Lava Lizards Seraphon Project - Wave One

Hello!

I've been pretty excited about 40k recently, with 10th edition around the corner, but I have also been quite excited about Age of Sigmar as well! In particular, the lizards. When the Seraphon launch box popped up, I got asked to paint it's contents, plus some extras, in exchange in part for most of another launch box - so of course I said yes! Painting lizards is fun, and I wanted my own new magic frog!

The brief I had for this lot was blue skin, and fire/lava themed - so I had a go at molten rock for their scaly backs and stone accessories. I like to think they are summoned from the ground like a mini volcanic eruption, or dropped from the sky on burning meteors. In any case, here's a selection of lizards, dinosaurs and frogs:

In reverse size order, here we start with the skirmishing Skinks. It turns out these were a good place to start painting because their scales are large with significant gaps between them so it was quite forgiving for trying to find the method that would look right. In the end I opted to paint the whole orange/red/yellow area after the blue skin, then heavily drybrush black over the scales. Orange for the crests was an obvious fit with the rest of the model and the base, and the rest of the model was largely single colours (gold, brown, earth) with Snakebite Leather contrast over it.

Next up, the core of the footsloggers, two units of the lovely new Saurus Warriors. I was really pleased with the molted rock effect on these guys, since the gaps between scales are narrower, but more pronounced, though it did end up giving them a much darker look overall. I think this will work well on the tabletop because they will allow the big cool stuff to really pop. Though in a bid to add a little more colour I did decide to use green as a bit of a spot colour for feathers etc.

Which leads neatly onto the Raptadon Hunters and Chargers - both of which are wildly more colourful than their slower moving companions. The green feathers from the previous units suggested there should be some green here, and it kind of went from there! I got a little bit carried away with these dinos, adding in sky blue for the spots at the ends of the crest, arm and tail feathers. With the chaff, objective holders and quick response units done, it was time for some command, and some heavy damage dealers...

Obviously the natural answer is a comet-summoning magic frog! Here is the new Slann Starmaster, which is an amazing kit, surprisingly with loads of options. You could easily have two very different looking Slann from the same kit, with even little details like the skink attendants being swapped for a lizard or a frog. I love the floating effect they went for here and there are so many fun little details - though sadly this does mean he takes a while to paint!

However, sometimes a magic frog isn't enough, and you need an even more magic, slightly less alive frog...

Yes, the last 'miniature' in this wave, it's Lord Kroak! A huge AoS centrepiece model, and as I understand it an absolute monster on the table, he's a fitting conclusion to this project - for now at least. I think of all the models, this is the one that the molten rock look really works the best on - there's a lot of detail that it highlights on his throne and the surrounding rings. That aside, it's another mini with loads of little fun details, like his bed of snakes and the little frog (painted green here) chilling at the back.

Anyway, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and stay safe out there.