Dark Age Forsaken faction box

I painted up a Dark Age faction box as part of a commission job recently. This is the Forsaken Saint Mark set. To be honest I don't really know too much about Dark Age. The original range of models must have been released in the early 2000's as I recall seeing them all over Cool Mini Or Not at the time. This set is part of the new range of models and long gone are the chunky rather old fashioned looking sculpts and instead we've got a more 'sophisticated' set of modern designs.

Sculpting wise this set is a little mixed. Most of the models have that ultra tiny, 'to scale' look that plagues a lot of modern day premium figure ranges. It's not just a case of them being made under magnification to be painted under magnification (I don't know if these are traditional sculpts or digital) but when details get too small they can quickly disappear under paint. There are a number of areas on various models where the detail is so indistinct from the get go that undercoat and paint completely obliterate it. Oddly enough though two of the models are much chunkier sculpts in comparison and were much easier to paint. Could be the result of using multiple sculptors.

Saint Mark is a big lad and is well sculpted for painting in my opinion. Just the right level of chunk for all the detail to be well defined. Personally I don't find his pose to be imposing enough for what I assume is a leader type. I wish they'd replicated the original model's pose from back in the day really.

Hephzibah is the other model that was a better one for painting. I'm not keen on the sculpting of the face and like most of the models her eyelids disappear a bit too much into her brow making them tricky to paint and define the eyes nicely. Other than that I kept thinking this could almost be a Kev White sculpt!

The Sentinel is a bit of weaker sculpt I think. It's a rather flat model and one of the tinier sculpts, although not as bad as some in the set. Painted he looks a lot better and looks a lot less flat.

The Shades had a few areas that were tricky to paint due to disappearing detail. Their head gear was really hard to do, faces, what you can see at least are very tiny and the left arms on both are just indistinct lumps of 'detail'. They look nice enough when done though.

Finally we've got the Junkers which immediately make me think of Void due to the name alone. These are the tiniest in the set. Very slim sculpts and a lot of tough to pick out detail. Fingers are terribly small and little more than thin strands than actual fingers. Some areas the detail blurs a bit too much and it's just guess work. Again, they look good when done but if you look too close the flaws begin to stand out.

I've got some more sets to paint up so it'll be interesting to see how they compare. I suspect it'll be more of the same but you never know.