Reader's Showcase #1: Kingdom Death Forge God

I have been a fan of Kingdom Death miniatures for quite some time. I first wrote about the amazing figures produced by Adam and his team back in May 2010, and had been religiously collecting the Limited Edition first runs; until the Kickstarter came about. But despite having every figure release prior to the KS launch, I only ever managed to paint a handful of models for this amazing range (due to major time constraints), and although ultimately I have stopped working on my own personal collection, there are plenty of people out there who have the time and patience to give the Kingdom Death range the attention it deserves. One such person is a very talented painter named Sven, and it is with great pleasure that I introduce his latest Kingdom Death piece, the mighty Forge God.

Please be sure to check out the full post as there is plenty of painted miniature eye candy, there are gory bits so some readers may wish to take a NSFW approach just incase. But believe me when I say, this figure is worth the view. 

So roughly how long have you been model making? is it just the painting side of the hobby or do you also game?

Yes I am a wargamer and that was also the beginning of my painting and modelling "career". It must have been around 2000 that a friend of mine brought me into Warhammer Fantasy starting off with a single Dark Elves Cold One Knight. At first my gaming group focused mainly on gaming (later also 40k), but for me the painting and collecting part of the hobby became more and more important, which now means we're only having a Warhammer Session about once a year, but despite this I am trying to paint something every week.

In terms of collecting, I used to have huge armies for both Warhammer Fantasy and 40K, but had sold the majority of them over the years, as it just took too  much space. It also meant that I could start to focus on more artful pieces. 

I do however still have my Chaos Dwarfs and Desert Raiders (Dark Eldar), but my sole focus right now is basically to collect and paint the whole Kingdom Death range.

When did you first encounter Kingdom Death miniatures?

That's a difficult question. I believe I heard of KD on one of the biggest, German forums and might have also seen one or two pictures there (Twilight Knight Pin-Up and Wet Nurse I think). My first visit to the KD homepage was, when they had released the Scribe and Forge God, with the latter being already sold out. I was totally amazed by the concepts and wanted a Forge God from that point onwards. Not to long afterwards KD launched their Kickstarter which I backed right after seeing the Dragon King and as the Kickstarter progressed, they started to show even greater pieces later (Lion God, King and Slenderman being my favourites).

The first KD miniature that I ever handled was the Chosen, which was also the first one that I painted.

What makes Kingdom Death figures appeal to you?

Let's start with the obvious: The miniatures are of awesome quality (rivalled only by those of Mierce Miniatures), they are perfectly presented, come with an artwork and are just perfect collectors pieces. But the main reason I adore them is the mature creativity they represent. Adam, the creator of KD just has the prefect feeling for creating a disturbing concept, from the slight strangeness of the White Lion to the in-your-face sexual horror of the Wet Nurse. You never know what kind of creature will jump from his mind next.

Now to the technical stuff, what paint ranges do you prefer using?

Well, during my Warhammer time I was exclusively using Citadel paints, but I distanced myself from them when they released the new range. By that time I got my hands on a full set of Vallejo Game Colors by chance and am very happy with those in combination with my old Citadel paints (I just bought every bottle of Tallarn Flesh that I found, when the ceased it).

Was there anything in particular that you particularly enjoyed or find frustrating while working on this figure?

The Forge God was always going to be something special to work on, regardless of his size. The model was in perfect condition and every detail was very crisp, but there were also the gaps, which were very quite big and required some serious work to fill them up. At first I wanted to paint him in parts, but the need for gap-filling made that unfavourable, so I fully built him before painting.

I am a big fan of Danny Cruz, the artist behind the Forge God, Chosen and many more miniature concepts. Also I really liked the sculpt by Allan Carrasco, I felt like he went a bit overboard with the phallus formed heads and lost the lion-like features on the faces. So I took the risk and sculpted the mouths and some feline features myself, to match the artwork. I am quite happy with the outcome and it makes the miniature unique.

By now he is finished and is only missing his disciples, I am actually looking for a way to get more than the 3 of them included in the box, in order to tie closer to the artwork.

For me, one of the most striking parts of the paint job, is the hammer.What techniques did you use to achieve that look?

I didn't plan to use this heart/crackling effect in the beginning, but as the paint job on the Forge God progressed, I realised that I need something dark to contrast the body. So I washed the metal until it was quite dark and then used some tricks from my Chaos Dwarfs, who like lava... alot.

So the glow itself was basically dry brushed: Starting from the inside out I brushed black and the following red - orange - yellow - bonewhite. When I reached orange, I just pulled the cracks to the outside and then redid this with every following layer. Easy but effective.

One thing I really like about the Forge God, and what I put much thought in is his skin. The model has huge uncovered parts, so it was important, to give it a special touch. It is quite hard to see on the pictures, but his skin is actually metallic and shines really nicely in direct light. I achieved this by adding a bronze foundation and then adding a skin tone to the metal colour. In the end it was just a light skin tone and Vallejos Metallic Medium to make it shine (see photos below).

Sven has very kindly provided a link with the full 32 picture slide show, showing the Forge God's progression from out of the box to fully painted.

Well thank you very much Sven for taking time to talk about this lovely model and allowing me to post about it on the 14th Legion. I really think Sven has done a fantastic job on this model and has not allowed himself to be intimidated by the plethora of detail that the Kingdom Death figures seem to ooze. Whether you are a collector, gamer or a mixture of the two, there is no doubting how satisfying it is to see large kits like this built and fully painted. For me it reminds me just why I got into this hobby so long ago and continue (to try) and paint things today after 25 years. I look forward to hearing more from Sven, regarding his Kingdom Death collection in the future, as I believe they are due to start delivering their new miniatures very very soon...And my how impressive some of those large beasties are!

The Reader's Showcase is a series dedicated to you the reader! if you have a painted piece you really love and want to share with the blog, then please send me an email titled Showcase HERE.

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

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