Undead Vikings Painted

I managed to get the first batch of shambling Nordic revenants painted up fairly quickly. Most of these are simply mantic zombies and ghouls, with just a few viking bits to add flavour. Future batches will contain more historical bits, so in the end they will look more viking like than this lot.

There's 13 figures here, enough for a unit in either Lion Rampant or Saga. I see them as lowly fighters, the equivalent of bondi or even levy troops. I am hoping to double their number, and also add some more elite troops. Undead Vikings Painted

Read more ...

How to paint zombie flesh

When it came to painting the viking undead, I had a search around for a palette. I wanted something greenish, to contrast with the red tones of the clothing and shields. I used this image as a starting point.

The zombies were primed white and then I glazed with a grey and red, to give an undercolour of shade. The rest of the steps I have shown below. Each colour is thinned and matt medium added to add transluceny.

Step 1 : Glaze grey and chestnut

Step 2 : Glaze dead flesh 

Step 3 : Glaze camouflage green

Step 4 : Shade darker green, round eyes, mouth, lining

Step 5 : Purple line under eyes, in mouth, stippled on feet and some hands

Step 6 : Dark red for blood on gums, sores, hands

In the last picture I have also picked out the eyeballs and teeth with a very light grey (white is far too bright for eyes and teeth). Once the rags and weapons are painted I added more shading to feet and hands and splashed on some gore.  

How to paint zombie flesh

Read more ...

Painting WotR figures

Step 1 : cloth garments 

Here's an overview of how I am painting my Wars of the Roses retinue. I primed white and then washed all over with a light brown/khaki colour. The wash removes the starkness of the white and provides a useful guide to all the details. Each of the steps below equates to one painting session of around an hour or two.

The first step is to paint all the cloth and garment areas, with mostly creams and off-whites for the quilted jackets. Grey and dull red/burgundy are key colours, but I also included some brighter red for the better off troops, and some browns and earths for the peasantry. There's a basic, though not rigid, theme of brighter colours twinned with better armour.

Step 2 : leathers and flesh 

The next step is to continue with painting base colours, this time the leathers and flesh areas. The straps, bags and boots are painted in various browns. The brigandine jackets are painted light grey, the base colour for the white. The flesh is painted in my own mix, which roughly equates to the old GW tallarn flesh, plus a little green (to remove the orange cast), plus white to desaturate the tone. I have two flesh colours ready mixed and will use various combinations of these two pots.

Step 3 : weapons and armour

The third step is to paint the armour and weapons. The wooden shafts of the bills gets an orange-brown, while the armour gets a coat of chainmail. I also spotted a couple of gloves and straps that had been missed and filled these in. Not many colours, but a longer session because of the brigandine jackets, which ironically are not that riveting to paint. You could easily miss these out, it may have been that the rivets would all have been painted or covered in leather or fabric.

Step 4 : glazing and shading

Now that all the base colours are applied, it's time to shade and highlight. I generally try to do this with as little effort as possible, so washes and glazes are used whenever possible, with minimal highlighting. I mix up a glaze of the base colour plus a darker shade, add a little matt varnish to increase viscosity, then glaze. In this session I have painted the first glazes on the lighter garments, the weapon hafts and some of the leather areas.

Step 5 : shading and highlighting metals

More shading in this step, all the metal areas. I want the armour to look quite bright, so I mix up blue, brown, green to give me a variety of grey/blue shades. These are glazed on as usual. Any areas that require a highlight I wipe off the glaze with the side of my brush bristles to leave the original metal colour showing through. I also re-highlighted the very bright areas with the original chainmail colour.

Step 6 : shades and highlights, more shades 

More shading and a little weathering in this final step. The flesh is shaded with coat d'arms super wash light brown. Any light leather areas may well get a dab of this too. Then I highlighted the padded jackets with creams and ivory to give a little definition. More brown shading on eyes, lips and leathers, a little of which is also randomly stippled on legs and a few jackets to give a little dirt effect here and there. The final shading is with green grey, which when used in conjunction with previously shaded browns gives a nice murky effect for dirty trousers, and when used on light areas adds a nice shadow effect - here I use it on chins and cream clothing, and to define some areas of the bringandines. And that's about it for these figures, just basing to do, at which stage I may also dab in a little extra brown shading here and there if I think it's needed. Painting WotR figures

Read more ...

Orc Brute

The orc brute from Avatars of War, a figure I painted up for a competition over on the WAMP forum. It didn't place in the top three, but then the guy who finished third offered me part of his prize as he thought I should have placed higher. That was a really nice gesture on his part, and my consolation prize was another Avatars mini to add to Mount Unpainted.

