Chaos Sorceror Maalicia Ironhoof painted

This weekend I plucked another model out of my 'to be painted' box. In this case it was the 1987 Chaos Sorcerer Maalicia Ironhoof. I saved the model because I really like the classic Chaos Wizards. In the case of this one the face on a stick with the faceless hood combination is just so wonderfully Old World. In my mind she's got a perfectly human face until the mask comes off. Then there's the void...

Now to think up a proper backstory as to how she lost that leg.

I started this model priming black and going for a zentihal coat of white on top of that. At this point I decided I wanted the robes to look luxurious in either pink or green. In the end I settled on green. I started out airbrushing, starting with a random dark green and lighting this up. I ended with a (brushed on) edge highlight of the top folds. It looked awful. So I decided to get creative. I took some GW Warpstone Green on my palette and used a small flat brush to overbrush this on the failed airbrush job. Overbrushing is reminiscent of drybrushing in that you softly move a brush over the surface to be painted. The difference is that you don't wipe off (much of) the excess paint and go for careful strokes. Using this technique I build the Warpstone Green up to Moot Green. The advantage of going for overbrushing was that my highlights where preserved (but toned down) and my shades stayed as well.

Wizard miniatures always brandish scrolls, while tabletop rpg and crpg wizards never get around to using them. Or is that just me?

I had a lot of fun with the skin tone. Recently I've been experimenting with going for a single color and just adding white. I expanded on this by mixing my own thinning medium (half Matte Medium, and half water with a drop of liquid detergent added). The thinning medium breaks the surface tension of the paint, allowing much thinner layers of paint to be built up. I also had some fun freehanding random sigils and black stripes of mystic text on the scroll Maalicia is holding.

I actually ran into a spot of trouble with the golden bracelets as these contrast rather badly with the skin. Note for next time: go for silver bracelets!

After the robes where done the rest of the model was reasonably straight forward. The fur was painted Nato Black and drybrushed by adding some white to the black. In went back later and drybrushed some Fenrisian Blue Streaks onto it. This makes it look more interesting. I also decided the robes where a bit too green and boring, so I freehanded Ulthuan Grey lines onto them (thinned down of course). I carefully put a black stripe beneath each line and used pure white to highlight the upper folds. Another subtle detail I added was a bit of blue wash in the recesses of the metal legs. And there she is: Maalicia Ironhoof covered in paint. I think I'll be using her to lead a Frostgrave Warband as soon as the quarantine is lifted. Now to find more of these classic sorcerers....