Take the Black!

Series 6 of my Army Painting tutorial videos is well under way!  In fact, I am already filming the third installment of the five part series.  Each of these Army Painting series is around 11-13 hours long, covering every step of the process of painting a unit.

In this case, I was working on the "Color Test" figure, where I not only establish the look of the figures, but assess how long certain effects will take.  When you multiply the 5 or 10 minutes a given effect might require by 12, and then by 4-5 units of 12, you can see how that adds up!

So, all the while I work on these figures, I am constantly figuring out what is worth my time to create, and what needs to be "inferred".  

By inferred, I mean using some very quick and simple glazes to tint things, or to indicate there are more shades of color than I actually took the time to paint!

Of course, I also had to figure out just how much snow effect I wanted on the bases, and see what might be possible on some of the action poses like this one.  I was able to utilize the Secret Weapon Miniatures crushed glass method to get that scattered snow effect, as if he were kicking up some of the snow!

I added something else to this series, and that is a quick step by step of the priming process.  So many questions have been asked, I thought that I might include it on as many videos as possible.

I am using the Badger Stynlrez Primers and a Patriot 105.  They cover the figures very well, and provide a very sturdy and rugged painting base!

As always, I try to present as many options as possible, instead of hard and fast "rules".  You could brush on this primer if you don't have an airbrush.  Should you prefer the spray can primer (where you have much better weather for such things than I do!), you could do a very similar process with those.

Here's the Color Test miniatures painted in Episode 2.  I love the action and movement of these archers!

During the video, I go into the ways I use to get the most out of a so called "limited palette".  While there are not a lot of paint colors on the palette, some very simple mixes yield a host of options.

Take the backpack for instance.  I think you can see the hints of greenish grey in the midtones and light shadows.  This gives the look of aged leather and brings it more in line with the other blueish and greenish shades around it.  It took very little time to put that in place, as I was already using that color to put light tones on the hood and pants!

I even did my little trick of taking out all the saturation on screen, so you could see how the shading looks as it should, but when the color is restored, you get that more interesting look to the leather.

I will be doing the entire Night's Watch range in these video Tutorials, along with the Free Folk faction.  Some of you are already aware that I have a full series on the Lannister Halberds, with many more on the way for Starks and Boltons too!

If you join the Patreon Page at the $15 a month level, you will get access to all the previous series, as well as 15-20+ hours of video content every month.  The full range of Song of Ice and Fire miniatures will be covered in my tutorials, including terrain and battle reports!

Here's a link to the first episode of the opening episode from Army Painting Series 6: Basing the unit!  https://youtu.be/INPfPLCTZcE

The rest of the series will be available to the patrons of the Patreon Page, with episode two premiering today!   To become a patron, here's a link to the page:  www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Dragonfall 2

This beastie from Mierce Miniatures was an interesting exercise in the full range of greens!

As I have tried to show in a number of my painting videos, these can range from blue green to almost yellow from cool to warm.

Saturation is another added element to this difference in tones.  You can even have the same kind of yellow green or blue green, but if it is toned down with even a little bit of red, it begins to read as more grayish to the eye.

You can see in some of these images how the yellowish intense green on the underside of the wings contrasts with the more muted, blueish greens on the back of the wings.  This is a subtle way of getting that contrast without resorting to radical differences in how light or dark the colors might be.

During my tutorial videos, I like to turn off all saturation at a certain stage to show how you can get "sneaky" contrast like this.

If I were to make this a black and white image, the two sides of the wings would look identical!

I also incorporated some reds in certain places to get one extra level of contrast.  So, the reds are placed where the green and the yellow of the two sides of the wings joins.  This is also a bit darker than the rest of the wings, adding one more type of contrast.

I already have a number of tutorial videos on painting greens available to the patrons of my Patreon Page at: www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Stark Marble

While much of my focus has been on the Night's Watch and Free Folk lately, I have not forgotten about the original Starks and Lannisters!  Tutorials are under way for the full range of Starks... Outriders, Archers, Berserkers, Greataxes, etc.

I am also doing some tutorials on the NCU's of course!  Sansa and Caitlyn will certainly be part of that.

These will try to follow the concept art as closely as possible, but tossing in a few extras where I can.  I have been creating some marble bases for them with a bit of wolf iconography.

It's been just as much fun to work on these as it has the "new" stuff, so stay tuned!!  Speaking of new stuff, here's the link once more to the Savage Giant tutorial video, as and example of what is on the way!  https://youtu.be/1LvJv3dyjEw

Sand and Stone

It is only now that I am able to step back from Operation Sting and think about how much I was able to complete for that event!  I really enjoyed making the display board, which was featured in a number of step by step articles... https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/11/monte-cassino-part-4-more-rubble.html

The army was really unusual for me, since most of what I have been painting all these years has been for early war!  Some of these weapons seemed like space age tech at one point :-)  Of course, I especially enjoyed the basing on the army, and matching that terrain board... https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/11/amidst-rubble.html

I suppose that I was able to get in some practice on sandy Mediterranean colors for my upcoming DAK, Italian and British desert forces.  Those have also been under way for a while in terms of prepping, basing, etc.

