Treelord Ancient

OMG!!

Just found a text file I had written earlier in July, and realized I hadn't blogged anything about the Treelord Ancient yet. So, here we go!


THE TREELORD ANCIENT

I got a couple of fantastic looking treemen models from the D&D Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures series. Really liked both of them, and they were on the cheaper side too. The taller and skinnier Treant one will be used for a regular Treelord, and from the Shambling Mound I decided to build this Treelod Ancient. It needed some more height however, so I stole two branches off the Treant and lengthened the Ancients legs with plastic beads. A magic staff and an arm from the GWs' Treelord kit were added in as well. A wooden magic staff defines the status and abilities of a Treelod Ancient (or in a case of the Spirit of Durthu, it's the sword). The extra branches found their places from the Ancients neck/back quite autonymously, almost as if there were ready made crevasses in there waiting for something to be added.

I started with greenstuffing some vine/bark/root texture on the legs. I haven't used greenstuff that much yet, and only opened my second batch of that just recently, so there's still a lot to learn. Sculpting feels like a very nice thing to do. The legs were a perfect place to practice my skills, because I could emulate the shapes and textures of the Shambling Mound, and there really wasn't any strict end result that had to be achieved here, so it was pretty much just playing around. I feel that sculpting these legs helped tremendously on getting to know the material and tools better. So things like how long the stuff should set before getting to work on it, when/where/how to apply some water, layering the stuff, what tool is good for what and so forth.

Extra bulk was needed on the GW Treelords arm, so more creeping vines, mushrooms and such were added here and there. The legs ended in elephantine looking toenails. I had a vision that the Ancient was kind of growing from the ground, so the legs would transform into longer vines/roots all over the base. Only later on I realized that the Ancients' silhouette looks pretty much like a huge letter W. It stands for White, War and Wood.

I also wanted the Ancient to sport a long flowing beard of moss. Luckily I had just that material left from the summer of 2017 when I got back to the hobby after several years of hiatus. I had collected real moss and lichen from the forest, left them to dry in the sunlight and then sprayed black. So they were already basecoated and somewhat sturdy from the paint. A suitable strip of beard moss was then applied with hot glue. Good that I remembered to prime the belly of the Ancient black at this point, so none of the white material was left visible from through the multiple small gaps in the moss. Shouldn't have painted any other areas black at this point though. It was pain in the a** to put any Milliput and green stuff on top of that layer of cheap hoppy paint a bit later on. Lesson learnt here again.

I based the Ancient on some kind of an belt buckle found from flea market. Got three of those, and their size is pretty close to the actual oval base by GW. Only when I had already put several more layers of GS & Milliput to root the guy permanently on the base, I realized it felt to be leaning on one side just a bit too much. I considered breaking it off, but as I didn't want to waste all the effort and hours already spent on sculpting I just glued a piece of wire on the models left leg and sculpted more roots around it, so it got a bit more balance going on. These dead(ly) trees will be flowing in the wind and leaning to all sides in weird angles. The white mushroom on the base I had made earlier from a cheap hobby mass called Fimo. Easy, fast, looking great and I have two cups full of these. Added in some static grass as well, and the model was ready for a basecoat. Black, grey and white spray paints with zenithal effect.

PAINTING

After finishing my first bunch of Sylvaneth I went through the notes and came up with a system for painting the Ancient (and maybe even the rest of the army, if it worked). I lined only the paints I needed on the table, in rows that roughly related to different phases in painting. The paints I already used would be put on another side of the table, so I didn't have to worry about them anymore, but could also easily locate them later if needed. This felt super awesome, and stupid at the same time for not trying anything so obviously simple before.

Starting from left, there were rows for:

Base coating the main colours.
* Stormvermin Fur with some Dark Tone, Military Shader and Umber Wash for the bark/vines/skin (just add water).
* Leather Brown for the base.
* Castellan Green for the moss areas (static grass) on the base.

Drybrushed paints for those main areas.
* Ash Grey, Pale Grey Blue and Off White on the model.
* Khaki for base and a bit on the legs too.
* Snake Scales and Poisonous Cloud for moss.

The red areas.
* Khorne Red for basecoating.
* Pure Red and all the oranges for highlighting. I was thinking about painting the staff as a pine tree trunk, so it would go up from greyish brown to a muted light Jokaero Orange.
* Red Tone for shading.

Final touches.
* Sepia ink and Nazdreg Yellow contrast paint for some mushrooms I didn't want to be red.
* Plaguebearer Flesh to add little mossy/rotten touches on spots.
* Phoenix Flames for highlighting the magic staff and the eye, Elfic Flesh for final highlights and mushroom dots.
* Matt Black for the base edges, Gloss Varnish for magic staff reds and mushrooms.

I almost managed to stick to that plan. A few minor sidesteps were taken however:

* Pure Red was applied twice as a higlight for the reds. First layer watered 50/50, second layer straigth from the bottle concentrating more on the highest tops and edges.
* Pale Yellow jumped in to higlight the mushrooms painted with Sepia or Nazdreg yellow, and all these were applied twice to deepen the colour.
* Second appearances by Umber Wash for the base, Dark Tone and Military Shader on darkest nooks and crannies of the model. Wet blended towards each other on the legs.
* Got rid off the Jokaero Orange. The staff would be just very muted greyish brown to not draw too much attention.
* The Underhive Ash jumped in to be drybrushed on all the beard moss & hair areas. I felt this was a good move, for now those areas would be more different from the regular vines/bark/skin tones on the model.
* Tried the new Wyldwood contrast paint for careful extra shading here and there.
* Even more shading and edge definition by a mix of water, Nuln Oil, Dark Tone and Stormvermin Fur. This would propably not be needed on the smaller models.
* The grey areas were drybrushed again in places after all the extra shading and toning had brought down their brightness.
* Blood for the Blood God for shading and blending all the red areas, watered down a bit to let the highlights show through better.
* Didn't apply any varnish yet. The reds were already glowing nicely after the layer of Blood for the Blood God. I might put some Matt varnish on later for some protection in the most protruding parts.

Voilá!