No, you haven’t clicked on an old blog post from 2003, I really have painted a couple of 21 year old sculpts. It is a shame I had to pay 2024 prices and not 2003 prices, I guess the Liche Priest and Mounted Liche Priest deserve 2024 paint jobs then. In today’s post I share my experience and tips with working with metal models.
These models were originally released before Games Workshop moved to CAD sculpting (computer-aided design). This means they were sculpted at 1:1 scale in greenstuff and then cast in metal (then cast in finecast, but less said about that the better) and now, 21 years later cast in metal again. After years of painting, crisp, sharp, detailed plastic models I had forgotten just how wonky old metal models were.
The first obstacle for metal models are the mould lines. You need a decent set of metal files to painstakingly work around the component and remove the unsightly line left over from the manufacturing process. If you don’t, it will show up 10x worse once paint is applied.
The Liche Priests are single piece models and the skeleton horse is two pieces. I decided to keep the rider separate from his mount for painting. Here you can see in my WIP twitter/X post I have him mounted on a paper clip pushed into a cork. This cork is held in a painting handle.
Metal models suffer from paint chip really easily and you can rub the paint off just by handling them so a painting handle is a must, preferably one with a finger rest to keep your fingers away. Once painted, I snipped the paper clip leaving around 7mm exposed. I then drilled a hole into the back of the horses spinal cord and using super glue “pinned” the model in place. Gluing the rider to horse without a pin is a nightmare as the contact areas aren’t flush against each other.
How to paint Tomb Kings of Khemri Liche Priests
The majority of colours and techniques I used for my Liche Priests are covered by my Tomb Kings of Khemri recipe card. The main thing missing is the desiccated skin, but do not worry, I document it below.
Liche Priest Skin
- Administratum Grey basecoat
- Basilicanum Grey + Contrast Med. Wash
- Administratum Grey highlight
- Deepkin Flesh highlight
- Pallid Wych Flesh edge highlight
What do you think about the return of old models? Are you a fan?
2 Comments
Leave a Reply
Tale of Painters is the unofficial Warhammer hobby magazine run by hobbyists like you. Support our work by using the affiliate links from our 🇺🇸 / 🇨🇦 partner stores for your next orders so we can continue to bring you fantastic FREE content every day:
Or support us directly:
Great article. I really like how the sponging technique has made the armour come to life and given highlights and weathered look in one. Amazing work.
Great article. It’s a very different challenge painting metal models isn’t it. These have come out really well. Amazing work.