Off to war...

Well, the Urban Mammoth figures came in at last, so it was time to get all of them prepped.

You can see that they come in some nice packaging.  They also have a set of stat cards.

And to the minis.  These are called Junkers.  They will be used for the painting reds video, for obvious reasons ;-)

The minis prepped...

But they also need bases!

Bases painted.

The next post will show you the painted miniature!  Stay tuned...

Flying around...Venoms and Wyches

It just occurred to me the other day that I never shot any images of the Venoms with the folks riding in them!

Images were shot of both things separately, but never together, with the exception on a few shots of them on the display board.

The Wyches in these images are from Raging Heroes.  They were perfect for giving the impression of crazed fighters about to leap off their transport!

They had to leap off those transports a lot at the tournament in April, since the Venoms were shot down on the first turn in almost every game.  There was no place to hide, and there were lots of Aegis quad guns to make that an easy task, even if I was going up against Orks.

These units were far better for blowing up tanks than fighting anything else. Between the overwatch and lack of any real AP for their power weapons, fighting anything 'live' proved hazardous.

I put a few of the Kabal warriors in the next few images to show scale...

I suppose it might have been better to have Kabal warriors in the Venoms to boost their shooting, but I thought having this sort of anti-vehicle unit would help me clear out those tanks.

The Grotesque unit in the big transport could really do some harm to armor, but staying aloft (even with flicker field and night shields) seemed impossible.

This is the second Venom, along with a few of the Wyches from the other squad.

I also have the Archon's Venom and crew, so I will post those as well!

Shades of grey

Well, no secret here!  It's a bit obvious that this Archangel from Urban Mammoth is for the "Painting Grey" video. ;-)

There are greys tinted in every shade possible... yellow grey, purple grey, blue grey, green grey, and so on.

The idea is to show that not everything that is grey has to be Codex Grey. :-)

It was a fun exercise, and I think you will have fun with it as well!

The finished chariot base set

OK!  Here we go... the final images of the bases.

I had gotten so used to the Demon Marble bases for my Tomb Kings, it was kinda strange to think that a chariot was going to be based on something much more 'Egyptian' :-)

Obviously, a good portion of these designs are now covered by the chariot and the horses, but it was fun, and worthwhile in the end.

I have some images of the individual elements of the set... the chariot, runners, etc.  That I will post tomorrow.

So, until then!!!

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. :-)

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