Three day weekend I hadn’t been expecting, so I’m painting. This is what I’m working on at the moment:
A bunch of Warsenal Taugak bases for my Combined Army minis, as well as some Jaguars and Intruders.
Infinity, in other words.
Just a quick note because this is something I talk about occasionally, but have a hard time putting good words around. This morning, I saw this photo from Breakthrough Assault’s post about Corrivalry:
This: this is what I’m talking about. I really like the WWI version of Flames of War. When I flip through the FoW rulebook, the stuff I see looks cool. I like the idea of playing WWII Flames of War.
But then, at the game store, I look over at people playing it, and I see the above. That’s a parking lot of a dozen tanks, just parked like they’re at the mall, arm-in- arm, stopped inches away from as many or more artillery pieces, just hangin’ out. This doesn’t look like fun to me, and it doesn’t look historical.
Anyway, not trying to shit on the game; just pointing to what, exactly, sticks it for me.
I’ve been pretty self-satisfied about my faces lately, so I figured I’d knock out a quick walkthrough of how I paint Caucasian faces while wrapping up my Blood & Plunder minis over the weekend.
I did have a couple of issues putting this together:
It’s kinda hard to tell the difference with some of these steps (which is why I accidentally deleted some of them), which is why I’ve supplemented the mini photos with a photoshopped face (source for the original image). I’ve kept the strokes rough because I’m just paintin’ with a mouse, but also because frankly on a 28mm figure, that’s what brushstrokes are actually going to look like.
I normally basecoat grey or, more recently, black with white zenithal highlights. This was a spur of the moment thing, so I ended up just basecoating white. Won’t matter much.
Paint everything GW Bugman’s Glow.
When dry, paint everything GW Cadian Fleshtone.
The goal is Cadian Fleshtone, but the coverage with it is poor enough that it’s just simpler to basecoat with the base paint.
Block in shapes with GW Kislev Flesh. Get the nose, eyebrows, cheeks, chin and jawline, lips, forehead, ears.
Wash the whole thing with GW Reikland Fleshshade.
Now’s the time to be precise. Pick out details with a fine-tipped brush and GW Kislev Flesh. Target the nose, chin, eyebrows, lower lip, ear tops and lobes, and the tops of the cheekbones.
(Of course I kept all of these.)
With as fine a brush as you can manage, fill in the eyes with GW Rhinox Hide. I’ve seen other people do this with black, but I think it’s too strong: you want to draw attention to the eyes, but you don’t want your figure wearing mascara (unless you do).
Go over the brown ovals with P3 Menoth White Highlight. I prefer this because it’s a bright ivory… but it’s not actually white. Leave some brown around the edges, though, to help the eye stand out.
If you screw up: just go back and touch up with more Rhinox Hide.
Take a pointed toothpick. Sharpen the point. Dab it into the GW Rhinox Hide you used above. Wipe off the excess. Pick a direction and poke it into the eyes. I used to do straight-ahead, but it’s just easier to do the eyes looking off to the side and maybe more dynamic? I’m using brown here because, again, I think black is too strong.
I did blue on the Frostgrave Barbarians last month, and thought it was really effective. I might pursue this: do color, do the dot larger, and then maybe go in with a black dot as a pupile.
Mix about 50:50 GW Wazdaka Red : GW Emperor’s Children: looking for a nice rose color here.
UPDATE: GW Volupous Pink is the way to go here!
Then thin that sucker out with a lot of water and a drop or two of matte medium, until it’s at about this level of transparency:
Better to be too thin and require multiple passes than not thin enough and ruin everything. If you need to do multiple passes: just make sure it’s dry before the next one.
Carefully apply it to the cheeks and tip of the nose. Maybe the ears if you feel like it.
Take some GW Dark Reaper, and thin it out as much as you did the rose.
UPDATE: GW Gryph-Charger Grey is the way to go now!
Now apply it to the beard area. In this example, I think I went too dark: you can do that, but I’m generally not trying to do stubble, just to give some color to the face.
Finish painting the other details on the head. Teeth, if you can see ’em. I like to draw a little line of GW Agrax Earthshade between the lips (if the mouth is closed) or just in the mouth (if it’s open).
Here are a couple of practice heads I’ve been working with.
And some Frostgrave faces I think came out well and photographed OK. This is where this approach has really clicked for me.
Hopefully this helps someone out.
The confluence of two holidays prompted me to take the days in between off: giving me a staycation and the quiet downtime I’ve needed for months.
Of course, me staying home and barely leaving the house means that this is the real winner:
Down time meant painting time. I’d lost my momentum after burning through getting everything ready for Black Ops. I’ve started a bunch of Pike & Shotte minis… but took on too many at once and stalled out.
A palette cleanser was called for.
First, I finished off some half-done Mantic sci-fi zombies. These are nothing to get excited about. The models are adequate. The paintjob no better.
The right sized project to take on when needing Something Different: a Frostgrave warband. Over the first few days, I built my baseline set of models from the Barbarian kit, then ordered an appropriate Wizard and Apprentice from Red Box Games. I’d forgotten how charming and characterful those models are: I need to order a few more and give them some real attention.
Then, bam: just ground out a Frostgrave warband, like you do.
While I was at it, I knocked out the tokens that came with the Barbarians, as well as some rats (War Dogs) and a Raven) I’d based for my Cultists a while back.
A good use of some much needed quiet time.