Thursday, 30 April 2020
More-more Skaventide WIP
Giant Rats now completed. For the Rat Swarms I decided to try grey colour scheme, and after a black/white spray undercoat I slapped on some Pale Grey and Basilicanum Grey on them. Also a little progress on the Clanrats. Next up black linework on the symbols, minor detail touch-ups, basing and matt varnish.
Tuesday, 28 April 2020
More Skaventide WIP pics
After the spray undercoat (Matt Black / Dead Flesh / Matt White for the Clanrats, skipping the Dead Flesh for the actual rats), all the Giant Rats got different brown / grey / dull green / orange washes allover, then Underhive Ash / Tyrant Skull drybrushes, followed by another washes of browns and dull greens. The Clanrats got heavy washes of Aggaros Dunes, Blood Angles Red and Guilliman Flesh contrast paints. More to follow.
More-more tiny rats have been sculpted on these bases. Reaper Bones Gnoll Warlord miniatures provided a nice base for the Rat Ogors. I added in some cogs from discarded cheap alarm clocks. Couldn't get my hands on a Hell Pit Abomination kit, so decided to build one from Reaper Bones Dark Young miniature, with a Troll hand from the same company. Wizkids Shambling Mounds long hand I had leftover from last years Sylvaneth project provided a nice tail. GW Chaos Hounds head. Much more Green Stuff will be added. Not sure if I should put a tiny Brain Rat on this things back? Might be more usable as an all-around-chaos-monster proxy if not.
More-more tiny rats have been sculpted on these bases. Reaper Bones Gnoll Warlord miniatures provided a nice base for the Rat Ogors. I added in some cogs from discarded cheap alarm clocks. Couldn't get my hands on a Hell Pit Abomination kit, so decided to build one from Reaper Bones Dark Young miniature, with a Troll hand from the same company. Wizkids Shambling Mounds long hand I had leftover from last years Sylvaneth project provided a nice tail. GW Chaos Hounds head. Much more Green Stuff will be added. Not sure if I should put a tiny Brain Rat on this things back? Might be more usable as an all-around-chaos-monster proxy if not.
Saturday, 25 April 2020
Afterwork Skaventide musterings
This evening I've been mostly assembling Clanrats, Giant Rats and Rat Swarms.
In went bits such as: Wizkids Rat Swarms, good old Games Workshop leaden Giant Rats, Hero Quest rats and more of the little scurry things from the Plague Monks sprue. The Clanrats are a mashup of Clanrats (duh?), Night Runners, Plague Monks, Night Goblins, Gnoblars, plus some Ork, Beastmen and Chaos Marauder parts. Then there's the nice little shield from the proper & correct old Warhammer: Fantasy Regiments boxed set. I felt privileged to have such an arcane relic included in my army, and that furry little unit champion really should remember to keep an eye on it...
Sculpting the little rats was actually quite fun and easy. For sure they could be done better with some practise, but these will do just fine on tabletop. As usual, start with rolling the traditional small sausage from the putty. Front end slightly sharper, as it'll become the head for the rat. Then make two direct cuts for the ears, lifting the sculpting tool slightly to push the ears up. Two little cuts for the eyes. These will already lift up the nose a bit. Tiny cuts and scratches on the back. Press down the sides on the back, to leave a form of the tail in between. Done.
In went bits such as: Wizkids Rat Swarms, good old Games Workshop leaden Giant Rats, Hero Quest rats and more of the little scurry things from the Plague Monks sprue. The Clanrats are a mashup of Clanrats (duh?), Night Runners, Plague Monks, Night Goblins, Gnoblars, plus some Ork, Beastmen and Chaos Marauder parts. Then there's the nice little shield from the proper & correct old Warhammer: Fantasy Regiments boxed set. I felt privileged to have such an arcane relic included in my army, and that furry little unit champion really should remember to keep an eye on it...
Sculpting the little rats was actually quite fun and easy. For sure they could be done better with some practise, but these will do just fine on tabletop. As usual, start with rolling the traditional small sausage from the putty. Front end slightly sharper, as it'll become the head for the rat. Then make two direct cuts for the ears, lifting the sculpting tool slightly to push the ears up. Two little cuts for the eyes. These will already lift up the nose a bit. Tiny cuts and scratches on the back. Press down the sides on the back, to leave a form of the tail in between. Done.
