Pig Orcs, The Swine Herd

These beauties are from Dragon Bait (https://www.dragon-bait-minis.com/) to accompany the Pig Orc Shaman I painted a few weeks ago. It's the same Zorn scheme for the models, albeit a different scheme for the bases as you can't achieve that green-blue hue with a limited palette. 

Here's a "warts and all" set of photographs of these beauties from the front and back. I've done it in order of my own personal preference as some were more successful than others, and honestly on some of them I did only the loosest painting for the unimportant areas. Small pouches? The mildest of highlights, if at all. Finger and toenails? A touch of grey and nothing more. Legs? Well, a bit of a skintone should suffice.

The focal points are head, chest and weapons and tightening the painting on those areas was really the goal for this project. I also aimed for a parody of Roman legionary shields as I felt it suited them, and created a touch of uniformity in an otherwise disparate group. Such characterful sculpts and an enormous amount of fun to paint them.

 

Nazgob, Orc Shaman

It's a classic sculpt, isn't it? Such a good one, and great to paint. It carriest the same weakness as all old sculpts which is the feet are horrid, so I've buried mine in lovely flowers.

Not a complicated paint for this. Same skintone as my Orc army with a little extra because he's a character model, and they deserve a little more effort.

• Skin. Dark Sea Blue. Moot Green. Greenish White, Ice Yellow and a little Sunny Skintone.
• Robes. Magenta. Ochre. Greenish White.
• Metal. Dark Sea Blue. Black. Greenish White. Moot Green. Magenta. 

 Most of my attention on this one went into the sword if I'm honest. While the magical bone staff is iconic, I wanted to play with adding more colour into my NMM but still retaining a shiny feel. This one has colour from the environment reflecting in the blade. The angles were quite gentle and I wanted to add more depth to them. While you can see the final version in the shots above, below is where I started and refined my way to.

 

Detective Apone, Robo Cop

He wasn't originally going to be a chrome dome you know, but I looked at the paints on the palette and thought "why not?" and here we are. With hindsight I'd probably swap the shirt and trouser colours round, rather than placing the similar colours of the chrome, shirt and badge next to each other, but when the mood takes you to paint a piece you have to go with it.

Again, I wanted to play with one idea - and here it's the NMM. Pusing myself to be more comfortable going quickly, not overthinking it, and achieving the desired effect without a whole evening of going back and forth. 

The base is an old one I painted a decade ago, and part of a larger set for a very long-term project I'm slowly building. Curiously, out of 80+ models I've set aside for this, this is the first one holding a weapon.

 

Pig Orc Shaman

Over on Mastodon, Berit ran a small challenge for #FediPaint to complete a figure with the Zorn palette. It's been a while since I did anything with a Zorn scheme, and felt this was a nice time to jump back in! Behold the Pig Orc Shaman, or the Boarcerer as my friend named him.

For anyone unfamiliar with the #Zorn palette it's ivory black, white, yellow ochre and cadmium red. This article (https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2021/02/02/colour-mixing-exploring-the-zorn-palette/) is a great illustration of the breadth of tones you can find in just these four paints. I don't have a perfect match to those, so forgive my substitutions. You can see me trying to find some skintones in the early mixes here. The palette won't stay this neat throughout the project though!

I have ten of these fabulous models in total and jumping straight into the shaman felt wrong, so I started with a couple of skintones on a foot soldier. He was also my test for quick steel on the helmet but gave me a good idea of whether it would work on the character.

So that's the shaman finished, and I'll continue with the other members of the warband in the same palette over the next week or so. Yes, I should be working on one of my army projects I commited to earlier this year but that's how just things are right now so onward!

Sir Rex Raffles

REx is *the* dwarf I've wanted to paint for decades, but felt the eBay prices were too steep to justify a purchase. I painted King Diamond for a friend last Christmas (https://www.nerodine.com/2025/12/king-diamond-imperial-dwarf-commander.html) and as an unexpected thank-you, he kindly gifted me Rex when we met up earlier this year.

This chap can trace his colour lineage back to Wayne England's beautiful Imperial Dwarfs in White Dwarf 135. I would recommend reading this article from the excellent Realm of Chaos blog rather than me rehashing what they've already said so well. You can see the blue and cream as a theme in my dwarfs across various model ranges (https://www.nerodine.com/search/label/dwarfs) and it's no coincidence, as the scheme struck me as impactful and somehow just right for these little fellows.

