From here to Infinity

With the enemy TAG still immobilized a stalemate developed that threatened to escalate into a full fledged battle if it continued for long. As fire continued to be exchanged between the opposing sides to shapes plummeted down out of the sky at great speed. At first glance they might be missiles but the roar of deceleration thrusters just before impact revealed them to be a pair of Tiger Soldiers. Two plumes of snow obscured vision of their landing site on the enemy’s flank,  but not the sound of combat shotguns doing their deadly work.

Next up were a pair of Tiger Soldiers (technically I’ve only got one in the list now but no sense leaving one lonely). Even as medium infantry these guys are pretty much all armor with less accessories (no side arms, less straps, etc). This lead to them mainly being white. I tried to balance this by going fairly heavy on the orange/yellow which I focused on their jump packs.

For the most part I used the same methods as earlier with the one unique bit being adding the tiger stripes to their armor. This was important both to tie back to the name of the unit and to break up all that white. To keep it from being too pronounced I first painted up the white (starting with Rainy Grey followed by Pure White as before and then added the stripes using Faded Black – 09657 – 2/1. Once they were dry I did another layer of Pure White at 2/1. This dulled the black a bit and, I think, helped integrate it rather than leave it looking painted on top. I finished with Pearl White, avoiding where the stripes were.

Now it’s time to turn my attention to our stealthy Ninja. Easily half the model is the building peak he’s standing on. My plan it to try and demonstrate his high level of mimitism but we’ll see how it goes.

The Tiger Soldiers arrived on the enemy’s flank with the fire and fury one would expect from their namesake but on the other flank a different aspect of the creature was being exhibited. There a formless shade silently stalked from one bit of cover to the next. The only hint of its presence was a slight shifting of light and color during its movements. It was not to be enough to alert the two Fusiliers crouched behind a line of boulders to their impending doom however. The first was dead before either knew what had happened and the second barely had time to register the shifting form of his attacker before a razor sharp blade sent him into darkness.

With the immediate threat dispatched the ninja took a moment to scan the area for his true prey. There, a short way off he caught sight of the enemy hacker, his attention clearly in cyberspace. Turning his own focus inward the ninja launched his digital presence at the unsuspecting foe, slicing into his mind as cleanly as his blade had the soldiers at his feet. The result was just as fatal and before the Locusts body had collapsed to the ground the ninja was already gone to find his next target.

The ninja mini is a great looking sculpt that I was looking forward to painting. He also presented some challenges both based on what I wanted to do with the paint job and from the way the sculpt is itself. First I wanted to make sure he was recognizable as a ninja. This meant he should be differentiated from the rest of the force but I also needed to make sure and tie him in enough so that he fit with the overall force. I also wanted to display is mimitism/camo/hidden deployment aspect.

As far as the sculpt, a significant amount of the mini is the roof peak base he’s on so I needed to make sure that looked good. Additionally, as I realized as I was painting, having a sculpted base feature that’s supposed to be up in the air meant the sections of his base that weren’t covered by it couldn’t be done like the rest of the force (I suppose it could be a sunken or ruined temple roof but that wasn’t where I wanted to go).

So the first thing to do was to figure out the main colors. I considered following the same formula as the rest of the army and going for a Stormshadow look but though a break from all the white would be good. After some consideration I decided to go with a variation on the base blues I’d been using. So far I’ve been using Twilight Blue (mid-tone for the triad) with Snow Shadow (highlight of the triad) for the troops under armor so my thought was to go with a darker version by using Midnight Blue – 09019 (the shadow for the triad) for his under armor and Twilight Blue for his armored sections. This gave a nice dark tone without going black and also kept him in the same color range as the rest.

For my other troops I tried to include a fair amount of Yu Jing orange/yellow but given the nature of our stealthy friend that didn’t really fit well here. I initially planned on doing the center plate on his chest, “eyes” and the back plate of his helmet. After painting that I felt the back of the helmet just didn’t work so I ended up repainting it and just sticking with the chest plate and eyes. The limited color seemed to fit his theme better in the end.

