The Neverness Hobby Chronicle

Now this is a classic miniature!

OK, yes, actually they both are.

From the original Champions Of Chaos WD ad.

Barely battle-ready.

I used Black Templar Contrast Paint on the swords and armor, Warpfiend on the flesh with a wash of Druchii Violet to get the skin tones started and a brown for the scroll. 

A lot more battle-ready!

Next I basecoated the leather bits in Abaddon Black and the sword using an old Citadel color called Polished Blue. 

It took some time, but progress was made since Daemonettes En Plastique part-1. Not so much individually, but as a collective.

"What are you screaming for? We're finally getting painted!"

There are twenty of these fiends (two squads of ten) and working on them in this assembly takes some time.  I worked on them during fleeting moments, applying the Warpfiend Grey basecoat as carefully as I could, as well as painting the Territorial Beige on the bases.

One half of the column...

...the other half of the column.

After that the Druchii Violet wash was applied. Thankfully I was able to get that accomplished in one afternoon when a two hour window of opportunity opened for me.

Druchii Violet wash

At this point I am thinking of focusing on these Daemonettes five models at a time, like what I'm doing with the Concord c3 Strike Troopers, so that they don't end up looking like they have been rushed. It's a noble thought anyway...

Back towards the end of the summer of '17, I began assembling the first few of my plastic Daemonettes. I learned that the instructions aren't too helpful, at least not the ones from the original kit, in determining which legs go to a specific torso. In fact, at a glance, it would appear that you could mix them up. But you can not. It took some time to figure out and properly match them up.

"Get it together you lot!"

The legs and torsos are aranged on the sprue so that you assemble them according to their layout. This only matters with the legs and not the arms or heads which you can mix up as you please. It would have been really kind of whomever drafted up this original instruction sheet to have been a bit more clear about all of this.

With a sprinkling of skulls.

Never-the-less, I managed to get both boxes assembled  before Christmas arrived and I was looking forward to diving right into painting them when the New Year started. The cold and inclimate weather has been an obstacle with getting anything primed however.

(The above copy was written in early January.)

At this time it is early March, and Spring, for the most part, seems to have arrived early in east Tennessee. And I have managed to get some things primed when the opportunities have presented themselves.

Squad 1.

 Or at least until I ran out of Chaos Black primer. As evidenced in these photos my can petered out halfway through the priming process. Fear not, I already got a new can of primer and soon the rest will be coated. Then I will be launching Project: Slaanesh at full blast.

Squad 2.

So, yeah, nothing all that pretty in this post, other than seeing that Project: Slaanesh, as stated in my 2017 year end review, is going to really happen -and soon!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Greetings. As hinted at in my 2017 year-end -review, I plan (and/or hope) on making Chaos Daemons a focus this year. I will be starting with Slaanesh, or rather continuing on from the work I did last year (see Daemonettes-part-2 and The Return of She Who Milks part 4). But more on that in a bit. First, I wanted to take this time to look over the totality of my Chaos Daemon collection. It is a rather strange collection spanning decades, and game editions.

My collection started with Nurgle, a history I discussed before when I showcased my old Deathguard models. These daemons were part of that collection, and the standout (because tbey came to me already painted) models are these Nurgling bases and Beast of Nurgle. These are the origional Rogue Trader/ Lost and the Damned miniatures. The Beast of Nurgle, in my opinion, is the still the best version GW has ever produced. The mid '90s versions were just pathetic, the '00s version was just...ugh. But the newly released plastic kit is very good however and I think I just might get one. Or two.

The Original Nurgle's Rot.

The plague continued on into the '90s with the collection of a unit of Plaguebearers. I found that the RT era and 2nd ed minis mixed well together. Both eras had the "Alfred E. Newman" smiles and the large feet. I hated the 3rd version with the fork tooth swords and melted features. The new plastics are great and I have some of them as well as these old pewter guys.

"What? Me rot?"

These are the original Flamers of Tzeentch, except for one guy who is actually an old Tzeentchian Renagade Marine. The Rogue Trader era Tzeentch Chaos Renegades were extremely mutated with many of them having fungal bodies like the flamers do. They all became redundant in the mid '90s with the arrival of the 2nd ed Chaos Codex. With that book's expanded lore eliminating them once and for all thanks to Arhiman's Rubric spell. So, this lonely model ended up fitting in fairly well with these old Flamers.

The Flaming Shrooms.

Up next is the unit of beasts and I am looking forward to completing them soon. They are the original Fiends of Slaanesh. They are going to take a lot of work to get them done the way I visualise them turning out, but I think I can pull it off. More on them soon (ish).

Fiends of Slaanesh.

There is a lot happening in this next pic. Starting from the top left corner we have a disassembled Palanquin of Nurgle,  the Beast of Nurgle with Nurglings, and a few of the original Bloodletters. Next row we have the 10 plaguesbearers featured above. Row 3 have the Flamers of Tzeentch and Brimstone Horrors. Row 4 starts with the moon-headed sorcerer on disk, an original Great Unclean One (Giggles the Rotter) and finally a bunch of Pink Horrors of Tzeentch.

The denizens of the warp - in one box!

Assembled here are two of the plastic Daemonettes boxed sets which I started to assemble in late summer of 2017 and finally finished in December of 2017. This will likely be the first of everything here that I will paint in 2018. So more on them when they get their own posts.

The Daemonettes, waiting for their paint.

Here are some of my unopened blister packs and box sets. Starting with four Seekers of Slaanesh. These are the brilliant and highly coveted Juan Diez sculpts. I am still trying to decide if I am really going to open and paint these or save them for my son's college fund... and yes, I do have a fifth model somewhere that I bought loose on ebay.

The highly sought after seekers.

