Age of Sigmar: Kurnoth Hunters with Scythes TO-DONE!!!

Hi folks,

This month has been a little rough, so haven't been able to do as much as I wanted to on the hobby front. Originally, I had intended to run an Age of Sigmar army challenge with two of my mates. Real life hit us pretty hard, though, so even though we have been making some progress, we are going to run it over a longer period. These Kurnoth Hunters are part of that challenge, as well as being my entry to a local painting competition.

I have really been blown away by the Sylvaneth. The sculpts are just stunning, though that brings with it an incredible challenge to construct and paint. With so many stylistic motifs, it is hard not to have a really busy pallet that makes for a busy model. Because of this, I have constantly found myself searching for colours that give a similar appearance but not quite, or metallic equivalents of other pigments I am using. Warm contrasting with cold, light with dark, metallic with chromatic and spinning the colour wheel. It never ends!

At 2 am this morning I finished the base construction for these hunters, then loaded the fire with more wood and crashed on the lounge with my new puppy. I managed to wake up early enough to paint the crystals and mushrooms, then dropped them off at my local Warhammer Store for judging. The other entries on display were all awesome, made even better by the support I know the community has given each other during this competition. They really are a bunch of excellent human beings! 

Here is a closer look at my project:

Huntmaster:

The Huntmaster comes with a different head (with weird antler things), a style of head I intentionally avoided using on the Treelord Ancient. I really stressed over whether I was going to use it or not, but decided I could use it to represent the Realm of Metal I have chosen for my army. As such, I painted them bronze/copper, transmuting into a crystalline copper compound, to match the bases. I thought that perhaps the longer a Sylvaneth lives in this realm, the more they transmute to match their surroundings. I like the concept and the blend I achieved, but really missed the extra leaves I could have had. I love my pastel green leaves!

The Scarred:

This model was profoundly chewed to pieces just before I started painting it. I spent three hours rebuilding his back so that the pieces would fit back together to form a whole model. I used some spare branches from Durthu to replace all of the foliage lost; I had lost all of it. The final proof of the rebuild was when I managed to get the wrist join to meet on the left arm. All things considered, it turned out really well, if not 100% perfect. The back is... interesting. It looks different to the others, but I included some neat circular shapes and spirals for some consistency. This guy has been through a lot, which adds to the story I think.

The Unsullied:

I really enjoyed painting this figure because it was simpler than the other two. No weird head and no risk that it wasn't going to all fit together at the end. 

I'll let you know the results of the competition when I find out, but at the least these were incredibly fun and challenging to paint. I'll definitely do another three at some point, to make the most out of those scythes and beautiful sculpts. For now though, I am very glad that they are finished and ready for a good nap!

See you across the table,

Marc