Liberi Warband - Part I

Fanticide, Liberi Warband (Centaurs)

manufactured by Eureka Miniatures and Alien Dungeon

Note: This is the first part of a two part painting demo.

There is nothing more challenging than painting horses.  Crazy am I?  Simple you think?  Well, that's where people go wrong.  They think that a horse is simple because it is brown, so they trust their memory of what the horse looks like.  At that very moment the memory becomes faulty; unless of course you raise horses or are an equestrian, then I'd trust your memory. Horses are not merely brown, neither are trees for that matter, and one would do better just to admit a faulty memory and look up what a horse should look like.  The internet is awash with images of horses, or you could get a very nice book like Bob and I did.  Pick out your horses, make a painting plan, select your paints, and get started.

I am painting 45 Liberi Centaurs for two customer orders.  Because 45 can be a daunting size I have chunked it into three sections for variety and sanity's sake: plain, Mustang, and Appaloosa horses.

Picking Out Horses
The internet holds hordes of horses, a plethora of ponies, a menagerie of mares, and a superabundance of stallions...yeah, you get the point.  Well, then why don't you use them!  Okay, okay, sure these are fantasy horses, centaurs to be exact, and one could argue that they could be any color your heart desires.  I'm here to tell you, "No, they can't.  It makes you look crazy."  Now, I'll go against that if you are painting horses with a My Little Pony theme, then fine, go for the jellybean pink and sky blue.  But, if they are meant to be real horsies I suggest you paint them as such.  Here are some of the images I was using as inspiration:

It is also important to match up mane and tail colors to the horses; well at least I think so.  Use the photos to do this.  Not all horses have black hair, some have off-white manes with brownish black tails.  Take the little bit of extra time to get it right and it will pay off in the end result.

Make a Painting Plan
Its like I always tell the students at school, make a plan before you write, know the steps you want to take and the direction you want to go before you even start creating sentences.  That theory applies here, too.  When doing something as complex as Mustang or Appaloosa horses you need to designate which figure is plain, Mustang, or Appaloosa; and which figure is getting what colors.  So, as you can see in the image below, first, I separated the figures into three categories and kept the leader figures separate.

Then, secondly, I have written the names of the internet images that I want to use as inspiration with the corresponding figures.  I do this on my painting mat (paper towel) because it is easy and when I'm done I can flip it over to the clean side or just throw it away.  I want variety within each order, I don't want to repeat colors or patterns too much so it really is essential that I think this through before beginning.

 Pick Out Your Paints
Starting with grays first on the left, I have an array from black to a mid gray.  Cel-Vinyl makes a step-down system of colors so it takes the guess work out of a base, middle, and highlight color.  In this case you might forgo the middle color and just go with a base and highlight.  On the right end are whites.  For a true white look I went with a Gray 5 (which I forgot to photograph) and a highlight of White.  For an off-white or very light taupe I used Dheneb Stone with a highlight of Stencil.

This second set of paints are for the brown horses, of course.  I need a deep brown, a red brown, and a camel or light brown.  They are used in order  Burnt Umber base with Brown highlight; Brown base with a Light Brown highlight; Light Brown base with a Light Brown 10 highlight.  If I wanted a very dark brown I could use Raw Umber (not pictured) or Black as a base and then highlight with Burnt Umber.

Get Started
Once you're all set up begin painting by blocking in the larger color or the color that is easier to paint over.  A lot of times it is difficult to paint whites over other colors so I chose to paint the white areas on the horses first.  The horse images below are of the Appaloosa horses I was working on.  When you look at the images of Appaloosas they are primarily white with colored spots so it would be smart to paint the primary white color on first.

At this point I would also highlight the white areas.  So, if I started with a base of Gray 5 I will highlight with White. With Dheneb Stone I will highlight with Stencil.

Now comes the time to fill in with the other color and create the polka-dot pattern that Appaloosas are so well known for.  Don't be intimidated by the dot pattern, because it isn't a pattern.  Try not to be so precise, the spots shouldn't be circles, they shouldn't form a symmetrical pattern, and they shouldn't all be the same size.  Easier said than done, it just takes practice to get it not so perfect.

After that, go in and highlight the second color, even the spots; but not all of them, mostly just the larger ones.  You can do this by doing a damp overbrush with a small, flat headed paintbrush or you can pseudo-Dallimore it with a smaller size 2 brush.






As you may notice on some of the horses below there is a faint haze around the spots or where the brown/gray meets the white.  That's because I used a wash to make it bleed into the white.  If you look at the horse photos you'll see that the dots are irregular and a little blurry, they don't have crisp edges.  A little bit of water diluted paint or a wash that is a corresponding color can help achieve that, but be conservative with it because you don't want it to overwhelm the nice white fur.

