Ready the Redcoats!

With all of the Army Painting videos that I have been posting to the Patreon Page, I thought it might be time to show an actual army painted with those same techniques!

This is just one of several that are being painted for Victoria Miniatures, which are amazing 40k Guardsmen, coming in a huge variety of factions. In this case, you have the Boer War type of uniform style.

These are the Victorian Guard, and as usual, there are Female and Male squads available.

All together, there were about 40 miniatures in this force.  Lots of glazing was used to establish the shadow areas, utilizing the Reaper Clear and Liner paints.

For instance, the red was created with a starting application of Clear red over a shaded primer base, and progressive amounts of Red Liner paints were added to the glazes that followed.

Something similar was done with Clear Blue and Blue liner for the pants, while Secret Weapon Weathering paints were used to areas such as the helmets, pouches and packs.

For the metals, I used the Metal Medium from Vallejo, mixed in with Blue liner and Brown liner.  As you have seen before, that type of mix creates a very dark blackened steel color.  By adding more of the Metal Medium, you can lighten those metal colors and get 'shading' without the need for washes and glazes (which tend to kill off your metallic effect!).

Even on areas such as sword blades, I was able to paint in a Non Metallic style, just adding some Metal Medium to those colors.  Since these had to match previously painted figures, metals were required.  I believe this is referred to as TMM these days :-)

You can find these figures on the Victoria Miniatures site here:

https://victoriaminiatures.com/collections/regiments-of-the-galaxys-finest/products/victorian-guard-universal-5-man-squad

I have more of the Victoria Miniatures armies to paint, so I will be making some of them the topic of Army Painting tutorials too!!

You can find these army painting techniques on my Patreon Page:

www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Glow and Reflections! Unit painting videos

Creating the Unit Painting videos for the Patreon Page was definitely one of the most interesting tutorial projects that I have done.  While the typical one off painting tutorials are always fun, these new videos allow me to dive into some aspects that I really love!

In particular, all of the planning that goes into every stage of army building.  I have already discussed the basing videos that begin each series, but now I wanted to talk about that middle area, where I do the Shaded Basecoat phase.

This is critical to everything that I paint, but even more so on multiple figures.  It occurred to me that such a process has never been filmed on a mass basis before.  It was a technique that I developed years ago for painting my armies to an award winning standard, and that has continued to evolve over the years as I have moved into new genres and mediums.

The first series covered fantasy miniatures in 'standard' acrylic paints, but Series 2 has covered painting units with oil paints.

I will continue to cover different genres and game systems.  Series 3 will show how I paint my Lord of the Rings Easterlings, utilizing my glazing techniques with the Reaper Clear and Liner paints.  That will discuss NMM in even more detail, and freehand designs as well.

You can get access to all of the Army Painter series, along with other content, on the Patreon Page:

www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

The Polar Express: Cheap Terrain Options!

When I saw one of these trains posted to a Bolt Action Facebook page as a potential solution to the problem of finding trains the the right scale that won't bust a budget, I had to look into it for myself!

Both Ebay and Amazon yielded results.  Each of these sets was less than $25 including shipping.  That is infinitely less expensive than purchasing "S" scale trains, which are the closest to 28mm.

It turns out that there are several more advantages as well!!

Each set comes with track, which is also less pricey than buying S scale track.  With some weathering powders and other techniques, this should look far more realistic!

I didn't even realize that with a few AA batteries, you get sound... and they actually move ;-)

One issue with S scale American Flyer trains is that they tend to look like 1950's or even '60's.  Removing these containers was important to make these more appropriate.  It turns out that all you have to do is snip a few tabs, and they come right off.  If you still wanted them on the flat car for whatever reason, they could be glued or magnetized back in place.

The primary reason I wanted these is for terrain, but also as tank transport.  While early war tanks will fit best, it was still possible to fit a pair of T-34's.

It takes just a few minutes to get the track pieces together, and hook up some cars to the engine!

Not a bad little train for less than $25.  Once everything is painted and weathered, it should be even better.

I realize that trains in different countries had a varying appearances, but I am very glad to have these.  I think they will add a lot, as fighting over rail heads was very critical in the war.  Also, this gives my partisan armies even more possible scenarios!

I was very glad that I found separate bundles of straight track links, since you only get 4 of them in the boxes.  This is a bundle of 20.  I will be hitting these with the Stynlrez primers to make them look more like track.

Now for a few scale shots.  It would be nice if the train was slightly bigger, but for the price and the mobility, it suits me just fine.  I can actually pack up these trains and bring them with me to a game, which was certainly not a possibility with 'real' model trains.

I will even have some containers of ballast with me to make them even more realistic.  Looking forward to including these in some battle reports soon!!  Stay tuned.

