Prime Shading

I have been using the Badger Stynlrez primer for many years now, since it works on every surface... metal, resin, plastic, etc., with no problems at all!  I used to brush in on before I had an airbrush, and that worked fine as well.

Now that there are over a dozen different colors of the Stynlrez primer, you can do what I like to call "Primer Painting".   I'm sure you have seen people do some pre shading of their figures with combinations of black and white primer... but there is even more that you can do with the Stynlrez.

I usually start off with one of the brownish colors.  This one is more of a raw umber color, with a touch of red.  There is also an ebony color which is a little darker and more muted.  That is not a bad one to start off with either.  There are some Mierce Miniatures bog monsters in this image.

I am not necessarily trying to cover the entire miniature with this layer.  Most of the focus is on the lower two thirds of the figure.

Now it is time to get some extra colors into our primer painting.  By spraying this lighter green over the reddish brown, I am already getting some interesting  colors on the skin tones and cloth of these Free Folk characters and Savage Giants.

The key is not to wipe out the underlying layers of reddish brown, but to dust the green over the top.  This creates a blend of colors, which makes a fantastic under painting for later on!

I did the same with the Bog Monsters and some converted Starks from Song of Ice and Fire.  I actually used Bolt Action winter Soviet arms to replace the swords and shields.

Next, I will do an even lighter dusting of this sandy yellow primer, which will lighten the greenish tones a little, and create yet another layer of mixed colors that I can play off of while painting.

Since my first several layers of paint tend to be glazes, I usually make my last layer of primer be a gentle spray of white.  This creates a full value scale, and it means that my glazes won't darken the figure too much.

Here we have that nice value pattern from light to dark, set up in a matter of minutes.  When I prime miniatures, I normally do several dozen at once.  This means prepping and basing a lot of figures, but it really does maximize your work time, and make the process more efficient. 

On figures that have a very visible base (or movement trays in the case of SoIaF miniatures), I go over the lower third of the figures with that dark ebony color or even a black.  If you compare the two images, you can really see the difference that it makes!

I did the same with my converted Stark weapon crew and the Bog Monsters.

As I mentioned before, this kind of pre shading sets up my subsequent glazes quite well,  I will still add more highlights and middle tones, but the framework is already in place.  Sometimes you notice things in terms of shapes when you do the pre shading that you might not have noticed while prepping the figures.

Now I have a number of Free Folk miniatures ready for video tutorials!  These will be available to my patrons on the Patreon Page here:  www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

The Magenta Mage

The first Painting Dark Sword tutorial is now available to the Patreon Patrons!  This is something I had wanted to do for a while, once I realized it had been a very very long time since I had last used the Vallejo Magenta Fluorescent paint!

This was the perfect miniature to feature the Object Source Lighting as well.  I wanted to continue the "color theory" painting episodes too, such as the emphasis on exploring the full range of greens on the last 2 Dark Sword videos.

I even managed to sneak in some marble basing as well!

Just like there are more to 'greens' than the basic green that immediately comes to mind, Magenta encompasses a massive array of warmer and cooler colors, along with saturated and unsaturated tones.  Yet another reason why I wanted to combine this with the OSL effect and the Fluorescent paints!

Here is something else that I am going to do on more of the videos... and that is turning off the saturation completely, and turning the screen to black and white!  It was very handy to show how important the "value scale" is, and also the various forms of contrast.

It is possible to get a lot of contrast simply by the type of color you place next to another, even though it is the exact same level of light or dark!

In these final images you can see some of that contrast at work.  There are some areas where the "purple" is almost blue... and that is just the thing that is needed to make the much warmer and saturated magenta reflections stand out.

You can only make a color so bright, so that means that you need to employ other methods of creating that contrast.  This means adding enough shadow areas, but also using "opposite" colors, as well as those muted/unsaturated colors that I have mentioned.

This is Episode 8 in my Painting Dark Sword video series, and #9 is already under way!  In addition to the Dark Sword tutorials I have been filming for the Patreon Page subscribers, I have been creating tutorials on Black Heart Models busts.  Each of these episode is about 100-120 minutes long, and takes you through the entire process of painting the miniature or bust.

The Dark Sword pledge level is $10, and it gets you much more than just Dark Sword tutorials!  You can also view the 'regular' episodes that feature various types of basing, terrain, etc.  That is all on the Patreon Page here:  www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Here Be Giants!