I think that light brown one on the right hand side, it is unfinished in this photo, is my least favorite.  I was trying to imitate one of the horse images but it doesn't quite capture it, even when finished. 

Here are some close ups of a couple Appaloosa and Mustangs that I did...

Now, the final steps will be painting the flesh of the Indian portion of the Centaurs, the accoutrements, and weapons.  I will cover this in the next blog post sometime during the week.

Thank you for reading,

Allison

28mm Jungle Adventures: Jungle, Tikis, and Zombie Pygmies

Its been a while since we put up a post. Things have been busy here trying to get orders out before the Memorial Holiday plus starting to gear up to complete the Historicon deliveries. To add to the backlog Allison was called in to substitute for most of May. As a result its been a struggle to keep up.

These are some wonderful zombie pygmies from Conquest Miniatures. Ive done a few sets of these before in the past and they are still one of my favorites.

Next are some tikis from Recreational Conflict. These will make neat little additions to the terrain:

Here are the contents of one set. Each set has eight different tikis in it.

Finally we have some jungle tree bases from Architects of War. There are two of their sets here. Some have complained that they are pricey but I feel they are well worth their cost. Sure someone could buy all the individual pieces to make the sets themselves but they would have a lot of running around and hassle to go through to assemble the variety that comes in the kits. Plus they would still have to cut out and texture the bases. Considering with these you break them out of the packaging and go, the time it saves you is well worth it.

Here's some shots with the tikis, jungle, and pygmies all together with a few adventurers thrown in:

More 28mm MERCs and Moderns

Here's three more MERCs units done for a customer:

USCR

 

  

Sefadu

FCC House 9

 

 

And here is a Reaper mutant that we also painted up for the customer:

 

These 5 moderns were painted for a another customer. They are from Foundry's wonderful Street Violence range:

Not much else to say about them. We went with a variant for the USCR using the Soviet green so prevalent from the Eastern block instead of the whiter version that is more common.

Painting Vampire / Undead Flesh

Vampire and Undead Flesh Doesn't Have to be Difficult

I was asked, not so long ago, about painting vampire or undead flesh; this was in reference to the Vampire Count Coven Throne that I had previously painted.  I have a few different ways of painting vampire/undead flesh but this is the way that I've chosen to do it recently.

A lot of the time I'm looking to make vampires or undead creatures look recently dead and cold but not necrotic or decaying.  Additionally, I don't want them to be confused with an ice or frozen creatures; yes, that comes across my table often.  So, what to do?

When the Coven Throne came out I liked the purplish hue that their vampiresses took on.  I never did find out how they did it; I admit I didn't look too hard though.  I assumed it was layering with Hormagaunt Purple and perhaps Astronomicon Gray but...I didn't feel like doing all that Dallimore work.

So, I came up with something I could do quickly and with few steps...

It starts very simply, base coat all flesh with Fair Shadow from Reaper.  Fair Shadow is rather creamy colored with a hint of pink, as are the rest of the tones in the triad. 



 You'll notice that, in the base coating process, I'm not neat and tidy; you don't have to be.  After base coating and a thorough drying period wash with a light purple.  Bob and I mix our own.  You'll see in that first picture that the purple is rather bright and light; this helps with the undead appearance and coolness without becoming icy looking.

Next, after the wash dries thoroughly, use the Fair Skin Highlight and apply highlights.  Apply the highlights to brow arch, nose, cheekbones, jaw, chin, breasts, collar bones, shoulders, arm muscles, fingers, knees, fronts of thighs...etc.

If you have trouble thinking of where you should highlight I suggest looking at photographs of models in swimsuits or lingere because the lighting glistens and hits the high points.

If I'm feeling overkill I'll use the middle tone, Fair Skin, and then do the Fair Skin Highlight...but I didn't choose to use that on these figures. If the Fair Skin Highlight doesn't appear dead enough you can alway use white to take it a step lighter and then use that as a final highlight. I do that sometimes.

These lovely ladies are from the Seamus set of Malifaux figures.

I like to give my zombies that milky, undead eye without pupils.

Seamus is actually alive, so his skin is colored differently with Golden Shadow skin and Golden Highlight with a reddish-brown fleshwash.

This is a better view of the colors used.  I suggest purchasing these exact paints if you have a few undead to paint.  The keep on the Reapers is good and they are nice paints - remember to shake them regularly.  The triad sets that Reaper came out with are very handy because it takes the guess work out of choosing or mixing colors.

Happy Painting!

Love, Allison