Warhammer Underworlds - Painting Rippa's Snarlfangs

 Amongst the Gitmobs, it is no crime to launch a leadership challenge by trying to stab your Gitlord in the back. It is, however, inadvisable to mess it up. When Rippa Narkbad's bid for power went horribly wrong, he chose rapid and self-imposed exile over the messy death he would hav undoubtedly faced if he had hung about. His two best ladz, Stabbit and Mean-Eye, came with him, more out of guilt by association than any real sense of loyalty. Down but not defeated, Rippa has led his grumbling and mutinous companions to Beastgrave in pursuit of the magnificently shiny choppa he sees every night in his dreams. With that blade in his hand, surely Rippa could ride back to his tribe and claim rulership over the headless corpses of all his old rivals...

I actually built Rippa's Snarlfangs back in 2019 when they were released and have come remarkably close to painting them a few times since then, but for some reason just never quite sat down and got on with it. While I was painting up the Crimson Court though, I got a strange compulsion to start working on them too. They're a remarkably fun warband to play Underworlds with so it'll be good to get them on the board with some colour on them!

Consisting of three models, and led by Rippa Narkbad, who is accompanied by the spear-wielding Stabbit (an appropriate name if ever there was one) and the shortbow wielding Mean-Eye the warband draws strong aesthetic influences from the warriors of the Mongolian Keshig from the 13th-14th centuries with though of course the horses have been substituted with something far more fitting of goblins living in the Mortal Realms - ferocious, venomous creatures known as Snarlfangs that are stolen as pups and raised for war by their cruel grot masters. 

I decided quite early on that I'd divide the painting of the warband into three sections - the Snarlfangs, the Goblin riders and the bases (mostly in that order). This enabled some natural points to pause things if needs be as well as allowing me to focus on getting elements finished rather than everything being in progress simultaneously. One of the main reasons for starting with the Snarlfangs was because I wanted to try out using Citadel Contrast paint on a larger scale than I had previously and I reasoned that this could get messy...

As it happened though, it wasn't all that messy at all because I wasn't really slopping the Contrast on so much as using it in a very controlled fashion to shade the Snarlfang's fur. I started out priming the miniatures Humbrol Grey Primer #1 and then applied a layer of Black Templars Contrast Paint and Contrast Medium in a 50:50 mix all over the Snarlfangs, being careful to try and avoid the riders. . Once this was dry (it was sped along slightly with a hairdryer as Contrast paints can dry quickly on the palette as well as on miniatures) I added another layer of the same mix, but focussed this one from about halfway up the legs to the centre of the Snarlfang's backs. I applied a few more layers starting higher up each time and focussing in more on the coarse fur and tail each time until I was happy with the look.

On the smooth fur, I then applied thinned layers of Mechanicus Standard Grey followed by Dawnstone and then Administratum Grey using each layer to help add definition as well as to create tonal variation from dark to light. For the rough fur, I took a different (and much more time consuming approach) by highlighting each hair, first with Mechanicum Standard Grey and then using Karak Stone, the latter only on the tip of the hair. The tails were painted in a similar fashion as were the fur trophies that Rippa, Stabbit and Mean-Eye have collected. 

The next stage was to block in all of the leather armour and straps which was done with various shades of browns before they were all shaded with Agrax Earthshade and then layered and highlighted in turn. To try and reflect that each of the riders is a unique character in their own right, I mixed up the colours of the various elements of the armour across each Snarlfang reasoning that each Git would beg, borrow or steal the hides from wherever they could, so they wouldn't exactly match but the tones would be reflected on each of the miniatures giving a coherent look to them overall. The only exception to this was the straps that hold the armour on, which were all done in the same colour - this was partly for convenience and partly because the straps are smaller so I figured that colour variation on them just wouldn't be as noticeable as on the armour itself. Once all the armour was finished, I went back and carefully painted all of the studs and rings in one go.

Final details like the teeth, gums and snouts were fairly quick and easy to do, though dotting in the eyes was a little hair-raising as it's not something I usually on smaller miniatures because I'm just not all that good at it. With these final details done, the Snarlfangs were complete and I was ready to start on their riders...

  

For Rippa, Stabbit and Mean-Eye, I took a slightly different approach in that I blocked in all of the basecoats of the various colours before applying a controlled all over shade of Agrax Earthshade - I find that this can help tie all of the elements of a miniature together while also giving great definition and shading to all of the colours I've used, though the bone would need a little tidying up afterwards.

From here it was just a case of working through layering and highlighting each colour, adding texture as appropriate to things like the cloth, leather, pouches and trinkets.   

One of the things that can make this approach to painting take a little longer sometimes is working out what the best order to paint various details or areas of the model is or sometimes which bits I feel like working on - I find that there's not a lot of point working on something if I don't feel like it because it often yields poorer results than if I'm 'in the mood'.

Typically I try to work from larger areas to smaller ones, though for some it makes sense to either do them all at the same time or to leave them until last. As an example, all of the metal on the Grots was highlighted with Ironbreaker in the same session - I could have done everything metallic to completion separately but it made more sense to me to do it at the same time. As another example, I left layering and highlighting the Gobbo's skin until last so as to ensure I didn't end up going 'too bright' in comparison to the tone of the rest of miniature.

The bases were done over a couple of painting sessions with a basecoat of Mournfang Brown on the "soil" that was then drybrushed with Zandri Dust. I then blocked in the rocks and stones with Dawnstone and shaded it with Agrax Earth. I then reapplied Dawnstone before using Administratum Grey to help create some highlights and striations which were then refined with successively finer highlights of Celestra Grey followed by Ulthuan Grey - I love the off-white of these two paints create and I find it gives a much more pleasing look than using pure white.

Once the rocks were painted, I thinned some Mournfang Brown with water and washed it around the rocks to help "bed them in" to the soil. I did the same thing with the bones on the bases as well. The final touches on the bases were to paint the rims with Abaddon Black and to add a few Tiny Tufts to each one.

With the bases finished up, there were only a couple of things left to do. The skin of each Grot was highlighted with Ogyn Camo followed by a finer highlight of Krieg Khaki. The lower lip of each was then glazed with a mix of Carroberg Crimson and Krieg Khaki thinned with a little water. I ended up doing 3-4 layers of this glaze I think, essentially building up the glaze until I was happy with the tone. I also thinned some Seraphim Sepia and glazed their teeth as well so that they've a little bit of a yellowy tinge to them - I don't think Grots are likely to have very good oral hygiene after all! 

The final thing to finish was the fur and tails on the Grot's hats and the tail on Rippa's shield, these were highlighted in the same fashion as the tails of the Snarlfangs, with Mechanicus Standard Grey applied to every hair and Karak Stone added to the tips of some of them. 

Rippa Narkbad

Stabbit

Mean-eye

I'm really pleased with the finished miniatures, but towards the end of the project I was starting to feel if not burned out by them, then at least that I needed bring them to a conclusion rather than spending too much longer on them and running the risk of getting fed up and either making a mistake or giving up on them altogether, though I suppose this is a perennial risk when painting up a unit as if they're individual miniatures in one go! 

After trying out Citadel Contrast on the Snarlfangs' pelts, I'm definitely open to making use of them more in projects going forwards, especially where I can use them to rapidly apply definition to areas with a lot of texture like fur or scales. In the mean time though, I think I need something a little simpler as a palate cleanser, but there are more Underworlds warbands I'd like to work on soon, including the newly revealed Clan Eshin assassins from Nethermaze.

Until next time, thanks for reading!