Thursday, 23 April 2020
SKAVENTIDE for Age of Sigmar
Had to postpone the Cities of Sigmar project. Maybe I went for it a bit too much full on? Too many working hours in a short period of time, and all the sleepless nights spent on thinking what unit I should add in next. Too many good options to choose from. Trying to fit them in the army organization charts while maintaining some if any synergies they might have on tabletop. Dozens and dozens of old scrap miniatures to choose and convert pretty much anything from, so the options were just mind boggling. Should the hats be red, or just the scarfs? Analyzed too much all the time. It's a good thing to do every once in a while, but might be bad when it hinders the creative flow. So the orderly humans and their allies had to go on the shelf, waiting for better times.
And that was when I heard the old familiar call from down below. The bells chimed thirteen times and rattling of tiny claws crept through the walls. The lights glowed green before dying out. Scratch-scratch... Cut-cut...
It's no secret that THE Skaven army by Andy Chambers has been a huge inspiration for me since the early 90's. I was so happy to find out good quality pics of them from the internet, to go along with scans from the old White Dwarf magazine I unfortunately do not possess an actual copy of. In addition I flicked through several other Skaven armies by other people, and watched a couple of speed painting videos from YouTube. So armed with the inspiration and refined knowledge I dug up the vast piles of bits boxes and set to work.
I really like hordes. So there has to be a hundred Clanrats at least, right? I also found the good old metal Vermin Lord, so he's gonna be the leader of the army. Then I'd like to have swarms of the little rats, and a pack of the slightly bigger ones. Why not the gigantic ogroid ones as well? And how about the Hell Pit Abominations? Three or four should be good. Anyways, I starteed with something simple. 10 Clanrats without much converting, just to build up the numbers and try a paint scheme.
One thing I also noticed when painting the Cities of Sigmar last week was that I spent quite a lot of time painting their bases. The results were nice and simple, but the methods maybe a bit too slow to use on a horde army like the Skaven. So I decided to not paint the bases that much this time, and let the materials do the work. Just glue in some sand and flock and that's it. Well, I ended up putting down a single layer of Army Painters quickshade wash on them, but that's about it. Really cool bases, fun and simple to do!
Oh, the painting! Again I lined on the table all the paints I thought might be useful for these. What the hell, close to 60 paints?! Wont go down that road this time. So remorselessly I discarded any comparable ones among a few others. Then I had maybe a dozen paints and over twenty brown washes and some contrast paints on the table. Did a little test palette of them on a piece of paper and chose a few, between which I'll be switching. Took notes to try and refine this plan I had:
1) Matt Black - Dead Flesh - Matt White spray primer, painted with zenithal highlighting effect.
2) Block main areas with contrast paints/washes/quickshades. Mainly browns, with occasional yellowish/reddish/greenish shades or greys thrown in. This time I went for Aggaros Dunes (5 models) & Nazdreg Yellow (the rest 5) on the robes. Then Guilliman Flesh & Army Painters Mid Brown (split between models) on the skin, fur and wooden parts. Weapons and armour were covered with Basilicanum Grey and Strong Tone (again split between models). Next time I'll try to manage with only two different layers here. So yellowish robes and everything else just brown.
Because pretty much all of the relevant weapon/armour areas were then covered with:
3) Typhus Corrosion.
4) Drybrush Tyrant Skull & Underhive Ash (split 5/5 between the 10 models as before) everything but the weapons/armour. It might be better idea to paint on the Typhus Corrosion only after this layer, so wouldn't have to worry so much about the neatness when drybrushing.
5) Drybrush/stipple areas of weapons/armour with Ryza Rust.
6) Drybrush Army Painters Centaur Skin on skin/fur/tail. The tail, ear and muzzle were given extra attention to get a bit stronger pinkish tone on those parts.
7) Athonian Camoshade recess shading wash and reinforcing some of the lines between areas.
8) Carroburgh Crimson wash tails/ears.
9) Drybrush Necron Compound on weapons/armour. Gun Metal on small areas where drubrushing would have been difficult (collars for example).
10) Plaguebearer Flesh eyes/pimples.
