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!

Githyanki: Best Fiend

In September 1983, a thirteen-year-old version of myself was staring at a ditto sheet entitled, "Name three (3) books you read during the summer".  It happened to be a summer I didn't read very much, which was unusual for me.  My mother kept yelling at me to read "A Light in the Forest". I struggled with the pacing and daydreamed too often.  Eventually I wrote down:

• A Light in the Forest 
• Johnathan Livingston Seagull
• Fiend Folio (Dungeons and Dragons)

The hours mulling over the creatures in the book is probably what fueled all my daydreams.  Needleman and slaad. Penanggalan and forlarren.  Eye of Fear and Flame.  One entry rebirthed my childhood fascination with scarecrows.  I remember dreaming about whether one could play out an encounter with a revenant just like the splash page.

Not all were great.  The triapheg looked like a couple melted mannequins repurposed for a low-budget sci-fi film. When I saw Wes Craven's Shocker, I thought, "This movie is so bad, it actually makes the old monster look frightening."  And the adherer ranks among some of D&D's goofier creations (although they got a fantastic new coat of paint in Misfit Monsters Revisited and got a lot of love from me.)

But the best fiend of the folio was posted on the cover - the githyanki.   Survivors of a long enslavement, descendents of a rebel, now living in the Astral Plane, as ruthless pillagers with silver swords.

So my old college roommate surprised me by announcing he was playing D&D again and convinced his DM to play a githyanki.   Immediately shuffling through my mini shopping sites, I found a pair of Nolzur's Marvelous Unpainted Miniatures githyanki.  

I wanted to recreate the classic Fiend Folio cover, though admittedly the color palette needed a little updating. I'm not going to have a lush blue background so all those yellow-browns, brownish-yellows and gold colors are going to look flat.

Leafing through google, I found some great updated reference pics: 

• the one I remember fondly from 3E by Sam Wood
• one by Wayne A. Reynolds - though his colors are overlit by a blue light source 
• this personal fave by Wayne A. Reynolds - where a githyanki is in full swing, dicing up a mind flayer 
• but probably the best reference for this figure is this one from the 5E manual

Githyanki Color Scheme

• Face and Skin - Base: Vallejo Khaki then a glaze of FolkArt Teddy Bear Tan, Shadow (Wash): FolkArt Ochre Yellow, Highlight: FolkArt Buttercup, Undershadow: Reaper Tanned Highlight, Deep Shadow: Mix of Reaper Ghoul Skin and Tanned Highlight
• Wraps - Base: Reaper Ashen Brown, Wash: FolkArt Walnut Brown, Highlight: Reaper Dusky Skin Highlight
• Bracer straps and defensive skirt - Base: Delta Ceramcoat Cinnamon, Wash: Reaper Dark Highlight
• Straps - Base: Reaper HD Golden Brown, Wash: Reaper Dark Highlight, Highlight: FolkArt English Mustard
• Eyes - Base: FolkArt Autumn Leaves with Mix of Autumn Leaves and Antique White in middle
• Hair - Base: Delta Ceramcoat Cinnamon, Wash: Reaper Dark Highlight
• Lioncloth - Base: Delta Ceramcoat Cinnamon, Wash: Mix of Reaper Dark Shadow and Cinnamon, Highlight 2: FolkArt Autumn Leaves

Githyanki Base Color Scheme

• Rocky texture - Base: Reaper HD Ash Grey, Shadow (Wash): Reaper HD Solid Blue, Highlight: Mix of Reaper HD Ash Grey and Misty Grey, Undershadow: Reaper HD Military Grey, Final Glaze: Mix of Reaper HD Ash Grey

Plastic minis always come with an annoying amount of flash.  I've noted where bits needed filing or cutting on the forearms and the arms...

...on the arm straps, the loincloth, the wrappings on the legs...

...on the hands and sword handle...

  ...and under the arms.

Black Wash, work on the eye. Very happy with the squint in the left eye, but the right eye was too blotted out with the black color.  At the time, I thought I would be okay with it.  I wasn't. 

First pass on skin color.  Embarrassed to say I can't remember exactly what color I used here. Either it was a Vallejo Khaki or FolkArt Teddy Bear Tan.  I would revisit that right eye (stage left) later.

As I started filling in my first coat, I found some gaps in my palette plan, specifically on the wraps around the legs and arms. 

• The belt would look best in gold and browns.  But I had to be careful not to overuse those colors against a yellow skin.  
• Other browns would be needed to help separate the NMM golds.  
• Reds and reddish browns had been taken by the loincloth, hair, and the defensive leather skirt (which to borrow a term from the Romans is called a "pteruges").  One other minor challenge: the githyanki on the old FF cover didn't have the leather pteruges (or definitive legs for that matter).

So with a palette drowning in yellows, browns and reds - another color was needed for the wraps. So it needed to be a dull color that wouldn't confuse the palette.  Reaper's HD Ashen Brown - with its muted purplish beige - came to the rescue.

Cinnamon and brown wash to get that reddish brown leather look on the pteruges and bracer straps.