When I researched what I should do for the uniforms, the variety of what I found gave me an opportunity to make each figure more unique.  This really helped when it came to playing in the tournament, because I never had any opportunity to play test the army before the event!

I wasn't able to do everything that I wanted to on the army due to time constraints, but as I tell folks all the time in my instructional videos, there is nothing that says I can't go back and add more details!

I also have to start making additional terrain pieces so that my display board can become the centerpiece for an entire Monte Cassino table.  The idea is to make more modular mountain style sections which could be used for several theatres, such as the Caucasus, etc.

It all worked out in the end, and I was very glad to receive the Best Axis Appearance award!

https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/12/final-report-operation-sting-2018.html

The Blue Bloods

As we head towards Adepticon, I have been working on all of the various Guard squads created by Victoria Miniatures.  In this case, we have the Tanneburg Fusiliers.  Since I am already filming a number of Army Painting series for the Patreon Page, I have turned on the camera to capture the methods I use for tackling whole units such as these.

The Army Painter series is usually 5 episodes long, starting with the basing process and color test figures.  However, with the basing being a simpler rock and gravel, I went straight to the painting of the unit.  A typical series covers about 10-12 hours of total instructional video.

In addition to the Army Painter series, a $15 pledge also gets you the other tutorials created during the month, such as the Dark Sword and Black Heart Models videos.  This means you get around 16-20 hours of brand new videos every month.

Those are available on the Patreon Page now... and keep in mind that I am filming Series 6, 7, and 8 right now!  Don't miss out on a ton of instructional video covering all aspects of painting, basing, etc.  Here's the page: www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Here's a link to the first video, which will show how I set up the process and get things started!!

https://youtu.be/nTHBkXNCDlw

The Red Horde

I never thought that I would enjoy a "reclamation" project as much as I did this one!  As I have mentioned in some previous posts, this batch of monsters from Mierce Miniatures had a number of things that needed to be fixed.

There were mould lines, gaps in seams, mostly drybrushed painting, and the requested NMM was done in metallics instead.

I have a step by step post that I made on switching from those metals here:  https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/12/reclamation-job.html

The idea here was not to completely start over from scratch, but to use what had already been done as an underpainting.  Instead of wiping out the skin colors and hair, I was able to enhance that with more dramatic highlights, and putting more subtle glazes into the shadows.

The difference was even more dramatic than I thought possible!  Not only in the metal areas, but even the skin tones and hair.  In the shadow areas of the skin, I used some glazes of the dark blue.  At the same time, I was "warming up" the lighter areas by adding some orange and bright skin color to those highlights.

Once I started to see them all together, I was even more surprised!

This is not the full batch... more pics on the way!  I hope that this might give people hope that if they might not like the results they see, it is not necessary to strip away paint and primer.  Instead, try to use that initial layer of colors as an underpainting, and make it an advantage!

Giant News!

While the release of the new Free Folk army from Song of Ice and Fire is still in the future, I have been busy creating as many painting tutorials as I can so that you will be ready to work on yours!

This Savage Giant was the first tutorial of the Free Folk.

I begin in the usual way, with my initial glazes and Sgaded Basecoat technique.  Those who have seen my other tutorials are quite familiar with this :-)

Once those critical lights and darks have been determined, I can get into the "middle tones", or that vast range of shading between light and dark.  Believe it or not, most of the real action happens here.

With the figure itself completed, it was time to do some snow and ice effects!

I tried to show a few different methods for creating those effects.  They will feature very prominently in all my upcoming Free Folk and Night's Watch tutorials.

Here he is!  I have already completed the second Giant that comes with the starter box, and he will be made available to the patrons of my Patreon Page.  I already have a 5 part army painting series on my Lannister Halberds (series 4 of the five Army Painting series I have done so far!)  here is a quick review of that: https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/12/shiny-lannisters.html

Each army painting series guides you through the entire process of basing, initial shading, the midtones, finishing details, and so on.  A typical series is about 10-13 hours long, and helps you figure out how much of your "currency of time" that you might want to invest in a project.  

I will asses how much a given effect took to make, and then ask if that (multiplied by a given number of figures!) is worth it.  I have even started showing how you can paint your army "on the fly", that is making it look good enough to put on the table before it is actually done.

All of us are in the same boat... never enough time to paint all the minis we have.

I often see people get discouraged, as they are convinced that they won't be able to paint their armies to the standard that they would like, and end up not painting them at all.  My goal with the tutorials is to show you ways to get those nifty results, but not have to invest 3 lifetimes into painting one unit!

The armies that I paint for the Patreon Page are my own, and are featured in my battle reports (or what I take to tournaments, etc).  I do this because there is no better way to understand what a fellow army painter goes through than to be one yourself!

As I mentioned early on, I have 5 Army Painting series up on the Patreon Page now.  That pledge level is $15, and it gets you all of the video content, not just the series.  This means that you get some additional bonus techniques that you can try on your unit champions or special characters.  Here's a link to the page:  www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Here's a link to the video, so you can check it out!  https://youtu.be/1LvJv3dyjEw