Painting

Dreadfleet – The Bloody Reaver

November 2, 2011 By David Leave a Comment

Otherwise known as the Bloody Hard paint job…..

The Bloody Reaver was the ship I wanted to save until I’d had some ‘practice’ – reason being, this is the largest , most demanding ship for Dreadfleet, and, ultimately the hardest paint job for me yet. The Reaver is filled with detail, from the wrecks comprising it’s hull, to the Fortress to the small anchors and various stone effects, all of it needs to be done with great care and precision….

I decided early on that there was no way I could rush this thing through in one night, it would be a job of several evenings and in the end took me 8 hours, spread over 3 days to get this done to the level it’s now at.

I started with a Chaos Black undercoat and got the base prepped as I described in my earlier post.

I then went over all the rock with Adeptus Battlegrey – as you will note from the pics I did this before I assembled everything so I could get right down into the features.

bloody-reaver-rocks-base

This was then washed down with a 1:1 ratio of Devlan Mud and Badab Black washes.

bloody-reaver-rocks-washed

After that I decided to pick out the anchors – for this I wanted to apply a rust effect….

bloody-reaver-rust

Now in the midst of all this stone work, you can’t forget about the cavern entrance (like I did….ahem…,) so after the rust effects, I went back to the cavern and applied the same initial rock effects to it as well. When it dried, I applied the finishing touches to all of the rock effects by dry brushing them with Fortress Grey.

After that, I moved on to paint the wrecks, for this I used base colours of Mechrite Red, Mordian Blue, Gnarloc Green and (because I like the colour) Hormagaunt Purple. Gold effects were base coated using a 1:1 ratio of Scorched Brown and Shining Gold. I then washed down the wrecks with Devlan Mud.

bloody-reaver-wrecks-base-coats

bloody-reaver-mid-completion

Whilst waiting for the wash to dry, I decided to apply my bone effect method to the ribs sticking out of the rock and the spars out of the front of the fortress. I then went back and finished the base, picking out the ship wrecks in Scorched Brown and the ripped sails in Mechrite Red and Bleached Bone.

bloody-reaver-base

After all that, I went back over the wrecks with Scab Red, Mordian Blue and Gnarloc green to strengthen up the colours and re-applied Shining Gold to the fittings. I then painted the spars of wood, the decking and the dirt path with Calthan Brown and washed it with Devlan Mud. I the dry brushed the dirt path with Snakebite Brown for some added texture. With the sea monster on the prow I did it in gold, filled the eye socket with Goblin Green and added a small dot of Scorpion Green. When all of that was completed, I followed White Dwarf 382′s guide on painting the fortress, roofs and towers.

At this stage I was two-thirds complete, I just needed to finish the sails and put it all together. To do this I started by painting the sails with Liche Purple, the drybrushed them with Warlock Purple.

bloody-reaver-sails

I then went over the iconography with Bleached Bone followed by a light wash of Gryphonne Sepia followed again by a light coat of Bleached Bone. I then took a fineline pen and put the ship’s name on the sail name plate before applying another Gryphonne Sepia wash over the lettering. The pennants were done with a blending of Mechrite Red through to Blazing Orange at the tips.

Filed Under: Dreadfleet, Painting, Wargaming Tagged With: Bloody Reaver, Dreadfleet, Games Workshop, hobby, Model, Painting, Pirate, Ship, Undead

Rust Effects

November 2, 2011 By David Leave a Comment

No piccies, just a quick talk through on how I learned to do it.

Base coat your area of rust in Bestial Brown.
When dried, stipple Macharias Solar Orange on top of it leaving areas of brown showing through….
When that dries (really quick) apply small splodges of Boltgun metal (note this is the only metalic colour you use for this technique).

Jobs a good ‘un!

Filed Under: Painting, Wargaming Tagged With: Games Workshop, Painting, Rust Effect

Gaming Surfaces

October 30, 2011 By David Leave a Comment

A long, long time ago, Games Workshop sold two 2′ by 4 boards for £35. These boards were painted green on one side and came with some sliding clips. This was positied as a gaming table for you to use for your battles (just add terrain – see my terrain post when it’s complete).

Being, 14 at the time and not overly familiar in my local DIY store, I invested in a set and have had them ever since. However, in the 10 years from when I stopped playing to picking up the hobby again, Games Workshop shifted the average table size up from 4′ by 4′ to 6′ by 4′…

So I sighed, and eventually wandered into a DIY store to collect an additional 2′ by 4′ board.

