Down in the Trenches

As the winter American army draws closer, it's time to get some vehicles ready for them as well!  

Just in time for the relief of Bastonge is the trusty Sherman... I look forward to "winterizing" this. :-)

I had never gotten Trenchworx vehicles before, but I knew that I was in for a real treat.  Sure enough, all kinds of amazing things were waiting inside the box...

Instructions!  Yes, not something you see very often with resin and metal kits.  Very handy though :-)  Even at the rough stage of yanking them out of the bubble wrap, the parts all looked and felt fantastic.

The resin had a wonderful smooth, uniform finish, as opposed to the alternating glossy/rough like you all too often run across.

The pieces already went together, with no slicing, filing or other machinations!

And yes, each turret comes with a rare earth magnet set!  The holes are already set for you... all you have to do is glue them in.  That saves a whole lot of time, pain and potential suffering!  Love it!

The assembled vehicle.  I have since added some stowage, so that it has more places for the snow to accumulate.  The drive wheels and treads were super clean and distortion free, which is yet another amazing attribute.  Normally the treads get a bit whacky and out of shape.

Not here!

I look forward to working on many more Trenchworx vehicles, since the kits are soooooo easy to deal with.  Every detail is sharp and crisp, down to the smallest tool, hatch or vent.  Painting these will be a joy, because they will practically paint themselves.

I have a link to the site here.  They are continuously adding new kits, so I keep coming back to see what wonderful new tank will be coming out:

http://trenchworx.wpengine.com/product-category/world-war-ii/

City of the Dead

It's been a while since we have looked in on things with the Army of the Dead!

These figures were a lot of fun, an exercise in working with the fluorescent paints combined with weathering.

The weathering aspect was done as a series of glazes over the top of the much brighter and saturated fluorescent paints.  This not only toned those down, but created a difference in texture as well as color and brightness.

I remembered the decayed, ethereal look to the Army of the Dead from the movies, and this was a nice way to achieve that look without endless hours of layers and other craziness!

Going out Clubbing

I'm not sure where this guy came from, but it was certainly interesting to paint!  The request was to have his skin tones be a combination of pale hues, with a darkened nose.

The figure was the kind of plastic that you find in a board game piece, so I'm assuming that it might be part of the Blood Rage game or something.  Having done all those historical pieces of late, playing with all the subtle differences in brownish tones was no trouble at all!

To get any kind of interest in large areas of similar tones such as this, you have to seek in greens and grays wherever possible.  Not only does this make the brown less monotonous, but it begins to reflect the environment around him, with all the deep green foliage.

That helps to set him into that environment, and make him look as if he were a part of it,  as opposed to simply being dropped into it!

Icing on the Cake

For those who were able to check out the three facebook live sessions that I did on this winter vehicle, they got to see handfuls of brand new techniques that I had never tried before!  

I had only some theories to go by, materials that I thought could be used in a new and different way, etc.

The primary goal was to see just how many aspects of the winter whitewash and other effects could be done with weathering powders.

I have a full range of those pigments in both Secret Weapon Miniatures and Mig AMMO, so this meant that I could explore rust, dirt and even some chipping as well!  The snow itself would be done using the Secret Weapon crushed glass method.

To make the powders flow like paint, I mixed them with rubbing alcohol.  This makes the powders flow like watercolor paint.  However, since it does not seal the pigments, you can remove them, or alter them in any fashion, because they are still just powder!

If you need to seal them, you can spray Testor's Dullcoate over the top, or even use the pigment fixers of the companies that I have mentioned.

The mud and rust was also done with the powders.  For the mud, I mixed in Realistic water, which gave the powders more of a thicker plaster look.  The rust was added much like the whitewash.

All of these effects were done in layers, one after the other, with each stage carefully planned to maximize the effectiveness of subsequent layers.  This could mean having a darker layer to show more snow or chipping above it, or mud spatters that are layered onto whitewash that has been wiped away by melting snow and ice.

The most complicated aspect was the snow itself.  I had to be very careful in its placement, or else it would look silly... or worse yet, prevent the turret from spinning!

To give a reason for the whitewash to be wiped away in places, I tried to place the snow where internal heat from the tank would melt it, thus creating water flows across the surface.

Doing this complex layer cake ultimately gave me a reason to try out my icicle technique (liquitex heavy gloss gell) where these melted areas would allow water to drip down the sides of the vehicle!

I did some off the barrel, and more on the rear of the tank.  This was that final icing on the cake!

I will be doing many more of these winter vehicles for Germans, American and Soviet vehicles, so stay tuned!!

Riders of the East

My Easterling/Khandish army was definitely a favorite of all my armies, no matter what the system was.  Not only was it very fast and mobile, with Kataphract cavalry and Khandish chariots, but it hit very hard in combat.

After playing Tomb Kings in another system, I was very forlorn over the post it note fragility of each, and complete lack of killing anything besides the blades of grass they were running over.

Once I started playing Lord of the Rings, I eventually realized that cavalry could do some serious harm, especially on the charge, and chariots could do even more!

Even better, a random stiff breeze didn't kill them!!  On the cavalry side, you had to roll to see if you hit the horse or the rider.  That kind of additional survivability made them more than appealing.

Chariots on the charge could work over multiple infantry at once, which is how I had expected many hundreds of pounds of horse, wood and humans moving at high velocity should be able to do.  That kind of speed was also more useful in LOTR, because individual combat was important, but offering potential support to an ongoing infantry fight from a flank was devastating.

Blood Sacrifice

I don't think I ever got to use Teneouini in a game of Warhammer Fantasy, but he's always been lurking around with the rest of the Skinks.

This figure goes back a long way, I'm sure, possibly pre-2003 when the Lizardmen figures were initially redone.  As usual, my favorite bit is the chameleon and little lizards crawling or peeking around the stone.

Secret Weapon Realistic water mixed with a variety of reds and browns helped to get the fresh blood effect.  I love suspending the paint in the realistic water, since it has that appearance of blood cells in plasma.  Prior to that, no matter how carefully I painted the blood, it still looked more like red paint.

The Realistic water let me get a blood soaked feel to the robes on the hapless Skaven mage.

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/222406986967?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

Beetlejuice

This Prince Apophas figure was an interesting little conversion that I made for my Tomb Kings army.  I made a few press moulds of the beetles that formed the body, and used those moulds to cast some blobs of green stuff.

These 'casts' of beetles were used to extend the bottom of the figure in order to wrap around the base.

I added a few of the plastic winged scarabs on the tops of these extensions to make them appear like he was actually forming from the swarm!

I believe that I also added a few skulls in there too.  'Cause ya know... Tomb Kings. ;-)

He was painted in the same Tzeentch taint color scheme as the rest of the army.

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/222405679133?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649