Painting Units: The Painting Pyramid Returns

It is time to announce something new for the Patreon Page!  

After much discussion and research, I thought it might be interesting to profile unit painting on the page, and how I go about that.

It will even go into the basing aspect, showing how I choose a base theme to accentuate the figures, and the colors that I have chosen for them.  Since there are some very nice units available from the Age of Sigmar and 40k systems coming out, I thought that boxes such as these would be ideal.

I wanted to feature a different type of 'army' each month, and create instructional videos in the old Painting Pyramid style!  These would be done in at least 3-4 parts, and even be available in "hard copy" form on USB drives in high resolution, just like the original Painting Pyramid versions.

I am also trying to tie in these new unit painting videos with some of the existing content from the Painting Pyramid, such as my Painting Dark Elf skin tones and Drow skin tones.  Each of those episodes is 100 minutes long, and takes you through my process of painting those two types of skin color.

The Dark Elf skin tone episode links will be sent to the $5 patrons later today, and then the Drow episode later this month.  I am also adding some new pledges at the $10, $15, $20 and $25 levels for people that offer more bonus videos, and even private skype chats and hangouts.

For higher level pledges, you will be able to get sets of bases that I created that month in the basing videos, as well as the miniatures themselves (not a raffle... you just get the figure!).

In a few days I will get the new pledge levels on the page.  There are so many new things that are planned, it is taking a while to make sure that everything is worded clearly.  For those that are already pledging at those levels, you don't have to worry, since I already know :-)

In addition to this new Unit Painting approach, I will be adding Creature Caster monsters to the video sets as well!  During the original Painting Pyramid series, I used a few of the Utraforge figures, which were predecessors of Creature Caster.  I look forward to creating brand new videos based on those wonderful monster figures!

Here's a link to the page, and remember that a pledge of just $5 can get you a lot of video content!

www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Centurion

One more Junkers Centurion for you!  This is from the Urban Mammoth line of miniatures, and is one of several figures that I used for the Raging Reds Painting Pyramid instructional video.

These were very good subject matter, since I needed a full range of reds on these figures to define the shapes and surfaces.  This meant cooler reds in some places, but much warmer reds in others.  The base is a good example of the cooler, more muted reds.

I made the video because the sheer volume of questions that I had about how  to paint red... and specifically how to make it lighter without getting a chalky pink!

The simple key is to never use white.  I generally use warmer colors such as yellow to lighten red, but using seafoam green and other such tones will actually create a Burgundy shade.  This way you get a cooler red, but it is not quite pink, as the tiny bit of green alters that somewhat.

The how to paint Red video was one of five colors.  I made videos for Greens, Blues, Yellows and even Gray!  They are all available directly from me on USB drives.

Centurion

These Junkers figures from Urban Mammoth were used for the "Raging Reds" video from the Painting Pyramid series.  This focused on the entire range of reds... warmer, cooler, saturated and muted.

It was one of 5 "color theory" videos, which included greens, blues, yellow, and even gray!

The idea was to show how many different reds could be achieved, so that you didn't need to have 200 bottles of red paints!  Over the years I had many questions about reds, as many people tended to get chalky pinks when they attempted to lighten it.  I wanted to show them how to get a great variety of lighter reds.

The bases were fun too... since I had not painted red marble since my old Demonhunters army!

This also turned out to be a nice exercise in gold NMM, playing off the reds that were on the figure.  I tried to add my usual purples and greens for variation and contrast.  In this case, the greenish gray colors would give the golds a little extra bounce, since that would contrast against those deep reds.

A true vision for the future

Yes folks... at long last, the future is finally HERE!!!

After much testing, searching, testing, etc., I have the camera which should let me do those Google Hangout classes!  It seemed like none of the cameras I had could work in the way that was necessary, and that has been very frustrating.

In yet another search for something that could work, I discovered this.  I believe it is an older camera, but the flexible neck reminded me of the portable LED lights that I love so much, and use all the time.

This image shows the real key, and that is the focus mechanism, built right into the lens.

By turning it, I can focus on a tiny miniature just inches away.  The other cameras I have tried had a big problem with that.  The flexible neck meant that I could put it in any position needed.

In just seconds, I was doing this!

We were shocked at the clarity, and the way it stayed with the focus, even when I moved it around.  The angle was perfect, because I could continue to use my magnifier light as normal... just like I was painting!

This means that it's not only possible to do the Hangout Classes, but host the occasional "Hobby night", where I paint something from a specific range, or create bases, terrain, etc., and people can sit in and watch, chat, etc as I work.  "Wappellious TV" is here!!

I purposely tried out the smallest figure that I could find to see how it would look.  Again, I was truly amazed.  I'm hoping to do some initial hangouts next week to learn how things look for people on the other end of the line.

We are also researching Patreon, which will probably be the method we use to deal with some of the hangout classes.  More news on that will come once we have a better handle on it.

I do believe that the setup exists to do one on one classes and small group seminars now, which would make things a bit easier!  This is potentially a great tool for live appearances as well, such as Marcon coming up in May.

I should be able to hook this thing up to a larger screen by HDMI, bluetooth, or some mechanism, thereby making it much easier for a room full of people to see what I'm doing!

That was always a difficult, if not impossible, task in my live classes.

My apologies for how long this search took, but I guess all those false leads and failed tests will yield something much better in the end!

The Cries of the Tainted

So, you have witnessed the secret method of the ancient inscriptions... now you will discover where the souls of the tainted reside!!

