Painting Guide: Gandalf

The instigator of this little party, Gandalf the Grey, has arrived and is ready to begin!  Despite him coming out a little dark, this is one of my favorite miniatures I painted from the starter box.

0.  Gandalf started with a Matt Black under coat (which was probably why he turned out so dark).
1.   Paint the flesh using Tanned Flesh.

1a. Wash the skin with Soft Tone.

1b. Highlight using Barbarian Flesh.

2.   Base coat the hair and beard in Monster Brown.

2a. Highlight the hair in Ash Grey.

2b. Add a second highlight Matt White.

3.   Paint the inner cloak and sword belt with Deep Blue.

3a. Highlight the above with Crystal Blue.

4.   Paint Gandalf’s scarf with Wolf Grey.

4a. Highlight the scarf with Ash Grey.

4b. Add a second highlight of Ash Grey and Matt White in a ratio of 1:1.

5.   Paint Gandalf’s over cloak in a mix of Uniform Grey and Matt Black in a ratio of 10:1. (In retrospect I should have done just the Uniform Grey).

5a. Wash with Strong Tone.

5b. Highlight with Uniform Grey.

5c. Add a second highlight Ash Grey.

6.   Paint the staff, belts, and shoes in Oak Brown.

6a. Highlight with Leather Brown.

7.   Paint Gandalf’s gloves in Monster Brown.

7a. Wash with Strong Tone.

8.   Paint Glamdring in Shining Silver.

Some last notes:  

A. The eyes were painted between the Flesh Tone Wash and the Barbarian Flesh Highlight.  The eyes are done with a 5/0 brush.  First paint a horizontal white line and then place a black dot in the center.

B. AP Soft Tone is a good wash for flesh and other light colored items.

C. AP Strong Tone is a good general brown wash similar to Citadel's Agrax Earth Shade. 

D. AP Dark Tone is a good black wash similar to Citadel's Nuln Oil.

I based the miniature with coral beach sand for the rocky/sandy caves of Goblin Town and added some Highland Tufts and Meadow Tufts from The Army Painter Battlefields range.  I then painted the edge of the base in Ash Grey. 

Think we are done with the free peoples?  Nope, a special bonus figure comes with the set, making a trip all the way from Rhosgobel on the western boarders of Mirkwood.

I must thank TALE OF TWO PAINTERS for the inspiration for these tutorials.  Unfortunately, I do not have step by step photos like they do as I found their site after I was a quarter of the way complete.  They painted the miniatures using Citadel paints.  I felt a guide using The Army Painter brand was warranted, especially as there is no readily available conversion chart for Citadel and AP brands like the other major miniature paint brands (Vallejo, P3, Reaper, etc.).  When I painted these miniatures I only had the 42 bottle 2015 Mega Paint Set II, so there was a lot of mixing of paints to get the right color.

 

Weekly Workbench 3 September 2017

Historical:

My Scots Thanes for SAGA finally got their shields (title photo) and bases finished.  I was able to give them an overcoat today with the drop in humidity so they will be ready to go for some action soon!  Final pictures next week.

I also primed and started painting the Scots warriors and hope with leave this week I will have them knocked out before the next update.

Sci-Fi:

The Boromite Gang Fighters for Beyond the Gates of Antares have been painted and washed.  Some came out very dark and you can see the differences in versions I have done.  I will need to do some serious highlighting with red to get some of these Boromites out of the purple skin tone they currently have.

Fantasy:

As seen in the cover picture, I over-coated Shep's Chronomancers, Ivy's Elementalists, and Mugzy's Sigilists, which I painted this week for Frostgrave.  Tone of detail work on the Sigilist wizard and I still need to add a gloss varnish to some of the gold and they will be done.  I also put together two zombies from parts out of the Cultist box sprues.

I also started building another wizard, apprentice, and captain for the #Triplespruechallenge with the remaining pieces from the three sprues.  This time I have an Illusionist who needs at least one more pouch and a cape made from green stuff, the apprentice who has Monstrous Form cast on him, and the captain with some crushed cultist skulls.  I also clipped the built in bases for these guys as it has been a pain basing the others.

During some spare time while waiting for paint to dry, I started painting my Dwarf Runic Golem.  Long way to go on this guy!  Definitely a miniature to have an airbrush as painting this by hand is going to take some time, especially with trying to avoid brush marks.

Terrain:

I cleaned, built, and primed the Goblin Town platforms from The Hobbit Strategy Battle Game starter set and should have them painted by the end of the week.  They will make a great addition to the Frostgrave table as well as The Hobbit.

I also primed the foam tower ruin and should get that painted up and finished this week as well.

While not terrain, I tried using a wet pallet again, going through a couple of variations. So far this one, with the sandwich box, paper towels, and parchment paper seems to be working the best.  Other versions with a sponge would have the parchment paper drying out as I painted no matter how much water was in the container and it would curl up as I paint.  So far with the paper towel that has not been the case.