Games Workshop meanwhile, had moved on from DIY plywood boards to 2′ by 2′ plastic tiles. For years now I’ve looked at them, looked at the price tag and ran screaming from the store. Then a friend of mine decided to leave the country and sold me his Games Workshop Battleboards at a very reasonable price. … I’ll come back to this in a moment.

Now, assuming you go down the route I went down initially, and assuming you are not lucky enough to have a massive dining table (go cheap Swedish furniture stores….) then I recommend you pick up two wallpaper tables (the sort the allows you to roll the paper out so you can apply the paste). Put these together and lay your boards perpendicular to the direction the tables are running. You now have a gaming table to add scenery to, and the great thing? It’s easily packed away.

Back to the Battleboards…. Ok, aside from undercoating (I used 1.75 tins of Chaos Black undercoat – I seriously doubt you’ll need more than that!), I managed to complete all 6 boards in one afternoon with thanks to one of my local GW hobby stores and it’s manager.

I used the Games Workshop scenery paint kits which gives you a basic brown, an ochre, a brush, pva glue and two types of grass flock. Now this kit is at least £25 (possibly more now) and they don’t do any other colours. I decided to go for this as I wanted a base to use not only for my 40k armies but also my fantasy one.

I started brushing all of the boards with the brown paint, a good liberal coat on all 6, sometimes go back over with a second coat as it appears to dry very thin. The tub of brown you get with the paint pack is waaaaayyyy more than you need, I had at least 1/3 of the bottle left and i reckon I could have used a lot less.

After that coat is dry, you then dry brush on you’re ochre – I did use the entire bottle of ochre you’re given. Now this colour is very thick, so it can go a long way. Just in case you don’t know, dry brushing is loading the brush up with paint, wiping most of it off on towels then with the absolute minimum of paint left on the brush, run it over the boards, it will highlight all of the textures on the board.

Now the flock you get will not cover all 6 boards in a thick coat, think sparse grassland regions for your boards if you don’t have access to more flock (thankfully I was provided with access). In any case, it’s fairly simple – mix the pva with water in a 50:50 ratio then brush over the areas of the boards you want to flock. Then drop the flock over the glued areas and pat down. Leave it for 10-15 mins then tip the board and knock off the excess flock for use on the other boards.

I was advised by my local’s manager that you really, really need to Purity Seal (varnish) the boards after drybrushing (and/or flocking) . The reason for this? protect against wear and tear, as the boards are plastic and the paints acrylic; they will wear off, and the flock will peel away. In any case, another 1.75 tins of purity seal and your done.

Filed Under: Painting, Scenery, Wargaming Tagged With: Battleboard, Games Workshop, Painting, Scenery

Dreadfleet – Painting the Shadewraith

October 29, 2011 By Kaiberie Leave a Comment

Hi.

I’m Kai (he who owns the blog’s other half )- and I’m painting some of the Dreadfleet stuff. Normally all I am is a writer, so painting and writing up guides is a new one on me, but here goes

The Shadewraith ship seemed to be the easiest of all of them to paint. Much to my surprise, we undercoated it black, not white, and then I got to work.. My first step was Astronomicon grey – and I didn’t put the pieces together – painting them as separate elements.

(while I was waiting for it all to dry, I also did some of the base work on the Bone ruler)

The Astronomicon grey coat also had some details picked out in brown for the dried seaweed, though I have to admit, this was pretty much one of the easiest parts of the whole thing.

After the astronomincon grey was dry, my next step was a pretty heavy Thraka wash, which took forever to dry. I was very concerned that I was obliterating the detail at this point, but with the next step I started revealing gorgeous detail.

Shadewraith - central deck - washed with ectoplasm

Drybrushing isn’t the most intuitive thing I’ve ever tried, in fact, I was sure I was doing it wrong, but I loaded the brush up carefully, wiped it, ran it across the back of my hand a couple of times (which really seemed to help), the drybrushed the deck first. I gave it another wash as suggested with a one and one mix of Thraka Green and Scorpion green, then, instead of edge highlighting, I spent some extra time dry brushing the edges again, giving a worn, textured look and feel to the whole ship. My finishing touches were adding some colour and detail to the teeny tiny canons then I stuck it all together, taking great care to ensure that the masts weren’t damaged on insertion. I added some extra texture to the seaweed by washing them carefully in badab black and added some drybrushed detail to the ghosts and wraiths hiding in the seaweed below the ship.