This is a simple unit filler for the Enslaved Guardian Archers, which begins as a piece of 3/4 inch foam.  A magnet was added for the 4th archer.

I mixed dark green and blue with some black primer for the first layer.

A second coat of blue and green was added to the upper surface, so that I would have some wet paint to work with...

I mixed a teal green with some of that dark blue/green color for my first layer on the floors.

I then created a pattern of skulls and swirls (which will eventually be the demon faces).  I also kept the bases of the surrounding figures in mind, so that the patterns would fit in with the rest of the unit.

More and more of the teal color is added to the mix with each layer, so that I get more definition on the shapes.  Not all of them are done equally, however.  Some of them should be left darker than others, which gives the floor more sense of depth.

Both sides of the unit filler now have a good pattern, and I will continue to define the individual skulls and demon faces from here...

In this image, you can see the skulls have more shape, and the demon faces are emerging as well.  This is the key aspect of the effect, as you want it to appear that the floors contain the souls of the damned!

At this stage, the skulls and swirls are really starting to match the existing base.  I will do one more highlight on them before moving back to the dark tones.

I used a brighter seafoam green for this highlight.  Again, it's very important to highlight some things, but not everything.  Some rows of teeth help indicate the faces of the demons.

I attempted to make these parts of the unit filler more elaborate than the areas under the feet of the figures.  Since these would be clearly visible, there wasn't any concern about taking interest away from a mini that would be standing on them!

I used some Reaper blue liner paint to put some eye sockets on the skulls, and define a few more edges.  This would also help 'deepen' the effect, showing a small part of the abyss into which the souls have fallen!

The demon faces got a little more dark added inside the 'mouths'.

A small amount of fluorescent green was used to create the eyes of the faces.  A few tiny glowing dots were added to a few of the skulls as well.  This would bring some of them forward, or even make the 'shadowy' skulls in the background appear as if it was just two glowing eyes looking at you!

The dark blue was used to make some final touches to the demon eyes...

And PRESTO!  Unit filler. I will snap some finished shots so you can see the overall effect.

I loved this effect so much, I made "Painting Demon Marble" one of my kickstarter instructional videos.  As I love basing, I ended up filming a dozen different kinds of basing techniques!  Here's a peek at the 'core' video, which shows how you can make the sculpey bases:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW80jZhpvsg

They are available on USB drives directly from me, and also from Kings Hobbies and Games:

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

Monuments of Dust

Here's a fun piece of terrain that I just had to make for my Tomb Kings (Soon to become Empire of Dust) army.  It was created from Pink insulation foam.

Here's a glimpse of it's construction from the "Building Monuments" Painting Pyramid kickstarter video:  

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-monumental-task.html

I think most of you know that my obsession for terrain is surpassed only by my love of basing, so that's why there were five different videos created.  It was not very difficult to create this, as you can see, and it has proven to be quite sturdy as well.

As much fun as it was to build, it was even more fun to paint!  I loved transferring some of the inscriptions from my Tomb Kings army board:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2015/01/walls-obelisks-and-more.html

Now for a few miniatures to give you a sense of how big it is.

The Carrion bird on the right was one of my favorite conversions that I created for the army.

They played an important visual role on the display board, chasing down some hapless Empire soldiers:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2015/01/reaching-upper-levels.html

Here's a post on the carrion birds:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/06/look-at-birdie-tomb-kings-armies-on.html

Some of the other terrain videos involved constructing a house, a warp portal, fortresses, walls, rocks, hills and more!  Each one is about 100 minutes of foam cutting fun!! :-)

It's almost official! :-)

Well, it's almost that time.  I have been mentioning in recent weeks that Kings Hobbies and Games will be carrying a portion of the Painting Pyramid video series in their webstore.

That will be official on Monday, October 5th.  The focus will be mostly on the "core" videos, which covers the Shaded basecoat and glazing techniques.  In addition, a variety of Non-metallic techniques, freehand, and color theory videos are going to be available.

One of the color videos is called "Yellow Alert", and it is typical of the five which are offered.

As you can see, I explore the whole range of colors that fall under the term "yellow".

One of the reasons I made each color (reds, blues, greens, grays) was to help people with mixing colors, as opposed to searching for the right jar of paint.  If you know how to make certain colors, you will cut down on the number of paints that you need to buy, or haul around with you!!

I made these in response to all of the questions which I get so often on "How do you make your reds lighter without getting pink" and so on. :-)

Each video covers basic topics such as the paint, primer, brushes, and palette.  Also, every video begins with a version of the "Shaded Basecoat", and then moves on to the "glazing" stage.

When I reach one of these stages, you can see that all the colors which will be used are placed on the palette and discussed.

When necessary, I do little asides like this.  Every NMM and skin tone video has one of these 2D representations, so that it's easier for you to see what's going on.

The videos average a running time of 100 minutes.

I have a dozen half hour preview videos, including this one:

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

In addition to painting videos, I have a number of basing videos.  There are five on offer right now, but eventually that will expand (I did 12 of them total!)

Here's a link to this basing video preview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEP1ILxyGcs

The videos will be offered on USB drives (usb 3.0), and there are discounts for the purchase of multiple videos.  Putting them on USB drives allowed me to get the highest quality resolution, and it gives you a chance to load them onto as many devices as you want.  Not to mention that it is really easy to carry around!!!

So, come Monday, you will have a place to go to at all times for your corner of the Painting Pyramid!!

Don't forget, additional titles will be added over time.

http://www.kingshobbiesandgames.com/category-s/130.htm