Unlike the rest of the last few posts, I wrote this one when I took the photos. So I don’t quite remember what I did here. Something with the Mournfang Brown and some glazes.
I took the Miss Terious model and gave Lady Justice the coffin to stand on, and gave Terious a little bit of a base extra and BAM instant Fransisca. Perfect.
This guy turned out pretty damn good…except for the flames.
The skin was similar to Lady Justice, with the Dheneb Stone layers, but I used the Vallejo Game Ink Skin Wash instead of the SW Flesh Wash. It’s a lot less yellow and a lot darker, so it needed re-highlighting after with more Dheneb+Ushapti, but I’m getting a lot happier with it. At one point I had to decide whether to leave it super dirty, or bring it up a bit, and I decided to bring it up and I wasn’t disappointed.
The cloak is a few layers of Sepia and Waywatcher Green. I’m finding the Blue or Amethyst to strong against the red, but the Green is a really great shading colour for it.
The flames are where it started to fall apart. I made the foolish mistake of highlighting my ethereal green flames, instead of lowlighting as you should for internally lit sources. I had to go back in with a strong yellow in the cracks to pull the lighting back down, but unfortunately I didn’t do “lots of thin layers”, so I filled some of the detail here. Then, yellow->green wasn’t great looking, so I used the Waywatcher again to green up my yellow…then I had to highshade (not a real word) with the Elysian Green, which is not a good colour for me to have continued with. It was ok for the base layer, but I needed something more poppy to go back up with. Something that I don’t have in my paint box and couldn’t figure out how to mix. The last layer here was some really light bits of Guilliman Blue glaze at the top – because “flames” get darker at the top. But they usually also get warmer (ie, red is “warmer” than yellow), but it’s a green flame so…do I add brown or red to make it warmer? Blue? I don’t even know anymore…
The worst part is that I had the same flame problem on the Death Marshals as well, so we’ll see how they turn out. They’re lower on my Guild priority list, as I already have 2 painted for my Tara crew. But 5 Death Marshals sounds amazing…or terrible. Very swingy. Possibly an NPE. I’m going to try it. 🙂
This model was scaring me for a few reasons. I’ve never really been happy with my painting of Mei Feng, who should be the visual center of any crew she’s a part of. She was my first Malifaux model I painted, and I’ve since found that the details on most Malifaux plastics are a lot smaller and harder to paint. I felt like Lady J was another moment of “do it right”, that I shouldn’t mess up. Also, she has a lot of skin, and I haven’t gotten the hang of painting skin yet!
She turned out ok.
The skin was: Dheneb Stone, layered up with a mix of Menoth White Highlight. I thought it was Ryn Flesh…but no, Menoth White. The Dheneb stone is interesting, as it’s a pinky-grey colour, and not just grey as it looks in the bottle. Mixing it up with the MWH turned her skin much to light and washed out. I used the SW Flesh Wash next, but this turned her skin yellow which I wasn’t overly happy with. So I did another mix of the Dheneb and Menoth to re-highlight over the Flesh Wash, and I think it looks pretty good! Not to bright, not washed out, not chalky.
SW Amethyst over Mithril Silver is pretty great, I used this on her greaves and heavier on her sword.
The hair was odd. I started with Codex and Fortress grey, then SW Amethyst, which turned it purple with whiteish highlights. Seraphim Sepia turned it brownish and with whiteish highlights still. Then I applied some Ushapti Bone in single strokes, then that Dheneb Stone+MHW mix from her skin in single strokes, making sure to maintain the depth created by the earlier layers and I like it.
Similarly with the coffin, brown basecoat, Sepia, then a couple single-stroke sections to give it some variety.
Last, I watered down some Abaddon Black and lightly applied it into some sections that needed a bit more contrast. I’ve been finding that after “finishing” a model, I’ll look at it and find a few distinct sections that seem to blend together more than they should, and all they need is a quick line between them to create a larger difference. Lots of ways of solving this (including painting them contrasting colours to start with…) but this simple black line is working for me.
This Guild crew is coming along!
This guy was an interesting comparison to the Judge. I started by mixing the SW Flesh Wash and SW Sapphire, which ended up just being mostly Sapphire as apparently it has a much higher pigment count than the Flesh Wash. Add some water and paint it into the recesses of his cloak, under the cloak and spread it very thinly over the top, and the red is suddenly darkened by quite a bit. I didn’t necessarily want it to be blue, but this is what I wanted when I painted the Judge. Not quite so brightly red!
Seraphim Sepia was the next layer after a few light ones of the blue+flesh, because I wanted to bring back the brown. This looked so good, I think I left the majority of the cloak there.
I did the base in the same way as the Judge’s, and because of the greater number of details on the front of this model, it means I could leave the cloak as-is because there’s a lot of interest going on in the front!
The glow is Elysian Green, a colour that I really like, but which isn’t really suited for the task of “glow”. I need to get to the store and buy some more brilliant greens for the rest of the Guild crew, because I have a lot of ethereal flames to paint!
The metal is Mithril Silver, a bit of the Sepia, a bit of Waywatcher Green and then back in with Mithril in spaces. I really like this combo, as it looks a little tarnished in places, and seems to swirl around in colour.
I started the final work on The Judge first, because he has no skin on him. >.>
He was both a good test, and an unfortunate failure. As I said a while ago, I’ve been working towards the idea of “highlight up, then shade down”. It’s been working for me, but I’ve been too lazy in most cases to actually highlight up, so I’ve been starting with a single bright basecoat and shading down and I wanted to see what actually highlighting up, then using a larger variety of glazes and mixed glazes did.
