Necromunda: Painting scrofulous Scavvies

Necromunda has always been my favourite game, BFG a close second.
 
Like many following the demise of GW Specialist Games myself and Scipio have decided to get a few games going. This demise happened to coincide with me re-reading a lot of old 2000AD/Judge Dredd comics, so I was already primed for some escapades in the Underhive.To tie in my my burgeoning Nurgle force, I opted for some scrofulous and scabied Scavvies - long one of my favourite band of outcasts.

The gang is called the Court of the Blind King. Ironically, no one has ever seen him, but the gang has a reputation for gouging out the eyeballs of fallen (if they're lucky) foes as a trophy - which the Blind King is rumoured to keep in jars as part of his collection. Their Manifesto features references to things like tearing down the order of the smooth-skin normos...

Amongst the gang are the likes of Scraps, the gang's doctor (sort of); then there's Scabface Montana, the right-hand man (in fact, he has two.. right hands that is). Also notable is Pretty Boy Pickman, named for his relative lack of hideous skin diseases. 
 
In terms of appearance, I wanted to go for something close to lepers in black ragged robes and some of Otto Sump's most loyal customers (Obligatory 2000AD Reference...).

My first two loyal(ish) fighters. The skin is Codex Grey with Drakenhof Nightshade wash and Codex Grey/Bleached bone highlight. The off-white is Bleached Bone with an Agrax Earthshade wash and a Bleached Bone/Skull White (I think) highlight. The green is Loren Forest with Agrax wash and Loren Forest/Bleached Bone highlight. The black is Dawnstone with a watered wash of Chaos Black and a slight highlight of Dawnstone/Skull white. The red is just Blood Red over Red Gore.

Colour-wise I knew I wanted a bluey-grey shade to the skin, with mostly black and off-white robes. Part way through painting I decided an extra colour was needed, and opted for green to tie in with their alternate Nurgley usage (Chaos Cultists).

Inadvertently I realised I'd essentially replicated the GW studio theme, ah well. I would have gone for blue but there will be a lot of that on the Orlocks I'm also painting... . I wanted to use a bit of red too, but kept it to a minimum. It's just there too make it pop as it were. Scipio has also used red rather splendidly on his chaps (keep your eyes fixed on his blog for more on these), so didn't want to have these looking too similar.

Those long-time readers will know of my ambivalent attitude towards painting, summed up in my post Painting Doubts? Give it a go. Despite nearly two decades in this hobby, the number of miniatures I've painted is little more than one a year. But it's time for this to change. I decided to practice what I preach and dive in.

There's still a little work to be done, particularly highlighting, the existing highlightling doesn't show up too well in the photos. The stock of one of the scatter guns still needs doing and there's a few bits that need tidying up.




Buggered up the right (his left) sleeve a bit, was meant to be a slightly different shade to the rest but just looks unfinished. Decided to use green in the overall palette afterwards otherwise I would have gone for that, might go back and alter it.

The "new" minis needed a fair bit of glue to hold the parts in place (I'll pin them next time). Unfortunately, this did effect the painting of the cuffs and hands.

Still need to finish the stock, may make the already painted part a little darker. His footwear needs a highlight too.

Messed up the rope across his chest/back slightly, going to go back to that later and pick out the detail with a lighter shade, there wasn't enough of a raised surface to drybrush it (hence it looking a little muddy). Not too happy with the hair, rushed it a little.

Rust galore. Highlighting on the tunic (or is it a smock...) could be a tad more prominent. I forget that these are not going to be looked at up close on the table so my "subtle" highlighting can get lost.

Readers of the Palladian Guard may also know that I've also spent to past week speed scratch building terrain for the upcoming games. Scipio kindly gave me a shout out in his recent post on his Imperial Priest - if you haven't seen it yet, go now, the free hand work is outstanding.

Anyhoo, work is still continuing on various bits of scenery which I'll be doing a big post on shortly.

Ta for reading folks. TTFN.