Stop by next week, should be a lot more progress with me on leave, though Saturday I have a Spartan Race, as long as Irma decides to leave us alone.  Make sure to check out the Painting Guide on Tuesday for Gandalf!

Painting Guide: Thorin Oakenshield

Finally, the King Under the Mountain, Thorin Oakenshield, deigns to make his appearance!  Lots of detail, as befits his status, but not my best paint job unfortunately, too thick of paint obscuring those details I just mentioned. Click on the pictures for a larger view!

0. Thorin started with a Matt Black under coat.
1.   Paint the flesh using Tanned Flesh.

1a. Wash the skin with Red Tone to get the ruddier tone of the Dwarfs.

1b. Highlight using Barbarian Flesh.

2.   Highlight the hair and fur between the boot straps with a mixture of Uniform Grey and Matt Black in a 4:1 ratio.

2a. Highlight a second time with Uniform Grey.

2b. Highlight the fur only a third time with Skeleton Bone.

3.   Highlight the scabbard, elbows, knees, boot straps with a mixture of Uniform Grey and Matt Black in a 4:1 ratio.

3a. Highlight a second time with Electric Blue.

4.   Paint Thorin’s scale mail, belt, scabbard top, and steel toe caps with Plate Mail Metal.

4a. Wash the mail, belt and scabbard top with Strong Tone.

4b. Wash the steel toe caps with Dark Tone.

5.   Paint Orcrist in Shining

Silver.

5a. Highlight with Blue Tone.

6.   Paint the hilt and pommel with Plate Mail Metal.

7.   Paint Thorin’s tunic and wrist guards in with Deep Blue.

7a. Highlight with Ultramarine Blue.

7b. Wash with Dark Tone.

7c. Create the cross hatch with Matt Black.

8.   Paint the scabbard with Monster Brown.

8a. Highlight with Desert Yellow.

8b. Wash with Strong Tone.

Some last notes:  

A. The eyes were painted between the Flesh Tone Wash and the Barbarian Flesh Highlight.  The eyes are done with a 5/0 brush.  First paint a horizontal white line and then place a black dot in the center.

B. AP Soft Tone is a good wash for flesh and other light colored items.

C. AP Strong Tone is a good general brown wash similar to Citadel's Agrax Earth Shade. 

D. AP Dark Tone is a good black wash similar to Citadel's Nuln Oil.

I based the miniature with coral beach sand for the rocky/sandy caves of Goblin Town and added some Highland Tufts and Meadow Tufts from The Army Painter Battlefields range.  I then painted the edge of the base in Shining Silver and Electric Blue. 

That finishes up Thorin’s Company but what about the one who brought this crew together?  Stop by next week to see the best fireworks maker in Middle Earth!

I must thank TALE OF TWO PAINTERS for the inspiration for these tutorials.  Unfortunately, I do not have step by step photos like they do as I found their site after I was a quarter of the way complete.  They painted the miniatures using Citadel paints.  I felt a guide using The Army Painter brand was warranted, especially as there is no readily available conversion chart for Citadel and AP brands like the other major miniature paint brands (Vallejo, P3, Reaper, etc.).  When I painted these miniatures I only had the 42 bottle 2015 Mega Paint Set II, so there was a lot of mixing of paints to get the right color. 

Weekly Workbench 27 August 2017

 

    Another week of lots of different happenings, though  not enough finishing so far.  The humidity finally started dropping and looks like we are going to have a good week coming up as well.  This will allow for a lot of priming and and finishing to be done.  Be sure to click on any pictures that interest you for a larger view.

Historical:

    On Wednesday, with a nice drop to 47% humidity, I got a lot of priming done and the rest of my SAGA Scots warriors primed and ready for painting, which will hopefully be this week.

I also primed three Dark Age Archers, will will be used across multiple different games.

    Continuing my work on SAGA miniatures on Wednesday I started my base colors on my last Scots Thane and first warrior and finished them on Friday.

    Friday night I finished the the base colors, and following a technique Kenny Boucher of Next Level Painting recently displayed, I varnished the miniatures with a gloss varnish and once dried, applied the flesh wash and dark tone wash.  This seemed to work a lot better than usual and did not leave any "coffee stains".

On Saturday, I finished up with some highlights and laid down the dirt for the basing using Vallejo Earth Texture 26.219 Brown Earth.

    I also did this for the other Thanes and Warlord.  While I should finish the bases for the Thanes this week, the Warlord is waiting on a wolfhound coming from Footsore Miniatures. Unfortunately their furnace broke right after I ordered them and so shipment has been delayed going into the second month now.

I also placed the LBMS transfers onto the shields. I will touch up the paint this week and attach them to the Thanes.

