From Shortbow to Blowpipe

by Stefano

(or “how to get 5^th edition skinks into a 6^th edition standard army list")

Introduction:

In the late 90’s and early 2000, I have been playing with 5^th edition lizardmen armies.  One of the things I learned was that skinks are very useful if fielded in large numbers.  Therefore, I bought quite a few tens of skinks with short bows, but never came to nicely paint and base them.  So when 6^th edition came around the corner, I was faced with an overload of bow carrying skinks.  There is always the southland list, but I didn’t want to restrict myself all the time.

By that time, I was working hard on finishing my vampire counts army, so the skinks went back into the box until recently I saw an article on a website with pictures of converted skinks : blowpipe instead of short bow and even change into chameleon skinks.  Now I had an example to work to, so after finishing my 2500 pts vampire counts army, the skinks came back out of the box ! If you want to read about how I did my conversions, painting and basing, please read further on.

Conversion stage:

The nice thing about the 6^th edition skinks is that they come with javelins and blowpipes.  I decided to construct my javelin units with the 6^th edition models, leaving me the blowpipes and hand weapons to convert the 5^th edition ones.  The latter are made of two standard one-piece models, one carrying its bow in the left hand, the other in the right hand.  I took my chances and started to convert both types.

First, I cut off everything that is connected to bow shooting (bow and backpack with arrows).  This often meant re-sculpting of some body parts (back, leg, arms, jewellery, crest, …) to give it a natural “unconverted” look.

Second, I did some more cutting to fit the new right arm with blowpipe onto the existing right arm.  Depending on the shape of the arm with blowpipe and the pose I wanted to give the model, this varied from only the removal of the hand to the removal of the complete right arm.

Finally, I reshaped a little the hand weapons to fit onto the left hand.

The first model I converted took me more then an hour, just to get it into a natural looking pose and avoiding any “signs” of conversion that I could not disguise with paint.  Luckily the more models I converted, the quicker the process seems to go.  Hmmm, I am learning something after all …

Looking at the result of the first five models, I realised I even didn’t need green stuff.  I never thought this was possible …

Used parts:

• 5^th edition skinks, both poses
• 6^th edition skink sprue
• No green stuff

Painting stage:

Jungle creatures as they are, I always pictured my lizardmen as “easy to disappear into their native habitat”.   For me, Northern European, this comes down to an overall green(ish) colour scheme, based on holiday pictures of close friends who actually set foot in a Central American jungle.  If one observes existing reptilian animals, a lot of them have a dark “upper part”, and a more light-coloured “belly”.  So that had to go into the scheme as well.  For the weaponry and ornaments, I opted for dark wood and a copper look.

So, after the standard black undercoat, I started with the basic colours.  I opted for dark angels green for the skin, together with bleached bone for the crest, belly, bottom jaw and soles of their feet.  The eyes consist of yellow with a line of black, all wooden pieces received bestial brown, all leathery features snakebite leather, and metal was done with beaten copper.  Finally for the small clothes dangling from the lower part of the belly, I decided to alternate dark red and regal blue between the different models.

The inking stage boils basically down to black ink to create shadows and lines between objects, a green ink pattern on the belly and lower jaw to create a “segmented” look, and brown ink on all wood, leather and metal.

For the final highlighting, a mix of dark green and camo green finished with camo green did the trick.  The bleached bone parts were detailed with skull white, and all metal parts were finished by beaten copper and shining gold.  Little blue and red details were added in the jewellery to represent some gems.  The clothing received some lighter red and blue, while the wooden parts stayed untouched.

The final result can be found in the following pictures.

Used paints:

• Skin : dark angels green, cameleon green, mix of both, black ink
• “Weaker” skin : bleached bone, green ink, skull white
• Wood : bestial brown, brown ink
• Metal : beaten copper, brown ink, shining gold
• Leather : snakebite leather, brown ink
• Cloth : regal blue and enchanted blue or dark red and blood red

Basing stage:

To represent both aquatic and jungle abilities of the skinks, I had to get a combination of a swamp and jungle plants onto the quite tiny basings.

For the swamp, I started with some green stuff at all parts that stuck into the water (legs, shields, javelins, …) to give a feeling of movement in the water.  To represent the swarm, a coat of midnight blue, followed by consecutive layers of PVA glue was used.  I started with a mix with brown (to represent rotting vegetation), then green (the not-so-rotten-yet vegetation) and finally mid-blue (it still needed to look like water).

Jungle plans were created from aquarium plants, and glued to the basings.  The plastic of these plants is quite transparent, so to give them a “real” look, I painted them in a variety of greens, finished off with yellows.

The undergrowth finally was made by gluing green chips (sold in hobby shops, mainly to be used to create grass fields on railway modelling).  After the glue dried, this layer was finished off with brown ink, followed by drybrushing of dark green and camo green.

A finished basing before varnishing can be seen here

Used materials:

• Jungle undergrowth : Light green chips + brown ink + dark angels green + camo green

• Jungle plants : aquarium plants painted in greens and yellows

• Swamp : PVA-glue mixed with bestial brown, dark angels green, regal blue

Varnishing Stage:

To me, the final step of varnishing is quite important.  First, it’s necessary to protect the models from harm during transport and gaming.  Second, it can ruin your model if the varnish isn’t applied properly.

For most of my models, I start with a layer of gloss coat because such layer tends to protect models better then matt.  However, the model looks quite flashy both on normal sight and when photographed.  Therefore, I overspray them with matt.  For metal and/or wet parts, I apply another gloss finish by brush.

Here you see a completely finished model.

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