The Drowned Earth – Wispa’s Militia painting project

Plan to try and log the stages / progress I make building and painting my Drowned Earth faction (Militia) to a) help me finish the project and b) test the new BoW project tool.

Miniatures now built and bases applied (which I think might have been a mistake as I want to try doing some sort of water effects given the nature of the game but we’ll see).

Some of the parts were very fiddly and I can’t say I enjoyed the building on the whole. I always seem to find this with metal though.

Added some basic texture to the bases now using (in increasing size):

Vallejo Ground Texture (Rough White Pumice) ;

Sharp sand ;

Cork bits.

Militia Leader is stood on a piece of slate I took from the garden!

Tried to leave some space for water effects (hoping the the lipped bases and texture will act as barrier for it when I apply it). To be honest they don’t look great at the stage and I’m regretting not doing them before fixing the models to the bases but on we go).

Using my airbrush (best hobby purchase ever!) I primed black / grey / white to get a zenithal effect. It really makes the models (and texturing) look better. I suspect it’ll be some time before I come to paint them but they at least look presentable now….

Ranelle basecoat fur (black) & skin (dark bluegrey) done. Not much more to add.

I plan to drybrush fur up to the skin colour to help blend them together, and maybe some lighter highlighted areas for definition. Probably khaki for the uniform (as it’s the militia faction after all) but add some colour in there somewhere.

Fur and flesh drybrushed and painted. Basecoated for rest of the figure as well. Nothing special.

I originally painted the bandana/wraps in a turquoise colour but I really didn’t like it I painted over that with red.

At this stage of the project I’m not really feeling it but that’s often the case I find when you’ve just started. Anyway some quick pics with paints used.

Final shoots of Ranelle for now.

Since the last step I’ve basically applied a wash (Agrax Earthshade or Nuln Oil) and then re-highlighted and picked up folds etc where required.

The results look ok for tabletop / tabletop distance. I’m a bit worried it’s all be bit drab but hoping that a bright swamp base will save that. I don’t intend to base however until the rest are painted so I get a uniform basing approach.

Painted Hove in one sitting and as a result there’s no step photos for this one. Trickiest bit was the skin given my inspiration for the scheme (photo below), after that it was basically a case of finding some greens that I was happy with and then my first attempt a camo on the trousers (which now I look at it seems like a waste as you don’t really see them!). I might touch some stuff up but that’ll wait til after I’ve based and got a final idea on the piece as a whole.

Skintone = Vallejo Game Color 044 Dark Fleshtone then gradually mixed in some Cadian Fleshtone in 3 or 4 layers to try and highlight.

Trousers = Vallejo Model Color Brown Violet, then camo pattern was Black / VMC Flat Earth / VMC Khaki / Sharsnik Green.

Cloak = VMC Military Green

Gloves = VMC Khaki

double post in error – can’t figure out how to delete a whole post entry so if anyone knows please share (or can an admin delete this please – thanks)

Juchita painted to the same stage as the previous minis now. Basically the same browns and greens with washes and highlights. Nothing that’s gonna win any awards but the point is to get them painted so they look good on the table when playing and I think that’s been achieved.

When they are all done and based I’ll try and get some photos done in the light box and more importantly try and get some game play photos to show what they look like in action. That’s the plan anyway but there’s some way to go yet.

Another model done. I’ve a couple of problems with my results here if I was to be critical.

Firstly I attempted to use wet blending on the skin here, something I’ve never really done. I wanted to go from a pale underbelly (Vallejo Model Color Pale Sand 837) to the blue skin (VMC Prussian Blue 965). Through trial and error I managed to avoid a hard line between the two and some more natural transition between the two (just thinning the two colours as I apply then and using a wet brush to merge them seemed to work). I was pretty pleased with the results for a first real go but then I went and added a blue wash all over (I wanted the skin details to pop) and it just ended up losing all the blended stuff. In hindsight I think either just applying the wash where needed or possibly a dry brush would have done want I needed. Lesson learnt there.

Secondly I used some different greens (VMC Light Green & Deep Green) and I think they are problems too cartoony, especially when I compare them with the other models. I guess he’s a blue skins lizard with a cross bow so how realistic do I need to be 😉   If I was to redo tho I’ve use the more duller greens I’d previously used.

The mini looks better than the photos – at least to my old eyes – I can live with it anyway.

* UPDATE *

I decided to try and redo the blending on the skin, it’s not great but it’s better. All I did was use a wet palette and mix the sand/blue gradually and apply it in thin layers. I think with practice I’ll be able to get some good results – as with all painting stuff its just a case of practice practice practice.

Revised image below..