I don't like painting the chainmail on these older sculpts, so it's rather perfunctory but I tried pushing my NMM on the helm itself as the main attraction and feel the majority works well. The angry squirrel dog monster atop the helm is a mixed bag, but it's fine. Trying to be more precise on my mark marking for the tiny helm was sufficient reward on this piece.

• Cloth. Magic Blue is at the heart of the colour scheme. Highlighted with Ice Yellow or simply white, and shaded with Magenta to make it more interesting.
• Wood. Armour Brown as the main colour, then really whatever else was on the palette to make it lighter or darker in places. It's really about creating texture, then positioning the shield so the longer stripes follow the arm rather than cross them. Very happy with the result.
• Gold. Armour Brown, Yellow Ochre and then Ice Yellow or white. There's a little orange in there in places just for colour interest so it wasn't a straight gradient of yellow.
• Steel. Neutral grays with a little green to reflect the environment in the lower areas.

There were at least four models with a similar pose; two with helms, two with crowns, but this fellow just stuck in my affections and I'm honestly delighted he's now painted and in my army.

Prophet of Set

"You can't have your Thulsa Doom until you finish your Throm. So contemplate that on the tree of woe."

A fun sculpt from Dragon Bait (https://www.dragon-bait-minis.com/shop/miniatures/sculptors/brother-vinni/ts2-prophet-of-set-version-ii/), although I picked mine up from Fenris Games in the UK but he doesn't appear to be selling it any more.

• Skintones. I wanted to do something different and bring it closer to a pale snakeskin, so it's Phthalocyanine Green with Dwarf Flesh and Ice Yellow in the highlights to give an ill feel and accentuate the darker areas under the cheeks and brow.
• Base. The same as Throm to tie them together, so Phthalocyanine Green and Dioxazine Purple at the darkest, through to just the green, and finally Greenish White.
• Cloak and loincloth. Dioxazine Purple, Quinacridone Magenta and Dwarf Skin.
• Gold. Armour Brown as a base, then English Uniform, Yellow Oxide, Medium Orange and Ice Yellow. Trying to pay a bit more attention to the shape and shadows for once.
• Steel. It's just a simple gradient in neutral grays with a bit of the English Uniform and Dioxazine Purpleadded in light and dark areas for variation.

My interest in painting the back of the model was pretty low, so it received the most perfunctory painting and then I moved on. So onto the next!

Throm The Barbarian

We should be clear that Throm is clearly distinct from Crom, Thrud and Conan. Another cracking sculpt from Diehard Miniatures (https://diehardminiatures.com/product/throm-the-barbarian/).

This is actually the same palette as the recent Eru-Kin I painted up, but obviously different mixes and main colours. Magenta and purple are at the base of the skin, but there's a ton more ochre in the mix.

 

The blade's my favourite element of this. I'm usually a klutz when painting handsculpted blades and suffer greatly from the lack of precision lines you see in plastic kits, so tried very hard to make this one better. I took inspiration from this piece (Ta. Effort gone into the sword as I saw this one (https://www.instagram.com/p/DM8Zk0pOHpe/?igsh=MW05Y3BwbzdlNGo4dg==) from the excellent Robert Karlsson, but his is on a 75mm model and mine ... is not. I liked the subtle change in his colours with one side evidently brighter, and the lower half taking environment light beautifully.

It's not a big sculpt. I took an in-progress shot for a friend with my thumb as a comparison. My hands are not large, albeit wrinklier than I remember them from days gone by. 

This also encouraged me  to push up the basing. I've had success recently in making more interesting scenes and wanted to expand further, and the Micro Art scenic bases are great for this, so spooky lighting on the rocks or crystals was helpful to add colour to the underside of the barbarian and sword.

Escher's Day Off

I'm quite an unimaginative fellow by default. If you give me a model called orc, I'll paint him green. If you give me a Ultramarine then I'll paint him blue. The path to how I should paint it is given to me by the name or the range. This fun one from Asa Sculpts (https://www.etsy.com/shop/theoddwillowsculpts?dd_referrer=) doesn't have a name, other than sci-fi girl, and it's not part of a range, it's just a great sculpt and I was a bit stuck what to do to make it interesting.

I discovered it when I came across this version by Hugo Gómez Briones (https://www.instagram.com/p/DPwSKFviMVp/?img_index=1) and picked it up from Asa at SMC in 2025. It's not a large model, smaller than I thought it would be. It's quite intimidating to think of something novel when you're looking at work like this!

