Protect the Shield

Here's the first set of images from a recently painted Dark Elf team.  This is from Iron Golems, and they call it the Blackfire Cavaliers:  

http://www.irongolems.com/products/dark-elf-team

There were several specific requests regarding colors, and even the series of shields that you see along the bases.  Those represent various 'houses' of Switzerland I believe.  Since there are a few dozen of them, I had to rotate those shields on various figures (I could get 8 on a base comfortably).

The team involved 20 figures in all, including the trophy turn marker, the ball, etc.  As far as the bases, those were resin (don't know the origin).

Each figure is pinned to the base, as usual.  I'll post the rest of the team soon, so stay tuned!

Road War

These are among the more unusual figures that I have had to paint over the years.  Most 40k vehicles have more of an ancient look to them, so these were quite a change in terms of "sci-fi"...

Here's a link to a previous article showing how I did most of the airbrush work:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/06/low-pressure-painting.html

I don't know the name of the manufacturer, but I do know that these were solid resin casts.

New Colors

Next up in the series of old time Chaos Knights painted with oils!  As I have mentioned on other figures from this set, a key strategy in color placement was to have some purples and greens in the 'metal' areas.

The idea is to give the metal an additional 'sparkle' by having a few colors that might be considered 'outside' the range you would expect, such as the greens.  Also, purple and green when mixed together can make some wonderful grays!  

This is another reason why the eye 'mixes' those colors together and makes the viewer perceive the overall color as gray.

I think I first realized that many years ago when I was still using the GW washes.  It seemed like I always ran out of the black wash and even the blue/brown washes (which I had also been using to make gray).  When those started to tun out, I turned to mixing green and purple, which were in abundance by comparison!

After making that realization. I started mixing pink and light seafoam green to start making gray.  Doing so ensures that you will have a far more interesting gray, as opposed to the 'dead' flat grey that you often find when you get them as jars of paint!

Super Soldiers

I do not know who made these guys, but they have been an interesting addition to all the other projects going on.

In this case, all of these are being painted with regular acrylic paints.  As usual, I try to "mesh" together various projects that use similar colors.  I have a few others that utilize many of the same greens and browns (in acrylics), so that is one reason why oils are not being used.

For instance, even the logos and numbers were being done on many other figures while I was doing these... you will see those soon as well!

More individual and group pictures are on the way from this set of figures, so stay tuned!

Somua Strike

This was the first AFV that I painted for my original French Flames of War army, and then once again for my Bolt Action version.  It led to a lot of research, which continues to this day years later!

There were a number of very interesting Camo schemes for these vehicles, and I could not resist trying out this one. Here's a link to the first Facebook live session where it was painted:

https://www.facebook.com/james.wappel/videos/vb.1056181987/10209905678852713/?type=2&video_source=user_video_tab

Here is a link to the follow up episode:

https://www.facebook.com/james.wappel/videos/vb.1056181987/10209914909323469/?type=2&video_source=user_video_tab

I have a lot of fun with the French vehicle color schemes, since the later war Allied vehicles are essentially one color.  While utilizing various weathering techniques to make those have more depth is also very interesting, the challenge of making something like this work is quite a test!

Many more tutorials are on the way, covering every era and theatre of the war.  You will be seeing many more videos on how I am approaching my Winter Soviets, so stay tuned!

You can see this tank in action in my Bolt Action battle report "Blood At Arras":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njN4D64zH1k

Gladiators of Rome

Now it is time to see the entire collection of Gladiators!  

I don't have the identification or wound markers included with the bases, so that's why you see those little gaps in the mosaic tile.

Each one can be assembled with a few different weapon options for each arm.  There was a shield, a bow, a sling, and a variety of swords/daggers.

I have not played the game myself, so I don't know what the significance of any stats are, or the mechanics.  These were painted up for a Warlord Games convention a few months ago in Oklahoma.

The majority of the painting was done using oils, as I was working on large numbers of figures all at once.  It was very handy to be able to blend those skin tones even a few hours after the original layers were applied!

In case you have not already seen it, here is a step by step article that I created to show how I approach the mosaic tile bases:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/05/mosaic-tile-basing.html

The final post in the series will show the group shots of all the mobs together!  Stay tuned...

Shaman

We have some more images of the old style Chaos Warrior knights which were painted primarily in oils.  

As I have mentioned before, when I am working in oils I try very hard to gather together as many figures as possible which will be using "common colors" in order to maximize the effectiveness of those oil paints.  In this case, I had a number of Bolt Action figures which needed a variety of tans and brown shades.

These figures meshed very well with the darker browns of the cloaks and fur, while the tans of the bone surfaces were similar enough to the tans of the Soviet bases and quilted uniforms to work there too.

I also had a few other figures whose bases were just right for that series of brown tones, and the deep skin colors of the inside of the cloaks meant that I could utilize some of the skin tones from those Soviet figures also.

Since the oils have a drying time of at least several hours, it is much easier to bounce back and forth between what might seem to be very disparate projects!

It is also a way to "keep things fresh", as I am not endlessly painting more fur cloaks or quilted uniforms for hours on end.  I could break up that by painting the metal surfaces, which would still need a fair amount of those brownish colors to be reflected in it.