The Free Folk are coming!  Here's a little preview on the new Army Box for the latest faction for the Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures Game.

As with every starter box, all the counters and cards are included, along with a copy of the rules and the political track.

Movement trays, cards and special faction dice are very handy... but there's a few miniatures in this box too...

Glorious!  Enough to make 3 infantry units, attachments and a pair of Savage Giants!

Here are your characters:  Tormund Giantsbane, Mance Rayder, Craster and Lady Val.  With each new faction that is released, the quality of the casting continues to increase.  The sculpting was always great, but now the details of these final casts become more and more crisp!

The giants have some very unique aspects, and lots of character.  There should be lots of opportunities to get variations in the skin tones!

Not having to deal with a ton of parts (most likely resin) or other assembly is great.  All I had to do is file some mould lines, and these are ready for priming.

I am already filming tutorial videos on these, so stay tuned!!

The Free Folk Trappers are so dynamic for these "one piece" figures!  I have also been very intrigued by these combo units that have both missile and hand to hand combat abilities.  

Usually it is all one or the other, and their uses are blatantly obvious.  I can't wait to have several of these dual purpose units out on the table together, since it becomes that much more difficult to anticipate what will happen!

The Free Folk Trappers are also very fun, and they come in the usual 3 pose format.  It is just enough variety to spread out across the unit and give you a nice final appearance.  If you check out some of my previous posts that discuss the basing of the units, it is possible to get even more unique looking units! https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/10/ground-attack.html

Two Raid Leader attachments are also included in the box, so I will be able to do a few of these units in video tutorials.  One of these Trapper units will be my next unit featured in Army Painting series 6 on the Patreon Page.  

You can get access to all that content on the Patreon Page with the $15 Army Painting pledge level:  www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Reclamation Job

While I didn't remember to take as many step by step images as I would have liked, I do have a few pictures of the "reclamation" project involving the Mierce Miniatures creatures.

As I have mentioned before, there were a lot of issues with these.  The biggest aspect that needed to be changed was to do the metal surfaces in a Non Metallic technique.  They had been done originally with some kind of metallic paint with a dead black wash over the top.  In order to match all the other figures in the collection in question, NMM would be required.

You can see the difference just a few midtones and darks can make!  Right away you can see a lot more shape and form.

From there I was able to add on more dark tones, and some highlights.  I was also working on the fur, skin and horns at the same time.

With all the value patterns in place, I was able to inject a few extra colors into the metals, such as the purples and greens that I mentioned in the last article.

Additional depth was added to the skin tones by placing the deep blueish gray glazes into the shadow areas.  This would tie in the darker mane colors, and even the shadows of the metals.

They look dramatically different now!  The basing, mould line and lack of shading issues have been taken care of, and they really stand out.

One reason I wanted to show this process was to persuade folks to stick with a paint job and correct it, as opposed to stripping it and starting over from scratch.  For each of these figures, I simply worked with what had already been done by someone else, using that as an underpainting. 

By increasing the amount of contrast in both value and color, I was able to take figures that looked pretty dead and boring into something that stood out.  By stripping figures, it is mostly creating extra work, and there is not much to be gained!

A New Army

It is hard to believe that yet another Army Painting series is complete, and a Series 6 already under way!  This episode would be the conclusion of the Army of the Dead figures, which started with basing the unit.

Now at this final stage, I am working on the weathering effects.

Episode 4 had covered the Ethereal effect, using the Vallejo fluorescent paints and Reaper clear paints.

The Secret Weapon Weathering paints were perfect for the task of adding rust and corrosion to the armor, as they are meant to be used in a glazing fashion.

Once those corrosion effects were done, I could go back in with the greenish tones to get some final highlights and other details.

The unit is nearly ready!

And the result.  To give you an idea of how I try to lead into these exercises, I had done at least 3 other videos that covered the entire range of "greens".  These were part of the Dark Sword painting episodes, which are also part of the Army Painting pledge level for the Patreon Page.

I try to show as many different techniques as possible in each series, so that they could potentially be applied to other types of figures, and not just this specific army.  This sort of look could work for any Age of Sigmar Undead army for instance.

All of these tutorials are available at the $15 level, and contain at least 16-20 hours of video tutorials each month.  Again, these cover a wide range of subjects!

Once you sign up for the Army Painting pledge level, you will get all the previous series, which cover a huge amount of techniques and materials.  Here's a link to the page:  www.patreon.com/JamesWappel