Here's a quick tutorial on how to paint Stormcast guys quickly using Contrast paints for a non-metallic gold look. Its not the best paint job, but its quick and easy and I think it looks decent on the table top. Check after the jump for more pictures and a link to the youtube video.
I picked this guy out of my old Age of Sigmar starter kit because there are rules for him in Silver tower. I've been painting up all the figures and expansions for that, but haven't had a chance to play it yet. Anyway, gave this guy a go with contrast paints and am pretty happy with the results, especially his big icon. Very simple to do with contrast and decent results for the amount of work required.
Here's a Skaven clawlord/warlord painted up with contrast paints. As expected he painted up pretty quickly. I used contrast paints for a non-metallic metal look on the silver and bronze areas. This is passable, but a little more effort with some highlights or drybrushing would really help.
I started these guys right after Thundrik's warband, but wasn't able to get at them over the weekend. Overall they were fun to paint. I think what made it a lot easier was airbrushing the base colours (roughly). This meant I didn't need to do multiple coats of light grey to get good coverage on their skin. Other than that these guys were pretty straight forward. Check out the video and additional pictures below.
Here's my latest Warhammer Underworlds warband to be painted up. These guys went fast since they are pretty simple (and almost naked). I used my airbrush to try to give a glowing feel to the runes on their skin, as well as the lava base.
I finally finished the Ogroid and familiars... I decided to do 4, since the info I could find online suggested that's all you need in the game. Anyway, it would be pretty fast to paint up the rest if needed.
Here's a couple pics of the Gaunt Summoner. I finished him along with the Kairic Acolytes and Skaven Assassins (which were basically done), so getting close to working on heroes. Does anybody know if you need all 8 familairs in the game, or are 4 all that's needed? I'd rather just paint what's needed.
These pics were taken just before he was finished, but you get the idea.
A little more progress over the weekend on my Silver tower set. The Acolytes are almost done... probably just need a few quick highlights. The Skaven Assassins are done, and now its onto some of the familiars and characters.
In other news, I played a game of Betrayal at Calth with my brother. We played learnt the rules and played the intro mission. Pretty fun game, and nice rules mechanics. I like the hex square movement more than I thought I would. I expect we'll try to play through the missions over the Christmas break,
Lets start off with a shot of the shelf that's slowly getting filled up. As you can see, the hero side doesn't have any of the proper box guys, just the mighty hero expansion and some other singles from my fantasy collection. The monsters are slowly filling up, and I took a break from the bunches of guys to do the two skaven (pics after the break).
I had a chance to finish off the Tazaagors over the weekend. I basically followed the paint splatter guide, with the exception of the gold. For that I used the Vallejo liquid gold (alcohol based paint). It comes our really shiny, almost a gold leaf look. I may give it a gloss shade wash, but for now its just pure gold.
I'm working my way through the villains in the Silver Tower box... trying to keep things efficient and simple, so I'm priming in base colours and not going over the top with layers.
Here's some progress shots of my first batch of Silver Tower guys. I don't actually have the main box yet, so I've started working on some of the expansion heros. These guys are almost done, with some more almost than others. Not pictured is the khorne guy from the White dwarf, but I showed him earlier. Details after the break.
I picked up the new White Dwarf and found some time Saturday afternoon to get started on the free mini. I haven't gone through the whole issue yet, but liked the idea of getting the guy painted up quickly by following the paint splatter article. I really like those articles and hope that they revive the 'eavy metal master class ones some day. The only thing I changed is that I did all the base colours and washes together rather than doing one full colour before moving onto the next like the article shows. I prefer doing it this way because I can fix any mistakes with the next layer rather that going back and fixing something that was fully complete.
As far as the new white dwarf goes I'm hopeful that they can figure out what it takes to become something like the "golden age" ones. There is promise with how GW is approaching videos and social media, so if it can become a true hobby magazine then I'll keep buying it. Time will tell.
Here's some of my work in progress pictures. Overall I like the paint scheme and will use this guy as a test for any further Khorne guys I do.
Here's a few more pictures of Lord-Celestantas assembled. I'm slowly working my way through assembling the guys and trying to make sure I get all of the mold lines and fit things nicely.
These guys are impressive, and I can't wait to start painting them. I'm holding off until I have have them all assembled though since I want to lay down the base colours with my airbrush, so I hope to do that all at once.
Here's a video showing the Khorgorath and Bloodstoker assembly. They are pretty straightforward, and have minimal cleanup needed to make them work. The Khorgorath has a couple joints that should be filled before painting, but otherwise its easy to assemble. I've been really impressed with the Chaos models in this set... they are a step ahead for sure, and quite impessive. I'm not as much of a fan of the forces of Sigmar, but they are ok too.
