The Great Elk begins!

You've seen his base (or is that a pedestal?).

Now it's time to paint the Great Elk, a Heavy Support choice for the Warrior Nation.

A quick reference image.  The Elk from the game is horribly distorted as it channels massive amounts of native energy, a bit like the warp for the Gael heroes in Slaine.

The Brushes arrayed for battle.  These gigantic pieces present all sorts of challenges.

When you have a lot of rougher surfaces to cover as we do here, it will take its toll on your hairy sticks.  Not only are mine quintessentially economical at less than 50 cents each, they have several stages of life.

The more pristine versions on the far left have nice watercolor style points which means that I can do a lot of precision stuff with them... even eyeballs.

As you move to the right and you notice the worn out versions, those are the ones I use for initial layers of paint, where I need something I can jam the paint onto the surface with!

Then you see the Filbert brushes and finally the liner brushes.

Some paint out on the palette.  As usual, an array of lights and darks, warmer and cooler colors...

Once more, that pre mixing takes place, as I am creating new colors to use right here... no need to be squeezing paint out of a million different bottles when I can make most of it right here.

This concept also helps with color unity overall.

The process begins!

Not only am I jamming paint into every crevice, I am switching and mixing the colors little by little as I move across the surface.

So, working quickly has now provided me the chance to do some wet into wet blending!

Let the wet blending begin!  It's so much easier than trying to remember a bunch of color formulas!

As I get progressively lighter, I try to infuse a few different shades into the mix.  In this case, some of the warmer tan... the lighter colors I was using involved a light greenish gray.

This lighter shade is a bit more reddish than all the other tones.

With the general shading and value pattern set, I used one of the more worn out craft brushes to 'scumble' lighter colors.  This is a way to mix a color application onto a surface that is already dry.

I did add some blue/gray to the shading of the torso area so that the glow from the eyes and mouth would not be a 'foreign' color element.  Instead, it would be repeated in some small amounts all over the figure.

You can get a sense of how everything is shaping up!

Stay tuned for more exciting episodes of As the Elk Turns.

Going to the chapel, but not to get married...

Here's the rest of stage one for the Burn In Designs church.  As I mentioned last time, this is essentially Shaded Basecoat for terrain.

This means that I want to get every surface covered with some kind of color.  Doing so provides "context" for each color, and prevents something from being painted too light or too dark.  That can happen when you only focus in on one small area, and you have nothing near it for comparison!

So, I am starting out with the darker foundation rocks.  I am trying to incorporate some grey in with the reds and browns.

You can see how that plays out here in this stretch.  Since I am working very rapidly with larger brushes, I can blend right on the surface!  So much fun :-)

To get a little separation from the foundation, the steps will be tan and grey.  Subsequent layers will have a hint of green as well.

Getting paint on all the window surfaces takes a bit of time.  You really have to jam the brush in there to get all the surfaces covered.  While some of this will get painted over when the walls are painted, that's OK.  It will be a lot easier to touch those up, and they still need their own highlights later in any case!

For the interior walls, I want a bit of an aged plaster look.  I have an ivory white and a few different types of deep brown... more like a Van Dyke brown for you watercolor fans out there.

You can see that I have my usual concoctions on the palette.  

This area will require a lot of "on site" blending, where I will place colors on the surface and scumble them together with the brush.  The wood is absorbent enough to soak in the paint, but not too much where it will prevent moving that paint around once applied.

Generally, I tried to focus the darker grays towards the top of the walls, possibly indicating years of candle soot.

Interior walls almost ready for plaster cracks, wall sconces, and a wooden cross that I am working on.

At this stage, I just want to get a general light color on the exterior walls while the inner walls dry.

I used a large, chisel edge flat brush to work around the window.  Again, no need to worry about hitting those with paint.

I will be going over the outer walls with subsequent layers of paint and powders..

The interior.  These are the warmest colors I have used so far... way more yellow than anything you have seen.  I am trying to get a little bit of color distinction here.

To get even more color splash inside, I think I will be doing lots of blood spatter and pools inside.  This will really indicate just how rough the town of Wappelville can get!

