James Wappel Miniature Painting: June 2013

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Painting your Ruined Egyptian temple base

OK! The base has been carved, so that means it's time to paint it! As I have been doing more and more lately, I brought out the acrylic craft paint which I have been using to paint my terrain pieces.

It works quite nicely with very absorbent surfaces such as sculpey and gravel/sand. It continues to flow very well, and has good adherence.

I did take some regular miniature paints to get some darker/cooler spots in certain areas.

I started to mix a variety of tan colors, and semi-dry brushed them across the upper surfaces. Not too dry, as I didn't want to get that rough appearance to the paint.

Into that tan mix, I added lighter flesh tones, light seafoam green, and so on, to lighten the overall appearance and bring out the carved glyphs.

Lighter still...

Once I have all the lightest colors established, it is time to start shading and tinting this darker. I used the same Secret Weapon washes that I normally use for this task.

You can see already how the first applications on the right hand side of the base make such a big difference! I also keep some tissue or paper towel handy to wipe away excess amounts. This is very similar to some of my old watercolor techniques.

All of the glazes applied, so I will work back in some of the lighter mid tones.

As I work in this part of the 'value scale', I like to mix some of the wash colors in with my regular paint. This keeps them in the same family, but creates a little more interest.

Once I am satisfied with how those mid tones are looking, I add some more dramatic highlights, and also paint in some finer cracks, etc.

I have some photos of the finished bases in another post! Stay tuned...

Shattered Egyptian temple base... the carving

As we back track a bit with our War Gods of Ageyptus chariot, we go back to base-ics. Here are a few posts that show how I created the ruined temple base for that project.

It all begins with a very thick piece of baked sculpey. I wanted this to be a little thicker than normal, since I almost wanted it to look more like a piece of collapsed wall than a floor. The rough design was drawn out first to arrange it correctly.

I learned the hard way that things like the chariot will cover a huge portion of your base, so you don't want critical parts of the design to be hidden!

The scribing tool is incredibly effective for carving out all these tiny details.

For the heavier, or deeper cuts, I could either go back over the original cuts again with the scribe tool, or use one of my other wood carving tools (that you have seen in previous basing posts).

Even setting the scribe tool on 'edge' so to speak, is pretty effective.

This angle gives you a better idea of what the cuts look like.

Once all the texture has been carved, it's time for painting! Stay tuned. :-)

Saturday, June 29, 2013

A sweet ride for the King...

OK! The War Gods kickstarter has just 27 hours to go!

One of the recently unlocked units is the Mycenaean chariot. So many fantastic things are now available, such as the Amazon Cavalry!!

I had a lot of fun painting this, and I am sure the new chariots will be equally as wonderful.

I will be posting some how to articles on the bases, but I wanted to rush ahead with the finished pictures before War Gods ends.

Obviously, it would be so much fun to paint and entire army and base it in this fashion. I am hoping to do much more in the future...

This all went together very easily. It was metal, but that was not a problem at all. :-)

So, get in your pledges while this lasts! Check out all the Demigods and Automatons!

You will love painting these as much as I have!!

Here is the link:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1820979427/wargods-of-olympus-mythology-miniature-battle-game

War Gods Chariot WIP

After assembling so many of my Tomb Kings Chariots (including those Khandish LOTR conversions!), I have been itching to try out this set from the War Gods line.

Here are the basic pieces, along with some bases.

The painting begins in the usual way, setting up the future glazes with the shaded basecoat layers.

I work the colors lighter and lighter, knowing that I will be shading and tinting them darker later.

Just about ready to start those glazes!

You can see the difference once the chariot has some of the extra shading. It does help when the figures have a good casting for this technique!

The same goes for the out runners. I learned during my Tomb Kings research that the bulk of the armies fighting at this time had these guys running around. Their job was to go into the mess once the chariots were in combat with each other. The goal was to wipe out the opponent's chariots in this way.