Painting Rugluds Armoured Orcs: 19 step tutorial

So last time I posted I shared with you my quick 2minute tutorial on how to make Orcy shields with some greenstuff and small beads. It follows that the painting stage comes next. Here's a completed threesome of Rugluds Armoured Orcs on a lovely old-school regimental base:

And here's how I got there.

1. The minis prepped and ready to go:

2. Primed. I always choose a priming colour that will help speed up or improve the process. White enhances the colours and allows for lots of washes, but creates problems when you have to add shadow and black is the opposite; the shadows are already in place but it is harder to get bright colours. With this in mind I went for grey, also because I realised that there was a lot of areas to be metallic on these minis and grey is good for that. I briefly consider going for zenithal priming but stopped as my aim for these is to go simple and quick and I don't feel I get much reward with that technique.

3. Skin basecoat. Slightly diluted Baneblade as per my orcy skin recipe.

4. I like to do the messy technique for the armour next, so any misplaced paint can be covered in the subsequent stages. A very rough undercoat of Leadbelcher for the metallic areas. I wasn't very precise or worried about coverage here, because the grey priming conceals and missed bits and because I will build up layers over the top.

5. The first of such layers is a very dilute covering of Mournfang Brown. This provides an easy wash to create a rusty appearance. Get your paint consistency correct and the leadbelcher will shine through on the more prominent/raised areas of metal and the rust colour will gather in the recesses.

6. Mix some Ryza Rust in with the Mournfang and apply a slightly less-dilute wash in some areas. With layers its always best to leave some of the first layer exposed, hence subsequent layers/washes are applied less liberally.

7. Dab on a few spots of pure Ryza Rust, especially around prominent/raised areas. Thats the ferrous metal areas done.

  

8. Now for the bronzes. Warplock Bronze base.

9. Hashut Copper highlight, leaving the Warplock in the recesses/shadows.

10. When dry apply a diluted wash of Oxide. Done.

11. Back to the skin. A wash of Earthshade with a tiny amount of washing up liquid added to break the surface tension of the paint and allow it to flow readily into the crevices of the skin.

12. When dry, highlight with Baneblade again (I'll probably skip this stage in the future - it made too insignificant a change in appearance for the time it took).

12A. A highlight with Baneblade and Ogryn Camo. The first time in the process that I used a decent brush!

13. Final highlight on the skin by adding some Bleached Bone to your previous colour mixture.

14. Some purple on the lips.

15. A touch of Chainmail to the belt buckles, spikes and some other raised areas of metal.

16. The wooden areas were highlighted with a pale grey in vertical, wavy lines to represent grain. This was on the spear shafts, crossbows and on the back of the flat shields.

17. A quick wash of Seraphim Sepia and Camoshade helps make the wood look weathered with some greeny/browny colours working well alongside the grey. At this stage I drybrushed the shield design white for the bext stage.

18. And back to the shields. These add a bit of variety to the unit so deserve a bit of attention. Over the white drybrush strong, yet dilute, Citadel Inks were applied.

19. Then they were highlighted with a touch of the same ink mixed with white. Two such lighter highlights were applied. I like my shields, can you tell? And finally based:

And here's where I'm up to with the unit thus far:

Lasercut MDF buildings and Salute

Earlier this month I took my first trip to Salute, having seen and heard many a great thing about the event in London. I could only visit for the afternoon, so time was short but I managed to see lots of amazing set-ups, boards, games and stalls, even if I did not have time to actually game. 

I have plenty of models to paint, so even though I was very tempted to buy some Mierce monsters or some Hasslefree adventurers or some of the other amazing (and unknown to me) company's models, I decided that I wanted to try out some of the lasercut scenery. I eventually settled upon the below, both at about £15 each from different stands; unfortunately I have forgotten the names of the brands now. Below is a three storied Tudor manor house; each layer comes apart:

As you can see, I have made a few moderations. Even though the kits are wonderful in terms of how easy they are to construct and how good they look as scale buildings, they do understandably, lack any texture. This is most obvious in the roof and and the brickwork. So I reverted to the tried and tested cereal packet cardboard shingles for the roof and decided to carve into the mortar between stones as seen below. This technique did not take as long as expected because the laser cutter had created an outline that had enough depth that meant that I could dig out a layer with my scalpel for the stone work to remain raised.

Below is a watermill model, where I just did not add the watermill to the side. I've made the same moderations as above to improve the texture of the building. I'll probably add some sand/pva for some mossy areas too.

On reflection, these mdf lasercut models are very easy to work with and relatively cheap too. They are certainly quicker to put together than any of the scratchbuilt/foamcard models that I have previously made. I think they will sit well alongside each other and I intend to continue investing time and money into both. Scratchbuilding will lend itself well to some of the more unique ideas for buildings that I have.

