Trees and Contrast Paints

If not obvious already, I love using terrain in a wargame and RPGs with miniatures.

But I didn't always have this appreciation. Most RPG's I played in the 80's and 90's used "theater of the mind" to visualize spaces. This style of play relies on the game master to communicate the placement of all the relevant pieces in an encounter.  (Map drawing helps too.) 

But after having played with a group who frequently uses terrain and miniatures, there's an immersive experience that prevents me from going back to the theater of the mind.

Mini painting soon became a creative outlet - as I wanted to re-create the same environment my gaming group had. 

Then it became an addiction.  Seeing a unique figure plants the seeds of encounters and adventures. It even forces you to pick up more mundane objects.  I'd purchase figures I might not use, but looked too cool to pass by.

Then it became a storage concern with the advent of Kickstarter and the board game revolution.  Decent unpainted plastic minis came cheap.

And now, I'm reflecting on all this hobby consumerism gone wild.  I'm refocusing on its personal importance and artistic value. 

It's also partially because I inherited a small terrain legacy.

I had a friend who I knew to be a gamer. We'd chat about figures we picked up, but where I was focused on grabbing one or two figures - sweating over which highlight to use - he went the pre-painted miniature route. Then pre-painted terrain.  That eventually became 3D-printed terrain.  His mission was to create the ultimate campaign.  Four 3D printers ran non-stop making houses, towers and trees.

But he passed away before he got to run his ultimate campaign.

His family was looking to clear out his home. No one - not even gaming stores - wanted his unpainted 3D-printed stuff.  I grabbed all of it before they hit the curb.

Conflicting feelings car-crashed in me:

• Responsibility - I cannot let my friend's work go unnoticed or unlived.  There's a unrealized dream behind every tree he printed. 
• Panic  - There's not enough time and space to paint all his stuff, much less complete my own surplus. 

While I have come to terms that I have some auction-purging to do, I will note that Games Workshop's Contrast Paints came at just the right time.  The "one coat and done" has a great appeal to knock out some of my new acquisitions.

And since I had a lot of new trees, it was time to start there.

First - white primer.

For my First Trial, I used five colors from the Citadel Contrast paint line. These colors are dark to light and I used them from bottom-to-top: Dark Angels Green, Camo Green, Ork Flesh, Militarium Green, Plauguebearer Flesh.

Realizing that these paints are very thin, I heavy-loaded the brush to be able to move the paint around on the figure to do some wet-blending.  But starting from the bottom up, the paint was constantly dripping down and collecting under the tree and running on to the trunk.

With washes, you can mop off the run-off with a clean brush. But with Contrast Paint this made smears everywhere.  The only chance to really save other areas that get spilled onto is to catch the paint before is slides into the area - which defeats the purpose of saving time.

So I learned something very important with Contrast Paints:

1. make sure any wet blending is done above an unpainted area so you paint over with white or grey again
2. most importantly - start from the top down

So here we go top down starting with Plauguebearer Flesh...

... then Ork Flesh...

... some wet Blending more Plauguebearer Flesh in with Ork Flesh...

... Militarium Green as a wash for top area...

... then Creed Camo to transition into darker areas...

... and finally Dark Angels Green with no run-off!

So far, very good.  Onto Bark work. (We will not use brown.) I have three examples.  One starting with Grey Primer with Skeleton Horde.

Another using White primer with Basilicanum Grey. 

Finally, White Primer with a quick base coat of FolkArt Barn Wood and then Basilicanum Grey 

Final part bases.  Old bright brown - Delta Ceramcoat Autumn Brown with a Contrast paint Cygor Brown

Final trees before adding any flock on the base.

Grey Primed (probably my favorite).

White Primed with no basecoat on the bark. Has almost a birch look to it.

White Primed with Barn Wood basecoat on the bark.  The not-quite-done print job on this showed a lot of lines on sculpt. 

Overall this is an expensive way to paint this.  But the speed combined with detailed look is just what I need to get things done!