Salamanders!

So early in the year I embarked upon the longest and most arduous of commissions that I have ever done.  This was a Salamander army of epic proportions for a friend.  Due to budget constraints they were not meant to be anywhere near top end paint job quality but overall I think they came out to have a very fun colorful and strangely cohesive look.  Anyways on to the unit pics!

The tyrants were a fun set to paint.  The models were gatormen from privateers hordes line.

Next up is a collection of various hero models.  Mostly GW but one of the mage priests was an old warlord model from Reaper.

Every army needs some kind of big centerpiece model so I put a little more time into this one.  Its a toy dragon that I found with a GW lizardman on top.  Very fun model to paint honestly.

The fire drake was another toy dragon repainted.

Yet more toy dinosaurs repainted to be giant mounts or monsters!  Make sure to check your local toy stores or craft stores often for stuff like this!

The corsairs were a unit that needed to be in the army by specific request (they do rock on the field honestly).  They are the mantic salamanders (that I still think don't get the credit they deserve) with some pistol bits added to their various hands.  Firebrand is the modified character in the back.

The rhinosaur cavalry are rather impossing on the battlefield with their ridiculous size.  Again more toys to save money and look fairly good too!

Some old metal terradons to serve as skyraiders.

These guys were almost like a break during the painting process (especially compared to the ancients).  Just a small regiment of spearmen.

 The unblooded were supposed to be the 'lesser' versions of full fledged salamanders so to represent this they don't have the red stripe on their back or shields.  For most of the rank and file models I worked in huge batches doing assembly line style painting with batches of 40+ models at a time.  This is a soul crushing process but it completes projects like this much faster than doing a handful of models at a time as long as you can persevere through the hours without being overwhelmed.

The first bit of ghekotah.  These guys were fairly quick to paint at least.

 another batch of ghekotah they look almost cute

So if your looking to want to hate painting blue this is the way to go.  For all of the salamanders the first two coats of paint were priming with a dark blue spray and hitting the whole set of units with a light blue spray afterwards at an angle to 'pre shade' the whole lot.  I did these hordes in two batches for the salamander primes.

These ancients are still a running 'joke' between me and the client.  I somehow started thinking I only had to paint 20 some.  After sifting through all of his stuff and building several sprues of completely untouched models it ended up being WAY too many ancients.  I don't know at what point you would want to put this many blocks of elite troops in but for sure no sane 2000 point army will feature all of these regiments:

The komodons were a last minute job and turned out to be a wonderful harassment tool on the field.

Finaly the kaisenor Raptors a very weird heave/light cavalry hybrid.  Oddly enough we throught there would be almost twice as many until the sprues were all assembled and we somehow ended up not having enough mounts for all the bodies.  Still a mystery...

 The whole project was deffiantely a test of speed painting for me but I was far from fast.  Since I only paint on my spare time (which isn't nearly enough) it took many a good set of months though I really don't know how many at all.  I like playing against this army for sure as it looks wonderfully colorful on the table but I think I've been trying to repress the repetitiveness of painting all that infantry in my mind.

Speaking of playing next post should be something a little different....