While hard to see below, I fixed the right eye. That done, it was onto practicing my NMM abilities on the sword.  With a base coat of Reaper HD Armor Grey, I had to consider colors for the githyanki's legendary silver swords.  I considered a sterling silver look, but opted to emphasize the peaks similar to the edge at the base of this sword. 

First pass on sword.  The back of sword is correct but the front lines were all wrong.    

Starting over again on the front of sword with a solid base coat of Vallejo Cold Grey.  

Also, the mold defects began to show its faults on the front bracer. It lacked detail and the layers were more lumpy.  So normal NMM painting techniques - feathering glazes toward edges and applying washes to the recesses edges - don't work.  This would have to be manually fixed later on.

Some gemwork.  Cool blue as an accent helped give it a little pop.

Finally fixed front bracer and front of sword.

So a quick note on the smirk.  I was painting a thin black line between the lips for a little separation.  Unfortunately, I ended up giving him a happy smile.  Correction required adding more of the yellow flesh color, which needed several passes since black-on-yellow mistakes need multiple coats of yellow to hide.  You can see the results on the left - a serious expression with a squint to consider where to put the blade.

In the final stages, I was adding a thin glaze of FolkArt Buttercup to the lip area.  When I was done he got a bit of the smile back.  But this time it was a small smirk. 

These are the moments I love in the creative process.  I didn't plan on that smirk - I was actively avoiding it.  But sometimes the piece tells you what it wants. 

Now - time for the base.  Evoking the otherworldly Astral Plane feel from the old 1982 Fiend Folio meant imitating the blue background on the base itself.  

Some small wisps like what I did with the Widow Weaver would also be key in creating that extra-planar feel.  But I had to ship this to Germany... and I knew from experience cotton/PVA would get re-shaped in shipment.  It would be best to have the wisps of mist removable.

That meant - magnets again!  First step, I drilled some holes first.

Next I filled the holes in with green stuff and let it cure overnight.  Next day I put some saran wrap around the figure.  I put some pins on the magnet areas (below).  Finally I would mold green stuff over the pins.  That way the "bits" holding the wisps would retain the shape of the base.

Next was to paint the base and bits in the greys and blues listed above.  Then glue on the wisps.

Here's the result with and without mist wisps.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Never thought I'd say I missed the ability to assemble a mini!  Being able to paint piece separately would have "de-complicated" painting the areas in between the arms.  That said, I would have never enjoyed assembling the arms together.

Also not a fan of the type of plastic used here.  Flash is near impossible to remove.

I also need to study painting the final highlights on skin better to get the "shine" of skin more realistic.  I could have gotten some of those bits a little sharper.  But overall, I'm pleased with the results.

Penelope: The Color of a Dog

Anthropologists credit humanity's survival against Neanderthals with its domestication of dogs.  This means my childhood home would probably have starved to death in ancient times. Growing up, everyone except myself had allergies to cats and dogs. So beyond the once-in-a-lifetime hamster and a series of fish, I never got to live with a pet until I was nearly in my 30's.

Although I'd always pictured myself as a cat person, I married into a dog home and converted. Look - I can admit I got very lucky in how I was eased into the dog world. My "starter" dog was very timid around other dogs and people - with the exception of my immediate family.  My second dog loved people but was anti-social with her own kind. Now, we're raising a puppy who is social with dogs and humans alike.

I really didn't start paying attention to the colors of a dog's coat until my second dog, Am-mi. She was visually striking. Her coat had a light-brown hue that would get very red in the summer, and dark fur pigmentation around her eyes that gave her an Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra look. Once a month, someone would comment she looked like a fox.  Every week, people stopped to ask me what breed she was. (The unimpressive answer: a mutt).

It's in these interactions that I recognized how often humans make that impulsive connection between coat and breed: a dog-lover's search to find the right companion that will meld with one's home. (Though now raising a puppy, I find I agree that the breed is really only as good as as the owner.)

So deciding what to paint my first canine figure carried some weight with me.  I'm looking at Penelope, Ulix's partner in herding pigs.  Malifaux books describe her as "a brown merle coat -- her eyes... ice blue in color."

The problem with painting her "merle" is that it looks Dalmatian-esque or a like a glaring palette mistake since the mutation neuters some pigmentation. I wanted my first foray into paint to not look unfinished.  So I opted to try my hand at a brindled coat instead. The brindle has a tiger stripe marking overtop of a more blotchy under-pattern.

Penelope Color Palette

• Eyes - Black Dot: Vallejo Black; Center: Reaper Lighter French Blue
• Muzzle  - Base: Reaper Cloudy Grey, Wash: Reaper Dusky Skin Shadow
• Undercoat - Base: Reaper Desert Tan; Splotches: Reaper Golden Brown, Wash: FolkArt Coffee Bean
• "Merle" Coat - Base: Mix of FolkArt Walnut Brown and Cloudy Grey (very thin) also Dusky Skin and Ashen Brown highlights
• Chest & Forelegs - Base: Mixture of Reaper Desert Tan & Apple Barrel Antique White; Highlight: Reaper Bloodless Skin

First coats to get the blotchy under-pattern I mentioned above.  It looks like a failed pattern here, but I trusted my instincts that the brindle application would pull it together.
 