Here are most of the boxed sets I have yet to build.  Bloodletters,, the Tzeentch Flaming Chariot,  plastic Blue Horrors, the late '90s metal Keeper of Secrets, Juan Diez Daemonettes, plastic Seekers of Slaanesh, and Two Cannons of Khorne on each side of the late '90s Great Unclean One.

Boxed Chaos.

Here is a rarity: the pewter-cast Changer of Ways. Tbis is when they repackaged him and renamed him the Lord of Change for the early '90s distribution in the U.S. He is joined in this pic by two of the plastic Pink Horrors from the Silver Tower Warhammer Quest game.

Old Changer of Ways and new Pink Horrors.

More blisters! The green packs are all Blue Horrors. The red packs are Chaos Spawn and the black packs are the special characters Skulltaker and The Masque.

Horrors, spawns and characters.

Nurglings! These packs of mixed nurglings that span across each and every incarnation they have had in metal. I completely prefer the current plastics as far as bases of Nurglings are concerned, so these will likely end up scattered across my Nurgle miniatures as base adornments or riding on vehicles or something.

Nurglings!

And here we have Daemon Princes.

Prince of the (warp) universe.

Azazel is going to be a Slaaneshi Daemon Prince of course. The other guy....well, I sort of forgot I had him. I do think I orginally was going to paint him up as an Emperor's Children Daemon Prince, but I think he might just be a Black Legion one instead. Even though my Khorne Daemon Prince is wearing Black Legion armor already, but that probably doesn't matter. I have time to think about this further I think...

Finally, I got these recently, and I think they will give the whole army quite a bit more muscle and options. They should round out the force rather well and the Khorne set in particular will give my force three skull cannons.

Fodder for the fodder gods.

It will be interesting to see just how far I can get with all this, and hopefully it will also be fun as well.

Hold on, this is gonna be a big 'un:

Epic even.

I enjoyed the heck out of painting a few Slaanesh Daemons back in the Spring and I've been eager to do so again. In particular I am referring to Daemonettes Part 1 and She Who Milks. Both painting projects went surprisingly fast and I had hoped that I could pull that off again. This project will complete this unit of ten models. Since I have already gone into detail in Part 1 and on the She-Who-Milks thread, I shall not repeat myself here, however what follows is what I can best describe as a slideshow of those steps.

Primed.

Warpfiend Basecoat.

Druchii Violet wash.

Daemonette Flesh.

This next pic was a stage comparison showing where these models were currently at vs. How they would appear when done.

Stage comparison.(the flanking models are done.)

Warpfiend Flesh.

Slaanesh Gray and Slaanesh Grey/White Scar highlight.

Bone color on the skulls.

Next, the golden armor and trinkets where painted in Brazen Gold, then inked with Chestnut Wash before being layered again in Shinning Gold.

Gold areas after the Chestnut Ink wash.

Lots of details added.

"I shall call you Mini-Moo."

 The leader of this daemonic pack is the old epic Keeper of Secrets. Conveniently sized to also go alongside the old Daemonettes. I originally thought I could use her as a Herald, but another model has been selected for that honor (oooh, foreshadowing!).

Grabbing air.

I have nick-named this one 'Henti Fist', for reasons that ought to be apparent...

Tentacle arm.

These two are the same mini, just different colored armor. They have Fiends of Slaanesh heads and swords. Which had given me some neat color scheme ideas regarding my Fiends unit.

Fiend heads.

 And here they all are, finished and flocked and gathered in their daemonic brilliance.

All together.

And with that, all of my old Rogue Trader era Daemonettes are now painted. But my flirtation with Slaanesh is far from over. Oh no, this going to blossom into a full-on affair in the New Year.

As a natural transition from painting She-Who-Milks I turned my eye to trying this technique on some actual Daemonette models. My collection contains some of the original Slave to Darkness era models, some of the brilliant Juan Diaz sculpted ones, and a few boxes of the current plastics. I like them all despite their variety. The only miniatures I never really appreciated where the 2nd edition (40K) mid-'90s range with the overbearing lobster claws. They are not in my collection.

The Milkmaids of Slaanesh.

I decided to paint the originals first. I always liked the character of these models, they don't require assembly, and they aren't as intimidating as the Diaz sculpts.

Nine original Daemonettes.

These following models have been in my collection for years now. I got them thru an internet auction and was going to strip off their paint but something about the vibe of these models held me back from doing so. That vibe is seriously Slaves to Darkness inspired and I once had half an urge to paint the rest of my models to go with them.

To strip or not to strip?

While I ponder their fate further, I chose 4 Daemonettes to paint first. Starting with a black primer I then prodeeded to use Warpfiend to paint their flesh, claws and chicken feet.

Warpfiend basecoat.

 Then came the Druchii Violet wash.

Druchii Violet wash.

This was followed by a coat of Daemonette Flesh.

Daemonette Flesh.

 This was further followed by a layer of Warpfiend Flesh.

Warpfiend Flesh layer.

Followed by a top layer of Slaanesh Grey.

Slaanesh Grey.

The finished models.

The hair and tail feathers were finished by using a Formula P3 Beaten Purple with Lucius Lilac dry brished over it followed by a Druchii Violet wash.


After that I did the eyes which I think I got mixed results from. I painted them black, then followed that with Caliban Green in the middle of the eye area and finished that with a dot of white. Looks creepy to me...


There you have it, the first few Daemonettes are done and they were fairly easy. These old models were all unique and some of them have sick details on them that you don't discover until you try to paint them. For example the bald one with the gold chest armor has a tiny Mark of Slaanesh carved into its forehead which is tricky as heck to paint. I look forward to seeing what surprises await me in the next batch...

Opps! Forgot the claws on their feet! NOW they are done!