I am King

I had a lot of fun working on the Jeoffrey Baratheon figure from the Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures Game!  He was painted in one of my "On the Workbench" episodes that you can watch here: https://youtu.be/501jT53hFd4

I try to break down the painting of all the miniatures into simpler steps... typically 5 sections.  The first discusses what materials are involved, and then it moves on to the initial glazing and Shaded Basecoat phase in part 2.

I want to work in the sketching of the Freehand design as early in the process as possible, for a few reasons.  If that design is sketched in at an earlier point, I have a lot more room to make adjustments!  Painting a complex freehand pattern over a surface that you have spent a lot of time working on can be daunting.

It can be so daunting, many folks don't even attempt the freehand, because they don't want to "mess up the figure"

I am the King!

This image also shows the basing of the figure, which was done with the Green Stuff World Texture rollers.

And a peek at the freehand design!

I will be doing tutorials on the rest of the King's Guard for the Patreon Page.

Even pledging at the $5 level can set you up with some very fun tutorials each month, and you also get a TON of content right away when you do sign up.  You can check that out here:  www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Savage Blood

I have been having a great deal of fun basing my Song of Ice and Fire miniatures using a variety of Green Stuff World products... the latest of which are the "Crunch Times" texture sheets.  I have been using the skull piles and skull and bones sheets to base my Free Folk units.

It is possible to break those up, and then use them for bot the bases and the movement tray!  In effect, you are creating a moving diorama.

In my latest basing video, I demonstrate how this process works: https://youtu.be/nnAX658rMd8

I also take you through some steps to magnetize the figures to the tray, which I have been doing for all my units.  This makes them so much easier to deal with as far as transport, but even on the table when you have to constantly move a tray around some obstacles or rotate them.  I have seen "explosions" in every battle report so far where a batch of figures go flying.

The priming process is just like this tutorial using the Badger Stynlrez primers: https://youtu.be/5pfwjapw98A

This "Pre Shading" process can make things much easier and faster when it comes time to paint the rest of the unit!

Here are a few of the "Color Test" figures.  This is an important part of the unit or army painting process, and something that is always covered in the second episode of every 5 part Army Painting series on the Patreon Page.  It is here where you can determine how long a given effect might take, and then you can multiply that by the number of figures.  

This way, you know in advance how much extra time that could add to your project, and you can either eliminate that effect, or save it for select figures such as champions.

I have a number of videos showing how I do the snow and blood effects, such as this one on Shaggy Dog: https://youtu.be/W8MCJm14IYs

I am almost finished filming Series 9 of the Army Painter Patreon sets.  As I mentioned earlier, each one is usually 5 episodes long, and takes you through each step of the process from initial basing to finishing touches!  By signing up for the Army Painting level (which is $15 per month), you also have access to all the other tutorials done for that month, and that means about 20 hours of video tutorials!!

You can sign up for the Army Painting pledge here, so you don't miss out on dozens of unit and army painting content!:  www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Kingsguard

This unit might be just as challenging as the Warrior's Sons, because painting alabaster effects is not something that I have done before!  This was actually my first attempt.  As you can see by the card art, the surface does not quite look like metal. 

I had been told that the armor should be painted more like porcelain, but all the pictures I could glean from the show clearly showed a metal surface!  So, I had to try am mesh all three possible surface textures together.

The shield has an opalescent feel to it, which is something that I was hoping for.

For the cloaks, I wanted to work in other colors with the white, such as these purples and greens. You can see that principle at work here in this video on painting white: https://youtu.be/dB4qtag5r9g

If you want to see how this unit was primed, I have my first video tutorial on that process up on the YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/5pfwjapw98A

There are some other elements to this unit which wil be fun to paint, such as the 4 banners that go with them!  This should also be a very fun Oil Painting exercise!  I will be doing more tutorials on these for the Patreon Page, which you will be able to find here: www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Tip of the Spear

This wonderful miniature is part of the Game Night 2 set for the Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures Game.  This is an alternate sculpt for the Spearwives, and it works so well in adding flavor to the unit.  I will be doing a special tutorial on that just like the Lady Val from a few months ago:  https://youtu.be/DAU3njr2Qc8