11) Vallejo Game Color Pale Yellow eys/pimples/teeth/claws. This one is surprisingly important.
12) Clan symbols and markings with Pigma Brush black archival ink pen. Off White middle of those areas, then outline again with the Brush pen where necessary.
13) Fuegan Orange a few spots here and there. Mostly blending in some rusty areas. Will try other colours here later.
Miniatures done! With so few layers, I think it'll be possible to paint one miniature in 15-20 minutes. Maybe even less, 'cause there are so many steps that don't require that much care and attention, and the Skaven are so small. Then of course there is the BASING!
14) Glue sand on the base top with PVA glue. Then glue dark-mid-bright green flocks on top of that. Leave to dry thoroughly.
15) Wash with some mid browns, such as Army Painters actual Mid Brown, Flesh Wash or Soft Tone. Paint the base rims Black.
And then it's time for a spray Matt Varnish allover. DONE! I thought about carefully drybrushing the bases with some very pale brown / grey / off white, but decided not to, since the bases look really nice already. Not gonna waste time to try and paint sand look more like sand and fail at that.
And that was when I heard the old familiar call from down below. The bells chimed thirteen times and rattling of tiny claws crept through the walls. The lights glowed green before dying out. Scratch-scratch... Cut-cut...
It's no secret that THE Skaven army by Andy Chambers has been a huge inspiration for me since the early 90's. I was so happy to find out good quality pics of them from the internet, to go along with scans from the old White Dwarf magazine I unfortunately do not possess an actual copy of. In addition I flicked through several other Skaven armies by other people, and watched a couple of speed painting videos from YouTube. So armed with the inspiration and refined knowledge I dug up the vast piles of bits boxes and set to work.
I really like hordes. So there has to be a hundred Clanrats at least, right? I also found the good old metal Vermin Lord, so he's gonna be the leader of the army. Then I'd like to have swarms of the little rats, and a pack of the slightly bigger ones. Why not the gigantic ogroid ones as well? And how about the Hell Pit Abominations? Three or four should be good. Anyways, I starteed with something simple. 10 Clanrats without much converting, just to build up the numbers and try a paint scheme.
One thing I also noticed when painting the Cities of Sigmar last week was that I spent quite a lot of time painting their bases. The results were nice and simple, but the methods maybe a bit too slow to use on a horde army like the Skaven. So I decided to not paint the bases that much this time, and let the materials do the work. Just glue in some sand and flock and that's it. Well, I ended up putting down a single layer of Army Painters quickshade wash on them, but that's about it. Really cool bases, fun and simple to do!
Oh, the painting! Again I lined on the table all the paints I thought might be useful for these. What the hell, close to 60 paints?! Wont go down that road this time. So remorselessly I discarded any comparable ones among a few others. Then I had maybe a dozen paints and over twenty brown washes and some contrast paints on the table. Did a little test palette of them on a piece of paper and chose a few, between which I'll be switching. Took notes to try and refine this plan I had:
1) Matt Black - Dead Flesh - Matt White spray primer, painted with zenithal highlighting effect.
2) Block main areas with contrast paints/washes/quickshades. Mainly browns, with occasional yellowish/reddish/greenish shades or greys thrown in. This time I went for Aggaros Dunes (5 models) & Nazdreg Yellow (the rest 5) on the robes. Then Guilliman Flesh & Army Painters Mid Brown (split between models) on the skin, fur and wooden parts. Weapons and armour were covered with Basilicanum Grey and Strong Tone (again split between models). Next time I'll try to manage with only two different layers here. So yellowish robes and everything else just brown.
Because pretty much all of the relevant weapon/armour areas were then covered with:
3) Typhus Corrosion.
4) Drybrush Tyrant Skull & Underhive Ash (split 5/5 between the 10 models as before) everything but the weapons/armour. It might be better idea to paint on the Typhus Corrosion only after this layer, so wouldn't have to worry so much about the neatness when drybrushing.
5) Drybrush/stipple areas of weapons/armour with Ryza Rust.
6) Drybrush Army Painters Centaur Skin on skin/fur/tail. The tail, ear and muzzle were given extra attention to get a bit stronger pinkish tone on those parts.
7) Athonian Camoshade recess shading wash and reinforcing some of the lines between areas.
8) Carroburgh Crimson wash tails/ears.
