Another mouthful of a title today. We’re into October’s models (I’ll get the September Round-Up happening this weekend). These models are from the aforementioned board game, that uses a modified version of the Pandemic game engine. As longtime players of the original and several of the variants (with lots still waiting to be cracked open and played!) – as well as former players of World of Warcraft, Marouda and I picked up this boardgame several months ago and have played it a few times now. It’s quite fun, though much easier than regular Pandemic.
As it happens, we pick our heroes randomly each time we play – but Arthas the Lich King and the three Abominations feature in every game that you play. They also seemed like pretty straightforward models to paint – not amazing sculpts by any means, but not terrible either, especially in light of being board game models.
Arthas was painted using dark metals, pre-highlighted with a careful drybrush using a makeup brush and then tinted with a very subtle glaze of blue over it all. His cloak and tabard were painted in an almost-black dark grey, and drybrushed to just bring up the highlights in a teal-ish blue. Almost a comic-book style of highlighting, but with a dusty/worn effect from drybrushing.
Wheras if this were a GW model, I’d have made the detailed hilt of the sword Frostmourne stand out with gold edging, the WoW model is actually all in dark steel, so I just left it as it was, with a bit more highlighting on the blade edges. The fur around his greaves and vambraces is rather poorly sculpted, so I just p[ainted it in the white fur of the source material and tried to understate it by putting more effort into the highlights on his leather gloves, as well as edging the armour where approriate in a “white gold” colour (Pro Acryl Light Bronze).
I had to paint in the details of Arthas’ eyes and mouth, since the model just has flat space in those areas, giving them a wash afterwards to dull them down and simulate the shadow of being inside his helm. I also painted his forehead gem using Citadel’s Gemstone blue over Vallejo Model Air Chrome. I also used Chrome to pick out the top highlights of his crown, shoulder and vambrace spikes and top of the sword blade edges.
For Arthas’ base, I wanted to build on what I learned recently when experimenting with the Water Effects on the Archon Fountains and give Arthas an unnatural/magical-looking ice and snow base. I got some AK Water Effects and mixed in a small amount of Contrast Pylar Glacier to see what would happen…
It gave me this paste….
Which went on pretty much how it looks, but allowed some manipulation. The colour was pretty strong but still had some transparency to it. I then let it dry for a day or so and added another layer, with less contrast mixed in to create a more transparent effect on this next layer of ice, then repeated several times adding less contrast each time until eventually it was just Water Effects. Finally, I added snow to the base, on and around the peaks of the ice swirls. It’s not something that has come out amazingly well in these photographs, but I’m pretty happy with the overall effect. Once again, a board game model that I was painting anyway provided a great canvas for trying something new.
At the same time I was working on Arthas, I was also doing work on the three Abominations. Since these are basically great big Frankenstein’s Monster-style undead golems/zombies, stitched together from various remains I just painted them in pale zombie tones with some slight variance between the three models, just as seen in WoW. They feature some pretty poor detail in spots and weren’t exactly fun to paint, but they’ll look good on the table and that’s what matters most.
Unlike Arthas, who behaves as a sort of spectre over the large regions of Northrend in the game, these models roam across the actual zones, so I gave them dirt bases with some grass and intermittent snowfall on top, as the continent in-game is a mixture of biomes but with an overall wintery feel. While I doubt Arthas would get a ticket, the Abominations may well qualify for Dave Stone’s latest painting challenge as he is the one coordinating Zombtober this year as a subset of “Apocalypse Me“.
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Love the work on the base, and those Abominations are properly disgusting.
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Thanks mate – glad you like ’em! 🙂
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Nicely done mate, that icy base is particularly brill!
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Thanks Alex! I’ll have to get a better pic of it a bit later…
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Is it just me, or are the Abominations actually pretty cute? Nice work all around, regardless!
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The design of them is pretty cutesy! Less cute when you’re facing them for the first time in WoW, though! 😀
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Yeah, getting hit by those sickles or whatever they’re supposed to be doesn’t seem very cute at all!
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Yeah, they’re pretty nasty at first. 😀
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Excellent work on all four mate, and the base is exceptional. As they all come from Pandemic, which could be an Apocalypse level event, they’re all in.
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Thanks Dave! Well, The Scourge were certainly pretty apocalyptic to a lot of Azeroth, so I’m sold. 🙂
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Nice paints man, i never got into WoW but have a vague idea who Arthas is. Like those abominations too they look like they could be used for some Nurgle mini’s too
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Thanks mate. Arthas’ story is considered pretty much the best storyline of Blizzard’s – starting in WarCraft 3, into Frozen Throne and then in the background for all of WoW’s early days slowly growing and then culminating with Wrath of the Lich King.
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I think ToT’s comment is bang on! 🙂 As Abominations go, they’re certainly abominable!
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Haha thanks John! 🙂
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Nice work on all of these! I imagine that base looks even more impressive in person. The cloak turned out really nice too, and reminds me of the 90s Batman movie cape. Especially when they highlighted with blue light in movie posters and scenes.
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Thanks mate! Happy to hear you like the cloak – that’s pretty much the effect type I was going for – I’ll definitely have to get a better pic of the base and add it in later on. 🙂
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Pretty cool work all over. The metals on the armour, the base… everything looks great!
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Thanks! It came out pretty well for a simple Boardgame mini!
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What are you talking about, mate? That’s Pudge from DotA x3, not abominations! 😉 It made me feel nostalgic to see these guys again. I loved Warcraft III and any fan of that game can never forget the treachery of Arthas. I played way too much DotA (and tower defense maps…) later on too which was even more hours in Warcraft III. You did a fantastic job painting up these minis. They may not be the highest quality but you captured the characters from Warcraft perfectly! The ice effects are especially cool as well.
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Hah 🙂 you know I’ve never played DotA? Enjoyed WC3 but really spent a lot ot time (too much!) in WoW, especially WotLK! Thanks!
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DotA has a huge amount of strategy and skill to it but also has a toxic online player base that will call you every name in the book if you don’t pull your weight since it is a team game. So I guess it is similar to WoW in many ways 😉
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Heh, I found WoW wasn’t too bad when I played – just a matter of either playing solo-duo or finding a guild with the right level of hardcore-through-to-casual to match your preferred style of play… I’d almost be tempted to go back and see the new expack, but the time committment… 😮
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Wowww
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Haha thanks! 🙂
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:))
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Excellent painting as always. A great “eclectic” bunch.
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Thanks mate! In World of Warcraft Arthas is the literal king of the Scourge (evil undead armies) while Abominations are more or less “ogres” in the army – so mini-bosses and elite troops so they’re part of the same faction despite the very different design ethos on both.
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