I've added some side by side shots with my Helbrute below since there has been some talk that they are very similar. That's sort of true, but they are very different models. I don't really see any commonality other then general size and a similar pose.
Here's that Liberator test model from the White Dwarf that I was working on. He turned out ok, and I think I can make some improvements when I start painting up the guys from the box set. Overall this is a managable paint scheme and should be repeatable enough for a whole army. The longest bit is the edging, but its not too difficult and I'm sure I'll figure out ways to make it go faster.
Here's my unboxing video showing the contents of the Age of Sigmar Warhammer starter set. Probably not much new in there, so I'll add some thoughts and opinions below.
First off, its a nicely packaged starter. Much more of a starter than previous GW offerings, in that you can actually play full games with the models and rules supplied. The previous ones were sort of half baked in my opinion, because you needed the army books to play the full game, and didn't really have enough models to have a proper force. This one seems different in that sense, so is more catered towards the first time gamer than the long time neck beard.
As for the sprues, of course the details are amazing and all of that, but the thing I've noticed is that the good and evil guys are totally separate on the sprues. You can easily split the box without clipping anything. The sprues are either completely one side or are divided down the middle and can be snapped in half. This is a great design, and will make splitting with friends that much easier.
In terms of the new faction (Sigmarines), I can't say that I'm thrilled by them. I don't particularly like painting space marines, and that's what these guys feel like. One of thing things I like about fantasy are the troops and their smaller scale, so these guys are basically the opposite of that. I'm also not keen on the round bases, but we'll have to see how that works out with game play. I'm not about to rebase all of my guys yet, but maybe I will if I get indications that the round bases are the way to go in the long run.
For me one of the key things about a gaming system is that it is supported and living. This means an active player community and new releases. I think the approach GW has taken will allow give them the opportunity to have successful releases for a long time, and allow the game to flourish. Sure, it needs some sort of mass battle set of advanced rules, but that's secondary to having a game that can support continual releases and a large catalog of miniatures. Maybe Kings of War will be the competitive rule set for tournaments. Maybe GW will release something even better. Who knows. All I care is that Fantasy remains profitable so GW keeps producing models.
Here's a look after another night of painting this guy. Basically I've added edge highlights with Zamesi Desert on the gold and Administratum grey on the silver parts that were airbrushed. The other details I'm adding are blue (Kantor, Alaitoc, Hoeth), parchment (Ushabti, Seraphim sepia wash, Screaming skull), and leather (Khorne, Nuln wash, Emperor's children). I haven't finished the parchment, base or leather, but everything else is basically done. As I mentioned before, I think I'd like the gold a little brighter, so when I'm airbrushing I'll add a bit more highlights and maybe do a wash in the recesses to tone things down.
The base is wet in the pictures because I put some drops of army painter washes on the sand. I do this to help speed up the painting process later (just add another wash then drybrush).
Overall I think this test model went well. He looks decent for table top and was pretty easy to paint. Its an interesting scale to work with, definitely larger than most of the other stuff I'm used to working with in Fantasy, so we'll see how the box goes when I pick up my pre-order this weekend.
Here's a few pictures of my first crack at a Sigmarine Liberator paint job using my airbrush. I'll finish him up with some edge highlighting and detail colours (blue, white, redish leather), but I think this is going to work. I'll be able to get guys on the table quickly with this method and maybe spend more time to do a proper NMM on the characters.
I'm not happy with the white spatter, so I'll have to fix that. Also thinking I might want to make the yellow-ish highlights more intense with the airbrush.
Any tips internet to make this work better? I'm looking for a good balance between time and quality.
I'm sure I'm not the first to post a size comparison, but here's another one showing the free mini beside some other Fantasy and 40k models. He's defiantly big, but that's the idea, right?
I really want to test out a fuax-NMM paint job on this guy using my airbrush. I realize NMM is a faux finish, but I mean faking it even more by using an airbrush. I'm thinking I can do the main colours with the airbrush and just line highlight the gold by hand and add some blue and do the parchment. Hopefully it will turn out and be something easy enough to replicate for the whole box when I get my hands on them.
Some other thoughts on the whole AoS shift in Fantasy. Part of me really likes this and sees the need for the hobby to move one. When you go to tournaments and see guys playing with 20 year old mini's you can understand why GW's sales are stalling. They need a way to make things obsolete otherwise you can just pick up cheap 2nd hand stuff and free load. GW's hobby has always relied on young kids buying, collecting and moving on, so I can see the need to refocus on this demographic.
On the other hand, one of the reasons I like Warhammer (40k and fantasy) is the nostalgia. I don't want it to change, or at least change slowly. I'm scared for what will happen to Orcs and Goblins because I don't want my army to be relegated to an OOP collection... so in the mean time I won't be painting any of that and will focus on enjoying some of the new releases and seeing where it goes.