After mulling it for a couple of months, I painted it to match my Escher Necromunda gang, as a moment of levity in the grimdark of the hiveworld. I've aimed for trying to paint hair as a volume instead of strands, which is one of my frequent errors, and wanted a bright jacket that felt futuristic so hopefully this pearlescent neon-esque(ish?) attempt feels believable. With that said, many mistakes were made, but that's not the point of this one. It's a lovely sculpt and I wanted to try things.

I'm still using the same paints on the palette as the last few projects. The main paints are Quinacridone Magenta, Dioxazine Purple, Phthalocyanine Green and Yellow Oxide from the Mindwork Games heavy body range, then my old friends Greenish White and Ice Yellow.

Demonic Familiar: Hoodie

 This beautiful(?) model from Heresy felt like the answer to either "what's the antithesis to the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch" or "if Skaven were people, what would they look like".

You can grab yours here (https://heresyminiatures.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=103_95&products_id=48) and there's other familiars in this range too, which gives me ideas for future projects.

Lighting effects isn't an area I spend enough time on. This model started from a purple base and initially I wanted a single lightsource from the orb itself, but decided that didn't make sense with the shape of the object and the surface holes. As a result, there's a bright, warm front light and a cold bright rear light from the opposite angle. I feel the robes finished closer to a warm blue in shadow, but are (pardon my pun) overshadowed by the two light sources. 

From the storytelling perspective, I felt he was either retreating from the warm light into the cool comforts of a welcoming cave, or he'd been sent to retrieve the object for his master and was returning with his bounty. 

This was good fun. I should note I spent almost no time on the base itself, because that wasn't the purpose of this exercise - it's simply there as another surface to add light to. But you're smart, and already worked that out.

Eru-Kin Elite in Guardian Power Armour

It's quick and fun for the Nerdlings March mini of the month challenge over on Bluesky, using a few colours for other projects I'm painting. It's not polished or perfect, but was enjoyable to do something outside my usual comfort zone. Sometimes not overthinking is the way to achieve a fun result, then move on to the next project.

The main paints are Quinacridone Magenta, Dioxazine Purple, Phthalocyanine Green and Yellow Oxide from the Mindwork Games heavy body range, then my old friends Greenish White and Ice Yellow. The oranges are just mixed from the reds and yellows here. The blues are from the green and purple.

I won't keep it on this base, as I'll add the model to another scene and likely make a few adjustments to the paint, but it'll suffice for the moment. On we go!

Ravaella Lightfoot, Grisban The Thirsty, Ulma Grimstone & Logan Lashley

Not a catchy post title, but an accurate one. Our gaming group plays Descent: Journeys in the Dark every few weeks, and as we start into the second half of the campaign I thought it was time our noble heroes were painted. Considering we started playing this 14 years ago, it's overdue ...

Skipping over my decade of procrastination, from top left to bottom right: Ravaella Lightfoot, Grisban The Thirsty, Ulma Grimstone & Logan Lashley.

These are small models, so here's my faithful penny for size comparison again. That's approximately 20mm high ... or something like one and a half croutons for my American friends who will use any unit of measurement other than metric for simple activities.

As the sculpts are old and not great, it helps to ensure the deepest recesses are a consistent colour across the model and act as the darkest colour on the model, so I took the unusual approach after priming white of applying a heavy wash of colour. Notionally it's a match to the primary colour of the character's stats sheet, with a change to brown for Grisban rather than red. More importantly, it hides my painting crimes, because these are quick paintjobs.

The paints used on this? Many. Too many. Usually I'd try and provide a step by step, but really it was a bit more chaotic than that on this project. I don't think the photos below cover all the paints used! The leather straps on Logan's chest were a mix of African Shadow, Ochre, White and Sunny Skintone for example.

• Faces received the most time, with Sunny Skintone at the base of everything, using Dark Vermillion for shading and eye recesses. Definitely the best part of the sculpts, apart from Ravaella whose face isn't a great sculpt.
• Boots and shoes were mostly ignored as low interest items, so received only a cursory paint to highlight metal toecaps. Legs were the same, and just painted to match the main colour of the model.
• Metals. My old friend Dark Sea Blue is at it again, but I opted for an Ice Yellow rather than Greenish White I've used on other projects, which adds a nice green touch to the highlights.

Onto the tabletop with them!