Continuing that idea I painted most of the colors into the base. This keeps the model visible but also helps accentuate the shadowy nature of the character. The roof tiles are in Mahagony Brown – 09070, Chestnut Brown – 090071 and Rust Brown – 09072. For the decorative sections I envisioned them being made of gold, ivory and jade and so used Antique Gold – 09050 – 3/1 followed by a wash of Brown Liner – 09064 – 1/5 and then dry brushed with New Gold – 09051. The “ivory” sections were done using Aged Bone – 09059 – 3/1, Bone Shadow – 09058 – 1/2, a repeat of Aged Bone and then Polished Bone – 09060 – 2/1. The jade was Forest Green – 09013, Grass Green – 09014 and finally Jade Green – 09015. In all cases I did a much of coats of the mid and highlight colors to try and blend them well.

There’s not too much gear on the mini. Only his sidearm, bow and sword. The side arm and leather I did as with the prior minis. His sword was done with Blackened Steel and a highlight of Polished Silver – 09054. The bow is where I finally brought in a bit of black by using Faded Black – 09657 for the central portion and then Twilight Blue for the outer portions. I added some Midnight Blue to give it a camo effect and painted the cams in Ancient Bronze. I’d like to add a string to the bow, and still may, but unfortunately it lines up with the forearm so I’m not sure it would turn out well.

Oh that reminds me, we careful with the bow. It’s pretty thin in some sections and fiddling with it will lead to breaks. I broke off one of the cams while removing some extra bits and ended up having to glue it back on.

To represent the minis mimitism effect I used some diluted paint to add the roof colors to the legs. This is mainly seen on the right leg where it’s over the tiles and the left foot where it got a gold and green glaze. I’m pretty happy with the overall effect though it is somewhat subtle on the overall model.

The last bit was figuring out what to do with the base. Since I don’t think I can base in the same way as the rest of the force I decided to have some fun and extend the minis paint job onto the base itself. On the sides this was easy as I just continued with the various browns. In the front it was a bit trickier as I had to extend the detail (and the bull demon was a bit in the way). Again I’m fairly happy with the result though my attempt at some forced perspective is amateurish at best 😉

And that’s about that. Down to three more models to go (two are alternate forms of the same troop). Both are heavy infantry with tons of armor. My thought is to base the Su-Jian color scheme on a snow leopard though this will be interesting as they have a lot of grey and brown. The Mowang I haven’t really figured out yet. Given their size and the nature of their troop types they’re both going to draw a lot of attention on the battlefield so I want to make sure they look good. We’ll see how it goes 🙂

The wind rushed past in a tunnel of blurred trees as the Su-Jian sprinted effortlessly through the forested terrain. This is what he loved even more than the rush of combat. Though he couldn’t “feel” the wind, protected as he was by the Immediate Action Suit, he could “sense” it. It’s speed, temperature and even chemical composition all collected via a myriad of sensors and fed directly into his nervous system gave him a level of awareness that far surpassed what he might feel outside of his suit. At the moment these heightened senses let him know that a fierce skirmish continued nearby and he used the sound of it to guide his path. He’d been ordered to circle behind the opposing force, identify their command structure and disrupt it.

Swiftly he pushed onward, the feline like form perfectly adapted to moving among the trees and brush, until he was sure he’d passed by the enemy lines. With little more than a thought the Su-Jian changed direction to cut behind their foe. This would have been more difficult in an established front but the fire fight here had been unexpected by both sides and its rapid escalation had left little time to enforce the flanks or provide a rear guard. That weakness would now be exploited.

