Am I insane, or did it take me a whole year to paint Ushoran?
In March of 2024, I posted the article What A Ghoulish Delight chronicling my history with the Flesh-Eater Court army for the Age of Sigmar game and my adventures in painting up the recently released army boxset. At the end of the article I intimated that after taking a trip into the Old World, during which I would paint up the Tomb King launch box, I would return to the Court of Madness and paint up Ushoran and a few friends.
Then, I just straight up fuckin didn’t.
Eventually, the Old World box was completed, and then I painted several other entire armies. But, that one fucking model got started and abandoned to collect dust for over a year. I was filled with equal parts blistering excitement and soul-destroying dread about the Ushoran model, as my want to paint it was evenly countered by my fear of fucking it up.
I can’t fuck it up if I don’t fuckin’ touch it, right?
Because, come on. It’s a glorious model. Its big, detailed, gross and wonderful. The base is five inches across. There is insane detail from every damn angle. not to mention that the box art and subsequent Games Workshop youtube video shows it painted in exquisite detail. I had several friends whom remarked, as I was starting my short lived paint journey, that they could not wait to see it painted. Me too, guys. Me too.
Ushoran
Placed lovingly on the TV stand in my Hobby Room, next to the Ruinstorm Daemons and Death Korps of Krieg tanks all in the works, sat Ushoran. Out in the open but also fairly forgotten. Over the last few months, the nagging truth that my Flesh-Eaters army was four models shy of being a completed project that I could check off.
Caught in a lull, having finished my Sons of Horus Project but before I had completed the airbrush first step for another project, I decided that it was about time to get Ushoran done. When I had begun painting him about a year back, I set myself a goal of faithfully following the Warhammer TV painting guide to the best of my abilities.
There is no world in which I can better describe the process or replace it with my own in a meaningful way. So, I won’t bore you with the details here.
Not so long after finishing the Flesh-Eater Court boxset, I began painting Ushoran. The plan was to take my time, and boy did I. Just as in the video, I built Ushoran as one sub-assembly and the base as another. I spent a few hours painting the cloak, and I was pretty thrilled with how it turned out: as far as I was concerned, it looked the same as the video. The following day, I ventured forth and got the Nighthaunt Gloom contrast paint that I was certain I already had but totally didn’t, as well as a few other paints I needed. Colors in hand, I started the skin, and got the Nighthaunt color finished and… and… nothing. And nothing for like a year.
The next color scared me. the green skin transition. I set out to paint something else first, I would get back to it. Then something else got painted, and well, you know the rest. The full force of my concern over the model was strange. Why this model? I have painted entire armies. I painted a Titan with less worry. I certainly wasn’t amazing at smooth color transitions, but, it’s never stopped me in the past.
A few months back, I put the model and his unpainted buddies on my painting table. One night, I just decided to do it. I put the Chromebook on the desk, launched the video again, and just painted his gross fucking hands and face. Did it come out as good as the video. Nope. But, I had it done and I was able to proceed. The metallics were easy, the contrast for the dirty furry cloak went quick. A few details later and Ushoran was complete.
The sense of acocmplisment was great. In retrospect, being intimidated by a model, centerpiece or not, seems funny. Maybe I had a touch of the Madness Ushoran is known for.
Ghoulie Gang
Let’s not forget that there are a few ghoulish friends. Well, actually, two of them are Vampires and only one is a true ghoul character, so I guess we should call them Ghastly, but, it doesn’t have the same ring to it. Does it?..
Anyway. At the same time that Ushoran was released, a few character models were as well. There was a ghoulish Executioner, a creepy Cardinal and a bloody Barrister.
The Royal Decapitator is a ghoul character, unlike most of the rest of the Abhorrent (Games Workshop’s name for bestial vampire) characters.
Much like the simple ghouls within the army, it was painted light gray, wish a watered down wash of Athonian Camoshade.
This guy was super quick and rather fun, but…
I did not enjoy painting the Abhorrent Cardinal at all. I think a large part of it was how much of the impossible to paint space under his nasty judicial robe was visible.
Honestly, I got him painted up to the state he is in and abandoned him at barely table-ready. He was the last model I had to paint and my level of give-a-shit was that of a mostly empty dried out paint pot.
The first of these models I finished was actually Grand Justice Gormayne. For whatever reason, as intimidated as I was about getting to Ushoran, I really wanted to paint this fucked up old timey judge figure. The process was just like my other Abhorrent models in the army, well, for the skin anyway. I used the Coal Black from Pro Acryl to make the cloak stand out from the wig made of guts. After various contrast paints were added to the intestines, I used a layer of ‘Ard Coat to make them appear to glisten, you know, like they were recently acquired from a corpse.
Project Complete
As of now I am largely disinterested in Age of Sigmar: the release of Old World has more or less destroyed what little interest I had. I packed away my entire army Soublight Gravelords, which is built and primed. I have a few collections like the Flesh-Eaters Court, that is nearly complete, and so I have those models laying around to finish at some point. I don’t intend to get more Flesh-Eaters Court models, as I don’t imagine I will play them at all going forward, but, if I ever decide I want to, I have a painted army. Otherwise, I now have a complete painted collection of FEC for the Gallery, which is pretty great for my hobby health.
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Tyson
Obsessive and neurotic collector of little plastic men, novels about the same little plastic men and paints to make the little plastic men pretty. Married to Kera, who puts up with him and pretends that she doesn’t hear him speaking to the little plastic men in between making pew pew noises in the hobby room. Requires adult supervision. A menace to himself but rarely to others. More beard than man