Also on the historical side on Wednesday, I textured the Normandy base with Rust-Oleum Multicolor Textured spray paint in Desert Bisque.

Sci-Fi:

    No work on my Boromites as I am still debating on continuing with touch-up and dark tone or stripping and starting over.  I would like to get them on the table though so I might just push through with them.

Fantasy:

     My Dwarf Runic Golem arrived and after some cleaning and washing I glued him together and primed him.  I cannot wait to paint this large fellow up! 

Standing next to Shep's Chronomaner shows just how Large a construct he is!

    In the same delivery from Alternate Armies I also received their Eternal Guard which will make for some nice armored skeletons in Frostgrave!

    I started with the base colors on Mugzy's Sigilists from North Star Figures, as well as their flesh and eyes.  Their trim and cowls will be in white, while the fur lining will be in a snowy grey.

    I also did some sculpting work on the wizards' bases, a skeleton's cloak, as well as some spear hafts and sword blades to replace the flimsy PVC ones on the Reaper miniatures.  The Green Stuff is only slightly more firm than PVC at that thickness though, so I am not sure how well it will work out.

Terrain:

    I finally broke out my hot wire foam cutter and tried out some terrain building with insulation foam.  Here are two 3" x 6" walls that will be useful if any of the kids' wizards take the wall spell.

    I also build the corner of a ruined building to give the Frostgrave board some height beyond the Stone House Miniatures wall segments.  I started off planning on doing the walls in field stones and realized how much time it was going to take I decided the ground floor was good enough before being switched to cut stone.

    The outside join came together pretty smoothly and only needed some minor compound to smooth the lines.

    I did realize I am going to need to find some thinner foam or a way to uniformly split the thickness of the foam as the two wall pieces did not come out even thickness.  I think I could figure out a couple of plywood jigs to do the trick.

  Well that does it for this week, be sure to stop in Wednesday to see the painting guide on the King Under the Mountain himself, Thorin Oakenshield!

Painting Guide: Bombur

The last, but certainly not the least, of Thorin’s dwarves comes rolling in looking for a feast.  A fairly simple paint job but a very enjoyable miniature. 

0.  Bombur started with a Uniform Grey under coat.
1.   Paint the flesh using Tanned Flesh.

1a. Wash the skin with Red Tone to get the ruddier tone of the Dwarfs.

1b. Highlight using Barbarian Flesh.

2.   Paint Bombur’s shirt in Goblin Green.

2a. Highlight with Necrotic Flesh.

2b. Wash the shirt with Green Tone.

3.   Paint his boots with Oak Brown.

3a. Wash the boots with Dark Tone.

3b. Highlight the boots with Leather Brown.

4.   Paint Bombur’s vest in Leather Brown.

4a. Highlight with Monster Brown.

4b. Do a second highlight of Monster Brown and Desert Yellow in a 1:1 ratio.

4c. Wash in Strong Tone.

5.   Paint Bombur’s hair in Fur Brown.

5a. Highlight with a mix of Lava Orange, Skeleton Bone, and Pure Red in a 2:2:1 ratio.

5b. Wash the hair in Strong Tone.

6.   Paint the trousers and gloves in a Uniform Grey and Matt Black mix in a 10:1 ratio.

6a. Highlight with Ash Grey.

6b. Wash with Dark Tone.

7.   Paint the satchel in a 1:1 ratio of Desert Yellow and Monster Brown.

7a. Wash in Strong Tone.

8.   Paint the butcher knife and ladle handles in Oak Brown.

8a. Paint the metal of the butcher knife and ladle in Gun Metal.

Some last notes:  

A. The eyes were painted between the Flesh Tone Wash and the Barbarian Flesh Highlight.  The eyes are done with a 5/0 brush.  First paint a horizontal white line and then place a black dot in the center.

B. AP Soft Tone is a good wash for flesh and other light colored items.

C. AP Strong Tone is a good general brown wash similar to Citadel's Agrax Earth Shade. 

D. AP Dark Tone is a good black wash similar to Citadel's Nuln Oil.

I based the miniature with coral beach sand for the rocky/sandy caves of Goblin Town and added some Highland Tufts and Meadow Tufts from The Army Painter Battlefields range.  I then painted the edge of the base in Necrotic Flesh. 

Next week we come to the end of the company and the King Under the Mountain makes his appearance!

I must thank TALE OF TWO PAINTERS for the inspiration for these tutorials.  Unfortunately, I do not have step by step photos like they do as I found their site after I was a quarter of the way complete.  They painted the miniatures using Citadel paints.  I felt a guide using The Army Painter brand was warranted, especially as there is no readily available conversion chart for Citadel and AP brands like the other major miniature paint brands (Vallejo, P3, Reaper, etc.).  When I painted these miniatures I only had the 42 bottle 2015 Mega Paint Set II, so there was a lot of mixing of paints to get the right color.