Pages

Thursday 14 October 2010

Red Dogs of the North...

So finally got round to painting up some of the lovely ogres Leadasbestos (another fellow LAFer!) very, vey kindly sent me a while ago - sorry they've taken so long mate!



These two are troopers from the second version of Golgfag's Mercenary Ogres - great minis and only slightly smaller than the later Jes Goodwin ogres.



Looking for another strong theme for the shields (especially as they are nice and flat and sculpted onto the backs of all the minis) I decided that the name of their tribe might be a good starting place. Rutdrogg sounded to me like it could be ogre dialect for red dog or even red wolf - a fitting image for these merciless raiders from the frozen North...






Next up will be the command group - musician, standard bearer and Goldfag himself. Just need to get hold of the champion now...!




Then I suppose I'd best paint some more greenies for Orc's Drift...

Sunday 10 October 2010

Marvellous Matt Medium...

KiltedYaksman very kidly asked me if I could put together a little how to on using matt medium and I'm happy to oblige!

A good starting point and where I first came across this technique is Dave King's marvellous blog (he makes and now sells some mean little retrolicious evil dwarfs too!)

http://kingsminis.blogspot.com/p/tutorial-undercoating-and-tinting.html

I will preface my post with a little disclaimer though - I'm not the greatest painter in the world and really only strive to get a good gaming standard with my minis - especially as I still have lots more to do to finish this project! So it does feel a bit strange giving tips out as I'm still learning a lot as I paint each mini.

So here goes...


First of all a grey undercoat -




Watered down black ink wash with a drop of matt medium in -




Skin tones - Vallejo Goblin Green with Matt Medium. I use very roughly a ratio of 2:1 paint to medium. I also loosen the mixture slightly wit a little drop of water. Play around with consistency here - what you're after is for the paint to be translucent enough to let the ink shading shine through whilst not being too watery that you can't control it or you need 4 or 5 coats to get any kind of coverage!



Leather brown for... guess what? A leather hood! Same ratio of paint and matt medium.





Other bits for the base coat filled in too...





Now onto highlighting the flesh - matt medium is very handy here too. I use a slightly more dilute mixture of green, lightened with yellow and a bit more matt medium - I try to let the dark black shadows and the darker green tones shine through in all the recesses.





Same for the leather areas - leather brown lightened with buff -




... and the rest of the mini is highlighted -





Rust up the armour - leather brown and orange fire (50/50) mixed with matt medium and watered down - dab it in the chain mail and other areas that would have rust on them. I also dab a few smaller dots of straight brown ink here and there to accentuate the lighter orange -





Now as he's looking a bit pasty its time for the inks! Again matt medium is great for, wait for it, matting down the inks - we don't want to go for the wet look for his skin! So green ink with a healthy dollop of matt medium (not too much or the ink becomes too dilute to shade effectively).




 

To get that worn and slightly shiny leather effect I use straight brown ink - slightly watered down so the highlights aren't too lost under the wash. Works well for the red leather scabbard as well -

 



Sepia ink with matt medium for the wood and fur areas. I also go back and put in the eyes and teeth once the green ink is dry - give the teeth a watered down and matted brown ink dab - orcs don't brush their teeth!




And finally once all that is dry I mix up a very watery and matted down black ink mixture and wash the whole mini. Take care not to let it pool anywhere or obscure the eyes and other recessed bits - I usually dab my brush clean and use it to spread the ink more evenly on the mini after the first wash.




 So there you have it - a pretty quick and in my humble opinion effective way of achieving a decent gaming standard paint job!

You gotta hand it to them...

Continuing the hand theme for the Severed Hand tribe I felt inspired enough to gather all the remaining shield bearing orcs I had left and get them painted quick smart!




The older Perry sculpts were a little trickier as they weren't as detailed facially as the Kev Adams and Nick Lund stuff - probably need to go back at some stage with some more highlights...

However it was the shields I was mainly concerned with and lots of fun they were too!

Inspired by VoodooInk's neat names for some of the last bunch I present -

'Pollice Verso'





'The Fonz'



'Live long and prosper'



'Rock On'




'Flipping the Bird'


There may be a little tension over who leads this tribe as I've realised that I have two versions of the mighty Ugezod himself! Thanks again to Kidterminal of the LAF for this older version and Guzrog Dogchild a bit further up - also from the Death Commandos set! I also have the newer version from Ugezod's Mothercrushers, who makes a good stand in for the Hagar Sheol scenario mini which commands such crazy prices on ebay!


 


And the motley crew so far...




Sunday 3 October 2010

Lets have a big hand for....

The Severed Hand Tribe - or some of them anyway!

Got half the warriors done so only another ten to go, plus ten archers, plus Hagar Sheol...




Command -


Love the gobbo-drumskin on this drummer -


Also tried some chips on this Big'un's armour - better view from behind but forgot to take a pic!




Also tried my hand at these brilliant Hobgoblins (Thanks Kidterminal from the LAF!). They are here as part of a cultural, diplomatic and military exchange program - the Severed Hand Tribe prides itself on its approach to diversity in the workplace don't you know! That and they get hobhounds on the cheap too!








The rest of the boyz - Thanks also to Phreedh again for some of these great old minis!




and I am pretty chuffed with how the shields are turning out - just need to think of a few more gestures for the hands to make - suggestions welcome!