Of Stone and Sand

Time for another fun base created with the Green Stuff World texture rollers!

There is a bonus piece to this base, and that is one of the nifty resin statue pieces, which is something new from Green Stuff World.  It is a package of various broken statue bits, which now come in Aztec and Celtic ruins too!

Here's a link to the Egyptian pieces:

http://www.greenstuffworld.com/en/scenery-accessories/607-egyptian-ruins-resin-set.html

As usual, I had the Secret Weapon weathering paints and Reaper Liner paints on hand.

Here's a post that reviews how I use the rollers: 

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/04/rolling-on-to-victory.html

Starting out with the Brown Liner, Engine Grime and Sandy wood, I did a few glazes across the surface, making sure to alter the colors in the brush as much as possible.  These are designed to "interact" with each other, and do a watercolor style wet mix on the surface.

You can see how some parts are more sandy colored, and others more grayish.  This creates an "aged" look without lots of extra work!

I also wiped away some of the excess glaze colors, which revealed the texture a little more.

I did a similar process on the statue piece, using glazes to tint and darken various portions.

I continued to darken the stone around the edges, using very targeted glazes of the Enging Grime and Brown Liner paints.

Once the darkest tones had been established, I could go back in with a lighter mix of colors to pick out some more details.  I used a Maiden Flesh to lighten the Sandy brown and the Engine Grime (a grayish color).

You can see how matte these colors dry, which is part of their design!

In no time at all, you have a very nifty base!

Here is the figure which will stand on the base.  It is a large metal figure from Reaper Miniatures.  I will try to make a painting video for him too!

Speaking of videos, here's a Facebook Live session that I did with the texture rollers:

https://www.facebook.com/james.wappel/videos/vb.1056181987/10212356287316393/?type=2&video_source=user_video_tab

A Brand new GAME

It was very exciting to see a package from Dark Sword miniatures arrive recently!  I needed to familiarize myself with it right away, since many new tutorial videos are going to be created using the figures contained within...

Opening the very large box immediately yields rules, tokens, cards, miniatures, range rulers and more.

There are a number of guides for "building" your units...

For those how don't want to get more multi cases and foam, the box is designed to hold all the figures and keep them pretty secure.

I have been checking out the rules, and watching as many battle reports as I can find.  Once I get the figures painted, and some terrain made, the hope is to start making my own!

This is the element that alters the game from something like Warhammer or War of the Ring.  There are action cards, objective cards, secret missions and so on that expand the scope beyond simply wiping out what is in front of you.

The 'politics' side of things obviously reflects the setting, and means more variety without having to change up the figures in the armies themselves.

There are plenty of tokens!  While I do have fun making my own for games, sometimes it is nice not to have to worry about that. :-)

I will be making my own 3D terrain pieces of course, but in a pinch these could be handy.

Now to the part we all want to see... minis!!!

I was amazed at each figure that I pulled out of the box amazed me.  Now that I have my little sanding sticks, I think I will be able to take care of all the mould lines easily.

As someone who has assembled hundreds of minis in the last few months, I can also say that it was a welcome change to only have to worry about a few mould lines!

I think I may start off with a basing and painting tutorial for the wolf.  From there, I will do more individual characters, and make the units part of the Army Painting series for the Patreon Page.

I know there is a lot of great concept art, so I will try to get as many of those images as I can, and have them on the screen when I do the tutorials as reference photos.

The character figures turned out very well... and they should also make for great tutorials.

Size does matter! :-)  I'm already looking forward to seeing these primed and rebased...

The most surprising aspect of the figures were the sharp and solid weapons.  I assumed that all the swords and spears would be curved and bent, but not so.  In fact, they are sharper and more finished than most metal figures (I typically have to reshape those and sharpen them with metal files!).

The time savings alone is incredible.

I also didn't think there would be adjustments to the poses of the rank and file, but there seem to be at least 3 different versions for each unit.  In effect, that is about what you could do out of the box with most armies.  There would be 3-5 different "bodies", and most of the difference came with head and arm attachments.

They all fit nicely into the movement trays as well.

I am especially excited about these!  Cavalry armies have always been a favorite of mine, as you can see with my Lord of the Rings forces, and these horses are wonderful.

They are very natural looking, and as I mentioned before, very sharp details with stiff, sharp weapons and banners!!

All of this will eventually be made into new tutorials for the Patreon Page, as I mentioned before.  Some will fall into the Army Painting category, which is a $15 pledge level.  I will also have a few individual tutorials out there for the $5 level too, such as the characters.

It is also my hope to make special terrain tutorials, so that you can play your games on some appropriate settings.

Here's a link to the page so you can see what it there, including the Army Painter levels:

www.patreon.com/JamesWappel