Darren Latham - Lord of Blights Masterclass - Part 10: Completed Figure

Hi everybody, I hope you are all safe and well.

We have finally come to end of the Lord of Blights Masterclass series. And here is the completed figure, scenic base/plinth and accompanying narrative I wrote for the scene:

 

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His scouts had led them true through the winding mountain pass with it's precarious conditions, wailing winds and winter climes. Although the cold itself was inconsequential and offered no real discomfort to their progress.

The horrific maggot-ridden bulk of Lord Korpulus Festerbile emerged from the crags where the path ended and opened out into the lands beyond.

An uncomfortable sense of unease drew his glance quickly to his side, whereupon he discovered a small shrine ensconced in the rocks by the entrance to the pass. Decorated with the sigils of the hated enemy, a twin tailed comet and hanging brazen hammer, travellers would leave votives here in the hope their beloved Sigmar would guide them safely.

Festerbile's lip curled in disdain. With a growl he hefted his heavy grime encrusted hammer aloft and brought it down with sudden brutish force, smashing and scattering the shrine and plate of offerings across the cold winter ground. The carrion birds in the boughs of the gnarled tree overhead cawed and glared uneasily upon the Lord of Blights.

Satisfied with his act of sacrilegious vandalism, he turned his attention back to the path ahead, a rough old road sign stood nearby with a single word written upon it; Latham. He surveyed beyond where the sign pointed, a short march down the thawing foothill into the vale below he could see the small unwitting town, smoke rising from the many cosy hearths and the early evening lights being lit.

It would be a matter of mere moments until the foulness and grotesquery of his war-band filtered from the craggy opening behind him. His mouth broke into a horrid drooling grin and with a deep phlegm thickened voice he joyfully intoned,

“Rejoice people of Latham, Grandfather Nurgle has brought us to deliver his blessings upon you...”

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Even though I decided to build and paint a plinth instead of going with a normal miniature base I still followed Darren Latham's Part 10 video for the most part:

(This is a thumbnail of the original video, unfortunately no longer available as of 18/05/2020)

I still followed the colour choices used in the video for the majority of the base. Darren had gone through the whole process of his colour theory on the miniature itself and painting the environment of the base to fit in with that process so it made sense to keep following the tutorial for this too.

The only deviation was the tree I built and that was painted using colour mixes of the other colours used in the basing so that it remained at least related to the overall scheme.

Since Part 10 is also essentially "The base" video, I took some pictures of the completed base before attaching the miniature to look at some of the details without him blocking them:

I really enjoyed building the shattered shrine for the base. Keeping the broken parts separate and pushing them into the snow after it was applied worked out how I imagined it would. My favourite part of this little bit of detail is the little pop of colour with the flowers and the coins that were scattered and embedded in the snow.

I also really like the little frozen pond/pool under the tree, just a fun grouping of details and textures, it's unfortunately mostly hidden by the miniature in the completed piece. It's now more like one of those hidden details you only see actually looking around the piece.

The icicles turned out well, I'd experimented with them a couple of years ago on a bit of spare sprue and was looking forward to being able to use them on something, this was the perfect opportunity. They couldn't be simpler to do and I'll probably do a little tutorial/tip post on them sometime.

For the snow on the base I settled mainly on the Greenstuff World Ralistic Snow Flock and Satin Varnish mix, some areas got a little more of the snow flock sprinkled on and there were just a few little areas around the edge of the snow clumps where I used the AK Interactive Snow Sprinkles for a little more melty/slushy look.

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All told I'm really happy with how this turned out and the following the masterclass series was a fun and challenging experience. I got to brush up on some old skills/techniques I'd let slide over the years and picked up some new skills/techniques along the way.

And I got to do one of my favourite hobby things with the plinth. I love making detailed bases and terrain and this brought a lot of that together in the scenic plinth, it's something I could see myself doing a lot more of in future for pieces intended for display.

A great many thanks to Darren Latham himself. This was a wonderful tutorial series to follow with the tutelage of a great miniature painter. I still feel it a shame that Mr Latham's youTube channel will be going down very soon after the writing of this post. I highly recommend anyone who reads this in time to get over to his channel and make use of the teaching he has provided.

I may do my own final write up of following the series discussing my experience in depth, but I'm not sure at the moment. As it stands the series is complete and I have a display piece in my cabinet I am really happy with.

I hope you you like it too.

Until next time,
Take care.