This text was written already a few weeks ago, but I only managed to post it now. Oh well...
My aim was to figure out a way to paint
an awesome looking Sylvaneth army worth 2000 points, in a way that's
both super fast AND fun to do. I started experimenting with a set of
10 Dryads, 5 Spite-Revenants and an allied Elven Hero, all converted, kitbashed and Green Stuffed.
Earlier this year I've kept some notes
about the paints and techniques used, and noticed that I put easily
around 30 layers of paint even on a basic rank and file Chaos Cultist
who always gets shot or demoralized in the first turn of a game. The
poor guy has brown clothes and a brown base, and all the metal areas
have also gone brown from all the rust that has gathered. For some
reason, I'm just not happy with fewer layers.
When a basecoat, wash and a single
drybrush might do the trick in many places, I tend to splash in
multiples of each. And some technical paint(s). Then just a little
bit more rust, dirt and verdigris on eveything, and a final edge
highlight. Followed by two layers of varnish, three extra layers of
dirty paint water washed on the legs for weathering, blood on the
sword, more work on the heap of moss and skulls on the base, then
slime and some more rust... You get the picture.
And THEN it's time to highlight it all
up again, because everything has gone completely dull by this point!
Speaking of multiple layers of paint, I
just managed to visit a couple of great art museums a month ago
(Rijksmuseum, Moco and Stedelijk Museums in Amsterdam). Based on how
long I could stand watching works like The Night Watch by Rembrandt
completely awestruck and drooling, I realise that the layers upon
layers of different paints, materials and methods (not forgetting the
amount of hard work, talent, and hours spent) corresponds directly to
how interested I'm in at staying and marveling at them. Factors
related to environment, time and materials (such as actual crackling,
real rust etc., even accidents) also seem to help here.
Many "simpler
looking" works (generally speaking some pop & street art,
for example) might also have a huge wow impact, get their message
across or provide inspiration in a blink of an eye, but I noticed
that the time it took for me to blink that eye was usually enough,
and I could just move on. I'm certainly not disrespecting or
downplaying anybody here, on the contrary! Trying to sum it up: more
time, effort & paint spent ≈ the longer I look at it. Of course
there are limits and exceptions to this, and I'm not gonna spend
years painting these Dryads and become sick at even thinking at them,
just because I thought it would be cool to put 80 different shades of
grey on their barks.
All this rambling came about because I
feel that my painting routines lack some coherency. It's nice to
experiment and not to have any strict guidelines to follow. Painting
could become a chore very easily if I had. But at the same time I
feel that half of the time I spend painting is pretty much just going
back and forth without actually progressing or achieving anything.
Just a little bit of planning beforehand might be the right thing to
do.
So I should be:
- relatively fast (because there will
be an army to paint)
- still painting countless layers upon
layers (to be able to admire them more than a blink of an eye)
- working long hours (even though I'll
be quick, there's a lot to be done)
- trying to find the sweet spot of
relations between the upper things
This time around I tried to come up
with a painting plan I could follow through painting a whole
Sylvaneth army. What paints and especially in which order they were
applied would be crucial here. Some things might be blended, some
wash or highlight could work in multiple parts of a model, a sloppy
drybrush here will spoil the surrounding areas, and things need time
to dry. So I went to a cabin in the woods again for a few days. Got
my newly converted/kitbashed/sculpted Sylvaneth folks and a case of
some favourite paints plus a few wild cards with me.
Having somewhat decided on going with
the birch skin approach (rather than old pine trees with greyish
browns going up to muted oranges), my plan on the colour scheme of
the Sylvaneth troops was fairly simple. Most of the models will be
almost fully covered in just birch skin/bark, so monotonous and dirty
whites, greys and blacks are needed here. The bases will be muted
browns (sand, roots, dirt, dead foliage) and some sickly green moss
here and there. I'll be painting the mushrooms as fly agarics to get
in some contrasting reds with white dots.
By priming the miniatures with black,
grey and white spray paints (and creating the zenithal highlight
effect), I thought it might be possible to get to around a dozen of
layers of paint on them. As the skin/bark would be mostly done with
the spray paints already, maybe just a clever glaze/wash to better
define the shadows and add some mossy dirt on the models feet,
followed with a simple higlight/drybrush on the most prominent areas
would be enough? The browns and greens for the base as well as the
red mushrooms could be all done with base colour, wash and drybrush.
That was the plan, and it started
great. I mixed some Stormvermin Fur with a drop of pretty much all
the washes I had available (around ten different browns and greens,
with the odd black, orange, red and yellow thrown in as well). I just
wanted to play around and find a nice dirty gray shade for glazing
the barks, because I felt the white zenithal highlight with pure
black armpits was just a bit too garish. All the nice forest folks
got a thick layer of this washy grey mess, and were left to dry for a
few hours. I returned to the painting table later that night, and
found out that the dirty grey tone was just perfect, BUT it had been
maybe just a bit too thick, so all the shadows and higlights were
gone too dull and really needed to be re-established.
So back to the old habits! The barks
were drybrushed with Ash Grey, Pale Grey Blue and Off White, trying
hard to keep the zenithal effect intact. Then maybe a three or four
careful recess washes to dirty up the feet and shade the armpits and
other dark crannys... I tried to keep note on each and every paint
and technique I used, and in the end it came to a staggering amount
of almost EIGHTY steps of painting on these poor twigs. And a vast
majority of those layers were not even visible anymore. A complete
opposite of what I was aiming for.
However, there were quite a few places
where I had just experimented (such as the Elves cloak and pants) and
thus repainted several times. Some areas also needed retouching
later, because of the (bad) order I painted them. Okay I'll admit it
again, I just love the multiple thick layers of paint... It adds
texture and depth, and the more different tones and hues of sickly
green moss there are slightly visible on the backside of any Dryads
knee, the longer I have enthusiasm and patience to fathom the
ultimate awesomeness of such a trivial matter.
All in all, I managed to finish the
first bunch of Sylvanethi in a bit under 20 hours. Spent two nights
(around four hours each), a complete day (of maybe 8 hours), plus a
few hours here and there on basecoating, varnishing and throwing in
the biggest pools of washes, so I didn't get to stare and wait that
much for the paints to dry.
The notes proved to be super useful
when I got back to town, finished converting/building the Treelord
Ancient and set to work on painting it. I made proper plans, lined
all the necessary paints and brushes on the table, got fresh cleaning
water for the second or third time this year and prepared the camera...
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