The base was completed as per the other instructions on a previous post, with attention paid to the parts that was ship specific in the same way as it was painted.

Filed Under: Dreadfleet, Painting, Wargaming Tagged With: Dreadfleet, Games Workshop, ghost ship, hobby, Model, Painting, Pirate, Shadewraith, Ship, Undead

Dreadfleet – Storm Clouds and Bones

October 19, 2011 By David Leave a Comment

The Windguage – Storm Clouds, Fate, Ghosts and Treasure

For me, Dreadfleet has a huge potential to be a very pretty set, I’m not just talking about the ships, or the islands, but alsos the tools to make the game work. with this in mind, I decided to get on and paint the windguage.

I started with a black undercoat on both sides.

On the front side (the one pictured above) I decided to start by dry brushing a 1:1 mix of Scorched Brown and Shining Gold over the main face.

I then picked out the storm clouds with Adeptus Battlegrey and washed the main face down with Devlan Mud.

Next up, I washed the storm clouds with Badab Black, and whilst that dried, I dry brushed the main face with Shining Gold. When the clouds dried, I edge highlighted the clouds with Space Wolf Grey and then a thiner line highlight of skull white.

I finished the front off by picking out the raised triangles on the inner ring with Boltgun Metal.

For the rear plate, I did the same gold drybrush/highlight mix for the outer ring and clouds. For the faceplate of the rear, I painted it down with Astronomican Grey then washed it Thrakka Green.

When that dried, I applied a 1:1 mix of Scorpion Green and Thrakka Green to random spots, drybrushed the raised areas with Astronomican Grey and line highlighted the raised areas with Skull White.

Ruler and Wheels of Bone

I started the wheels and ruler with a Skull White undercoat.

This was then painted Bleached Bone and liberally washed down with Gryphonne Sepia. When it dried, it looked like this:

The final steps for this bone effect was to drybrush the raised areas with more Bleach Bone. Dreadfleet movement ruler + wheels - mid-drybrush

I then picked out the skull eye sockets on both the wheels and ruler with a Badab Black wash.

Filed Under: Dreadfleet, Painting, Wargaming Tagged With: Dreadfleet, Games Workshop, hobby, Model, Painting, Ruler, Turning Wheel, Windguage

The Seadrake – Dragons + Ships

October 15, 2011 By David Leave a Comment

First off, I HATE painting light colours, by light colurs I mean pale colours such as white, yellow, etc. It’s why I play Necrons, Imperial Guard and Blood Angels – I use strong dark colours in all of my armies. So tackling the Seadrake, was always going to be a pain for me. Looking at the White Dwarf guide filled me with dread as I tried to work out how I could make the guide easier on me, whilst still looking for opportunities to learn new painting methods.

Up until now I’ve done every ship in Chaos Black undercoat, I figured that doing the same with the Seadrake may make it come out a little too dark for my liking so I did the hull, towers, dragons and sails in Skull White and the main decking in Chaos Black.

I then went over the hull in Astronomican Grey, Calthan Brown for the decking, Deneb Stone for the towers, a 2:1 mix of Space Wolf Grey: Ice Blue for the tower roofs.

I then washed the towers in Sepia, the decking in Devlan Mud and the roofs in Badab Black.

Whilst I waited for that to dry, I painted the sails Enchanted Blue and then washed them in Asurmen Blue wash.

I did my hull dragon in Macharius Solar Orange, washed him in Baal Red, dry brushed him a 1:1 mix of Golden Yellow and Blazing Orange and finally washed the wing membranes ins Baal Red again. I picked out the sail detail with Skull White, drybrushed the hull, towers and decking with Bleached Bone and re-washed the decking with Devlan Mud again. I layered the tower roofs with Shadow grey and edge highlighted with Space Wolf Grey and picked out the dragon, hull runes, rudder and weapon ports in Shining Gold. I then washed the dragon and the rudder in Devlan Mud.

This was my end result:

The White Dwarf issue discussing the painting tips suggests a white/blue dragon for independent stuff, now, whilst this is a fine traditional colour scheme for High Elves, I wanted to add a little character to mine, so I went with a Purple Dragon. Paint the dragon in Liche Purple, then wash it down in Leviathan Purple. I then dryburshed it with Warlock Purple and washed the wing membranes in Asurmen Blue.