9) Drybrush Necron Compound on weapons/armour. Gun Metal on small areas where drubrushing would have been difficult (collars for example).
10) Plaguebearer Flesh eyes/pimples.
11) Vallejo Game Color Pale Yellow eys/pimples/teeth/claws. This one is surprisingly important.
12) Clan symbols and markings with Pigma Brush black archival ink pen. Off White middle of those areas, then outline again with the Brush pen where necessary.
13) Fuegan Orange a few spots here and there. Mostly blending in some rusty areas. Will try other colours here later.
Miniatures done! With so few layers, I think it'll be possible to paint one miniature in 15-20 minutes. Maybe even less, 'cause there are so many steps that don't require that much care and attention, and the Skaven are so small. Then of course there is the BASING!
14) Glue sand on the base top with PVA glue. Then glue dark-mid-bright green flocks on top of that. Leave to dry thoroughly.
15) Wash with some mid browns, such as Army Painters actual Mid Brown, Flesh Wash or Soft Tone. Paint the base rims Black.
And then it's time for a spray Matt Varnish allover. DONE! I thought about carefully drybrushing the bases with some very pale brown / grey / off white, but decided not to, since the bases look really nice already. Not gonna waste time to try and paint sand look more like sand and fail at that.
Thursday, 16 April 2020
Cities of Sigmar Pistoliers
To take a break from painting the Shadow Warriors, I hastily assembled this troupe of Pistoliers. They seem really good on paper, and I also like the fluff. Youngsters with firearms let loose on horseback, riding forth swiftly to cause babel amongst the enemy ranks. Good movement and ridiculous amounts of attacks.
Some of the bits that went in: Wargames Factory Ancient German Cavalry horses, legs and a torso. The proper old barded steed and standard horse by Games Workshop, and horse heads from some newer knight and a chaos steed. Kharadron pistol arms. I wanted to write a precise list, but actually don't know. And don't want anymore. So here they are! Gonna sculpt some pointy hats and maybe even camping gear on them. Don't know how to paint horses. Might just throw in whatever washes after the initial brown drybrushes and go from there by adding in some off white spots and patterns. Glossy black armours with golden rims, red reins.
Next up I'm thinking about converting some Demigryph Knights and scratch building a gyrocopter or three.
Some of the bits that went in: Wargames Factory Ancient German Cavalry horses, legs and a torso. The proper old barded steed and standard horse by Games Workshop, and horse heads from some newer knight and a chaos steed. Kharadron pistol arms. I wanted to write a precise list, but actually don't know. And don't want anymore. So here they are! Gonna sculpt some pointy hats and maybe even camping gear on them. Don't know how to paint horses. Might just throw in whatever washes after the initial brown drybrushes and go from there by adding in some off white spots and patterns. Glossy black armours with golden rims, red reins.
Next up I'm thinking about converting some Demigryph Knights and scratch building a gyrocopter or three.
Tuesday, 14 April 2020
Cities of Sigmar Shadow Warriors
I really just wanted some actual ARCHERS for my Cities of Sigmar army. Don't the human use regular bows anymore? Luckily the elven Shadow Warriors seem like very effective troops, at least on the paper. So I'm quite happy to have them.
This unit aims to combine a few things I really like: hoods so deep you can't see the faces, some static grass for camo, and long ragged robes/cloaks. I thought these guys would be super fast to paint, 'cause I wanted to keep them very dark, mysterious and plain. Trying to avoid using gold and red, but it's starting to feel like they just have to be included somewhere. The cloaks should get a bit darker still, with just a few sharp highlights. The unit leader came out super nice, and was the easiest one of them all to convert. Those two Mages just happened to casually hang around when the picture was taken.
This unit aims to combine a few things I really like: hoods so deep you can't see the faces, some static grass for camo, and long ragged robes/cloaks. I thought these guys would be super fast to paint, 'cause I wanted to keep them very dark, mysterious and plain. Trying to avoid using gold and red, but it's starting to feel like they just have to be included somewhere. The cloaks should get a bit darker still, with just a few sharp highlights. The unit leader came out super nice, and was the easiest one of them all to convert. Those two Mages just happened to casually hang around when the picture was taken.
