KrautScientist finally paints his HeroQuest set

[lestodante]

One of the best painted set I've seen!
Realistic paint bu also colorful, I really like the style you used.
Are you planning to paint some more pieces from the expansion too?

[KrautScientist]

Cheers, guys!

So, first of all, I hope everyone's had a good start into the new year!

I was lucky enough to receive a new piece for my HeroQuest collection over the holidays, courtesy of both Anderas and the 2019 Christmas Exchange here in the forum:

Thanks a lot, Anderas!

I also had quite a lot of fun coming up with my own contribution to the Christmas exchange, a converted Witch Lord model that I sent to fellow forumite Weltenlaeufer:

Now for today, I would like to talk about that model for a bit, because I think I have discovered a recipe for a Witch Lord conversion that should be fairly simple to reproduce with bitz that are still available currently, so if anyone wants a Witch Lord for their HeroQuest set, this might be of interest to you:

So I really wanted to do something cool for the exchange, and after giving it a bit of thought, I settled on the closest thing the basic HeroQuest game system has to an arch-villain: The Witch Lord, as seen here painted by the great Les Edwards.

Also, as some of you may still remember, I converted my own attempt at a Witch Lord model some time last year:

Now that conversion used an old early 90s GW model as its base, but back then, I also thought about a possible recipe for building a Witch Lord completely from plastic bitz. My inspiration was this renegade psyker (for Warhammer 40k) that I had converted a couple of years ago:

The basic combination of bitz at the heart of this approach – combining the legs of an Empire flagellant with a Skaven Stormvermin torso – makes for a slightly stooped and subtly sinister body that works for all kinds of villainous sorcerer types, Witch Lords included. But even though the basic idea was sound, it still took me a rather long while before I finally came up with a basic setup that worked:

Taking Les Edward’s illustration as my main point of reference once again, I tried to go for a model that would hit enough of the artwork’s visual cues to read as the Witch Lord, even if it didn’t reproduce every element from the artwork. I still tried to make it a rather close fit, though, and bitz from about ten different kits went into making the model look right, including a Skeleton warrior head, a ghoul hand, some Empire Knight feet and a Bloodletter mandible. By lucky chance, I tried the horns I got as a leftover piece from when I shaved horns off the one of the Chaos Space Marines' helmets to replace them with Khornate helmet crests a while back , and they really made the helmet work so much better.

Here’s the model just a bit later, glued together and with the necessary tweaks in place:

Up to this point, however, I still wasn’t entirely sure whether or not I was on to something. That changed after undercoating, though, when all the disparate parts really turned into something that looked reasonably closely like a HeroQuest model:

When painting my new Witch Lord conversion, I tried to basically recreate my earlier paintjob, with just a few minor tweaks here and there, and went for the classic triad of basecoats,…

…washes,…

…and higlights.

I spent quite a bit of time on that last part, obviously, to make sure the model would really work as a centre piece character.

So here’s my finished plastic Witch Lord:

I was really very happy with the outcome, as this felt like a worthy contribution to the Christmas exchange. And I do think the model holds up when placed next to my original Witch Lord model. Take a look:

I would be hard-pressed to decide which of these I like better. True, my original model is quite a bit flashier, on account of using a different base model, but the new version is actually much closer to the kind of model you would actually find in a HeroQuest set from back in the day (it is also, it has to be said, much easier to recreate for someone who wants to build their own Witch Lord, which is useful). At the same time, I did my best to create a subtle connection between both models: They both use an identical palette and the weird avian skull on their respective staffs is also just the same. And they both – hopefully – match the piece of artwork that inspired them to begin with.

The new Witch Lord also looks pretty convincing next to some actual HeroQuest models, if you ask me:

So that was my model for Weltenlaeufer’s HeroQuest conversion done and dusted, right? Not quite, because I wasn’t finished yet:

I also wanted to make sure the packaging matched the style of the model, and seeing how the Witch Lord emerges his tomb, as represented by the little sarcophagus that comes in the HeroQuest set,…

I thought it would be really cool to incorporate this element in my package as well, so I used “Keramin”, a plaster like material that dries really fast and hard, in order to make a quick copy of the lid:

Talk about happy accidents: The casting process was actually not quite perfect, leading to some bubbles that marred the face of the reclining figure. But they actually ended up making the face look even more gaunt and undead, which was of course ideal in this case:

So I painted the copied lid up in suitably stony colours…

…and used it to add that certain je-ne-sais-quoi to Weltenlaeufer’s package, so upon opening it, he would find this:

A recreation of the Witch Lord’s tomb, to be opened by an intrepid (or foolish) adventurer to unleash an ancient horror upon the Old World…

So yeah, that's about all for my Witch Lord conversion -- I hope some of you will be able to make some use of this recipe for their own conversions! And, as always. let me know what you think!

[Anderas]

Wow, you're painting a lot better than I do! I am honored that you say my orc has "Goodenough" as Family name
Would you mind touching up that sword hilt that I apparently forgot to paint and which is annoying me now everytime I see a picture of it?

[Weltenlaeufer]

I already said it on your blog when I saw how you went about building and painting this awesome christmas gift!! Even though I repeat myself I gotta say it again: Many many thanks brother! :):) This is special!

[Weltenlaeufer]

Hello Krautscientist, my "Inn-iversary" is coming up and I told myself that I want to finish painting my set until then. I got only the gargoyle, chaos sorcerer and furniture left could you please share how you achieved that insane wood effect on your alchemist table and what colours you used if you still remember??? And how you achieved this super realistic metal look on your tables? They look exactly like your key you often post.

[DullandRusty]

Aye, the wood effect is something I an still trying to learn too

[KrautScientist]

Cheers, guys!

The metal effect is quite easily explained: The metal was basecoated with GW Leabelcher, then given a heavy (!!!) wash with Army Painter Dark Tone (with just a tiny bit of Vallejo Smoky Ink added in for an ever so slight brownish, rusty note -- that part is optional, though). After everything was well and dry (!), I just went back in with the original Leadbelcher and added some small scratches, highligted the corners, stuff like that.

As for the wood, hmm, let me think. I guess the recipe went something like this:

1.) undercoat with GW Mournfang Brown spray
2.) basecoat with Vallejo Parasite Brown - this was key because the tone of the brown is really, really close to the wood colour used in the cardboard parts!
I also really went to town on the piece with the Parasite Brown, brushing and stippling it on with a coarse drybrush, thereby creating quite a bit of texture on the plastic. This helped later!
3.) Give the whole area a wash with Army Painter Strong Tone.
4.) Drybrush the corners with a mix of Parasite Brown and white. If you have managed to create a bit of texture during step 2.), also lightly (!!!) drybrush the surface, so it picks up just the tiniest bit of the lighter colour.
5.) Use a thinned-down lighter brown (I think I used GW Steel Legion Drab with just a tiny drop of yellow added in, but don't quote me on this) to freehand-paint on some woodgrain.

I think that's about it. Hope this helps!

[Weltenlaeufer]

Wooohoo! Thank you so much for this detailed explanation. I always have a hard time painting wood or a realistic looking metal effect! This helps me a lot to tackle the furniture!!!

[KrautScientist]

Oh, awesome -- I seem to have brought the spammers right to my doorstep

[ghost01013]

Looks Great