Raiding the Dusty Wastes

I started with the random “Ooh, Shiny!” purchase and thought it’d be a quick and easy paintjob. Nope, I sat around and then tried painting it once before scraping paint and deciding to strip it entirely. After a short amount of time looking back and forth between the mini and the others that were nicely based/painted I thought this would have a proper plinth to stand on and be just as visually interesting. Away I went to creating the stairwell as close to scale as I could get without actually doing mathematics and driving myself batty with sculpting. I know there will be more to add on in the future before this is “done” with details but here is the bare bones with interesting grit texture courtesy of my mainstay Golden pumice additive.

Here you see the base plinth I bought and work upon. I built a small platform of basswood strip and glued a segment of plasticard for the step.  On top of all this I used Apoxiesculpt to make the stone both worked and natural where the mini stands. I thought that the initial scimitar for the figure was a bit off (especially after I had dropped it) so I replaced it with a thicker one from Reaper’s weapon mod packs. So far so good with enough open space to detail later.

So in a flurry of spending money I went and dropped cash on a single sprue of Gripping Beast historicals on Fleabay. Not a bad thing to buy bits but this was ridiculous as I only found one conehead with turban that I was after. Arab Spearmen and Archers as a boxed set looks cool but I don’t need to buy a whole unit for just one part. This beats buying a Perry box of Assyrians for one head to cut off a face and earflaps, drill out the cavity and add a turban.

Good news that I got the Gripping Beast sprue. The down side is that I see that the bodies are a slightly large. They’d fit right in with GW stuff for the oversize proportions but not so much with the sculpt from Reaper. So sitting with the bits in hand I think the previous idea of just cutting off a portion of the bottom to the helmeted head, the on the right in the row just above the bottom row, and then just applying greenstuff to make a turban and shemagh is best for scale. I have a plan and I think it might work. I might add a skeletal arm to the base later. I think a third element should be added and it could be the remains of a dead torch (not the British idea of what is known as a flashlight)… eh… nah boring. Changing my mind on the helmet again and keeping a third element. Do the helmet w/ turban but hollow it out and put a skull on the lowest step. Yes, I will do just that and put the skeletal arm behind the figure. A grisly fate for a long dead someone that the current figure is standing over. This will work.

With completing two other projects not terribly long ago I figured that this needed some love again; well, that and I already got the urge to build the Gripping Beast figures from the sprue and toss on some sand/gravel mix I had. I pushed the Arab spearmen aside for a moment and went back to the lovely lady on the plinth (its a visual thing Lloyd).

So what I went about first was a zenithal priming over black. Seeing the success of the Darkoath Brown contrast from GW  I figured I might want to try the same on the base. I had misgivings on doing the fleshtone but I relented thinking that there wasn’t much skin exposed and it could be redone with minimal effort. So, on with the drybrush layers.

• VGA Barbarian Flesh (72.771)
• VMA Medium Flesh (78.860)
• VMA Pale Sand (70.837)

After getting all that down I washed it with GW Reikland Fleshshade to ease it all back to something reasonable with highlights. Thinking that this really worked I did the same thing with the base but left out the final wash. It’ll work later as well in tying the palette together.

If I were a lazier painter I could leave the drybrushed Medium Flesh/Pale Sand as a NMM gold but I think the color could be developed more.

It didn’t look half bad and I decided that this approach to drybrushing will be my fleshtone approach when not refining my airbrush skills. This soft transition  was brought forth by a venture into a FLBSS (Friendly Local Beauty Supply Store) for a small soft nylon makeup brush. There were a few sizes but I picked up one about 8mm wide for about what GW’s M scenery brushes go for; its the same material as far as I see.

As you can probably tell I finally figured out the damn issue with the lighting. It took a little trial and error but throwing a bedsheet over myself and the mini in the bathroom looks like it will work. I hope to be able to get more good shots like this before I move again as this has finally made me happy with the results possible from my limited knowledge of how to play around with the camera on my phone and being without my own personal setup.

Considering more detail in the pattern work I opted for putting in pastels for the clothing. I threw down a VMC Pale Blue and then VMC Azure to counter as a dark tone. Realistically they are both quite light as I’ve reserved Azure as a color for creating NMM steel in my first project ever to OTT ( https://www.beastsofwar.com/project-entry/1266395/ ). I did a gentle drybrush with the makeup brush to bring out the edges in RMS Ghost White and glazed back over with the respective colors.

Beyond that I started blocking the light browns with VGA Beastly Brown into the shoes, scabbards and what will end up being gold.

Aside from that I fell back to batch painting with the spearmen. Again things to get better with pattern designs.

I’ve put aside the work on this for a little as I’ve been pushing commission pieces for a buddy of mine. I threw some Vallejo Air Ultramarine Blue (72.722)  through my airbrush and found that using scale mesh has definitely brought up the appeal to the clothing despite my efforts. The happy accident of the fade was pure overspray that I kinda like after sitting and pondering the visual design. I’m not one for going crazy over print/pattern/design in clothing but it does have appeal in breaking the space. I believe that this technique might be the means of making more realistic fishnets in future. Three figures (probably more) on the shelf will benefit from this knowledge.

The downside is that I found that my masking was lacking for the front and I completely missed some areas. I’ll try to cover them as best I can and match the pattern. That is the biggest downside of using masking materials with airbrush. If you screw up the work at first its twice to three times as difficult, if not impossible, to recover. I’m not sure how well the paint/seal method for layering helps much to avoid this from here on out but I’ll keep at it. I think maybe double sealing before intricate painting to allow for foul-ups might be best.

So there’s been some background work done since last putting this on hold for Giftmas presents that have gone out. Yes, more paint and more minis. The transfers from LittleBigMen Studios for the shields really make the fronts pop and add some class. I have a plan for the headwear and dishdashas (the roe/tunics) to really draw the eye which will really pull the force together.

In other news, I got a second batch of plastic Gripping Beast Arab spearmen as I saw that a starter box of SAGA only needed eight men. I’ve purchased the starter box set as a thought to get more options for an Arabian Nights mix-up for the future. Right now I’ll hold off on the flying carpet light cavalry (perhaps horse archer equivalent?) as I need to get access to a 3D printer. I have enough clear acrylic rod to put beneath the airborne rug raiders (can’t help but laugh at that term as I thought of what to call them) so the elevated status of the models be believable. Perhaps with the Age of Magic rules I could add djinni, efreeti and perhaps a roc.

I got my SAGA order of starter Arabs, the core rules/Age of Magic and I am pleased as punch. The Arabian Nights (Knights?) will be worked on piecemeal as I get some flying carpets printed and I get a better handle on a uniform element for a paint scheme. The shield transfers from Little Big Men studios work very well and require little retouching. Plain water worked well enough as I don’t have immediate access to my hobby stuff in storage. Color matching th shield designs has been solved with weathering the edges.

At the moment I’m inspired to hop over to some historicals and get medieval Koreans to run as a fantasy force under the leadership of the wise lord Gyeon Chul-moo atop his giant eagle. This idea might work better with a dragon or maybe a tiger. I could swap this leader option out and have the lady Song Eun-Kyung on the back of a pheonix. I need to read more folktales for that yet but the idea seems to feel right. I have a lot more ideas that might work but I will figure out model builds as time progresses.