I tried quite a few new methods on this figure. On the skin I painted wet in wet blending for the first time, after viewing the excellent Painting Buddha videos on youtube. On the rock I lifted something from my photography hobby - dual toning. Instead of shading and highlighting with black and white, I used blue as the shadow and a yellow as the highlight. The rock is actually a piece of bark from a tree (picked up from the forest floor I hasten to add). The gnarled shrub is the stalk from a tomato, dried and painted.

If I was starting it again, I would go with a much paler skin tone, the intense green of this one is too much. Other than that, I think the balance of colours is quite good, something I continue to work on to improve.

Orc Brute

Read more ...

X Wing - Black Sun Y-Wing Re-Paint

Inspired by FFG's recently announced Scum & Villainy faction for X-Wing, I decided to knock up a Y-Wing in the colours of those tyrannical ass-hats, the Black Sun Crime Syndicate...

The owner of this particular Y-Wing has added his fair share of modifications, including extensive reworking to the standard fit Koensayr R200's ion jet engines...

Black Sun Bosses discuss the latest financial projections...

The ship also sports a 360o Auto Blaster turret for warding off anything that get's too close and personal, alongside the on-board astromech who provides the pilot with welcome targeting and repair support...

Until next time, 

Cheers ;)

X Wing - Black Sun Y-Wing Re-Paint

Read more ...

Speedy Dwarfs Done

In the final straight now, the dwarfs are nearing completion. These last two stages should have the dwarfs sprinting over the completion line, in the way only dwarfs can sprint.

Faces and flowers

The flesh gets a wash of diluted coat d'arms Super Wash Light Brown. Once it's dry I will add a bit more in the eyes and mouth if necessary. The heather flowers are just stippled on to the dried flock bushes, using a magenta colour for the base and then a little pink added for the highlight. I also painted the edges of the bases with coat d'arms dark leather.

Beards

The beards are the final stage, probably the most significant feature of dwarf models. The basic principle is to paint the base colour, glaze it once or twice, then maybe retouch with the base colour and highlighting. Compared to the other stages (with the possible exception of the kilts), it's more time intensive and requires greater care, so I tackled the dwarfs eight at a time. I tend not to stick to rigid recipes for hair and beards, I want the variation that mixing paints brings. Earthy browns and yellows form the basis, washed with browns, then highlighted again until I am happy enough. And that's it - speedy dwarfs done! Except for the pesky bowmen, they have their weaponry outstanding too. And I will probably add a coat of varnish, not for protection, just to dull down the shine from the glazing. Better pictures of all three completed units coming soon, for some reason blogger seems to remove most of the colour when I post these.

Speedy Dwarfs Done

Read more ...

Speedy Dwarfs WIP 3

Base coating flesh and sleeves

The dwarfs are plodding forward. This is a particularly boring phase, adding the base colours of the flesh and the sleeves. The latter I have gone with a dull yellow, I thought it would add a natural contrast to the blue of the kilts.  I also washed the bases with a brown and then stippled on the yellow sleeve colour. That's it, sounds like little but it takes a while on the skin.

Bases phase 1

In this step I have done the bulk of the basing work. I picked out the rocks and stones in a khaki colour and then drybrushed them and the base edges with a light grey. Then I tore up some flock and soaked it in diluted pva glue before adding it to the base. When it dries fully it will be rock hard and I can then add some flowers by dabbing paint on the top of the "bushes". Granite boulders and heather shrubs is the look I am aiming for. Speedy Dwarfs WIP 3

Read more ...

Speedy Dwarfs WIP 2

More work in progress updates. I seem to get a real spurt of enthusiasm at this time of year, it feels like the start of the new year, guess it goes back to school days. While I wait for my Dystopian Legions starter set to arrive, I am keeping busy with dwarfs and the orc (one to satisfy my speed painting urge, one to satisfy my aspirational painting urge). So more pictures of brown lumps for the time being I'm afraid.

Cloaks and metals

I painted the cloaks in a very similar fashion to the leathers, by applying a thin coat of paint over the brown underlayer. I used muted greens, browns and chestnut for this stage. Once they were dry, I very gently highlighted the cloak edges and folds by lightly drybrushing with a slightly brighter version of the base colour. This took a good 90 minutes to do, so I decided I was near the end for this day's painting and applied the metal basecoat. I like to allow the metal paint a good overnight drying period before I apply washes.

Kilts

The next day, with the metals well and truly dry, I washed them with a mix of black paint and chestnut ink, my standard way with armour and weapons. If needed, I applied a further wash on a second pass. And then it was time for the most significant step to date, the one that will probably have most impact when they are lined up for gaming - painting the kilts. For this I turned to a scarf I had bought on a recent trip to Scotland, as inspiration for the colours and basic pattern. I started by applying a dark blue base, over the top of this I painted light blue stripes. Then I filled in every other dark blue stripe with chestnut. Then it was on to a finer brush to paint fine yellow lines on the light blue bits. Finally I painted white lines over the chestnut stripes and then horizontally across the whole kilt. The end result is quite bright, I glazed over it with a blue black mix. It still looks a bit bright, but that's because the rest of the palette is so muted. When the flesh and beards and bases are complete, I will review if the kilts need further toning down with a second glaze.

