I was really pleased with how the Splintered Fang Warband turned out, so I decided to have a go at another warband with a lot of skin on show, this time focusing on a lighter brown. I picked up some of the Spire Tyrants and had a go at them. I love painting black and gold – it’s the heretic in me I am sure – and so these were a great chance to do so with no real motivation for wanting to keep them forever. If it had been Space Marines, that would be a different story. Here they are in all their glory:
I am pleased with the lighter brown skin here, though shading it was trickier. I didn’t use purple this time, I used a darker shade of brown. I base coated in Dryad Bark as before but gave a light dusting of XV-88 with the airbrush, just the slightest of coating to alter the tone. I then used Mournfang and XV-88 to add highlights. I shaded with Agrax Wash (I think). I’d certainly like to try again sometime and refine the process.
This warband is available in the Store section of this blog.
Another game has happened! This is turning into quite the regular occurance. This time, we did not add any more rules, we did add another Titan instead. We each had a Warlord, Reaver and Warhound this time. I also thought a bit more about the weapons I was going to take, rather than doing what sounded cool. This was my load-up for the game:
I wanted to have a balance of high strength low dice, and low strength high dice weapons. The low strength ones break shields – they have a lot of shots to block, the high strength break titans. It makes sense in my head at least.
Highlights on the game include:
A warhound getting in behind my Warlord Titan and then exploding because it’s reactor got too hot causing horrid amounts of damage.
My Warlord then blowing up because the damage it took from the Warhound exploding was just too much for its legs to take.
My Warhound sandwiched between my opponent’s Warlord and Reaver ending up being the hero and destroying the Warlord and then running away. (pictured above)
My opponent doing more damage to himself in one turn than I did.
What I learned was Warhounds do not like to run hot on their reactors as this tends to make them blow up. I also need to make sure I look at the range of weapons as well and to make sure I move where I can use them properly. It was still a lot of fun, and I only lost my a small margain this week. I did succeed in my personal goal of blowing up the Warlord! I am calling that a win in my books!!
So, the time has come to announce the miniature, rules of engagement and judges for this year’s Painting Challenge between Office Painter and I.
<Insert Fanfare here>
First! The Miniature:
It was chosen in a vote over on twitter. We both wanted to paint something we have never really attempted before and this guy is new… Also very grumpy, hense the name of the contest this year.
Second. The Rules.
No conversions or altering the miniature itself. The base is fair game though.
Deadline is 25th July.
Both entries will be published on this blog anonymously and the judges have to decide which is the best.
The loser will owe the winner a pint at Warhammer World at the next meet up.
Third: The Judges
As with last year, there are five people we have selected as our judges. All have agreed and they are all pillars of awesome within the warmonger community on twitter – and other places too! In no order they are:
Dr Dave (@dave_the_dr) Returning for another year, he is most famous for his Golden Demon winning entry and those amazing awesome Legion of the Damned that appear to glow… also Dreadnoughts.
Bees (@VoiceOfKosh) Another returnee judge. Lover of Mortarion. Check out her Imperial Fists and Magnus. The Magnus of the 40K variety is shaping up to be a fantastic looking mini!
Cheese (@Leaky_Cheese) Keeper of Dave-Lore, ‘Warden’ of Fondlechew and general 30K boffin. Has a wicked you-tube Channel and is overly fond of Jerks. His Word-Bearers really are something to see!
Nerodine (@Nerodine) Has helped both Office and I with tutorials, tips and general encouragement through the last year. His light source painting is something to be admired.
Nick Bayton (@Nick_Bayton) Ultramarine extrodinaire! Warhammer TV presenter and general nice guy. Encouraging and friendly, is always there with a cool picture and motivational word for all!
So, I want to talk about washes. A friend of mine who has just started painting was asking me about washes and I thought it would be easier to make a post about it for reference.
First off, let’s talk about the consistency of the wash style paint itself. It’s thin, high in pigment and will run if you let it. Paint in general wants to go into the lowest part of a miniature and will try its best to get there if it can. The thinner the paint, the more it wants to do this. Something to keep in mind while using a wash.
Second. The purpose of washes: It’s to alter the shade of a paint that is already on a miniature. This creates shaded areas and adds depth to the miniature in question. When you apply a wash, you’re changing the colour underneath to a darker tone, regardless of the colour you are using to wash with.
Still with me? Good.
I am going to use one of the Gellerpox Infected to show what I mean. I will be using a wet palette, Carroburg Crimson and Nuln Oil. I am focusing on his stomach adn the great big tear in it:
First thing I am going to do use the Nuln Oil to recess shade the tear in his stomach. I am using one of the smaller brushes I own and putting the wash in that gap only. I am being careful with it, but I do not need to put the brush in every spot on the gap because the paint is thin enough to run along it by itself. Capillary Action Baby!!
I have also gone aorund the staples too!!
Next, I am placing some of the Carroburg onto the wet palette and watering the wash into a shade. I do not want to put the neat wash onto the miniature at this point because the pigment is too strong. I don’t want to kick off the lovely base colour too much, so I thinned the wash. I then applied the much thinner colour over the entirety of the stomach.
