Harlequin Carnival - La Danse Macabre

Ah yes that one . The hand holding the potion is from the empire wizard kit. Quite a few of my bits come from that kit so it is well worth investing in to convert things with. Great idea for the shadowseer. The only reason I started collecting DE originally was on the strength of the new models. (They are also very fun to use btw although struggle a bit sometimes as they are incredibly fragile. Had a raider blow up the other day and take 7 kabalite warriors with it. This is a common occurrence when our vehicles go bang) . They have to be my favourite models of GW's range so far.

Whew! Finally an update for you folks. A few other projects have been vying for my attention but I have finally turned my attention back to the carnival. 3 kymerae have been finished below. I took the riders off for ease of painting butI quite like them without so am contemplating leaving them off and using them as beast masters instead. What are all your thoughts on the the beasts without? Pics below.

They look awesome the colours of the plating is really nicely done. Could you get a pic of one with a rider on? Just for comparison. But at the moment I think they'd look fantastic without riders. The bases are also really well done, are they pre-made? or something you did yourself?

Also! can you recommend some kits for conversions? I have a GW order open at the moment and so far it contains:

Scourges (aweeeesome legs)
Wyches
Dark elf - witch elves
Banshee
Empire wizard (as per your recommendation)
Harlequin troupe

Cheers i think those kits you listed will cover most of it I think. The talos kit is also great for little weird mechanical arms, tentacles and drug vials if you want slightly weirder conversions for some models. The dark elf corsairs have some great cloaks and I am also eyeing up the new doomfire warlocks torsos for my mandrake conversions. I might buy the box and take the bits I need and sell the rest as the dark riders. Multiple kits can be great In terms of bits the empore greatsword arms are really good for the poofy upper arm bits and also the great cannon gunner legs are great for cutting up for the same reason. Also the flagellant kit has load of litttle great tokens/trinkets that can be used to add a little character. I would not recommend buying the whole kits to get these bits though so if you can find them on bits sites that would be much cheaper as most of it would not be useful I dont think. I get many of my bits from these sites. I just tend to scour them for anything that looks cool and I think I may be able to use and buy a whole load for my bits box. Then you have alot of choice when converting and can go as wild as you want without having the expense of buying whole boxes. Posted the pic of the kymaerie with riders below. I like them alot with the riders on but think. It might be a bit complicated/time consuming to paint and think the lions by themselves work well, especially when seen as a unit with the flocks and beastmasters. The bases are all hand made but I use scibor miniatures basing for the broken elfy bits. I then press moulded these and use milliput to get as many shapes and bits as and when I need. The grass tufts are from army painter and I think I got the leaves from ebay.

Yeh they do look good, but I agree, I think the fact that the beast master is the only 'human' model in the pack works a lot better. Especially considering the idea that a beastmaster in a circus is usually a guy with a whip and some lions

Yeh I use press moulding for grabbing details I like :)very cost effective. might have to consider it too for basing. I just bought loads of kits! so should have some nice bits soon! (but cant have till xmas.... sad face with having them, but having to wait). I saw some awesome razorwing flocks on another site the other day. It was like a termie base (60mm?) and it was like hundreds of swirling bats(?) not 100% they were bats, but it looked awesome.

had a look at the empire wizards sprues online and you were right, it was a must buy. Soooooo many goodies. I bought soo much fantasy :DGot 2 dragons for my 2 fire prisms, actually no ones stonehorn. Which will have the old school prism mounted on it. The dragon I want to convert to having a 'breath' style prism cannon. Just not sure how im gona model crackling energy. I think a bits site sells some reasonable looking psychic power stuff.

I need a little advice, in terms of painting what colours would you use for a sort of grim harlequin. I dont want to go with the super bright, every colour look. I want to represent the darker side, as in the fluff they talk about their masks showing the enemies greatest fears etc.. and the hallucinogen grenade packs. Thinking like on Dark knight when there all infected with that toxin and batman looks like one scary [bleeped] fella.

Do not attempt to bypass the swear filter please. Gob.

I was thinking deep red, an electric purplish, perhaps some jade green with a black and white basis. Not too sure :/

Found these actually

http://www.gardenninja.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/eldar/eldar-harlequin-6.jpg

These colours look pretty sick :)I could go slightly darker than that look.

Hmm I think you are bang on in terms of colours. Lots of dark purples, reds and green will work well with black/dark grey. Interesting ideas for the dragon conversions. Would like to see them when they are finished. Think you should start a project log to chart your progress with your army and show off your conversions

Really digging the lions. If you are doing something of a circus inspired beastmaster, you could always add Tigers and Bears. They could all be counts as Khymerae but it would add the variety of the animal trainer having a plethora of animals to show to his audience. For some reason I envision a big burly dark elf (if thats possible) in long pants with suspenders and a top hat and whip leading the animals.

Very inspirational work, I have enjoyed seeing all the beautiful creations you have made

Thanks algae. I think tigers would be a great idea as variation to the beasts and wanted to do a bear for my clawed fiend but not found a model I like yet. Any thoughts on tiger & bear models? I still have one more beast master to make so will take your idea and try to do a conversion for it. Also doing a couple of circus monkeys as a substitute for 2 more razorwing flocks

Actually for the bear, there is a nice looking armored bear on Scibor's website.  I think it can be viewed with this link here.  The bears are pretty large, as I think they are used for calvary.

