Thursday 12 February 2015

From PeterB - Oldhammer Undead (150 Points)

I always planned to paint a number of 28mm figures as part of the competition, I've brought forward the start of these as I'm spending so much time away from home during the week and need something light to transport and relatively simple to paint.

I have a load of old Citadel figures and paints from the 1980's that I'd like to get painted over the next few years.  This started during the revival of Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition or 'Oldhammer' as it's now been called.  I have hundreds of the plastic skeletons and had always wanted to paint up an undead army. I planned to start this a couple of years ago but never git much beyond designing an army and undercoating a few skeleton cavalry figures.

Given that the undead are light and do not need too many paints, I've decided to try and paint as many rank and file skeletons as I can before the competition ends.  I'm restricting myself to the original citadel paints for the figures as I still have all of these and they are still useable after nearly thirty years.  I will be using modern day tufts for the bases though as these are so nice compared to old static grass.

I started painting the skeletons a couple of weeks and after a marathon basing effort this evening I now have thirty figures completed.



I painted up 10 archers initially as I wanted a small number of figures to practice painting bone.  I like how these turned out.



Next up was 20 Grim Reapers, skeletons armed with two handed scythes.  I'm really pleased with the way the wooden handles turned out.



The bases consist of three different colored tufts highlighted with Miniature Paints Cream.  I chose these colours as I want the vegetation to look like it has had the life sucked out of it by the Undead forces as they advance.  I think this has worked out quite nicely.



I've really enjoyed painting these figures, it took me back to when I first started painting and had to experiment with paint mixes to get the colours I wanted as there weren't too many shades around initially and paints were expensive.



Next up is a unit of 26 warriors.

From Curt:

I love these old school skellies - especially the boney fellas with the scythes. The dried grass tufts also provide an effective dessicated effect for the bases. Great stuff!


19 comments:

  1. Great painting work! There are a lot of bones there!

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  2. I remember these guys from my youth. Really cool figs. Great job

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  3. Lovely skellies Peter and a fantastic idea with the bleached-out tufts :)

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    1. Thanks Tamsin, had a bit of a brainwave with the tufts. It doesn't happen often.

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  4. Gosh these take me back! Excellent!

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    1. Thanks Chasseur, it's good to know that they're bringing back good memories for people.

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  5. Great job, love the Oldhammer. Grim reapers are the best type of skeletons!

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    1. Thanks, I know what you mean. Grim Reapers just sum up the undead for me.

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  6. How awesome. My second army was these guys. A shame they managed to complicate such a simple idea. Top painting and the bases are a perfect match.
    cheers

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    1. Thanks, yes it's a shame they had to mess with all the armies really.

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  7. They really do look good. If I could have painted that well when younger my undead army would have been fearsome indeed.

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    1. Thanks Clint, I wish I could have painted better when I was younger. I still cringe when I think about some of the stuff I painted.

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  8. Cracking job on the skeletons, took me back a few decades

    Ian

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    1. Thanks Ian, it's good that they are finally painted after all these decades.

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  9. Oh boy, this really takes me back. My first Warhammer army was Undead thanks to the cheapness and ease-of-painting offered by those plastic skele-bones. Great work--you really did them justice!

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  10. Now that's proper Oldhammer! Nice work.

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