Battle Mages
Painted two Battle Mages to celebrate the Yakday 2020. Happy Birthday, dear YakTribe!
Pretty much the same paints and procedures as with the Flagellants and Handgunners earlier, exept I used tiny amounts of Phoenix Flames, Pale Grey Blue, Off White and Runefang Steel on the finest highlights.
Pretty much the same paints and procedures as with the Flagellants and Handgunners earlier, exept I used tiny amounts of Phoenix Flames, Pale Grey Blue, Off White and Runefang Steel on the finest highlights.
Cities of Sigmar Handgunners
After getting the Flagellants done, I tried to complete a unit of 10 Handgunners one morning last week. Didn't quite manage it, and in the end spent a bit over 5 hours painting them over a course of two days. Add to that the quick outdoor visits for spray undercoating and varnishing. Very pleased with the results, especially the red hats look nice on the table. Didn't take WIP pics, but kept quite accurate log of the process. For educational purposes.
9:55 - 10:10 Drybrushed Rhinox Hide, Leather Brown and Khaki allover.
10:10 - 10:55 Layered Khaki on skin, Greedy Gold on weapons etc. and Castellan Green on bases. Doing the bases was surprisingly the slowest part, because of all the static grass on them I wanted to cover.
Small break to let the green dry before drowning the poor dudes on washes.
11 - 11:08 Darkoath Flesh on gold & skin.
- 11:22 Strong Tone on other parts (except the base).
- 11:32 Commando Green dry/overbrush on the base.
- 11:42 Pale Grey & Umber Washes for dirtying clothes (especially legs).
- 12:00 Flesh Wash skin parts, drybrush base Snake Scales.
An hour break.
13:00 - 13:20 Barbarian Flesh highlights on skin.
- 13:30 Ash Grey drybrush on legs, elbows, backpack edges.
- 13:40 Golden Griffon drybrushed on golds.
- 13:54 Basic Skin Tone highlights on skin.
- 14:00 Athonian Camoshade around boots and on the base edges.
NOTE TO SELF - noses have to be painted twice with each colour, otherwise the paint gets removed while handling models, resulting in black nosetips.
14 - 14:20 two or three layers of Pure Red on hats and feathers.
Break.
14:50 - 15:30 Zamesi Desert on ropes & belts, Greedy Gold touch-ups and details, Matt Black visors, Purple Tone eyes and shading gold, Darkoath Flesh ropes & belts and some gold.
Continuing on another day...
13:00 - 13:55 Ash Grey details, Black Wash shading. Fire Dragon Bright highlights and Red Tone on the red areas. Flesh Wash the skins.
Let dry. I don't like this waiting thing at all.
14:14 - 14:28 Drybrush Poisonous Cloud on the bases. Later Gloss Varnish and a few minutes for finishing the base rims with Matt Black. Done.
*****
And here we have some close-ups. Seems like the Handgunner dads have taken their juveniles for a bit of learning to war with them. Too young to go out alone with friends as proper Pistoliers.
There you go sonny! Aim for the head.
Can you please be quiet for a moment, I'm trying to shoot here.
Let's go boy!
That's mighty well done, lad. Attention! Take a knee!
And then shoot!
But I don't wanna...
Wednesday, 8 April 2020
Painting Flagellants (pt.3) - done!
Finished the Flagellants yesterday. The skins were highlighted with Basic Skin Tone. Leather Brown and Ash Grey used for minor touch ups, Black Wash on deepest recess of the robes, Athonian Camoshade around feet and base edges. Fuegan Orange to shade/tone some golden areas, Purple Tone on eye sockets. Fire Dragon Bright highlights on the red areas, followed by a wash of Red Tone. Zamesi Desert on ropes, Seraphim Sepia to shade/tone parchments and other things. Runefang Steel to pick up a few nails and rivets, Poisonous Cloud drybrushed on the base.
Finally some Gloss Varnish was sprayed allover. This morning I painted their base rims Matt Black. I think the gloss varnish adds some very satisfactory and mystical feeling of completeness on painted miniatures. Add to that the tabletop presence and protection values. For sure many of the actual paints gloss/matt properties are lost in this, and it's hard to take pics with "not way too many" of those glossy flashing spots. But I can live with that, practice more and maybe get/try different light setups one day. Here's the finished unit.
