Painting Stormcast Ogres

It's funny how creative inspiration works, sometimes. I've been trying to find a painting scheme for my Stormcast for some time now – I've never liked the garish golden armour of many of the storm hosts, and even the silvered metal of the others has always seemed a bit too bland.

But when it came to painting them as a stand-in for Ogres in Kings of War things suddenly came together. I started looking for ways to make them look the part, so the metal became darker, the coats became heavy leather, the extra detail was picked out but not exaggerated, so they don't look so over-the-top. Finally, a splash of gory blood on them helped them fit the role of brutal, efficient brawlers.

I started off with a Wraithbone rattle can undercoat, then painted the cloth with Skeleton Horde followed by a dry brush with White Scar. Doing this first means the messy dry brush just adds extra white highlights to the other areas!

Next is the heavy leather which starts out with a generous coat of Wyldwood, and Aggaros Dunes on the inside. 

Contrast paint is fantastic on minis with lots of texture; ironically, that doesn't apply to GW's headline ranges: both 40k's Space Marines and AoS's Stormcast have large areas of more-or-less flat plastic that don't take Contrast paint well. You can see this particularly with the back of the coat on this figure, and was a key problem I had with earlier schemes.

Fortunately, this scheme wants the result to be messy! These are rough and brutal ogres, not shiny Eternals, so I'm not unhappy with how this appears, and it improves with the next step…

This is another dry brush, this time with Zamesi Desert. Have to be more careful with this one in order not to get any on the cloth, but that's not too hard.

I also painted the inside of the shield with Gore-Grunta Fur. Using vertical strokes and leaving tide marks between them creates a quick impression of wood grain.

Next is a big step: a smooth layer of Iron Hands Steel. I prefer this over Leadbelcher as it is warmer and a bit brighter. All armour, weapons, shield edge and facing, jewellery and the little flask were base coated with this. Aethermatic Blue was added to the eyes, shoulder pad, anvil, flask, sword, lightning on the shield … anything that could conceivably be glowing. (Note that the photo shows the shield a lot bluer than it is – that's a reflection of the blue cutting board it's sitting on!)

Then a generous coal of Nuln Oil was applied, followed by measured amounts of Agrax Earthshade. I want the metal to look heavy and well used, but not rusty. 

I've also highlighted the edges intermittently with Runefang Steel. I don't like spending a lot of time on edge lining, so just used enough to help pick out details.

Finally, the remaining details were completed. Scrolls were given an extra white highlight and the plume was painted with Akhelian Green – this reinforces the Aethermatic Blue nicely and gives the whole scheme a consistent emphasis. The belt was done in Snakebite Leather in order to contrast with the Wyldwood coat, and some Blood For The Blood God was splashed around; possibly a bit much on this model, I've generally kept it notable but low-key.

Ironically, the end result would probably have been just fine as, say, an isolated strike force stranded in Ghur, trying to fight its way to some objective, or maybe just back to civilisation. I may end up painting my remaining, valid Stormcast in exactly the same scheme. 

Ogre Warrior Regiment

Ogre Warlock and Berserker Bully

But for now I'm motivated to pull together all the obsoleted models into a Kings of War army, starting with a small Ambush force, but building to a full 2000 points, for which I already have enough. Though I am tempted to get some Greeks to supplement them…