Graeme's Formidable Fimir - May's Leader month (388 points)

 Graeme's Formidable Fimir - May's Leader month

OWAC4 - May

Leaders

I came dangerously close to the field of bones this month.  I had grand visions of a glorious array of leaders and fluttering banners for May. So I made a start on painting 9 leader/command figures, played around with some conversions for a banner, and started prepping some interesting stuff for June.

These grand plans slowly ground to a halt, as real-life graciously provided the rusty spanner which was dropped surreptitiously into my finely-oiled (if whisky counts) painting machine…

It seems May was a pretty tough month for most people in the challenge, either with distractions from work, or waning motivation.

In the end, I had a real last-minute rush to get these finished off. I'm not completely happy with the results, so I suspect I'll go back and tidy them up at the end of the challenge.

The Meargh is an optional character in the Fimir army list, but I couldn't imagine my army without one. It's one of those iconic Nick Bibby models, that everyone (of a certain age) recognises...

For the Meargh, I went with a colder pallete, to give a contrast with the rest of the Fimir I've painted so far. In a similar way to the Chaos Hounds, I went for a higher contrast with the skin colours, especially on the face and hands, to give an impression of a gaunt old Fimir witch-hag. I went with colours I've not used before, to push myself a little. I would have liked the highlights of the mauve to be a little stronger, but it does make for a suitably intimidating figure, and it makes the gold/brass ornaments stand out quite well. The moss skin tones worked out a little darker than I was going for - I was aiming for a paler, more sickly look. The contrast with the robes seemed to work out fairly well, though, so I'll take it.

1 Meargh (Level 15 wizard) :194 pts

Hand weapon

I'm very glad I started the Warlord figure in April - the armour and weapons gave me a fair challenge to achieve the look I was aiming for. Again, I wanted to suggest ancient weapons and armour dredged out of the marshes, with some scraps of mail scavenged from the victims of previous battles.

The chainmail hasn't turned out so well in the photos - the lighting emphasizes the brown ink wash I used, and the metal drybrush doesn't show up too well. I do like how the other metal turned out though. There was a lot of experimenting with different colour inks, some washes, verdigris, and drybrushing, which I think gave it a bit of depth and an ancient look. The skin did turn out a bit darker than I was expecting, which gives a good contrast to the metals, but not much contrast with the verdigris, which went from a shockingly bright blue, to almost green with the washes and inks. I had to give it another layer in a few areas to try to make it stand out.

1 Warlord (Level 15 champion) :194 pts

Hand weapon, additional hand weapon, light armour

Army total so far:    930 pts

May:                          388 pts
April:                           150 pts
March:                        202 pts
January:                     190 pts

Yet again, I delivered a lot less than what I was hoping for, but it’s another small step forward in the quest to finally build a legit Fimir army. This month's points were sorely needed. I'm tantalizingly close to the 1000 point goal. However, I’m determined to continue after this OWAC and build up a truly impressive force out of them.

There’s plenty in the pipeline for June, but I'm worried I'm not going to get through June's rank-and-file quota. I’ll need to do some serious time management to meet the deadlines. I suspect some late nights will be in order. It's worth it, though - the finish line is in sight! Fingers crossed!