Comments

  1. Underhive scum !

    Arn't they supposed to be whacked out on psychotropic fungal spores ?

    Otto Sump, perveyor of munce to the masses. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Scum and proud. I'm sure they'd buy their share of Smart Sweets too. I'm pretty sure they'll be suitably whacked out on fungal spores and whatever algae forms at the back of filtration units...

      Delete
  2. Got my 1st dose of 2000AD when we lived in Billericay, Essex back in the early 80's. After reading my dad's Eagle, it was the 1st comic I really collected. (Still have my issue 500 somewhere...)

    Saying that, (And I don't know why.) until now, I never thought to see a comparison between the 2000AD universe and Necromunda. It's a good one for sure.

    Necromunda was a great game, easier to get people into purely because it was so much more easier to get into for non-hobbyists who just wanted to play a fun game and not faff about with oodles of expensive figs.

    Can't wait to see what you and the Col. get up to with this. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brilliant stuff, I got into it a bit late, the same time I got into GW in the mid-90s. I got into it just after Necromunda had been released pretty much, maybe that's part of the reason it really caught my imagination. That and it's so damned characterful. Your summary is spot on there for my money.

      I only realised recently how much is almost pure plagiarism - beyond the obvious Arbites, MC1 = Hive City, Undercity = Underhive, Cursed Earth = Ash Wastes, there's the term Psyker, plascrete and plasteel, and so on and so forth... I remember the cover of GW's Block Wars having some suitably Goliath-y types on too. Warp Signal did a good post on this a while back
      http://warpsignal.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/unseen-influences-2000-ad/

      Looking forward to getting more Necromunda stuff on the blogs.

      Delete
  3. Nice! Those really turned out looking fantastic - great work!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks very much sir, really appreciate that :)

      Delete
    2. They are some nice looking Scavvies! I hope to see more of them!

      Delete
    3. Very kind of you :) Hopefully, if I can stick to the schedule, they'll be finished within a week.

      Delete
  4. Kieran, these look awesome. Necromunda is such a fun game - I've happy memories playing it back in the late 90s as well. That and Mordheim were such a fantastic paid of games! Very much looking forward to seeing more, and learning more about the grim rituals of the Scrofulus Scavvies!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks very much, really appreciate that. It really is a superb game, full of character. We shall be having a gaming weekend in a couple of weeks, hopefully a good chance for more photos all round.

      Delete
  5. Looking good - pity my righteous Redemptionists are going to burn them all to a cinder - or be burned to a cinder in trying. Repent!

    (Smashing stuff, and very nice photo work too that does them justice)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ta muchly sir, I suspect there will be a few fried muties. Repentance is not an option though. The photos turned out okay for the iPhone camera, considering there was sod all light anywhere

      Delete
  6. Really like these two. Scavvies are some of my favorite Necromunda minis and you've done a bang up job on them. Pinning metal minis can be a real pain in the pin vise, a quick and sturdy solution for small joints like hands and such is to apply glue to both sides of the join and stick a little ball of Green Stuff in the gap. When you push the components together the tacky Green Stuff will hold the join until the glue cures and when it hardens it will be very strong compared to just glue. Any excess Green Stuff that squeezes out can be trimmed away with a hobby knife before it hardens. Pinning is better for long term stability but I have loads of mins that have been assembled with the Green Stuff/glue combo, they hold up really well over time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks very much Chris, really appreciate that.

      That's pretty much what I ended up doing. But only after I'd got frustrated with the thing and foolishly drenched it in glue. The bald chap has one green stuffed hand as do a couple of the others, I just ended up making a bodge of it in my impatience lol. Will have to give that a proper try next time, thanks.

      Delete
  7. These are brilliantly done. I like the skins, I like the guns, I like to overall palette. You are going to enjoy gaming with these because they look great.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ta muchly sir, looking forward to getting some games in, hopefully they'll fare okay!

      Delete

Post a Comment