All in all, painting of this unit took something like 4-5 hours. Together with all the little breaks, taking work in progress pics and running outside to spray paint, maybe maximum of six hours in total. Very pleased, 'cause it was fun and easy to do, and I'm very happy with the final results. But as usual, must... get... faster...
As this was the first unit I painted for my Cities of Sigmar army, a tiny bit of trial and error was included. I discarded a couple of paints from the set I'll be using for other models (mainly numerous brown washes), and a dozen more I had ready on the table but didn't feel like needing at all. I might later throw in some yellows on other units and heroes. How I'll paint horses and monsters is still a mystery.
But for the infantry, this is roughly the plan for future:
* Matt Black spray undercoat.
* Drybrush Rhinox Hide & Leather Brown all over, then Khaki on skin/scrolls/skulls and finest edges.
* Layer Barbarian Flesh on skin, Greedy Gold on weapons etc., Castellan Green on base.
* Time for heavy allover washes. Use various combinations of Seraphim Sepia/Skeleton Horde/Darkoath Flesh on skin/bones/scrolls/gold areas and Agrax Eartshade & Strong Tone on others. Not too strict, just playing around.
* Add dirt, stains and shadows with Flesh Wash, Paly Grey, Umber Wash and Black Wash. Also Flesh Wash the skins.
* Basic Skin Tone, Ash Grey, Bonewhite and Off White highlights & drybrushes.
* Drybrush base with Commando Green & Snake Scales, wash with Athonian Camoshade, finish with careful Poisonous Cloud drybrush.
* Pure Red, Fire Dragon Bright & Red Tone details/decorations.
* Smokey Ink for parchment texts and other such details, Fuegan Orange and Purple Tone for spot shading/toning, Runefang Steel and Zamesi Desert for picking details.
* For sure some going back and forth, adding previously used paints again when needed.
* Gloss Varnish Spray and Matt Black base rims.
Finally some Gloss Varnish was sprayed allover. This morning I painted their base rims Matt Black. I think the gloss varnish adds some very satisfactory and mystical feeling of completeness on painted miniatures. Add to that the tabletop presence and protection values. For sure many of the actual paints gloss/matt properties are lost in this, and it's hard to take pics with "not way too many" of those glossy flashing spots. But I can live with that, practice more and maybe get/try different light setups one day. Here's the finished unit.
All in all, painting of this unit took something like 4-5 hours. Together with all the little breaks, taking work in progress pics and running outside to spray paint, maybe maximum of six hours in total. Very pleased, 'cause it was fun and easy to do, and I'm very happy with the final results. But as usual, must... get... faster...
As this was the first unit I painted for my Cities of Sigmar army, a tiny bit of trial and error was included. I discarded a couple of paints from the set I'll be using for other models (mainly numerous brown washes), and a dozen more I had ready on the table but didn't feel like needing at all. I might later throw in some yellows on other units and heroes. How I'll paint horses and monsters is still a mystery.
But for the infantry, this is roughly the plan for future:
* Matt Black spray undercoat.
* Drybrush Rhinox Hide & Leather Brown all over, then Khaki on skin/scrolls/skulls and finest edges.
* Layer Barbarian Flesh on skin, Greedy Gold on weapons etc., Castellan Green on base.
* Time for heavy allover washes. Use various combinations of Seraphim Sepia/Skeleton Horde/Darkoath Flesh on skin/bones/scrolls/gold areas and Agrax Eartshade & Strong Tone on others. Not too strict, just playing around.
* Add dirt, stains and shadows with Flesh Wash, Paly Grey, Umber Wash and Black Wash. Also Flesh Wash the skins.
* Basic Skin Tone, Ash Grey, Bonewhite and Off White highlights & drybrushes.
* Drybrush base with Commando Green & Snake Scales, wash with Athonian Camoshade, finish with careful Poisonous Cloud drybrush.
* Pure Red, Fire Dragon Bright & Red Tone details/decorations.
* Smokey Ink for parchment texts and other such details, Fuegan Orange and Purple Tone for spot shading/toning, Runefang Steel and Zamesi Desert for picking details.
* For sure some going back and forth, adding previously used paints again when needed.
* Gloss Varnish Spray and Matt Black base rims.
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