Always keep it Shiny!

This latest version of Painting Dark Sword had a few things which were very new, and some things that go back several years to the original Painting Pyramid video series!  

For those of you familiar with the way I have been "Primer Painting" the figures in pre shaded fashion, this will look quite different.  I simply brushed on some Badger Stynlrez primer, using the reddish brown color.

From there, I would work in a more 'classic' Shaded Basecoat fashion.

You can also see the reference images of armor in the corners, which were a very helpful guide through the process.

And here it is... that old traditional Shaded Basecoat!  This  means that instead of doing the initial dark glazes over the pre shaded primer, I brush in some middle and lighter tone values.  These will be hit with the glazes in the next phase...

You can see the image on the left which has those glazes, which are meant to shade and add more tones to that Shaded Basecoat.  The image on the right shows how it has progressed further, with the midtones and other lights added.

From there it was time to have some fun with the basing, and I brought out the Green stuff World leaf cutters! I also used a few of my home made flower tufts.

The finished result!  This was a typical episode of Painting Dark Sword... roughly 2 hours long and chock full of tips and techniques.  I try to do more than show you what I am doing.  The goal is to explain WHY I am doing a certain action or using a certain material.

This episode allowed me to show how to get as many colors as possible into your metals, working in glazes that were not only shading and tinting existing colors, but also lightening them.  Yes, glazes are not always darker.  It is possible to add lighter, softer tones in transparent fashion to smooth out certain areas that are rougher.

Again, many of the principles that are discussed in this video harken back to the original Painting Pyramid series of videos, which featured 53 titles covering dozens of painting techniques, specialty effects, 12 basing videos and even 5 terrain videos!  Several of these are now part of my Patreon Page, and I am building off these once again.

You can see those with the $10 Dark Sword pledge, along with tutorial videos on the Black Heart Models busts.

It is hard to believe, but this is already Episode 11 of the Dark Sword series!  I have covered a host of different painting and basing techniques, color theory, OSL, NMM, and more.  As I mentioned before, the Dark Sword pledge level is just $10 per month, and that means hours of tutorials, since you also are provided with other tutorials during the month which feature very specific techniques or concepts.  Here is a link to the page:  www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Taking the Green

Last week I did a few YouTube Live painting sessions to demonstrate the use of oils on the Song of Ice and Fire miniatures.  In this case, it was a slightly different "alternate" theme for the Night's Watch.  While the overall color set was still meant to be dark, I also had to incorporate a variety of greens, blue greens and grayish greens onto the cloaks and clothes.

Even the bases were treated differently, using my new home made grass and shrub tufts!

In addition to standard oil paints, I also used the Mig Ammo Oilbrushers.  These are very handy, as the containers cannot be damaged or punctured like regular oil paint tubes!  Makes it easier to store and take on the road with you.

I also spend a lot of time showing how to use white spirits, which are very gentle on brushes, paints, and your sense of smell. That is very important... more than you might think.

Over and over again I emphasize the idea that thinner paint will stick to thicker paint, and in reverse too.  The ideal use of the oil paints is discussed... in particular for army painting.

While they can make that process much faster, the key aspect of oil paints is that they don't dry so rapidly, which gives you so much more time to make incredible wet blends across an entire unit all at once!  This would be impossible with standard acrylics.  You might be able to wet blend one... perhaps 2 at a time, but not a dozen, or 2 dozen!

I did my first few live sessions to get a better handle on how that works on YouTube.  Things constantly change in the way you have to set them up, so I started out by using those oils, where I could relax a bit, and not be as frenzied as the usual acrylic lessons :-)

Here's a link to the first live YouTube Session:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC2aPr9s330

This is the follow up session a few days later:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB-nhuTmNbQ

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