Spells Without End

Greetings!

As a part of my Miniature Collection Inventory I tallied up my non-fighter miniatures as well. You know, the neutral ones. I'm speaking of Endless Spells, of course!

I bought the Endless Spells box a healthy while after it was released, managing to snatch myself one of the last copies my local game store had on their shelves. I got to painting them almost straight away, as they will be useful in nearly all my armies and I will gladly share them with my opponent if they'd like to tap into these incarnations of wild magic as well.

Some of the spells I painted according to the box art, the stuff I already liked the look of. A couple of them got their scheme from the accompanying Malign Sorcery rulebook, in which some of the spells had brilliant art that was cooler than their suggested paint schemes, in my opinion. The rest had their colours either improvised or inspired by some astounding painters out there in the wider world! (Copied from a googled image)

Starting off with the kind of smaller spells that I could fit into one photo, let us go through them one by one.

The Burning Head – This spell just had to be fiery orange! Ever since my Warhammer Fantasy Battles days this spell has been one of my favourites, a cackling, blazing skull laughing it way through the battlefield! It had to be painted in regular fire colours.

The Geminids of Uhl-Ghysh – The box art shows them as black and white, two opposite colours (more like over-saturation and lack of), so they stayed that way. I quite like the look and game mechanics of these two orbs, balancing each other out!

Umbral Spellportals – There was only one way to paint them. Enough said.

Quicksilver Swords – Very nice paint scheme on the side of the box itself, so I just copied it. Magical swords floating around on wisps of Chamon, the Golden Wind. Fitting.

Chronomantic Cogs – Time-twisting magical cogs that screamed to be painted brass and magically bluish smoke! I also applied a heavy drybrush of Stormhost Silver on them to accentuate all the clockworks and skulls.

Soulsnare Shackles – The art depicked them as ethereal fetters, which quite fits them being soulsnaring instruments, but the rusty look of ages-old chain emerging from the depths of the earth was just too good to pass.

On to some bigger spells next!

The Purple Sun of Shyish – Formerly of Xereus, this spell is another famous one from WFB! The Purple Sun was painted just that: a purple sun. With a skull on it.

The Aethervoid Pendulum – A relic of the Old World as well, this stylish spell had me torn between an actual metal blade and an ethereal one. In the end I settled for a compromise: I took the red etherealness from the book's artwork and blended it in with materializing-on-the-fly metal. Really like this one!

The Malevolent Maelstrom – I used the box art for this one as I thought the way it already looked was quite accurate to the spell's nature: not strictly an element or a force of nature, but something more mysterious and sinister...

The Emerald Lifeswarm – Box arted as well, because I'd imagine magical dragonflies from the Realm of Life come in all possible colours, including a healing-associated deep green. This is also one of the few Endless Spells that do not just spit mortal wounds all around the board, but focuses on buffs and heals instead.

Last up, the really big ones.

Ravenak's Gnashing Jaws – I thought the yellow-brownish look on the box and the book's art looked a bit... dull. I mean, it does fit in with the spell coming from the Realm of Beasts, but I wanted it to be more magical than that! So I went with darkened blues, turquoises and whites, topped by very non-ethereal-looking teeth. Omnomnom!

The Prismatic Palisade – Suggested to have a yellow-whitish paintjob, I instead went with a greenish emerald/arcane crystal look. I wanted to make it darker than suggested to make it look bulkier and more imposing as it bursts up from the ground to block the enemy's path!

The Suffocating Gravetide – Lots of dark ground, a broken sandstone coffin lid and a tide of vengeful souls bursting forth, with some tufts of gras for spot colour. I wanted the souls more bluish than the box art's green, as I prefer colder colours over warm ones in my miniatures. It is no coincidence that most of my armies are blue in colour, is it?

That's all my Endless Spells for now. I'm planning to make a post that sums up my last few aelven units I painted, as well as a post that takes on a more serious tone than my usual ramblings.

Until then!