On the one hand, this model looks pretty sharp. On the other hand, Mephiston Red (+layers) is such a strong colour that it’s difficult to get any good coverage to bring it down. I see Mr. Wappel making big changes in colour and tone with his glazes, but the best I could do here was to get the cloak looking a lot less bright and a bit more “in the mud”.
I used a lot of SW Flesh Wash, mixed with other things. I’ve noted before that I found the SW washes to to dry shiny, so I mixed it with the Red in some places. I used also used the SW Soft Body Black to add some slight darkness to the shades, and the SW Red Black for beneath the cloak. GW Waywatcher Green I used in spots to make a little change of colour, where I could. And lastly, Seraphim Sepia because sometimes you just have to get somewhere quickly. >.>
I brought back my old friend the Golden Fluid Matte Medium, because I read that if I mixed a bit with the SW washes it would also dull the shine, but without changing the colour, which is what I wanted. But I need to figure out the right ratio of it, because adding to much leaves the layer looking so thin it doesn’t do anything.
The base was drybrushed up with Fortress Grey over white, then some Seraphim and Waywatcher before drybrushing again with Codex then Fortress and then Waywatcher again to add more variety on the stones.
As an odd last step, I took some really watered down black and lined a couple areas that looked like they needed more contrast. I don’t usually do this, we’ll see where it goes. I had the black on the palette. 😛
A year and a bit ago one of Miranda’s little cousins had come over and we built a model for him out of the bloodletter pieces I had sitting on my desk at the time. He’s back and staying with us, and one of the first things he asked was if we could build another model. So I pulled out the bits box, grabbed the ziploc bag of bloodletter pieces and the hobby stuff and we set up at the table.
A big difference from last year – I knew what to expect. I also decided that I was going to let him handle the superglue, after a serious talk about being careful. The words “touching your eye with this stuff, while it’s on your hands, is a trip to the hospital” were uttered. I watched him every time he picked up the bottle.
This boy is a wonder to hang out with, lots of energy and super smart, but listening and following instructions are things he’s working on. I’m happy to say that no one superglued their fingers to their eyeballs.
He took a bunch of half built bloodletters and put arms and banners on them, then asked if I could bring the paints out and if he could paint them. I did, and said “remember that talk we had about the glue?” “yeah” “none of that applies to the paint. Just don’t spill it. Have at!” He painted a sweet sword in black and Liche Purple (my favourite colour) with a light edge highlight of Ryn Flesh.
He told me that I had to assemble an army to oppose his daemons. I looked around my box to look for something that I wanted to assemble, and remembered that I had Sidir, a Wastrel and some Guild Guard in there that would be nice to have for Wet Coast (assuming I end up going).
One of my Guard came without hair! >.<
Like I needed more models. I’m painting at a decent rate to get a Guild crew ready for Wet Coast, but it’s not a crew that covers all of the holes you need covered to play Malifaux successfully. Mercenaries will hopefully cover some of those holes.
Got a few base colours on the models. I didn’t start out wanting to do a limited palette, but that’s what I ended up wanting. Mithril Silver, Mournfang Brown, Steel Legion Drab (for the skin), Fortress Grey, Mephiston Red and Elysian Green. I’m going to take another pass with some highlights, and then go in with the washes and glazes.
I never thought I’d play Guild. Don’t like the undertones of evil theme. But then Tao challenged everyone to take a new Master to Wet Coast this year, and we all randomized Masters and I got a choice of Seamus or Lady Justice and there was a Lady Justice box sitting on my “to be sold” pile and…then it was open and being assembled.
I’ve bought a couple Guild extras as well. Miss Terious (purchased at the last Wyrd sale) became Fransisca, as folks apparently do. Brutal Effigy seems to go well with J, and I like 4ss models.
I don’t know what else to grab for Guild, as I’ve only played them once so I don’t know where the holes in the crew are, but this is a good start.
I painted a couple layers of SW Heavy Body Black on their cloaks after the last session. Then took straight Codex Grey and watered it way down and painted that on the edges. I wiped away some of the paint with my finger when it got to built up, my goal was to use it in a “feathering” manner away from the edges, and leave it pretty bright on the actual edges.
Then I went back for the glowing bits. These were Warpstone Green mixed up with White in successive drybrushed layers. I realized that one of the guys didn’t have nearly enough flames on him, so I painted part of his coffin, trying to make it look like there was a green glowy fire inside his box.
I added the leaves after a week or so, after they arrived in the mail from Secret Weapon. This product is brilliant – it instantly spruced up my cobblestone so that it looked a lot less painted and a lot more awesome.
I’m still having some serious trouble with the SW washes, in that they are leaving things very shiny. I’m not certain what is causing the shine, and I can’t seem to get rid of it effectively with dullcoat or matte medium, so I’m going to have to experiment with how I use the washes.
Unfortunately, my summer so far has had a lot less time for painting – if you’re a regular reader you’ll have noticed posts every 3 days until just now – this post is the first since Adepticon that hasn’t been scheduled. 😛
Tara wants Death Marshals, so here they are!
I painted the coffin Vomit Brown, then mixed with Ushapti up. Then SW Flesh Wash all over and SW Amethyst in the shadows. I’ve done a few layers of the Amethyst in the shadows. I also painted a few thin lines of Mournfang Brown along the grain of the wood to give it a little depth amongst the wood paneling. I may do some lighter colours in a similar pattern later, after I’ve finished with the Amethyst and the Marshal himself, to cover up any mistakes.
My hope is to make the Marshal himself be somewhat monochrome, so I’ve painted the same basecoat all over him. I started with Snakebite Leather mixed with Codex Grey. I did SW Heavy Body Black all over and then mixed that with Codex Grey and painted that on the raised areas. We’ll see where this goes!