Filed Under: Dreadfleet, Painting, Wargaming Tagged With: Dragon, Dreadfleet, Fleet, Games Workshop, High Elves, hobby, Model, Painting, Pirate, Seadrake, Ship

Grimnir’s Thunder – the Alliance’s carrier

October 10, 2011 By David Leave a Comment

So in my previous post, I discussed how I painted the blimps of the Grimnir’s Thunder. Here I’ll discuss the ship itself….

Grimnir’s Thunder is the armour tank of the alliance and one of two (arguably the only true) carrier of the Alliance’s fleet. She’s a behemoth of metallics and if WD 382 is to be believed a simple paint job….

Whilst it’s true, you do only work initially with three colours, the amount of intricate details on this model make it far from simple to paint.

As usual with my ships, I decided to paint the components and base before assembly. My base guide here covers the basics of the base, though with the Thunder’s base, there is a small (what appears to be) steam powered mini boat in one corner.

Not sure how easy it is to spot, so let me jump to the end for a second…

As you can see here, the little ship (aww dinky) has been done in a paint scheme similar to the Grimnir’s Thunder (so Chainmail for the steel, 1:1 mix of Shining Gold and Scorched Brown) for the paddles and turret weapon. wash it down with Devlan Mud, then highlight back up. Do all of this after you have finished painting the base, otherwise your colours might mix during the washes.

Grimnir’s Thunder’s base colours are Gnarloc Green, Chainmail, a 1:1 mix of Scorched Brown and Shining Gold and Tin Bitz. WD 382 talks you through it as a paint guide.

In my case though I fond the little details (the runes) the hardest to sort out. Let me show you.

In the WD they recommend you do the metallics first, nuh-uh, in my case, I did the greens first and then applied the metallics.

I also painted the blimps first.

This meant when I came to wash (again the guide says do it for just the steel and the green) I could do the whole thing.

To highlight (also in the above picture) I just went over the various panels in their various layers (see WD 382 to find out what colours I used). Keeping the detailing clean here was the hardest part and required a really steady hand (I recommend holding the model in one hand, the tip of the brush in the other and with practice u can get a good stead hand by pressing the heels of your hands together while you paint (or buy a vice….).

White Dwarf advised another layer of fine line highlighting around the steel panels and some randomized chipping by mixing Blazing Gold and Mithril Silver together and applying it on the various ‘gold’ metallic points. Frankly i liked the end result without that step as it gave a much more striking model….

Job’s a good ‘un.

Filed Under: Dreadfleet, Painting, Wargaming Tagged With: Dreadfleet, Dwarves, Fleet, Games Workshop, Grimnir's Thunder, hobby, Model, Painting, Pirate, Ship

Grimnir’s Thunder – Fun with Blimps

October 10, 2011 By David Leave a Comment

When I decided to paint Grimnir’s Thunder I was expecting to have an easy job – I mean look at it….

It’s just greens, and metallics (and base which is pretty easy tbh – see my earlier post on how I do these). Little did I realise that it’s a tad more complicated than I imagined. For one there is a ton of detail hidden on this model – a lot of it on the interior surfaces or the mid-section. Then there’s the blimps….

No, I remember Man O’ War, it was a great game, it had fliers, it had ships, it had monsters, heck it was an innovation in wargaming, what I never comprehended (folly of youth) was the complexity in painting some of those fliers (like Warhammer 40k Epic’s models, they were TINY). As a result, the blimp(s) proved to be one of the most challenging pieces of painting I’ve done so far in Dreadfleet. In fact, I perceived the challenge to be so great, that I decided to start with them….

Following the White Dwarf guide, I started with the base colours.

As you can see, I’ve gone for the Gnarloc Green basket, Deneb Stone Blimp, Chainmail metallics and tin bits prow/weapons. This was then given a good wash of Devlan Mud.

When that dried I picked out the specific areas with their highlight colours (go buy WD 382 to find out what they were).

Finally I sorted out the base. This was done using the same guide I always use now for my bases, but at each layered stage (incl washes and drybrushes), I applied the same effect to the stem that the blimp sits on (working bottom up with the dry brushing). As a result I get a base and stem that looks like a good solid mix of sea and air for the blimp to fly on.

I’ll do a second post later covering Grimnir’s Thunder.

