Sailing Away

Let's sail away on the Webway with Asharah's Legions!  I think this was the vehicle I enjoyed the most, since the shape and size of the surfaces were ideal for all kinds of freehand.

Just like all the other units, vehicles critters and the infantry, this was done with regular brushes.  No airbrush involved.  Much of the early work was done with filbert brushes, which are ideal for such tasks.

Its unique rounded chisel shape means that I can work rapidly over large surfaces, quickly enough to be able to wet blend along the way.  The 'feathered' brush strokes can create the same kind of smooth transition one would get with an airbrush.

On this side of the sail, we have the Blood Star...

You can see a bit of the base here, which is more wreckage of the hapless Imperial opponents!

These gently sloping hull surfaces were wonderful.  Getting paint into some areas of the deck was not very easy, and certain sections had to be done separately, but it was all worth it.

There were a group of Grotesques in this, I believe, led by a Haemonculus.

Now for a few close ups, including the controls...

I loved carrying the pattern over the various sections of the hull, even onto the gun shield!

One final view of the rudder and the engine glow. 

Hell On Wheels

Same splinter chapter of Space Wolves, but this time a handy tank!  It was done to illustrate a number of techniques, including using the Vallejo Metal Medium to turn 'regular' paint colors into metallic paints.  That was particularly interesting!

This particular shade of gray offered some challenges, mostly because it resembles the original raw plastic color so closely.  It is so neutral, I had to be very aware of how intense the reds were getting, as they would have become overpowering very easily.

Some of the other aspects of vehicle painting were the weathering, diodes, freehand and more.

I have to say that a Rhino based vehicle is a fairly good subject for such things.  There are a large number of regularly spaced angled surfaces, which makes it a lot easier to show how to paint those transitions.

There are also several areas which are good candidates for showing simple weathering and freehand!

Here's a peek at both of them together.  I have one more set on a different kind of backdrop which really makes the gray stand out, so stay tuned! 

Battleground

Some of you might remember one of the basing articles for the French artillery stands which utilized the pink insulation foam.  The idea was to create some quick building ruins for a few of the guns.

With a little splash of paint, you can really get a good view of how those materials can look in the end!

Again, this is 15mm scale, so keeping things in scale to such tiny figures is much tougher.  It can be difficult enough at 28mm scale!

I just couldn't resist having one of the crew sitting on the limber :-)

One final view... more to come, so stay tuned!

Among the Monuments

Now that more of the Mantic Salamanders are getting some paint on them, I thought it would be fun to set them up with some of the scratch built objective markers and swarms.

I think I have at least a few units of swarms written into my test lists.  The only time I ever used these swarms was years ago in a special four part campaign that was designed around the Temple of Blood display board.

We divided a 4 x 4 table into 16 12 inch squares.  You could advance each of your units ten times, from one square to another.  With each new square you entered, you had to roll on some charts to see what kind of terrain and what sort of nasty critters were waiting for you!

I ended up being attacked many times by angry Carnosaurs and tons of swarms.  At least 12 stands of swarms were created for that phase of the campaign.

And now the three Salamanders alone with the standing monuments.

I will have to make a few more small statues such as these, since at least 3 of the scenarios call for objectives.

It is far more interesting to contest something as substantial as these, as opposed to some coins or other flat, printed markers.

Biggest doggie

This rather significant chunk of metal was quite hazardous to work with... given his protective spikes!

I actually had to file those down so that the 'red' would only cover parts of the armor plates, and not the whole mini! :-)

Grey Area

Here's one of a few figures that I painted as part of a lesson plan.  These were test figures to not only use as an example, but as a "muscle memory" exercise to allow me to focus on translating the information, as opposed to concentrate on painting the figure.

That needs to happen on autopilot, as I learned many years ago when I did watercolor and pastel demos.  I would practice the painting several times, so that I could set up things like "mistakes" or other "need to know", "by the way..." situations.

Those are far more helpful in the long term for people than you might think.  Years later, I would have people tell me that I saved them countless dollars in pastel paper, as they no longer threw out their half completed works in frustration, or because they had gotten too adventurous with their choice of paper colors :-)

Also, time is crucial.  Any demo that drags on forever will cause any of us to wish we were dead, so keeping things crisp and snappy at all times is important.  That's not always possible, but even the awareness of such things can be helpful!

Finally, one hidden aspect of showing people how to the process works often means that you are facing the figure to where they can see it.  That means a very awkward angle for you at best, nearly invisible at worst!

That can be the toughest aspect to deal with.

Red Champion

Not quite done with winter yet!

Here's an interesting champion character from Red Box Games.

I do enjoy the way the bandoleer of skulls meshes in with the fur cloak! :-)

The armor plates are roughened up enough to do some interesting weathering tricks on them, but yet still reflect a bit of the sky and snow for some blueish tint.