A wizard ignites the fires of Aqshy around them, causing the wind to spark and sizzle as fiery motes start to gradually swirl together. The brightness and heat of the motes increase in intensity and the wizard shapes it into a howling skull-shaped spectral conflagration with an eardrum-tearing crack

Miniature Review

I'm not a huge fan of this miniature. I like the idea of a burning skull rampaging across the battlefield, but the fire trailing behind it is very flat meaning it doesn't look great from a lot of angles, especially the front. It really needs to be made more 3D, maybe with some smoke to help bulk it out.

I'm also not sure how well the skull blends in with the rest of the fire. There are some sharp edges around the back of the skull, making it appear to be a separate object to the flames. Because of this I think it's better to paint the skull as bone rather than fire, which isn't a problem it's just not how it's painted on the box.

Painting Techniques

Skull

Fire

Base

With the base fully brown and will a bit of texture I then added Patchy Plains to the base. It's a good mix of different sands and flock that gives the base a great look with minimal effort.

Once dried I then added both Army Painter Lowland Shrubs and Army Painter Swamp Tufts to break up the flat areas left by the Patchy Plains.

Roundup

I painted the fire the wrong way round, I know. It should be brighter towards the recesses where the heat is, getting darker towards the tips of the flames where it's cooling down to air temperature. The problem is I had already applied the contrast paints by the time I realised my mistake, and it looked too good to paint over. Doing it the other way would have been a lot more time-consuming as well and that's what I'm actively trying to avoid. It's magic flames so it's fine right?

I'm really happy with how the skull came out painting it like bone. I originally painted the whole thing as flames just to see how it would look, and it wasn't great. The bone colour draws your eye in to the focal point of the miniature, and makes it look like it's flying leaving a trail of fire behind it, rather than a ball of fire resembling a skull burning across the ground.