Pipe and Spear

This little guy was part of the massive Skink and Kroxigor unit that I used to call the Skink Tank.  I believe there were 36 'regular' Skinks to go with the four Kroxigors.  To complete the unit, a champion, chief and priest were included to add mischief!

I remember a few dramatic moments for this unit.  Twice the "stand and shoot" reaction of all the poisoned javelins killed a greater Chaos Demon as he charged the unit.

It had a less spectacular moment when it tried to cross through a river of blood, which was part of the great campaign for the Temple of Blood.  Anything which went inside that moat around the Temple would be killed on a roll of '1'.  And yes, I managed to roll 18 of those dreaded ones on 42 dice.  

That's how we roll in Lustria! :-)

Pics of the unit:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/10/work-in-progress-skink-tank.html

Drone Wars

This is a collection of sci-fi style bases for the Gates of Antares drones.  I needed something relatively simple, but intricate enough to hold people's interest, since the figures on them are nearly invisible when you look at those bases ;-)

I used a variety of plasticard, sprues, sculpey, and even pieces of MDF from laser cut terrain.

These drones accompany various units in the game, so most of the bases are also designed to match the intended squad.

The heavier sculpey bases were used where the metal drone was leaning over a little more as a counterweight.

This set of bases was made using the Happy Seppuku moulds, all by pressing sculpey sheets into the moulds.

I will have a number of basing videos at Reapercon, including several sci-fi basing techniques.  Here's a quick preview video:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEP1ILxyGcs

Hot Coals

While there have been a few additions to the Bombshell Babes line since this lady was released, it's still a favorite!  I thought that putting some lava effects could take advantage of the drama of the pose.

Like all the Bombshell Babes, there is plenty of character, but there are enough blank canvas style spaces to allow the painter to do whatever effects or color scheme they want.  There are times where figures are so heavily weighed down by built in freehand designs, it can lock you into one theme.

Not so here, where I had plenty of areas to do freehand if I wanted, or do various markings on the skin.  Since I was going to have the dramatic lighting of the lava, I thought it best to keep things more simple on the figure itself.

This was also an exercise to illustrate that it is possible to reflect light on a surface that is also very light!  To make this work, shadow areas must be carefully placed to create the contrast needed to make a glowing effect.

Color temperature and saturation are other methods of establishing contrast.  That is, the lava colors are extremely pure and bright, and very warm.  The colors on the figure are more muted, and generally 'cooler'.

I enjoy painting lava effects so much, it just had to be part of the video series!  It's one of the 53 different subject matters I will have with me at Reapercon, so come and get 'em!!

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/11/hot-stuff-lava-tast-for-raging-heroes.html

Here's a link to one of several posts about the glowing effect videos.  This one shows the process of the "You Might Even Say it Glows" video, showing how to make glowing fire elementals, etc.:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-healthy-glow.html

Risen from the Dust

Here's a collection of chariots which I made for the Tzeentch tainted Tomb Kings army a few years ago for an Adepticon tournament.  I had a lot of fun converting and painting these!  I also learned a great deal about a number of new techniques and materials.

I had never used the Vallejo fluorescent paints until this point, so each figure was a new learning experience.  As you will see in these images, no two skeleton warriors, horses or chariots were painted in the same colors.  In fact, the colors vary greatly on one single element, which created a monstrous challenge!

I ended up making several painting videos as a result of this project, and all of those new techniques that I discovered and developed.  One of those was "Painting Demon Marble", on which this entire army was based.  The design you see in the smaller inset was the icon of the army, and it was painted on a few key bases.

Once all the bases in the unit were placed side by side, the overall image was revealed.

Even the placement of the horses, chariots and crews was complex, to ensure that everything would fit and "rank up" on the movement trays.  To make that task even more difficult, the command figures of standard bearer, champion and musician had to go in very specific locations.  Many shifts in this placement had to be made before I drilled any holes into the sculpey!

This image gives you an idea of how the armored blankets were done on the skeletal horses.  I made one original, cast it in a press mould, and then used green stuff to replicate the texture over and over.  A sheet of tin foil gave the blanket the added strength to keep its shape during the whole process.

I have never taken any pictures of the individual chariots, so these images are very special to me.  They also showed me how much work I had put into every figure!!

