A hot time at the Wandering Dragon Shoppe

It was quite the beehive of activity again at the Wandering Dragon.  Lots of stuff going on... the big D & D group, demo games by Chad, Malifaux, Magic and more.

In the midst of this maelstrom, I was painting more lava bases.  Here are a few pics from the evening, such as this early stage photo...

As you can see, I was also finishing off some more spiders!  The darker colors have been added to the lava areas...

And then some darker glazes and washes on the rocky parts.

I was time to test some lava OSL on the Legion of Everblight starter set that I got from Adepticon.  It's been a while since I did the major OSL, and that video is going to filmed soon... so time to practice!

I wanted to try out as many different surfaces as possible, so that is why I have been doing the spiders and the starter set.

Towards the ends of the evening, I put a few darker glazes on what I was working on...

The Big Guy has a way to go yet, but he has a good start!

I was able to get a whole batch of new weathering powders at the Dragon Shoppe, and I will be using those to do some effects on the Legion minis!  Stay tuned!

Now some images of the little guys!

This set of images has some pictures featuring a unit that will be getting a boost in numbers as time goes on.  That would be the basic Kabal warriors.  Lots of them!

Of course, Asharah will be getting a boost in the number of Incubi as well.  Another set of 5 will join this group...

I have a few more Grotesques that I will finish off to make the unit even larger.

I have many more wyches to add.  The larger squads will go on Raiders, so that the Kabal Warriors can boost the firepower of the Venoms even more.

My thought process for the Wyches did not work at all in the tournament.  With no cover to hide behind, the Venoms were almost always shot down on the first turn, leaving the most important troop choice floundering in the open, nowhere near an objective.

Here's a shot of the little mosaic...

And and even smaller mosaic design...

The shot of the Kabal Warriors, which were way more fun to paint than I expected!

I look forward to doing some more of these!!

Big Bad Orc from Raging Heroes

Here is something I have been working on for a little while, tweaking and adjusting.  This is the figure for the all important "Shaded Basecoat" video.  I have actually filmed it twice, since it is so important to include all the information I want on that instruction set.

I chose this guy (minus the boss pole on the back) because it has so many different types of surfaces.  Flat, round, clothes and skin, etc.  Also, the surfaces are somewhat broader, given its size.  That helps to demonstrate the principle of the shaded basecoat more easily.

I did not include the boss pole for time considerations.  There is a tiny window to do so, but I don't want to have to 'jump ahead' or anything of that sort.

I am also creating a sci-fi base that does not have any GW bits on it, just to stay safe.

This guy works very well with the filbert brushes, and shows up very nicely on camera. :-)  There is a Fantasy version of this figure that I have also used as a practice run.   

Many thanks to Raging Heroes!!!!  Their Kickstarter is imminent, and I have been working on the Kurgonova Sisters in my new army color scheme.  Once their countdown begins, I will start posting the images!

The view from within...

Now we need a few pictures from the inside of the Basilica Canus!

I had to put a few pieces of metal sheeting to make sure the raider would not fall off the board!

I tried to make sure I had chunks of destroyed vehicles that matched what I used for the base, which were also placed on the board...

The bikes racing around the bend!

Circus Maximus, indeed :-)

The Cronos resided on the upper level, along with a few of the Grotesques.

I think I could squeeze in a second Venom on this level!

I was very pleased that there was plenty of room for transport and passengers alike on the tops of the towers.

I bet you thought I forgot... :-)

No, I have not forgotten to snap some images of the Dark Eldar on the Basilica Canus!  Here is the first batch, mostly long shots and exterior views.

There is a surprising amount of room on here for additional units and minis, which is good.  That's because more are on the way!!

I was glad that there were a lot of good sight lines to all the various squads.

This will definitely be a very fun terrain piece for battles!  I can see all sorts of bloody action going on in here :-)

At first I was not sure if the upper levels would be adequate to hold the Venoms, the Raider and the Razorwing, but my fears were quickly dispelled.

More exterior views...

There were more touches that I wanted to add... more cracks in the walls, some freehand stuff inside the windows, etc.  I will do that later on just for fun.

Next up, some of the interior views and close ups!!!  Stay tuned!

Playing around with colors again

Now that we have a handful of the spiders, the color variations are more apparent.

On this spider, the main set of opposing colors was tan/yellow and purple.  The purple was used as the shading color so that it would 'grey down' the brighter yellowish tone enough to keep it in the same limited color set as the previous spiders.

This one is a little more 'visible' than the others, but not excessively so.  The colors are cool enough next to the lava so that the reflected light is still much brighter, creating the glow effect.  Using the fluorescent paints in the lava also helps to generate this circumstance.

The purple was a warmer shade, with much more red in it.  This kept the mixes from potentially turning green, or being too dull.

The next few spiders have the hard carapice, like the one on the right.  I will continue to vary the colors on this type as well.  All this color theory exercise is very helpful to dream up more helpful hints on the videos that emphasize expanding the range of one color... such as reds, or blues, or greens...

Itsy bitsy spider...

Time for some more spiders!  Trying out more of the Badger paints this time.  They definitely combine OK with standard paints.

It's interesting to try and get slightly different color feel on each spider, but keep them to as limited a palette as possible.  I am trying to keep all of the minis in this army to the same limitations... even the Morgul Knights.

I am looking forward to painting the Knights with the OSL of the lava reflections.

Here are some of the additional bases for the next couple of spiders.