The snow and ice technique is a favorite of mine, using the Secret Weapon Miniatures crushed glass method on the snow, and the Liquitex heavy gloss gel for the icicles.  You can see that on most of my Song of Ice and Fire videos, like this one on the Savage Giant: https://youtu.be/1LvJv3dyjEw

I will be painting up a Spearwives unit for the Patreon page, most likely in oils as I work on other Free Folk units.  The goal is to have as many of these completed as possible so that I can begin my Battle Reports!  You can sign up on the Patreon Page here: www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Dog Food

One of the latest new releases for the Song of Ice and Fire miniatures game is the Stark Heroes 2 set, which contains some interesting miniatures.  I knew right away that I was going to have a lot of fun basing the Shaggy Dog figure.

It all started out with my usual bark and branch method of basing.  Here's a peek at how that works: https://youtu.be/INPfPLCTZcE

However, between the dog itself and the pose, I thought that I could use some of the nifty body parts from Secret Weapon Miniatures!  The sprues have heads, torsos, arms, legs and even feet!  I chose the bit that has one arm still attached to the torso.

Keep in mind, I was positioning this to take advantage of the movement tray.  I would place the rest of the body parts on the corner of the tray.

The rest of the tray had the "branch" bit, which will give me the opportunity to create some icicles, which you can see on the end of the previous wolf painting tutorial: https://youtu.be/dB4qtag5r9g

You can see the rest of the body parts placed in strategic areas on the base and the movement tray.  I will be doing some really fun blood effects with the snow, where the blood will be seeping into the snow.  I think I also did that effect at the end of this live session: https://youtu.be/3dpSONjJGQw

All of the pieces of bark were placed and angled so that the wolf would appear as if he were up on a rise.  The leafy material that you see is actually loose leaf tea that I had collected for my terrain pieces.  When it is crushed up, it makes some very nice ground cover texture.

I also did the rest of the characters in the box with a similar method.  These will be painting tutorials for the YouTube Channel and the Patreon Page!  ShaggyDog will be an exercise in painting black, just the opposite of Ghost.  The rest of the characters will be painted during live sessions and other one off tutorials

Basing is such a vital part of everything that I do, it even has its own pledge level on the patreon page!  You can check that out here: www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Warrior Sons

The most complicated and challenging Army Painting tutorial series is now complete!  I am uploading the 5th and final episode of a 13.5 hour epic.

It all began with basing, of course, with a technique very similar to what was used on the Pyromancer bases: https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2019/05/world-in-flames.html

Balancing the rainbow cloak effects with the shimmering armor and swords meant "building" each effect evenly, since so much of it was reflected on many surfaces!

Managing that over 12 figures all at once can seem like a daunting task, but if you step back in think things through, it can be broken down into more easily managed chunks.

I also kept the amount of paint colors used to an absolute minimum, even though we really do have every color of the rainbow.

Seeing units like this on the battlefield is a real joy, and the satisfaction of knowing how many effects that I put into creating it will surely come through on the upcoming battle reports.  yes, that's right... battle reports!

Here you can see how the basing works hand in hand with the miniatures.  In some cases, you can see a bit of color on the worn, broken stones.  Not just areas of red and yellow paint, but even some cut leaves in a similar color as well.

Using the Reaper Miniatures Pearl White allowed me to get an extra bit of texture on the robes, in effect resembling the semi shiny fabric such as silk.  I had never tried anything like this before, so it was certainly interesting.

While the Army Painting series are the most unique part of the patreon offerings, I have dozens of other tutorials, such as the Dark Sword miniature series, Creature Caster, Big Child Creatives and countless "one off" videos like this:  https://youtu.be/1mMsq-Ktru0

I am working my way through all of the various Song of Ice and fire armies... Lannister in this case, but also Free Folk, Starks, Night's Watch and Boltons.  Here's another video focused on Ghost, which is an example of the "one off" tutorials: https://youtu.be/dB4qtag5r9g

Be sure to check out the Patreon Page, where you can get in on the Army Painting pledge level.  Keep in mind that when you sign up, all the previous series (plus the other videos beyond the Army Painting tutorials) are yours to access!!  Here's a link: www.patreon.com/JamesWappel