First passes on the brindle stripes filled the coat out they way I wanted.
  f

A few grey highlights to add some shine to the brindle stripes of the coat.

Overall very happy with the final pics.  The brindle coat came out the way I hoped it would - and it's a good day when you can say that!

Sasayakko: In The Race To Relax

In 2004, not long after I'd moved to Philadelphia, I'd been invited to a gaming group in North Philly.  Not knowing what to expect, I'd arrived to a VFW building with about 60-odd gamers. I knew a total of nobody+1, so I walked around and casually introduced myself to each table. Most of the RPG's we're closed & in mid-story and the other tables were mid-tournament where sign-ups were weeks in advance.

Eager to geek-out but clearly side-lined, I meandered back to person who'd invited me.  A handful of other "no room at the inn" gamers had also gathered around him. So he suggested we play Puerto Rico by Rio Grande Games.

It had been the first time I'd enjoyed a game that wasn't either an RPG or one of the pixelated variety.  I bought my own copy, introduced it to my family, and found myself re-invigorated with a gaming revolution that happened under my nose: a resurgence of great board games.

My wife recently picked up Tokaido - a competitive game to see who can vacation the hardest.  She'd grabbed an expansion and got a bonus figure: Sasayakko, the geisha.

Hinamatsu was in my "to be painted" queue so I decided whatever color scheme my wife chose is what Hinamatsu would be getting as well.

My wife wasn't thrilled with the style and palette of the Sasayakko box art (what I dubbed "super-lavender").  I was relieved as trying to figure out how to paint a tiger that small would have been a challenge. So we circled through several geisha pictures until she chose a stock photo.

Sasayakko Color Scheme

• Skin - Main Base: Mix of Reaper Tusk Ivory and Tanned Skin Highlight, Highlights: Tanned Skin Highlight, Shadow (Wash): FolkArt Barn Wood
• Oshiroi face paint -  Main Base: Mix ofVallejo Heavy Heavy Warmgrey, Vallejo Ghost Grey, Dash of Reaper Tanned Highlight
• Eyebrows - Thin Glaze of FolkArt Autumn Leaves, then a Thin Glaze of Cinnamon (thin glaze); Touch up with FolkArt Autumn Leaves (thin glaze) 
• Undersash and Belt - Undercoat Base: Mix FolkArt Autumn Leaves and Reaper HD Entrail Pink, Shadow (Wash): Cinnamon around edges, Base: Heavy Glaze of Reaper HD Entrail Pink  Highlights: Reaper HD Entrail Pink mixed with Apple Barrel Antique White 
• Back Undergarment - Base: Thin Glazes of Reaper HD Solid Blue
• Main Dress - Base: FolkArt Aqua Wash, Shadow (Wash): Reaper HD Solid Blue , Highlights: FolkArt Aqua Wash mixed with Apple Barrel Antique White 
• "Waves" in Main Dress - Base: FolkArt Buttercup, Shadow (Wash): FolkArt Ochre Yellow, Highlights: Vallejo Ghost White
• Arm Drapes - Base: Reaper HD Twighlight Purple, Transitions: FolkArt Night Sky (glaze at top) to Reaper HD Gem Purple to Mix of Reaper HD Gem Purple and Apple Barrel Antique White

The eyes are always the toughest to do, so I've learned to start there. Experience has taught me to not get hung up on how war-like a figure will look in this stage, because filling in the face will soften all the "dirty tricks" to get them done.

Knowing very little about Japanese history and culture, I did a little research into the white face that the geisha strive to have.  It's appararently called kabuki make-up oshiroi (白粉), and it's also also what Kabuki players use.

Applications of base coats done .  Here I managed to get the little white dot in the eye that drove me crazy when I was trying to paint Sonnia.

First Glazes on Sash and layer 1 dress.  Originally started with Cinnamon on headpiece, but over time I realized gold would be a nice contrast.

Eyebrows were important here as most oshiroi I googled had this orange red style.

Most painting techniques for black hair tend to encourage you to start with a base coat of black and then highlight the tops of the hair charcoal grey - working up to a dove white for any strands that might gleam.  In the past I've done a heavy glaze of charcoal grey first and then heavy wash of black.  I also work dark blue in the undershadow where a gleam might pop out.

The moons and the arm drapes were just balls at this point.

On the "globes", when you have to paint an exact shape like a perfect circle or a moon sliver, it's really challenging to make it look right at this small a level.  I've found it's easier to paint a simple shape and paint out the unnecessary stuff with the color of the background... than try to paint the shape itself.

Next up to paint was the blue and yellow "swatches" (I'm calling them this because they have a very "80's" shape and look to them.  Problem is they had no pop...

...and the key to give the pop was to outline with Antique White.

Final touches didn't do much.  Nuln Oil on Gold - not much of an effect.  Ran a little dark grey wash on the recesses.  I wanted to dull the recesses to produce a more realistic look.  But for some areas it just looked a little more dirty.

Lessons learned - I should have focused more on highlighting creases and mixing the original color for the washes to make the shadows blend better.