I’ve been painting Forek and the mounted version of him at the same time to ensure consistency in colours used. I plan to post a more step by step for Forek Mounted when that’s finished but in the mean time here’s the standard version.

Colours / techniques used are pretty standard basecoat, wash, highlight. I spend more time on the skin highlighting in gradually lighter tones which I think has worked well. I was too chicken to paint his eyes after that though :).

Trousers : VMC Military Green, Army Painter Military Shader

Skin : Bugmans Glow, then Bugmans Glow / Cadian Fleshtone mix for a few layer until nearly pure Cadian Fleshtone. Finished off with AP Flesh Wash.

Hair : Steel Legion Drab, Agrax Earthshade, VMC Tan Yellow drybrush.

Belt / bags : VMC Flat Earth, Agrax Earthshade

Ammo belt / pistol holder : Mournfang Brown, Agrax Earthshade

I’ve done a test piece for the basing I’m going to use – some step pics below.

Here’s the colours / technique I tried to use :

Mud: 

VGC Beasty Brown

VMC Flat Earth – heavy drybrush

Terminatus Stone – drybrush

Pools:

(old GW) Rotting Flesh (would be Nurgling Green now I think) mixed with some Steel Legion Drab

Stegadon Scale Green  mixed with Steel Legion Drab

Then (tried) to wet blend the two colours.

Next step was a wash of Agrax Earthshade all over (but avoid too much or pooling on the watery bits).

Final step when everything is try was to add some realistic water. It sort of seeped on to the mud bits but in the end that doesn’t look to bad I think. Adds something to it.

I think that’ll work out ok, especially when I’ve added rocks and foliage into the mix so I’ll give it a go…

I’ve tried to capture some steps as I did them when building / painting the mounted version of Forek.

Step 1 – build the main model and added texture/cork to base (as per rest of the faction).

Step 2 – Zenithal airbrush highlighting

Airbrushed black / grey / white to provide a zenithal highlight. ( sorry if the photos don’t really show it clearly).

Step 3 – Airbrush base colour.

I decided to stick to the standard yellow colour for the Load Lifter, lightly priming with GW Averland Sunset to try and maintain the zenithal highlighting. Leaving the dino skull off for now so I can get in to paint Forek.

Step 4 – Basecoat.

Applied the basecoat to the majority of the figure now. Not much more of say at this point.

Step 5 – Forek details painted / Lifter drybrushed.

At this time I painted the skin on Forek (at the same time as I was doing the standard mini).

I also didn’t like how the lifter was looking so drybrushed top down with a brighter yellow, which helped I think.

At this stage I’ve learnt to not get too disappointed until you’ve added more detail – eventually the model will come to life for you I find if you stick with it.

Step 6 – Painted.

Pretty much jumped ahead here to the painted model with the dino skull fitted. I didn’t do a lot of clever stuff here, just basecoats, washes, highlights on the whole. A few edge highlights added to the armour along with some dents (poorly done).

I would add more posts but this seems to be the limit in one thread.

What’s left to do is the basing which I’m doing all in one go across all the minis in the faction. More on that later…

Here’s the team ready for some detail to be added to the bases. At this point they’ve just had brown mud / grey rocks / blue pools painted.

I decided the pick up some GW Barbed Bracken to experiment with for foliage rather than simply cut up the plastic aquarium plants I’ve been using for scatter terrain.

The first thing I noticed was that is wasn’t made of hard plastic, but rather a softer almost rubber like material. It was only really noticeable whilst dry brushing and I found that once it had several layers of paint and varnish on it was a bit harder. I liked it, that slight flex makes me think it’s less likely to break off but we’ll see.

GW Barbed Bracken added as well as some Army Painter Ivy around the rocks on Ranelle and Forek (mounted) figures. I threw on some green flock as well to break up some of the brown.

As well as that I added some Woodlands Scenics Realistic Water using a pipette into the pools. Most bases needed two layers. It’s worth noting that I did this AFTER I’ve varnished the figures.

All in all, very happy with the results.

Wall of pics coming up – I’m calling this project as done now but first some final thoughts. I’ve enjoyed using the project facility at OTT/BoW. Generally no issues using it but the following I think would be helpful additions :

• Ability to access your projects from your Profile pic (top right corner of the page) without having to first go into Edit Profile to find the them.
• Ability to be able scroll backwards and forwards in photo galleries
• Ability to preview posts before publishing (I’ve frequently found that photos are upside down etc when published).

If you’re still reading I hope you found something useful or interesting in this project, I’ve certainly found maintaining it has helped motivate me to stick with it.

And finally, thanks to everyone that commented or voted….

Picked up Kalen sometime ago but got found to painting him over Christmas so thought I’d add him to the project for completeness…