I might even paint a few bullet holes in the wall. :-)

The earliest stages are now complete.  From this point, I can work to establish more contrast and definition, as well as weathering and other special effects.  Stay tuned!!!

Raise the roof... get me to the church on time.

To get the new Burn in Designs church ready for Adepticon was going to require paint and cereal.  Well... at least cereal boxes.

To finish off the roof and give a little extra texture, I chopped up a cereal box to make a few quick shingles.  I also made some stones for the bottom foundation.

Time to break out the craft paints and some airbrush colors, as they already have that thinner, easy flowing consistency you have heard me mention before.

A few colors arrayed on the palette.  I wanted to have some warmer and cooler shades to work with, as well as lighter and darker colors.

To work quickly on the surface of the roof, I made a number of color mixes in advance on the palette.  I do this all the time for my regular minis :-)

You can see this play out on the surface.  I put down some of the darkest colors along the edges, and then went back in with lighter tans and grays, even allowing them to mix right there on the shingles.

These are early layers, which are meant to cover the heavy texture.  Subsequent layers will be lighter, with even more varieties of shades, including more greenish colors in places.

This looks like it is just black, but there is already some tans, reds, grays, and other colors that I can build upon moving forward.

The same process was done on the main roof.

The inner section of the roof was fun, as it had some neat rafters!

Working quickly with the larger brushes, I was able to blend a cooler grey brown mix into a yellowish tan.  Again, this is just a base.  Hence Shaded Basecoat!

Yes, even on buildings. :-)  More to come!!!

The Wheels of Justice

When you fight the Law, the Law is gonna bring some serious heat!

Here is the (almost) finished Judgement Heavy Support.  I still have a few freehand elements to add, bit at least it's all in one piece, and ready for fighting at Adepticon!

I have some group shots coming that show this with the rest of the army, and it really is a centerpiece kind of vehicle.

When I played 40k, vehicles were almost a dime a dozen.  I often had 2-3 Land Raiders is lists, plus numerous other smaller tanks.

It's a bit different with Wild West Exodus.  Multiple vehicles are not really a great option.  Since terrain means so much more in this game, a vehicle is not going to wipe out swaths of guys with one shot.

Instead, the vehicles tend to have specialties... such as this mobile hanging rig!!!  Yes!  I love it.  A rope with Jesse's name on it...

My Lawmen refer to it as Justice on Wheels.

They can do some serious damage, yes, but you never know who's hiding around a corner!

The rail gun is nasty, but it is the net casting weapon that I am really interested in.  This can capture human sized figures, drag them into the Judgement, where they can be summarily executed.

The wheels of Justice move swiftly in Wappelville.

When the Law comes for you in this death wagon, you best set your affairs in order.

I do enjoy the railway engine design of this.  It has the classic armored train appearance.

Each  faction has it's own unique vehicle, which is really fun.  Instead of a universal Land Raider, there is a Heavy Support that is meant for just one faction.

There are other Mercenary vehicles and heavy supports which can be used by multiple factions, such as the Doomsday, Flame Truck and Ironhide heavies.

More pictures coming!

Making it Nurgly, one glaze at a time...

We have returned to Cathy's fun fest with the Ultraforge demon.  As you saw in the original post, she did her take on the Shaded Basecoat technique, and then began defining areas with glazes.

Once she had made those initial washes into the open sores and other crevices, it was time to work on what 'skin' there was.  She tried out a new glaze color I had picked up months ago, but had not tried out myself... the Waywatcher green.

Now she is getting that second type of contrast.  First there is value contrast, the difference between light and dark.  Now she establishes color contrast by juxtaposing the greens and reds directly opposite of each other.

She wanted to hit the bandages and other items that needed weathering.  Since red and green together make brown, you only need to add in a touch of yellow to get something nice and icky!!!

You can see how she is making maximum use of the palette, presenting a whole array of colors for her to choose from right away, instead of having to stop and mix a new color over and over.

He's really starting to take shape, even at this relatively early stage.

You can see just how quickly she can establish even more contrast in critical areas with the supplemental applications of washes and glazes.  Very targeted, very controlled.

Looking nice and nasty so far!  I wonder what she has in mind as a base...