Feeling Hexed?

I don't do dark color schemes very often, and I paint heavily weathered dark color schemes even less!  This is one of those rare times, and it is for the Hexenheim Stormtroopers  made by Victoria Miniatures.

Here's a link to the store where you can see how the various parts work together:

https://victoriaminiatures.com/collections/regiments-of-the-galaxys-finest/products/hexenheim-storm-troopers-10-man-squad

It can be challenging enough to keep a "compressed" color scheme interesting, but when it is this dark you have to find those variations wherever possible.  That might mean putting a touch of dark green in the shadows of something which seems reddish, or putting some blueish tints in coats that are supposed to be a warm gray.

That can be even more important when you are going to add weathering effects like mud spatter.

On these figures, the mud spatter had to be a warm tan color, so the coats had to be a 'neutral' tone.  Ideally that would be slightly cooler, because the warm mud tones would contrast with that a little more.

Of course, having very bright and saturated elements like the glowing eye pieces and the targeting lights help to make a good place for the eye to focus on.  

Normally I work in much brighter and saturated color ranges.  However, it is possible to get far more color into a so called limited palette.

Here's a link to the Broolian Beastmen video, which also involved a "compressed" color range:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glLigbsoHRQ

The Red Horde

After setting up a large enough backdrop, I was finally able to get some group shots of the massive Mierce monsters!

The smallest bases in the group are 60mm, so that should give you some idea of how large all this is.

You have seen some previous posts on this "Reclamation Project" including a step by step post here:

https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/12/reclamation-job.html

Every time I look at that post, I am amazed at the huge difference a few key elements could make.

Some glazes here, a few interesting color shifts in the midtones there, and suddenly less dramatically altered areas became quite different too!

It was also fun to try out a brand new basing material, a crackle medium from Games Workshop.

Stay tuned for more interesting Mierce Miniatures projects!!

Going live!

Just as I did with the recent House Stark alternate color scheme, I have been taking an army of Night's Watch and making them more like Gondor Rangers.  You can see the hints of green in the cloaks, along with the more reddish and tan leather.

Not to worry, since I am keeping up with my own Army Painting series which has the Night's watch in "official" color scheme.  However, it has been very fun to see them with this variety of blueish and warmer greens, along with more summer style foliage.  By the way, those are my own home made shrub tufts!

I really LOVE painting the horses from the Song of Ice and Fire range.  By far the best sculpted horses I have painted in nearly 20 years.

It's coming together nicely!  They should make an interesting comparison to the other Night's watch.  You can get a peek at that series here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD_Qcs1ZWMs

I will be painting a certain number of these alternate Night's Watch in oils, in army painting fashion.  I already have one series of 5 episodes on painting a unit in oils available on the Patreon Page, but I wanted to try doing some of this on YouTube live sessions.

Here you see a massive batch of figures based and ready for priming.

And nearly ready to roll!  I wanted to get back into using the Mig Ammo Oilbrushers, which I have used on a number of occasions:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkiscuQj_K0

And away we go!  The first session was nearly 3 hours, where I introduce you to the method that I use for painting oils.  I am hoping to do one or two more live sessions during this project.

Here's a link to that live session!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC2aPr9s330&lc=z232txhhimjuwnmow04t1aokgoy4cysy0qtgr1xep2rnrk0h00410

A new Breed of Soldier

This is part of a set of miniatures from Puppets War, I believe.  They were quite different from what I have been working on lately!

I have been painting a lot of historical and fantasy figures, and going back to sci-fi was a bit of a refresher course :-)

That is not a bad thing to do once in a while... switch up genres and give yourself a fresh perspective on projects, and perhaps even get some new ideas in the process!

Ice Band Cometh

We continue with the "Army of many companies", a warband consisting of figures from Mantic, Reaper and Privateer Press.

Some are very old, and some are brand new.  Here are some of the old...

I have painted a few of these several times over the years!  The Ice Queen is a figure that I used to film the "Painting the Blues Away" color theory episode.

Here's some of the new, which I believe are from Mantic.

The head was replaced on the left figure by a Games Workshop head.

The new and the old side by side... Mantic and Reaper.

More of the warband, including a large critter from Mantic.

Creating a warband such as this out of many figures from different manufacturers can pose a real challenge, due to the wide variations in sculpting styles, etc.  Finding those 'commonalities' is even more difficult when the age of the sculpts varies so much!  These must span 15+ years.

It was less of a challenge for me, since I have been cranking out the "Army Painter" video series!  Each of those units requires a different approach, and along the way I have learned a LOT.  I try to find new approaches in each series that I do, and Series 7 is already in production!

These are usually 5 episodes long, and have roughly 11-12 hours of tutorials in them.  I show the entire unit from start to finish... from basing to final details.

That $15 pledge also provides access to all the other tutorials done that month, including the Dark Sword figures, basing episodes, and other general techniques.  It's all right here:  www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Tossing Rocks

I have been asked many times if I thought that the Song of Ice and Fire miniatures might work for other games, and I have showed people the alternate paint schemes and spear conversions as an example.

In this case, the requirement was creating some crew for 2 weapons (which I think came from one of the Zombicide games).  To create them, I cut away the shield and sword arms and replaced them with some of the Winter Soviet arms from Bolt Action.

The scale of the arms and hands matched up well, and having plain "sleeves" worked well with the color scheme and even the notion of being a weapon team.  You would not want chainmail sleeves getting caught up in the machinery!

The weapons can either be set up like this, without their bases... or

Placed on a custom base for game play if needed!  I made a base similar to this for the Night's watch Scorpion crew:  https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/11/steaks-for-dinner.html

Those bases did make a nice setting for the weapons.  I will be making some more tutorials on this type of base for the Patreon Page:  www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Here's one of the latest tutorials on basing Song of Ice and Fire armies:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INPfPLCTZcE

The Beast Inside

Yet another Army Painting tutorial series begins!  This time we have the Broolian Beastmen Close Combat Squad from Victoria Miniatures.  Here's a link to the first episode, where the "color test" figure is painted:  https://youtu.be/glLigbsoHRQ

The Color Test figure is always very important, because it is where you can figure out the color scheme of your army, and how long various effects might take on each one!  Keeping track of how long it takes you to paint a certain effect on the mini will let you know if you want to spend that much time executing that effect on every figure in the army, or just save it for special characters.  

This is something that I discuss over and over again in all my Army Painting series on the Patreon Page.  I call it the "Currency of Time", and it is in limited supply for all of us.  While there are nifty things that we would all like to do on our armies, sometimes choices have to be made.

Hopefully these tutorials help you on those decisions, but also give you a LOT of added tools and knowledge to make those less difficult.  After all, if the figures take less time to paint, you have more time for special effects... or even another army! ;-)

The rest of the multi part series will be available to the patrons of the Patreon Page.  Signing up for the $15 Army Paintinng pledge level will provide access to all the previous series (there are 7 already!) since those are designed to build on what has gone before.  That means you will have at least 13-20 hours of video tutorials each month, filled with all kinds of techniques and mediums!  Here's the link: www.patreon.com/JamesWappel