Alternatively there is also Reaper Miniatures Dire Bear.  This is more of your traditional standing up bear.  I am not sure of scale, but judging by the scale on the bottom of the Reaper website, it looks to be over 2.0 inches, I would estimate 2.5 inches, which puts it at around 63mm.  Pretty massive.  Here is a scale shot I found


Tiger is a little more troublesome.  I am sure there are some out there, but I was unable to find any right away.  Will look and post if I find one.  

Cheers

Yeh il start a project log post xmas once ive put the final touches on my ork army Think il do a couple test models to try out some colour schemes beforehand though.

I wonder if there is any way to use an airbrush to achieve some nice pattern effects. only just really started to get into airbrushing and im mostly sticking to larger models at the moment.

Looking forward to your monkey flock that sounds neat. But yeh you should give one of your beastmasters a top hat for sure! I cant think of any bear models, the ones I do are mostly on the larger scale.

OOOO, but saying that, One of the shops I buy my warhammer from sells lots of kids toys and they always sell little plastic animals. Have you thought about using some of those? Not only would they be pretty cheap but im sure you could get any stance as there must be hundreds of variations on the web. In fact i might have a look for myself! sure I can get plenty of lizards and such for some bike squads

In fact:
heres an example for 2 seconds on amazon : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schleich-14685-Grizzly-Bear/dp/B009MJU9RE/ref=sr_1_6?s=kids&ie=UTF8&qid=1386188466&sr=1-6&keywords=toy+bear



That the right sort of tracks?

Got an airbrush but only got as far as the occasional basecoating so cant give you much help on that front I am afraid. That bear is pretty cool. Have to check sizes ect and have a look at the reaper & scibor bears as wellut great idea on the toys. Gives me plenty more options to look around for.

Hi folks. Life has been pretty busy lately so my hobby time has been limited, as work and socializing has been sucking all my spare time away. I have, however, managed to paint up my second razor parrot base. I am very pleased with the results of this. I wanted to do something different in colour for the box, as the other base has a nice golden cage, so I decided to go for a rusty old box look instead. I tried the new gw technical paints for this and have to say they both are pretty good. I especially like the wash that leaves a fine gritty texture when dry, and they dry brush paint complements this very well. I used a combination of drybrushing and stippling to get more of a rusty look than just dry brushing would achieve. The parrot colours I googled some parrot pics so I could get a reasonably realistic colour scheme on each. Hope you like them

Greetings evil ones! I have an update on my circus pack. Behold my razor monkey (or kym-monkey depending ) . I made this chap out of the jokaero kit with a little modification. The feet were chopped off at the ankles and repositioned so the body had more of a forward slope, then the left arm was removed at the elbow and pinned in a new position more across the body. The right arm was chopped in half and pinned at the shoulder and the top half re sculpted. The idea was to have the monkey look like he is jogging atop the ball rather that just standing, so I wanted all the body parts to try and reflect that. Overall I think it was quite successful. What do you guys think? I really enjoyed this little project and plan to do a few more monkeys for my circus pack.

HAHA HE LOOKS AWESOME!His top hat is marvelous

I think you managed to capture a sense of motion pretty effectively and your cover up GS work has turned out nicely I actually really like the ball the colours it is at the moment reminds me of a swirling ball of energy. Whats it made from?

Looking forward to seeing a lick of paint on this dude.

Looks fun and I don't doubt it'll be a nice piece once it is painted. What will it be used for? I mean as DE unit or non-DE? Great job as always, your conversions and ideas inspire!

Thanks ver much both of you guys

@solar shock. I hope the gs work blends in well once he is painted as sometimes it is hard to see any inperfections until the paint is applied. The ball is a,devout of a polystyrene ball I bought from a party shop. It then had multiple layers of pva glue and liquid green stuff (+ a lot of sanding) to get a nice smooth surface which also was hard and not likely to dent like polystyrene. I never thought about the swirling vortex idea for the ball (which is pretty cool) as I was planning to paint it as a funky beach ball. Hmmmm ideas ideas

@ facelessabsalom. I will be using him as part of my DE beast pack. Originally he was planned as a counts as razorwing flock but I think he will also be standing in as a counts as kymerae depending on need. I had a lot of fun converting him up and plan to paint him over the Christmas period so hopefully will have a painted update soon.

Merry Christmas to you both!

Just want to add another vote if praise - I love the dancing monkey! Can't wait to see it painted :-)

Thanks plastikente. I plan on getting him done this coming week hopefully. Ah the joys of working in a school will post him up soon

Can everyone say MONKEEEEEEEEEEY!

MONKEEEY!

lol this army, so original.

Certainly not how I would handle harlies, but it's still a very nice log to follow

Thanks khain mor. I think the harlequin theme has been overshadowed by the carnival theme as the log has progressed. I am happy where it has taken me as it has pushed me to up my game both in the painting and modelling departments and I have really enjoyed making some wacky things and coming up with ideas, but certainly the army is more a carnival now than a harlie one.

My word, that is brutally hilarious.