A red blip appeared on his hud along with a brief message from the Lieutenant “Command and control signals triangulated to this location. Engage and destroy.” Shifting his path slightly, it only took a few moments to get visual contact and close the distance. As the Pan-O officer became aware of the approaching threat the Su-Jian launched into the air, easily clearing more than five times its frame size in the leap. While still in the air the feline form shifted smoothly into its humanoid aspect, a two foot long blade clutched in one hand ready to strike…

The Su-Jian and Mowang are, in my mind, two of the coolest models in the Yu Jing range and are a big part of what drew me to the army so I’m really excited to be painting them. First up is the Su-Jian which is actually two models in one (to represent it’s mobility and regular form). Given its obvious cat like nature and the forces overall winter theme I decided to base the color scheme on a snow leopard. Looking at some source images they are a lot less white than I thought they’d be, having a significant level of browns and greys in their coat. So with that in mind I chose to do the more mechanical parts in bronze (to represent the browns) and then split the armored areas between the same white the rest of the force had and a more greyish blue (Stormy Grey – 09088, Cloudy Grey – 09089 and Misty Grey – 09090). My thought is this should keep it fairly tied in while still being a bit unique.

Ironically despite this being a larger model it was actually easier to paint in many ways. Since it’s a mechanical suit it doesn’t have a lot of the details the smaller models do (things like hair, faces, boots, gloves, packs, etc) but what areas there were did need a lot of color coverage. Since it’s two versions of the same model it also meant matching things up between the two models. I’d originally planned to add some spots to accentuate the leopard like nature but in the end decided to leave them out and let the association be a bit looser. I may also add some transfers later so this leaves me clear white areas to work with.

So with that done only the Mowang remains. Still need to figure out what I’m doing with his design…hummm…

“Enemy hacker eliminated”

“OpFor Lieutenant terminated”

“Pan-O left flank breaking”

Reports from across the skirmish front detailed different specifics but all echoed the same overall message, the enemy forces were shaken and vulnerable. Now was the time to strike a decisive blow. An unearthly howl flooded the battle field, rising from behind the Yu Jing lines and growing like an oncoming storm. As the sound reached a crescendo a massive battle suit burst into view, rifle raised and spitting death at the enemy lines. The Mowang vaulted over the entrenched Zhanshi and continued forward without breaking pace.

“All units advance!” came the order over comms.

It’s finally time for a long overdue update as the painting is finally done for this project!

As mentioned in the last update figuring out how best to paint up the Mowang took a bit of time (though most of the gap since the last update was procrastination ;). I wanted him to be a bit different but still tie in. With that in mind I stuck with the white/orange-yellow of the rest of the troops but moved away from the blue undercoat and introduced some olive green and brown. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Sorry for the lack of in progress pictures for this one. So the final step will be to base them all. My plan is to do a mix of brown grit/mud with some static grass and snow. We’ll see how it turns out 🙂

The silence that fell on the battlefield was seemed surreal after the constant sound of combat. A light snow fell on the assembled Yu Jing, their weapons still trained and eyes sharp. The enemy had broken contact but it could well be a feint and so the air was also filled with tension.

As moments lengthened the silence was broken by forward observers reporting their status. “Zone 8 clear….zone 3 clear…zone 2 clear….” flickered the messages over their comms. Finally the lieutenants voice ordered “The enemy has withdrawn. Squad two sweep zone delta, squad three sweep zone tango. All other squads return to base.”.

The final step was to get all the models based. I wanted to get a snowy feel to the bases but didn’t want it to be all snow. I started by putting down some watered down PVA and then some coffee grounds as a dirt/mud layer. From there I put down some more PVA and tested out using baking soda as snow. The effect was pretty good but I ran into an issue with the coffee grounds leeching color (or perhaps reacting with) the baking soda. I ended up brushing most of it off and put down another layer of PVA to seal things up a bit.

Next I added in static grass and some leaf litter flock. With that in place I added some more watered down PVA and reapplied some baking soda as snow. I still got some leeching but I think it actually adds a bit to the effect since it muddies up the snow.

So that’s a wrap for my initial Yu Jing force (and this project). I have to say it was a lot of fun to put together and running it as a project here really helped. I hope you all enjoyed the journey as much as I did and I appreciate all the comments and recommendations. It’s quite motivating to get the feedback and feel like part of a community.

Next up for Infinity will either be Nomads or Pan-O in order to get an opposing army in place to play against.