Speedy Dwarfs WIP 2

Read more ...

Speedy Dwarfs WIP 1

Another little project I have on the go - speed paint some dwarfs for my Lord of the Rings collection. Having recently picked up some Bolt Action coloured primers, I wanted to try them out on some troops. Brown seems a good fit to dwarfs rangers, they are wearing leather jerkins and boots, if the primer plus wash can take care of those elements, it's a considerable time saving.

Primer and washes

As an experiment to see what could be achieved, I cleaned up 24 rangers and primed them brown. Then I put on a guiding wash, to provide some elementary shading and lining. I split the rangers into 3 batches and tried different washes. The first batch got army painter strong tone diluted with matt varnish, the idea being that it would remove the shine and soften the tone a little. The second batch got pure army painter strong tone, the third got pure army painter soft tone. In retrospect, I should have washed one batch with my usual mix of black and brown paint plus matt varnish, for a control group. Alas, I did not. All three groups were a little disappointing, the wash didn't really adhere as it usually does and pooled a bit more than normal. I don't know if this is due to the primer or the wash, which is where the control group would have been helpful. Anyway, moving on with the experiment, I gave all 24 a second coat of pure strong tone and it seemed to adhere much better, though still with a little more pooling that I am accustomed to.

Leather detailing

I was reasonably happy with the leathers, but felt that a little variation to break up the wall of brown would not go amiss. A very light drybrush with a leather brown colour added a little extra definition on the quivers, belts and jerkins. Again, in retrospect, this maybe should have been done all over the models prior to the wash. Then I mixed up a brown and black wash, with a spot of matt varnish, to pick out the boots and other leather areas. The idea here is to add some variation to the browns. On some models I painted the belts, on others the jerkins, and all the boots got this darker tone. It's a quick step that really pays off in adding some tonal variety, as hopefully the photo illustrates.

The next step is to decide on the colours of the remaining cloth areas - the sleeves, trousers,cloaks and kilts. Yes, kilts. After spending a few days break in Scotland, I was really inspired by the history and colours of highland warriors, so I will be browsing the web for inspiration. Speedy Dwarfs WIP 1

Read more ...

Avatars of War Orc WIP 3

Another 90 minute session on the orc, working mainly on shading the skin and adding in a few more base colours so I can get a good idea of the overall composition.

More shading of the skin

Much of the work I did is not visible in the photo, I was working on the areas of the skin that are mostly in the shade. If you imagine the light shining above his head, coming from the direction of the axe, then the skin where less light falls would be his back and the other side of his arm. I also added shading in the underside of his outstretched arm and on areas joining pelts, straps, etc.

The shade colour I mixed by adding two different shades to the mid tone base, which if you remember was Vallejo Camouflage Green. The shade colours were Coat d'arms Rust and Privateer Press Coal Black. The Rust added to the green gave a nice dark green, while the Coal Black added in gave almost a purple shade.

I also picked out the fur skin loincloth in Coat d'arms Beige Brown, then shaded it with Army Painter soft tone wash. This is the first time I have used these washes, this figure is becoming a real testbed of new techniques and materials! Finally in this session I painted the axe head, with a khaki colour, before shading with some of the colours remaining for the skin shading, then highlighting with a light grey.

That's it for this week on the orc, there will be a short break while I take a trip north of the border to Scotland for a few days. I won't be taking my paints, but I will take a few books to read and some plastic sprues to cut, clean and glue. Holidays are better if they include an hour of hobbying each day. Avatars of War Orc WIP 3

Read more ...

Avatars of War Orc WIP 2

The first area I painted was the skin. The basic principle I had in mind was to keep the paint thin, so that some of the underlying shading provided by the priming stage would show through. I am not sure this really happened, but it did help to have the areas of light and shade sketched in.

Stage 1 : Base Coat

The base colour for the skin, or rather the mid tone, was Vallejo Camouflage Green. I applied this thinly, I wanted the primer to show through slightly.

Stage 2 : First Shade

The next step was to apply the shading more neatly, using a mix of the base colour plus a darker green, Vallejo Flat Green. Again, I was hoping that the thin colours and the underlying primer shading would help here, but by now most of the underlying primer colours had been obscured by the layers of paint.

Stage 3: Second Shade

The third stage was to reinforce the shading. I added a brown colour, Coat d'arms Leather Brown, into the shading mix and applied this thinly in the deeper recesses.

