Arcane Basing

The very first Army Painting series was an interesting phase in my journey of creating miniature painting tutorials.  This is the moment where I had to decide what sort of format I would use, and just how I would demonstrate my approach to painting units.  Ultimately I chose to do them in five 2 hour episodes.

As many of you already know, I really love basing, so I figured that it would be a good idea to begin with basing!  Here's an example of one of those episodes:  https://youtu.be/fj2dJEQ3x_c

With the basing complete, I shift to the color test figure.  This is where I decide what kind of effects I want to do on the figures.  I discuss the "Currency of Time", where I keep track of how much time a given effect takes, and how that might effect the overall time of the project.

For example, the champion figure needed a lot of decisions.  Should the "familiar" be glowing... and if it is, should it be a different color.  Ultimately I decided to make it the same color as the magical runes on the bases, since that seemed to make the most sense.

Even choosing which figure goes on which base can have a large impact on your choices.  Since the snake parts of the figure didn't see as detailed or interesting, I definitely wanted to have the glowing effects.  That gave me some options for creating more dimension in areas that did not quite have the cleanest textures.

Where the figure should be placed on the base was also discussed.  These views show you how much of the fantastic design can appear if you place the figure in the right spot.

There was some Non Metallic metals included in the series too.  This is another aspect of the videos, and that is to include as many different techniques as possible.  However, I try to make these less "scary", and treat them like any other effect, like snow bases, freehand, etc.

Pulling together all these different techniques in a cohesive manner is what makes the difference between a nicely painted unit and a pretty amazing one.  I try to tie in all these individual techniques into other stand alone episodes also available on the Patreon Page.  That includes the Dark Sword series, which is now on Episode 13!  These take things like OSL, color theory, etc, and focus them onto just one miniature.

All of those additional tutorials can be seen if you sign up for the $15 Army Painter monthly pledge.  This includes an average of 13-20 hours of tutorials each month!

The Army Painting pledge level is available on the Patreon Page, and Series 8 is well under way!  You can check that out here: www.patreon.com/JamesWappel