Filed Under: Dreadfleet, Painting, Wargaming Tagged With: Blimp, Dreadfleet, Dwarves, Fleet, Games Workshop, Grimnir's Thunder, hobby, Model, Painting, Pirate, Ship

Dreadfleet – Painting the Skabrus

October 8, 2011 By David Leave a Comment

After finishing the Skabrus base, it was time to get on with painting the zombie giant fish itself (again, majority of this was from following details in WD 382 but I did deviate here or there as colours – and my paint supplies demanded).

I started with a Chaos Black undercoat and brushed Deneb Stone all over the whole fish, painted the bell’s support strut Scorched Brown, the Screaming Bell in Dark Angel Green and again picked out the metallics with a 1:1 Dwarf Bronze and Tin Bitz mix.

Next up, came the adding of flesh tones to the body. WD382 suggested (and I used) a 1:1 mix of Leviathan Purple and Orgyn Flesh washes, I also washed the metallics and woodwork with Devlan Mud. I then applied a thing layer of goblin green to the Screaming Bell.

When that dried I applied a verdigris effect (again 1:1 mix of Dark Angel Green and Hawk Turqoise, watered down into a wash) to the metallics and for my mini I applied a layer of rotting flash to the Skabrus body (it’s meant to be a zombie fish right?).

Whilst that all dried, it was time to sort out the gun decks and the mast. Scorched Brown was applied for the woodwork, Bleached Bone to the bones, Mechrite Red to the pennant and the Dwarf Bronze/Tin Bitz mix to the metallics.

I wash the mast and pennant in Devlan Mud. When that dried, I applied a layer of Blood Red to the pennant, line highlighted the mast with Kommando Khaki and picked out the Skaven symbol with Shining Gold. I also highlighted the guns on the gun deck and their wires with Shining Gold. I then went back to the main body and painted all the bones and teeth with Bleached Bone. When that dried I washed the bone areas with Gryphonne Sepia and then line highlighted the bones and teeth with Skull White. I line highlighted the Screaming Bell with Scorpion Green and then did a thinner line highlight of Skull White. When that all dried, I put the ship on her base. I found that the mast fit into the gun decks was extremely tight, so drilled that out a little wider before fitting it together and gluing it in place.

Job’s a good ‘un.

Filed Under: Dreadfleet, Painting, Wargaming Tagged With: Dreadfleet, Fleet, Games Workshop, hobby, Model, Painting, Pirate, Ship, Skabrus, Skaven

Dreadfleet – Painting the Skabrus base

October 8, 2011 By David Leave a Comment

In my previous post on painting water, I said the effect should be fine for all of the bases bar the Skabrus, and here’s why. Unlike the other bases, the Skabrus has ‘organs’, you see the Skabrus is a giant undead, zombie fish, crewed by undead Skaven…. so we need to not only pick out organ details, but also leave a trail of rotting effluence in the Skabrus’s wake. Once again, Games Workshop‘s October White Dwarf (WD 382) provided a ton of good advice. (Do go buy a copy, I won’t be doing blow-by-blows for each of the Dreadfleet minis unless I get a load of requests).

Here’s how I did it. Start off with your base colours, for me, this was Necron Abyss for the water, Mechrite Red for the organs and dark angel green for the effluence.

Next up, I used a 1:1 mix of Tin Bitz and Dwarf Bronze to pick out the metalics and Scorched Brown for the wood. When that was dry, I washed the organs in a 1:1 mix of Devlan Mud and Baal Red and washe dthe wood and metallics in just Devlan Mud. I also dry brushed Enchanted Blue onto the waves and Goblin Green into the effluence.

As I waited for the organ washes to dry, it was time to move on to the second drybrush layer for the water and effluence. Again, Ice Blue for the water was used (again, focus on the wave crests) and Scorpion Green was used in the effluence.

Finally it was time to wash the water parts and the organs were dry enough to apply some effects. As before, the water wash (for both waves and effluence was a 1:1 Thrakka Green and Badab Black washed heavily. As that dried, I applied a 1:1 Mechrite Red and Blood Red layer to the organs, applied a verdigris effect (when you see brass turn green) to the metallics (mix 1:1 Dark Angel Green to Hawk Turqoise then water down to a wash and apply) and touched up the wood work with more Scorched Brown. When the organ layer was dry, I applied line highlighting to the organs to pick out details.