Stage 4: Basic Highlights

The final stage for this session was to add some initial highlights. For this I turned to an excellent video guide by the ultra talented Ben Komets on the Painting Buddha youtube channel - check it out here. I tried to apply the paint using the wet in wet technique, not as expertly as in the video but I thought it worked out quite well for a first try. One of my great painting faults is to keep everything too subtle, so this time I am trying to keep quite sharp contrasts between light and shade. My instinct is that it's too much, muscles do not have sharp highlights like that on the left leg, but I will probably smooth it over with a glaze or two later.

That's all I managed in this session of about 90 minutes painting. The underlying shade and highlight provided by the primer has been useful - not so much in the obvious places where you would naturally put your shade colours, like in the creases of the abdomen, but more in the areas where light transitions to shade at a gradual level - the upper and lower outstretched arm is a good example of this. 

Avatars of War Orc WIP 2

Read more ...

Avatars Of War Orc WIP 1

It's been a while since I painted a display figure, so the Avatars of War painting competition on the WAMP forum is the perfect opportunity to try out some new methods and ideas. I thought I would document it as I went along,  it's nearly always useful to take notes.

Stage 1: Primers

I usually prime white but wanted to try something new. Warlord Games have recently had some Bolt Action primers at half price and I bought a few, primarily for terrain projects, but I thought I might as well give them a try here. I sprayed from under the figure in a brown shade, from above with a yellow/ochre shade. When it was dry, I brushed on some white primer on the lighter bits and bones.

Stage 2a: Guiding Wash

I added a wash using Vallejo Model Air Burnt Umber. This stage is useful because it shows where all the shade areas are - it effectively adds the lines, guiding where the paints should go. It's also useful because it shows any areas of preparation that are lax - any remaining mould lines or poor joins will show up here, allowing you to remedy them before painting begins.

Stage 2b: Guiding Wash dried

This last photo shows the figure when the wash has fully dried. This beats a completely black/white/grey blob don't you think? I can easily see which areas are in shade and which are lighter. I am hoping that when I come to paint it I will be able to apply thin coats of paint over the top of this, thin enough that the underlying light/shade will come through a little. That's the theory, we will have to see if it works out. Avatars Of War Orc WIP 1

Read more ...

Krom Dragongaze

Krom Dragongaze, from the Sanctus Reach Stormclaw boxset, available now on ebay.

I decided I would try my luck with a painted figure, sometimes they sell well, sometimes they crash and burn. I originally bought the boxset thinking that I would paint up both characters for an ebay head to head bidding war, but I like the ork too much and have added him to Mount Unpainted. And the other orks too - not quite sure why as I have not played 40k since 5th edition, but I might be able to persuade my mate to give it another try.

The quality of the plastic sculpts is quite mind blowing when you look at this shot. They have come a long, long way since the single poses of the 1990's. Well of course they have, you might be saying, they would do wouldn't they as technologies improve and sculptors learn more? But having spent a couple of years browsing and sometimes buying historical figures, I can see a massive difference in sculpt and casting quality. Some of the manufacturers have stood still in time, yet they seem to have a big fanbase and just keep chugging along. Even looking through some old White Dwarfs I was shocked at just how poor some of the old stuff was. It was pure enjoyment to assemble and paint this beauty I can tell you!

The whole Stormclaw boxset is similarly top quality stuff. When GW put out a product like this, I love them again. All the sprues are straight from the main range, they are not simple snap together figures like in other starter sets. So effectively they are selling main range figures at about half price. Add in two characters, a mini rulebook and a high quality scenario booklet and it really is excellent value for money. Credit when credit is due, I can't think of many other sets that come anywhere near in terms of quality. If only they did a similar thing for vikings and saxons! Krom Dragongaze

Read more ...

Dark Future - Sanctioned Op: Lone Wolf

There's something about the long hot summer that calls to the road warrior. It was around this time last year that I painted up the Renegade car belonging to those desert doom mongers, the Maniax...

Left unchecked and unopposed, the Maniax have run riot, sowing fear and death across great swathes of the Painted Desert. But now, as the sun begins to set, a sharp wind blows from the north and a lone predator watches from the horizon. Little do the Maniax know, but a day of reckoning is coming. A reckoning driven by the roar of a V12 and the fire from a smoking barrel. The Wolf prepares to strike...

The 'Lone Wolf' is the V12 Interceptor of Sanctioned Op, Arden Adams. And whilst licensed, Adams isn't directly affiliated to any one specific Corporation, instead preferring to freelance his services to the highest bidder. A man of strong morals and few words, Adam's originally hailed from the wilds of north Montana. His work however, has seen him increasingly venture south, down through the Rocky Mountains and eventually settling within the fortified walls of Salt Lake City. From here, his contracts have brought him into increased contact with the Maniax Gang...

With over seventeen successful contracts to date and a kill ratio to be feared, Adam's is fast becoming the Op of choice for many a private contractor and the hero of the prime time cable news networks...

Until next time... Dark Future - Sanctioned Op: Lone Wolf

Read more ...