The shade is at the bottom underneath the red!
It’s way more subtle than using a full on wash!
My next step is to create a redder effect around the cut itself and I do this by layering up the colour gradually. Here are a couple of the stages. I used the shade for doing this:
Last of all, I wanted a real red sting around the cut itself, so using a smaller brush, I used neat Carroburg in select places to bring out the colour.
I have a lot of work left on this guy, I want to blend out those lines where the red is a bit harsh and of course, there is the rest of the mini to consider as well. I hope this has helped though.
If there are any questions, feel free to get in touch!
I have been trying to widen my repitoir when it comes to different tones of skin this year, and I believe I made some progress with that recently. I decided to use the vibrant green on a Warcry Warband and take advantage of all that skin on show! I wanted to go for some dark tones to make the vibrant green stand out, and it was as good an opportunity to try something new. This is how they turned out:
I am very pleased with this trial and shall certainly be building on them in the future. Using purple to recess shade has worked particularly well I think, and the very thin layers of doombull brown for highlights worked out as well. I shall be building on this method over the coming days and weeks and who knows, I might even produce a tutorial sometime soon!!
Naggaroth Nightshade (GW), Stegadon Scale Green (GW), Huldra blue (Scale/Fantasy and Game), Moot Green (GW), Flurescent Yellow (Model colour) and Ivory (model colour). You will also need a dry palette and a good drybrush.
The only technique for painting that this neon green requires is drybrushing.
Step 1: After undercoating your miniature, heavy dry brush the entire miniature in Naggaroth Nightshade – make sure you get into all the cracks and recesses, as this will provide shadows.
Step 2: Drybrush the miniatures with Huldra blue.
Step 3: Drybrush with Stegadon Scale Green:
Step 4: Drybrush with Moot Green. At this point, I started to just do the top part of the miniatures to show that the bugs are in the light, however you could also do the whole miniature if you wanted to.
The one in the middle has a heavier dry brush than the one on the left
Step 5: This is where the flurescent paint comes in. It is too transparent to really be used on its own, so mix it with the Moot Green at about 50/50 to start with, then dry brush it onto the miniature
Step 6: Mix the flourescent yellow with the ivory again at about 50/50 and lightly drybrush over the top of the miniatures for the really vibrant green. The lighter you want it, the more ivory you need to add to the mix. The last two steps can be repeated for a brighter effect.
This week, we decided to add in some of the more advanced rules for the game. The weapon properties were added, as well as reactor dice and orders. It was a lot to remember, and I am not entirely sure I managed to retain it all as we went along, but it was fun none the less.
We used the same Titans as last week – A Reaver and a Warlord, but we swapped weapons around to have a go with some different ones.
It was all going so well, until I got punched to death…
I did not fare so well in this game. I decided before hand that I was going to try and destroy the Reaver and then focus on the Warlord – I was so close as well, but the dice betrayed me this week and just when I was about to blow the Reaver to smithereens, the dice went against me!
My Warlord had already taken a beating and the reactor overheated, meaning that it blew up. Less than helpful. My Reaver then tried to destroy its counterpart but alas, by this point, its shields had repaired and it was safe once again.
Things I learned this game:
A better mix of weaponry would be good – some with low strength and high number of hits mixed with the high strength/low number of hits would be better.
Dice betrayals are real.
Orders are fun but can be a real bummer if they are ignored.
The reactor dice is fun, especially when the machine spirit gets all uppity and does its own thing.
spinning around wildly shooting when you’re about to die is also funny.
I may not have won this game, but I mostly remembered how to play and the new additions were not overly complex. I did not feel as though my mind was blown. I do tend to vocalise what I am doing at the moment – talking myself through it. I find it helps.
Next time, we are consolidating what we have already learned. I plan to think a bit more about weapon choices and try once again to focus fire and actually blow something up!!
I don’t actually play many games, as most of you know. I find them difficult to get my head around and actually focusing on larger games, such as 40K, challenges my concentration.
However, this weekend, I played my first game of Adeptus Titanicus and found it to be thoroughly enjoyable. I played with the basic rules only, so we could both get our heads around how the game worked, and with two machines each – a Warlord and a Reaver.
So, I managed to get Larissa Shadowstalker finished today, and I am so thrilled with how she turned out. She was a lovely miniature to paint and I thoroughly enjoyed using some of the more technical skills to get her done.
For those interested, she will be available in the store!
Today’s challenge was to continue with a large miniature that has been neglected for ages. I have a Khorgorath here that has been half base coated for about a year. I had to dust the poor thing off before I started work on it today!
Before!
I did make a fair bit of progress though – most of the base coats are now done and I did some work on the face and eyes. It’s nowhere near finished, however I am pleased to actually get some more paint on the miniature.
After
I have a couple of progress shout outs to make that people have shown me for yesterday’s challenge. Well done to Gallandrox and Mabat for getting to their miniatures finished!!
