Die Hard skeleton unit and refreshing an existing paint job on Morghast Harbingers

I love (almost) every model made by Die Hard Miniatures. I previously painted the best Necromancer miniature in the world (in my humble opinion) and their wonderful old school Chaos Lord and Witch. Their best line of models (once again, my opinion) is their line of undead (both Fantasy and Sci-Fi). One day I hope to own at least two buckets of these models. A while back I took a small step towards that magical day and ordered a full unit of twenty skeletons to paint up as a unit. I recently put the finishing touches to them. 

"I can't believe we survived our run in with the Red Count", Alex the Accordionist tried to say. But somehow all that came out was a dry rustling moan.

This unit was made by mixing Die Hard Skeletal Anti-Heroes, Skeletal Spear Unit and the Undead Fantasy Command Group. I ordered the unit intending to use it as a third all metal skeleton unit next to my Fir Bolg skeletons and the venerable Nightmare Legion. However these guys are so bulky, well armored and detailed, I think they will act as a second Grave Guard unit instead. 

After a short speech by their new general, Conrad the Red Count, the Brave Companions (deceased) tried to leave the battlefield in protest. To their surprise their legs marched them straight towards the Brave Companions that had survived the Red Baron's original onslaught. 

Painting the models took more time than I anticipated. This was mostly due to the fact that I started by rusting them (applying many red-browns and oranges through an airbrush), then painted in the bone and then lost my clue as to what to do next. Basically they where rather brownish and bland and I had no idea how to proceed. I literally had them standing at the edge of my painting area, looking at me with accusing empty eye sockets. I added yellow shields in the hope this would pull me out of my slump, but yellow is basically just a very cheerful brown, so it didn't really help. I then added a bit of Ryza Rust to a couple, but well orange is also just a cheerful sort of brown when you get right down to it. I gave them a soft drybrush with a metallic, but that was just window dressing. Ah the troubles of an armchair necromancer...

On a less whimsical note: using black and brown oil washes really helps pull out detail on models like these. Also: when in doubt, just start washing.

In the end I decided to stop making excuses about not knowing what to do with all the browns. I varnished the models with Alclad II gloss varnish and had a ball applying brown and black oil washes. After taking of the excess oil and varnishing the models matt again, they started to pop. I painted everything I didn't want brown a light grey. After this dried I used green glazes on the grey to get a washed out uniform color. Most larger bits of fabric, like cloaks and loincloths, I painted Caliban Green. I toned this down and dead by mixing the dark green with light grey to paint highlights. Now I can't wait to put these metal monsters to good use on the tabletop. 

Skeleton scale through the ages. From left to right: Celtos Skeleton, GW Nightmare Legion, Die Hard Skeleton, GW Plastic Skeleton, GW Metal Grave Guard and GW Plastic Grave Guard.

For those of you wondering about scale. Here's a line-up of skeletons from different units I own. From left to right: Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton, GW Nightmare Legion, Die Hard Skeleton, GW plastic skeleton (current version), GW Grave Guard (metal) and finally GW Grave Guard (current plastic). I may own too many undead....nah nonsense :) Hopefully I'll manage to get that insane box by Warlord Games this year. 

Not quite sure if this is the proper way to safely store miniatures (well actually I am, lets pretend I did not post this picture).

In the meantime I found a couple of forgotten 'mystery zip-lock bags' in storage...

Some of the models even came out intact! Who would've thought...

....wheeeee expect some kind of old school restoration program of some of these soon. Its not that I have a million other projects I'd like to finish too. And then Total War: Warhammer III was just announced. I'm still hoping they'll include The End Times campaign in this release.

Morghast Harbingers

They may be wobbly modern plastics, but they look cool as hell.

As a small aside I recently refreshed the paint job on two of my Morghast Harbingers. I assembled and painted four of these models years ago as I was completing a full on AoS battalion built around Neferata. I vaguely recall there was also an Armies on Parade in the near future and I really wanted to finish the four Morghast quickly to put them on my display. I did succeed at the speediness (and I won bronze at the event), but the haste showed. It was so bad, I almost never played with the models, knowing I'd spend the evening hating my paint job. Recently I really needed some heavy hitters on the table. Staring at the Morghast that evening I decided I'd had enough and I would rework them as soon as possible. 

Before (right) and after (left). I think reworking the paint was a splendid notion.

Here's a semi before and after pic (I only updated half of the quartet so far (and should've put before on the left, but never mind that)). Reworking the paint turned out to be easy. I could pull of the armor bits (they were glued on after painting the first time, which helps the bond stay bad (never mind this odd sentence)). I took an airbrush to the bone and wings, adding extra layers of thinned down white to reduce the drybrushed look and cover overspill from a general sloppy paint job. Then I applied gloss varnish (Alclad II is awesome for oil washes) and gave the bone and wings a couple of different oil washes. I repainted the armor dark blue and gold, taking care to practice my edge highlight technique. I also actually fully painted the halberd this time. Leaving the quick and dirty green airbrush job intact on the blade, but adding some much needed highlights there. I painted the haft black (out of ideas) and drybrushed it with grey. I also added some gold to the ends. A small effort to get a much beter look I think. 

All in all it goes to show it's not a bad idea to grab a model with a dissatisfying paint job and just rework what you have instead of instantly going for a dip in Biostrip. As long as the paint was applied thinly...