Blood and Poison

There's one more touch to add to those ninja archers... some blood/poison blades.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the idea behind this is to create something that can be seen very easily on the game table in order to distinguish two units from each other easily.

You can see the products that were used in this image.  The heavy gel, which I use for everything from water effects to fire to fur sculpting, is an all purpose must!  Then we have some Secret Weapon miniatures realistic water and Vallejo fluorescent yellow.

I thought I would try to get a mix of blood and poison on the blades, so the first layers would be a mostly blood color with a touch of poison.  The fluorescent yellow is mixed in with the deep red and Realistic Water, and allowed to flow down the blade.

I am not mixing in the heavy gel just yet, since I am focused on getting some blood onto the blades first.

I thought it might also be interesting to have some drips and splatters from the blades on the ground and snow piles.

The first layer on the snow was a very transparent application of Realistic Water with a little of the red mixed in.  Additional layers were added in the center of these spots, in order to make it look like the blood was starting to be absorbed into the snow.

Having hard lined red dots on the snow would make it look like blood hitting a ceramic floor!  I thought this would keep the snow effects going.

If these were my own minis, I would have added a tiny layer of snow flock over the top, and let the blood drops naturally soak into that rough surface.  However, that's not an option here, as I must keep these snow bases in line with the dozens of other bases that were done before.

Fortunately there were a number of instances where the snow piles were right under the blades, so I could keep doing the soaked blood effect again and again!

And here's a quick shot of those bases...

I had so much fun making these kind of blood effects on my Adepticon Dark Eldar army, I did a video as part of my instructional series.  It was called "Bloody Mess", and it was lots of fun!!

Here's a link to a YouTube preview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvAu51YMREA

To try and simulate a very obvious poison color, the fluorescent yellow was mixed into the heavy gel, which could create some drips on the blades.

I put the yellow/gel mix onto the tips of the blades, letting the darker blood stains make it stand out.

On these horizontal blades, it was neat to add a few different drips hanging from the knives.

One more view with all the poisoned blades!!  Stay tuned for all the individual mini photos!

If you are interested in the "Bloody Mess" video, you can get that directly from me, and don't forget many more titles here:

http://www.kingshobbiesandgames.com/James-Wappel-s-The-Painting-Pyramid-s/130.htm

Closing in on the end...

Things are getting to the close on this unit!  At this point, I did a little more clean up of a few skin colors, using the semi-transparent mix of glaze color and regular paint.

I did very small details such as the eyes, made more clear definition on surfaces such as the hands, etc.  Also, I did a little blue gray on parts of the blades as well.

I also went back in on the hoods and cloaks with some grey/green color, mixing in a little bit of flow improver to make that more like a glaze.  I am putting back in some highlights in this section and cleaning up any water marks, just as I did with the flesh colors.

The final light color was a very neutral gray.  In the context of all the other blue green that was used, this gray looked more like a green than a middle of the road gray.

The lightest colors are now in place on the hoods!

The final task that remained was to put in the darkest shadows and other line work that might be needed.  I took the Clear Purple, mixed it with a touch of flow improver, and put in some very nice darks in a few areas.

The clear paints are already slightly transparent, even though the pigments are very intense.  This makes them a great color to use for these final dark touches.

I took a quick group shot in the booth to get a better glimpse at what they all looked like.  This removed all the chaos and visual frenzy of the painting area, allowing me to look for any forgotten spots, which can happen when working on units!

There is one more post coming on these figures... I see what I can do to make the blades look like they have a mix of blood and poison on them!

While it will not be the most photo-realistic effect in the world, it should present the notion of poisoned blades during the course of a game.  Stay tuned!