Gallery: Kingdom Death The King By Sven

**This is Kingdom Death NSFW!**

Hello everyone, I can’t believe how much time has passed since my last post here. Even the name of the blog has changed! After my last article I had to deal with a really high workload over the holiday season and then I moved places which ended in nearly 3 month without Internet access at home. Of course by no means have I been idle, and some hobby has been done whenever I had some spare time. I’m really glad to finally be back on the blog, after that unplanned break and I am hopeful that you the readers are too! So will out further delay, we shall start with something rarely seen.

The King is a unique model even when compared to Kingdom Death's already alternative style. One thing to be aware is that some of the close up shots may reveal details that are NSFW (not safe for work). This figure was shown first as a sneak peek in the Monster-Kickstarter and later revealed as the final major expansion. The model always intrigued me greatly as it depicts a strange, ravenous creature that tries to mimic a body using human arms and flesh covered in layers of fabric, while seemingly having a weird connection to male babies.

I actually started and finished the paint job for the King in 2014, but didn’t finish the base until last week, later in the article you will see just why that was the case...

Choosing the colour for the Kings robes was not easy, I wanted him to introduce a new colour to my Kingdom Death collection, which I could extend to my Kings Men and King’s Hand to create an association between these minis. My first intention was to paint him white or a common “royal” colour like blue or purple, but those where already in use (Angels in white and Preachers in blue/purple). I am quite happy with my final choice of sea green, but I have to admit, I am curious to see a King in white… that will look awesome…

 

I started with GWStegadon Scale Green and built it up to Ice Blue via some turquoise layers. Nothing fancy, but a really rich and shiny result…in restrospect it may have been a bit too shiny for my taste to represent cloth. I chose red to contrast nicely with the green and also wanted it to blend with the Kings own rosy flesh. Attentive readers might realise that I have made some small alterations to the Kings real face to, once again, to bring it closer to the artwork. I added an eyebrow and enlarged the upper part of the eye socket to get this strange wide-eyed look, I also expanded the beard.

 

 

The skin parts were done straight forward - GW Tallarn Flesh, Orgyn Flesh-Wash and Elven Flesh. I used the same light tone on the babies and the arms to tie the mini together and to get a light counterpoint to the rich, dark colours.

 

I still had a desire to add white to the King so I used a cool white for the “curtain” and the fury edges of the cloth. This colour was built up from a bluish grey up to pure white.

 

Finally came the true metals again. My favourite reddish gold tones worked nicely with the mini as a whole, but I am still unsure whether it was a good choice to paint the “crown of hands” in skin tones… maybe silver would have been better. Well, it’s not that eye-catching as the skin blends in with the gold. In this form the King sat on my cupboard for nearly 5 month.

That was because while painting it I was pondering what this thing actually is and what it’s doing with the babies. I still don’t know what the chain of babies on its back signifies, but I came to the conclusion that the ones in the front are actually climbing into his mouth and so he’s probably feeding of them or their life-force. Encouraged by some of my friends I decided to go with a rather unusual but very much Kingdom Death themed idea. I wanted the King to leave a trail of dead babies. As there are no miniature companies I knew of that produce such minis, my only option to sculpt them myself. That task was so intimidating, that I didn’t dare to tackle it until recently. 

This is the NSFW bit you have been warned. Here they are, sculpted from Green Stuff around an armature of wire and around 1/2” in length:

Surprisingly happy with the result I had a new idea: A healthy baby actually crawling towards it's doom in form of the King. I was well aware that a healthy baby would be way more difficult to sculpt and that due to the pose, I would have to sculpt a face. Thanks to some encouragement from Chris/DiStudios I went for it and the results are below.

Afterwards I did some finishing touches on the model itself. I applied a blue-green wash to dull the cloth down a bit and get a more realistic fabric look and changed the light spot next to the kings real face to blend in more nicely with his actual skin tone.

With that I could finally finish my King and hope it tells the story. Here it is in its full glory:

I Hope you enjoyed this article and this unique miniature, my aim this year is to focus a bit more on Kingdom Death articles and I already have the beginnings of another rather “creative” model on the table. That plus a clear direction for paint, I just hope it turns out as planned!

Thanks for reading,

Sven

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