is a long-established part of their lore – part of the slayer oath. Also the reason I deliberately paint the hair slightly differently each time, as I figure they don’t all dye their follicles from the same batch of dye at the same day for the same length of time.
Still, with my own beard rapidly turning grey, but at a much slower pace than my hair, I’d certainly be dying my own beard at the same time as my hair. 🙂
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I would dye beard and hair, too. Nothing worse than the dye coming out. Any idea what the dwarves use lore wise to get such a bright orange?
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I don’t think they ever thought about it in that much detail. Probably just the same natural dyes (and foodstuffs) that give all people and creatures in the Old World such vibrantly coloured clothing and skin.
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Mushroom dyes, which can also double as a hallucinogenic when brewed a beer, stout or ale!
Say, would you mind sharing your recipe for orange hair? I particularly like how it turned out and I thought maybe I might try it with one of my mice men, who sort of looks like a dwarf with a short beard and hefting a war hammer. I also might try it on my Wulfen champion, who I recently put together and in my opinion is screaming (quite literally) for some outrageous hair!
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See below. The formatting here is too tight.
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I agree with the others: Excellent paintjob, the miniatures are not as good as the other slayers. That said, in the group photo they actually look like the younger recrutes. Very mean of the older dudes to use them as a living wall ;).
I really like the striped pants, gives me that Obelix vibe. The tattoos look ace and I would not go over them again. They capture well the look of an actual tattoo and should not stand out too much or they will read as corpse paint (Death metal anyone?).
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“and should not stand out too much”
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fixed!
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That’s the plan. Once I have a bunch more painted, the smaller and younger ones will split off into their own unit of “Troll Slayers” leaving the Veterans for “Giant Slayers” while only the heroes have lived long enough to become “Dragon Slayers” or “Daemon Slayers”.
I’m overall happy with the tattoos, with the exception of the one dragon on butt-boy’s arm. I think that one specifically needs to be re-defined a little.
As for Corpse Paint, I’ve got a plan and a place for it down the line, along with Tā moko and Aboriginal Body Art. Without wanting to be insulting, I feel like GW and their ilk are just being lazy going with “Celtic War Paint” for bloody everything that they do.
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Looking forward to see some Ta moko. I tried something like it on a barbarian and it worked ok. Reminds me to finish that miniature….
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It might be awhile away, given so many projects on the table, but if the new edition of 40k turns out to be decent, it might at least be sooner rather than later…
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I agree on the Marauder Slayers being cartoony but I do prefer them to later incarnations of Slayers where they get even more out of proportion. Great work on the stripey pants and tats here!
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Thanks for the kind words on the tattoos and stripey pants. As for their proportions… Well, the hair and beards certainly get bigger and crazier, but I think the Marauder ones are worse for head-body proportion – with the possible exception of the naked one here. Not that any of them are good for proportion, but some of the Marauder ones get a little too close to that one classic Chaos Dwarf…
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In answer to Ann’s question about my methods for painting Slayer/Red hair:
My recipe? Heh. It changes slightly every time, and deliberately so since I want to get that bit of variation in each batch. As I’ve alluded to, I don’t even write down what I’ve used, I just go for it from the below paints:
Common colours are:
Reaper Triad for more “natural” red hair:
Auburn Shadow (Reaper 9241)
Carrot Top Red (Reaper 9242)
Highlight Orange (Reaper 9243)
GW options for crazy orange-red (pick 2-3 to taste)
Evil Sunz Scarlet
Wild Rider Orange
Troll Slayer Orange
Fire Dragon Bright
Another nice mid tone:
Pumpkin Orange (Reaper 9670)
Paint highlight/highlight mixes:
Filthy Brown (VGC 037)
Scofulous Brown (VGC 038)
Plague Brown (VGC 039)
Great highlights for “a more yellow” finish.
Sun Yellow (Reaper 9008) –
Averland Sunset
Paint shade: (use very thinned)
Burnt Cadmium Red (VMC 814)
Wash Shading:
Soft Tone (Army Painter)
Strong Tone (Army Painter)
Basically, I grab a handful of the orange tones based on almost random “feel” then take it entirely by “feel.”
The method varies from painting mid-tone, and successive drybrushes to highlight along with shading with thinned darker tones and/or the AP washes to thinned paint washes over white undercoat, and then drybrushed with hightlights (and the same shading as above). Sometimes I mix the AP inks to get a mid-tone between the two.
For a subdued/more natural ginger hair, I’d recommend getting the Reaper triad – which is excellent, both AP inks, Burnt Cadmium Red and a nice ochre to mix in for the final highlight (Plague Brown)
For crazy-slayer orange to red, I’d say get the same, but swap out the Reaper paints for your choice of 2-3 from Evil Sunz Scarlet, Wild Rider Orange, Troll Slayer Orange, Fire Dragon Bright, depending on how red or orange you want it.
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Awesome, thank you very much; much appreciated! 🙂
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