I also had time to enter the 'Eavier Metal speed painting competition. We were given a Mantic model, some paint (in bottles and already out on a palette, some brushes, water and 20minutes to paint. It was intense! Being out of my comfort zone (not having my own equipment) an audience (I had one woman leaning over my shoulder as I painted!) and a time limit was sweat inducing and I had to make some very quick decisions about colour schemes based upon the colours that were available. I jumped into the skin tones first, going for multiple washes and tried to paint other areas as they dried. My hand was not as steady as I was used too and I really struggled when it came to doing some quick highlights and details. The time flew by and I just about managed to finish and was lucky enough to be chosen by the judges as a winner for my group! I won a lovely Eavier Metal mug for my efforts!

Salute was great, next time I will make sure I have time to get some games of new games in and maybe meet up with a few people I know.

Painting of the buildings is underway and I will post updates on those next.

Speed Painted Elf no.2

I couldn't resist on two counts. One, this speed painting malarky really focuses me to paint and more importantly complete a miniature and secondly, I only have two of these Jes Goodwin wardancers (such great sculpts) and felt that I had to paint up the second one too before he got separated and potentially lost in the great, relatively static, painting queue.

So here's the finished miniatures:

Matching Hobgoblin Orange garments

And this is how I got there in under an hour:

Under a minute to apply a wash of Asurman Blue with some added washing up liquid to help keep a smooth drying

A couple more washes after the first one dries under the hot lamp.

Highlighted the skin by progressively adding some white to the Asurman Blue in the raised areas

Added some glazes of Druchii Violet to the eye sockets and the cheeks to give a bit of warmth and glow to his now quite pale face. 

Blocked in some areas of colour using Balor Brown for the basecoat of yellow, Titilating Pink on the stockings, Boltgun Metal on the metal and Warplock Bronze on the bronze.

Highlighted up the hair by adding progressively larger quantities of Sunburst Yellow to the mix. Eventually adding some white to the final layer. Highlighted the pink stockings too. 

Washing in some Chestnut Ink and Badab Black mix onto metal areas.

I had to stop here for the night, as I had to help put the kids to bed and after that, really didn't feel like carrying on (I was lured onto the couch to watch tv with the missus). But I did the following night. So where was I at 22.49...: 

Highlighting up the bronze with Vallejo Bronze and gold mixes. Hobgoblin Orange onto the gloves, highlighted with white added and applied two layers of green to his towel.

In the last 6 minutes I added eyes, gems and highlighted up the brown and black shoes.

And even painted the back side too. Happy with 51.57 on the trusty old 80's Casio!

 And here's the pair of them, pre-basing:

And both finished and looking quite hostile.

So obviously I made these fellas look like Drow with their blue skin; they'll eventually be part of my Lost and the Damned retinue table challenge, when I get around to painting the other 4 elves that will accompany them.

Thanks for reading. 

The 1 hour speed painting challenge

I remember the speed painting coverage in White Dwarf from Games Days in the late 80's and was always hopeful that one day I could enter. Well I didn't, but Orlygg at Realms of Chaos 80's has re-kindled that desire, so on a digital platform I had a go the other night...

I was certain that I wouldn't get near completing a model in an hour, being, I thought, quite a slow painter, so I chose a very simple miniature to speed paint up:

A model that's been in my painting queue for a while. It looks pretty simple, but can I complete it in an hour?

 10 minutes and 45 seconds, timed by my trusty Casio:

Skin. Several washes of Asurman blue (with a little bit of washing up liquid) to help get the depth of hue. Some Druchii Violet added  for the extreme recesses and to warm up the colour. Highlighted up with the addition of white to Asurman blue. 

 25 minutes and 54 seconds:

Most other areas blocked in and a combo of chestnut ink and badab black washed onto the metallic parts

My painting space with the paints I have used so far

This was happening in the evening, so not the best light to take photos - here's a close-up to try and show some of the subtleties of colour in the skin and hair

 35 minutes and 12 seconds:

Hair and boots highlighted up and the chainmail areas picked out with some appropriately named, chainmail paint

 42 minutes and 46 seconds:

Added eyes and painted the weathered bronze areas using a variety of Vallejo game colour and some green/blue corrosion washes. The sling got shaded and dirtied with some Earthshade.

50 minutes and 58 seconds. Finished - say what?

Hobgoblin Orange on the bandana, highlighted with orange/white and glazed with orange ink. Some black and purple inks were heavily diluted and added to create old blood on the sling followed by some spots of Tamiya Clear red for fresher blood.

 Seriously, apart from the base. He's done. Now my basing technique takes a while and I like to do this in batches so I'll base him later in the remaining 9 minutes.

And I even painted his back too.

So. I'm amazed I can paint that quickly when I'm being timed and not distracted by other elements of the hobby (including procrastination, bitz box rummaging and paint queue re-organising). It certainly helped that the mini is very straightforward, but I'm seriously impressed by myself!

Does this mean I can now work through my lead pile in double quick time?