All the subtle color changes and shifts had to be as random as possible to match with the story of the army, but still follow certain rules of color placement and theory.

As you look at each image from these various angles, you will see that even the wildest colors are balanced by more muted, darker shades.  Also, colors are not "isolated", meaning that they are repeated over and over again on the horses, crews and the chariot itself.

Every so often, there is a tiny hint of the "untainted" original color... a little bit of wood or even a hint of gold.

You can read all about the story of this army, the creation of the huge display board, and much more in the Tomb Kings army section of the blog...

The Colonel

I have a handful of Artizan Designs Wild West minis, and each one has plenty of character.  This one reminded me so much of Colonel Sanders, I could not resist this particular color scheme.

As with all limited palette exercises, maximizing mid tones is very important.  This is where you can tint colors the most, such as a grey that is more tan, or more greenish, etc.  Mixing a light flesh tone with a dark grey or even a black will get you a far different tone than mixing black with a sky blue, for instance.

I attempted to get some yellows into the mix as well, especially on the hat.  You can see even more of the blueish grey on the pants, although there is also some greenish grey.  A similar set of light and dark shades were done on the base.

One of the five "color theory" videos I did as part of the kickstarter focused on grey, showing how 'grey' can be more purple, blueish, yellowish, and so on.  And yes, it was called Shades of Grey.  I will have that at Reapercon along with the rest of the video collection.

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/222276630707?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

The Queen of Reapercon

I thought you might like to see the final result of the leaf punch experiment, so here's a few images.  The leaves were sealed with layers of glue, and also the oil washes used to tint the leaves and bring out more texture.

This is a BONES mini, and I will be using this in the class where the Reaper clear paints are profiled.

You have seen me use those clear paints on a number of different projects and effects, from glows, to blood, and cloth.  I first introduced this idea at Reapercon last year, and it was decided then that I should do a class in that for Reapercon 2016!

The clear paints do amazing things as a glaze of tint when thinned with simple water, while they also make very nice semi-opaque colors when lightened with an opaque lighter color.  I have done this several times with cloth, etc., just like this lady.

These views from above show the nice contrast that those oil glazes provided to the leaves.  They would have looked nice as they were, but now there is a lot more depth, and mesh with the rest of the sculpted base quite well.

I realize that BONES minis don't have the sort of detail that the pewter versions might have, but perhaps the reduced cost encourages experimentation and the trying of new techniques and color schemes.  You don't feel like you are going to ruin a $30 figure or bust... so why not go nuts?

These figures will be prepped in advance of the classes, so that 100% of the time can be devoted to the experimentation with the clear paints.  If there was more time, I would like to do the shaded basecoat part as well.

So, not much time left!  As a reminder, I will be bringing along plenty of USB drives for all the painting videos.  I first brought those down least year, and it made life much easier... I could load whatever video people wanted as we painted and talked.  That was really cool!!

See me in the main hall at Fort Wappel, where all kinds of fun will be had.  Here's a quick sample video, one of 12 YouTube samples.  Each of the actual videos is 100 minutes long, and there are 53 different topics to choose from!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXqIo-UMSr8

Fall has arrived!

Today we have a quick set of images showing the new Green Stuff World leaf punches! 

I did an article a few months ago about the first leaf punch.  In that test, I used painted paper instead of regular leaves.

Since it's fall now, and an increasing amount of leaves are on tge ground waiting to be picked up... why not give them a try?

I tried to select a nice variety in color, texture and so on, in order to see how each leaf would react in the punches. 

These were pressed flat right away, as you don't want them to be dried out and wrinkled. 

Each color punch is a different shaped leaf set.  It will take a while to get the hang of how to place the punch on the leaf to take advantage of natural textures likethe veins in the leaf. 

I used a pin to place a few leaves on a base... making sure to vary the colors enough so that a "pile" of leaves would be more natural. 

Having a nice range of colors from green to brown also compliments the colors of the marble! 

This view shows all the different leaves and punches...

Once the leaves were settled in place, I  used a little bit of oil washes from Ammo to magnify the textures in the leaves, and to get more shading.

The oils were less likelyto crinkle the leaves,  and the capillary action would get into all the deep cracks and crevices which water based products would not.  Something I have learned experimenting with the Ammo paints.  I will be bringing these along to Reapercon as well, so stay tuned!!