From mess to base...

Well, lots of stuff going on.  Among the many tasks under way are more of the Bark and Branch bases.

As usual, they are a mash of bark pieces, branches, oxide paste, mica flakes and gravel.

To paint all that, I brought out the more decimated craft brushes, which are like sacrificial filbert brushes!

I had some bark browns, blues and such for the initial layers...

Getting the mica flakes covered takes primer, as that surface is not very porous. 

You can see on the right what kind of colors are being used at this stage.  A mix of seafoam green and tan.

In typical shaded basecoat fashion, everything is lighter than it will eventually be.  I am trying to emphasize the cooler colors in the lights, so that I can use many layers of warm colored dark glazes.

This means I can get the two parts of the contrast triple crown... light vs dark, and warm vs cool.

I tossed out a few light colors at this stage, such as some pale yellow and pale flesh tones for the skulls and other accent points.

Coming up next, the glazing stage!!! Stay tuned.

Hear a whisper

The Dark Council is ready to whisper a bit of advice for you... and perhaps some influence.

This is a member of the Dark Council, who's primary function is to provide additional influence to you Wild West Exodus Posse.  That extra spot of influence here and there can either keep you alive, as I discovered, or let you re-roll an all important 5 inch blast template. :-)

There is a downside, however... as you must move them before anyone else.  They will also disappear if there is nobody near by to influence!  A battle report with not one, but two of these robed mysteries make their debut in Wappelville.

Flower power

Here's a mystery figure that I have had for a long time.  It was part of our D&D group for years... an NPC that followed around the group's bard. :-)

Now she needs a home in another adventuring party:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321653223240?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

I love the Army Painter foliage.  It's SO much easier to use this flower product than the stuff we had used for so long.  Just take a small piece off the sheet, and glue it on!  No tearing it away from a brillo pad type substance as all the 'flowers' fall off. :-)

Let me show you my little stick...

Warning!  Very cool Reaper miniature alert!  These sorceress figures have been favorites of mine since we first started painting figures 14 years ago.

Werner does such a fantastic job sculpting these.  They are very fun to paint.

She's also available here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321652853205?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

I had lots of fun with the various dress colors, balancing warmer and cooler purple hues.

I did the same thing on the skin tones, using green, brighter reds and so on to create more depth...

Can't get much more classic D & D than this guy!

Reaper makes a TON of great RPG minis... just about impossible not to find your character in glorious pewter. :-)

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221673163917?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

A walk through the forest

Here's another fun Celtos Swordmaiden.  It's another one that I had been saving for that SLaine campaign.

I thought it would be fun to use one of the forest bases with fall foliage created with the Mica flakes.  Lots of blog posts on that style of basing!  Go check that out...

Also, she's available here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321651949851?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

Reaching the Upper Levels

Let's look at at the top level of the display board today!

For as many technical challenges lurked below, this was even more tricky.

To go along with the army story (this is, Empire and Bretonnians constantly raiding Tomb Cities), I needed to have the inner Tomb, and the desert landscape above.

It also had to be removable for transport and other considerations.

There had to be room for my scratch sculpted constructs, my scratch built Screaming Skull catapult, the main light source over the Casket of Souls, and the scene to the right...

I sculpted the sphinxes to show the difference between the 'regular' statues and the ones that had come to life, like the Heirotitan and the Colossus.

Prince Apophas would stand watch over the 'altar', which covered the massive lighting apparatus.

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/06/prince-apophas-armies-on-parade-final.html

The Heirotitan!  I have a number of posts on him, such as the sculpting process:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/07/clash-of-titans-scratch-sculpting.html

This overhead view gives a nice sense of how everything worked together...

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/06/ground-war-painting-upper-level-above.html

The Colossus!!  Some views of the sculpting process:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/07/completing-sculpting-of-colossus.html

The painting of the Colossus:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/07/colossal-paint-job-another-monster.html

Here's the scene that was so much fun to create!

The hapless and greedy Empire soldiers are about to become Carrion food!

The Carrion were a huge part of the story, having originally been the tropical bird pets of Pseusennes.

Their bases were carved from baked sculpey.

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/06/look-at-birdie-tomb-kings-armies-on.html

It took a lot of engineering to create the hole they had dug.. thank goodness for Oxide Paste!

Time to run!!!

This story was meant to tie into this scene, and explain the Hieroglyphs on the walls:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/07/one-more-thing-for-armies-on-parade.html

Creating the glyphs on the walls took a lot of effort, but it was worth it!

The idea was that the  Second Taint of the Silver Pharaoh would be explained in its images.  Ironically, they were so realistic, people dismissed them as mere printings of actual glyphs from Egypt!

More to come!  Please feel free to look through the immense number of articles on this army and display board... about 1300 hours went into the entire project over the course of 2 years.