Weekly Waffle #366 – The Bald One
8th February 2025
This week’s Weekly Waffle see’s us staying with the Squats but this time we have moved away from Necromunda. I’ve kept the same colour scheme but have had to change the colour placement a little. But I think it still works well. The reason for the change is because I haven’t decided if I want the troops to have helmets or bare heads. And seeing as how the Kahl only comes with a bare head I had to do something that brought the blue into the top of the mini. Which I think this does nicely.
It’s not quite the same style but still recognisable as being part of the same faction. When you then consider that one is a miner and one is a warrior the way the colours are used woks. At least in my head they do. There is just more of the orange on the warrior and I was a little bit concerned it might be too overpowering. I’m still not one hundred present sure I have it right but I can always come back later and change things up a bit if I think it needs it.
Sometimes you just need to stick to an idea until you have enough minis to really get the feel for them. With these guys I think that be two full squads of Hearthkyn Warriors, on the table together before I really know if I’ve got it right or not. Now there was a time the idea of doing that much painting without being sure of the outcome, at least in my own head, would have terrified me. But not at the moment. I’m finding that having the overall idea and then working out the details as I go quite liberating. Granted I’ve only done it a couple of times and both have worked. So that may change when I try something that doesn’t work.
But even if something doesn’t work as long as I can define why it didn’t work then I’ve learned something. It might be as simple as I just don’t like it. Everything is technically correct but it just doesn’t pull the emotional levers. That’s ok I just won’t do it again. Or it might be more fundamental and I’ve gone with colours that just don’t work together. Again it’s ok as long as continue to learn from the experience.
Getting back to this week’s work I have come to the conclusion that giving each weekly waffle a title has been a bit of a rod for my own back. I’m not going to stop doing it but it can be a pain. Take this week for example. I’m painting Kahl and I was hoping that has some fancy Norse translation. But what did google come back with. ‘Bald’. That’s it. Now it is kind of fitting when you look at the head that comes with the mini, but it wasn’t much in the way of inspiration for the blog title. Which is why it’s a bit rubbish.
Now the head on the other hand is anything but rubbish. It’s very narly and not a strand of hair in sight. So very in keeping with the minis title. Having such great detail I wanted to try something a little different. So I started with a magenta as the base colour with the aim of trying to give it an overall rudy complexion. I then used a very red shadow skin colour I have and gradually lightened it with a pale skin. Along the way I also gave it a very light wash of magenta and I really like how it has turned out. I’ve not done anything like that before so it immediately different to any other characters I have. And if I carry this on across all of the minis it should give them a combined feel. That at the same time is just that bit different.
The other thing I’ve done with the head is to add a magnet so that I can swap it out for a helmet if I want a different feel to the character. It’s something I’m planning on doing for all of the minis I paint up for my space dwarves. It only adds a couple of minutes to the build and gives me options going forward. On 2mm magnet in the neck and one in the body does the trick nicely. The key here, as anyone who has worked with magnets knows, is to make sure you get the polarity right. Or your head will just pop off.
I normally magnetise the first one and then when I add magnets to the body I do so by attaching a stick of them to the head. A bit of super glue on the bottom one and there you go. Then just do the same with the magnets attached to the body when I’m fitting them to the heads. It sounds a bit of a faff but once you get going it’s really quite easy. And gives you the option to completely change the feel of a squad or even the whole army.
Whilst the Kahl only comes with one head option there are lots of options on the Hearthkyn sprue. So there should be lots of options available. There are even some nice third party head options out there that I’m thinking of having a look at. So all in all I think that magnetising the heads is a good option and worth the effort.
The other part of this mini that has caused me some grief this week has been the cloak. I’ve really struggled to try and get something that resembles a smooth transition. I think that it has ended up ok but there isn’t as much contrast in it as I would have liked. But I didn’t want to get bogged down on that one part so I just got it to a stage where I could accept it and moved on. It’s not that it looks bad, I just wanted more contrast and couldn’t get it. But that does give me the option to come back to it at a later stage and maybe tweak it.
But what do you guys think.
I have another commander or elite chose for next week in the form of the Einhyr Champion. My thinking was doing a couple of characters first would get my eye in for where the different colours need to go before laughing into a full squad. Which will hopefully happen before the end of the month. Unless I get distracted back to the Infinity front. But either way I have things lined up and at the moment I’m enjoying my hobby time so I’m just going to keep plodding away. You never know at this rate I may even end up with a fully painted, game legal army by the end of the year.
That’s it for this week. I hope you have enjoyed the Leagues of Votann journey so far and it’s going to run on for a bit yet. Until next week I hope you all keep safe, have fun whatever you have planned and I will be back here next Saturday with more for you to peruse.
