Cursed City - Done!

Hello!

So I was one of the lucky ones who managed to get a copy of Cursed City on pre-order, before the apparently real world curse that GW can't talk about meant that it was taken off the shelves before it even went on them. With that in mind, I became especially committed to getting it all painted and actually playing the damn thing. We have managed to get in one session so far, which was pretty fun though a bit slow as we were learning the game, and I have now managed to finish off all the minis!

I decided that I wanted the set to come out a bit dark and spooky, but not too colourless and importantly, without putting too much actual work into it! I settled on going for a style inspired by Darkest Dungeon, slightly cartoony and with everything wreathed in black shadows.

My method for all the models was pretty similar. After building and adding a bit of detail to the bases (plasticard for some broken paving stones, sand for the rest), they get sprayed black (naturally), then drybrushed fairly heavily in grey. I used that grey to guide what areas of the model got painted and what was left black. There were some additional washes or layers for some colours, but most of it was a single coat over the grey. The whole miniature then got lathered in nuln oil, before some particularly important highlights were once again picked out (e.g. edges and creases of robes, edges of swords etc).

I used standard metallics for most of the metal sections, but the final highlights were often non metallic - as was the case for the skeletons above. I felt this gave it that slightly cartoony look to hint back to the inspiration.

Anyway, let's have a look at the individual minis in the light box...

The various markers from the game, gravestones, mysterious objects, weird zombie cats and greedy little gargoyle things. 

Some spooky bats and rats. Nothing too exciting, but I think the swarms are quite clever in how they are scultped.

The Ulfenwatch. These guys are some super cool skeletons, and I'm especially pleased with how they came out.

These zombies are great sculpts, full of cool little details (my favourite is the crow with an eyeball!) - I think this was the longest batch to paint of the lot! I went for mostly earthy tones for this lot since they've obviously been underground for a while.

The Vyrkos Blood-born are fun models, feral, bestial, kind of ghoulish vampires, but quite hard to take photos of. Their scheme was a fairly direct copy of the ghouls in Darkest Dungeon and I'm pretty happy with the result.

The Vargskyr was one of the last models I painted in the set, so I had a bit of fun going 'off brief'' from the box. This was again heavily inspired by a specific DD monster, in this case the Shrieker.

The Kosargi Nightguard were painted pretty similar to the standard scheme, though I did decide to give them white cuffs and insides of their coats rather than just more black. This had the unintended effect of making them look like zombie Santa. Ho ho ho!

Radukar's top three men, Torgillius, Halgrim and Gorslav. All very cool models, but Torgillius in particular was a bit of a slog, with a lot of details that I, perhaps foolishly, decided would all be various shades of brown. I did like doing his weird dog thing as a dirty old urban fox though.

Radukar the Wolf himself. The big boss was the final mini I painted of the batch, so I think I'd got the style down pretty well by this point. He should probably get a new sword though, that thing looks like it's seen better days!

Glaurio ven Alten III - seems like a bit of a fancy dresser, so I gave him a purple jacket to go with his shiny mirror.

Qulathis the Exile - I'm not usually a fan of elves, but this one came out really well I think. She looks like a proper warrior in darker tones and with a cheeky bit of Hellion warpaint.

Dagnai Holdenstock - there's something about this model that didn't really grab me. I really like a lot of the elements of it, but all together just feels a bit uninspiring. Oh well, he's done!

Octren Glimscry - this is the hero I was running during our game, he feels like he'll be pretty handy to have around when fighting bosses and the like, with lots of abilities to give out status effects. I took quite a departure from the official scheme for him, going for more of a creepy old hobo vibe.

Cleona Zeitengale - another model that didn't really excite me, so I did a relatively minimalist version of her scheme. 

Jelsen Darrock - one mean vampire hunter! He got a very muted scheme with almost everything just black or brown - but I think it really works on this mini. I particularly like the stakes, with the sharpened ends just about the brightest part of the model.

Emelda Braskov - aka Not-Brienne. More of a veteran crusader than a knight in shining armour in my version. Another that I'm particularly pleased with.

Finally, Brutogg Corpse-Eater - the hungry hungry Ogre was particularly nice to paint, being all big and chunky rather than thin and spindly like some of the others. I'm particularly happy with his shoulder bad and 'angry gammon' skin tone.

So there we have it, Cursed City done! Hope you enjoyed checking these out, and stay safe out there!