The Zoidyssey – Adventures with Warriors of Athena

The game needs three cyclopses for the first quest.  I prefer the style of the Harryhausen cyclops from the Sinbad movie and found some from Alternative Armies and Reaper.  They will have to wait though.  Today I have painted a “chonky” miniature for the March PaintComp on the forums here.  I was aware that X-Plus does an occasional run of 1/35th scale Harryhausen plastic kits.  Last week an ad appeared on my Insta telling me that there is a new run available and they were cheap, less than £50 including postage.  I ordered it immediately and this is what I got:

As you can see assembly was pretty straightforward.  The only thing to watch is the legs fitting onto the groin piece – I found it was better to do the back half of the leg first then slide the front of the leg on afterwards.

It comes with a plastic scenic base.  I won’t use that and when we take it away the model is 240mm tall foot to top of horn.  That definitely qualifies as “chonky” as far as I’m concerned as it’s the biggest miniature I’ve made for a wargame.  I was a bit concerned he might be too big but I looked up the giants that GW sell and they are 180mm tall.  They also cost £135.  You can buy three of these kits for the same money.

I painted it using a fairly loose technique of wet blended speedpaints over a zenithed undercoat.  The primer was applied which helped highlight any mould lines or gaps from the build.  These were addressed with green stuff and then the model re-primed.

Technique

I work from the darkest part of the miniature to the lightest.  On this model that means starting with his hooves and then working up his legs before blending into his skintone at his midriff and probably using a couple of skintones, one for the darker areas and one for the lighter.

The mixes were made up in advance in plastic blisters as follows:

• Darkest tone – For the hooves and then the very bottom of the legs and up the inside of the lower legs.  I started with neat Noble Skin on the hooves and then added Dark Wood for the deepest fur tone.
• Lower fur tone – for the front of the lower legs and inside of the upper legs and in the creases in the groin.  A drop of Dark Wood and then 60/40 Sachel Brown and Burnished Red.
• Midtone fur – Front of upper legs except the areas hit by the highest zenith.  About 2/3 Ruddy Fur with the other 1/3 made from the previous mix.
• Highlight areas and along the transition to the upper torso – Straight Ruddy Fur with a drop or two of medium in.

Skintone

• Darker tone – undersides of arms and in shaded areas of zenith.  A 50/50 mix of Goddess Glow and Howling Sand.  The transition between fur and skin was wet blended with this as well.
• Lighter tone – 75:25 Howling Sand to Goddess Glow which goes over everything else.  Some small patches of the darker tone were dabbed onto some of the lighter areas, where the tone looked a bit plain or samey and blended as looked best.

The wet blend is great for use with Speedpaint because of its longer drying time compared to regular acrylics.  The key is not to work too much between the different colours or you will lose the distinction and worse might deepen the tone enough to cover up the zenith underneath.  Coats of paint need to be thin enough to allow the zenith to continue to show through.

Finally the club was Dark Wood underneath and Bony Matter on top and then again blended along the transition.

As I was going along I was comparing with a still from the film.  The skintone on mine is lighter and gives a more lizardlike look which I was happy with so decided to keep.  If I’d wanted it to look screen exact I would have added some Pastel Salmon to the light tone mix.

Details were enhanced with some Strong Tone wash into the creases of the neck, face and eye.  Nails painted with Sand Golem and then Bonewhite acrylic over that and I sketched the eyeball in with some white.  The horn was neat Bony Matter with Bonewhite highlights.  As you can see I had a go to see if it could be photographed against my background book.  It can, just, if I tweak my shot angle up a bit 😀

The next day I came back to it having given the Speedpaint plenty of time to dry.  It can rub off if you aren’t careful with a plastic model and work on it too soon.  You always see some spots that got missed.  I’m not sure why this happens but I see it regularly on large areas that have been speedpainted.  Retouched with the appropriate blend.

Spent some time detailing the face.  Murder Scene Speedpaint inside the mouth and very heavily thinned with water for the lips.  The eyeball was repainted white, keeping an outer edge with the darker wash.  Then a circle of dark brown acrylic for the iris and inside that the pupil was painted black.  When this dried a couple of tiny white reflection dots went at the top.  Teeth were blended highlights from the base colour up to an ivory white.

Quick check against the screen close-up.  Happy, so done 🙂

I based the model on a 120mm fronted mdf base.  It will also be used as a monstrosity in Midgard. Soil of Sparta Krautcover enhanced with some cork rocks and tufts.

Finally posed with the current completed adventuring party.  It feels like I might need to roll-up some new companions shortly 😀

As a final point I counted this model as the equivalent of 8 regular 28mm miniatures for my tally of painted things.  I am definitely not in the Gimli school of “that still only counts as one” when keeping the count of my annual output.  That reasoning is also why one 6mm/10mm/15mm man does not count as ‘one’ for the tally Ben 😀

The main focus of the Quests book is a series of linked scenarios for your hero to play through.

SPOILER WARNING

I’m going to play through the book scenarios in order and prepare all of the miniatures required in advance.  If you are playing the game and don’t want the surprise of what you are going to face to be spoiled then please stop reading now.

Quest 1 is divided into 3 linked scenarios.  The first involves traveling across a field populated by very large and aggressive mythic bees.  The party is looking for the 3 clues that are on the table.  There are 8 bees to start off and there can be up to an additional 7 bees arrive due to event cards.  So 15 bees in total.

I can’t imagine anyone’s miniatures collection already has 15 giant bees in it, mine certainly didn’t so these were ordered from North Star.

I looked online and chose a bee to copy.  This one is a white-tailed bumblebee.  It is hard to find pictures of the underside of a bee.  The one I found showed it as all black which makes life easier.  Bee stings are usually orange, who knew?

They were undercoated grey on the underside and white on top and then glued onto the stands so I had something to hold while painting.  Wings were tackled first.  I went with Pallid Bone Speedpaint for the off-white look they have in the photo.  The top surface was then covered in Celestial Azure Colorshift from GSW to give a more ‘mythic’ look.  For the bodies Grim Black Speedpaint is doing most of the heavy lifting but this went on last after I painted the white tail in acrylic, sting in orange fluro acrylic and yellow in Maize Yellow Speedpaint.  The yellow was a bit dull and the black went over some edges so I tidied up with one of the Blanche acrylics, Moonbeam Yellow which is well pigmented and provides strong coverage.

As always the colorshift doesn’t really show up in the photo.

I’ve painted most of the Companions whilst waiting for my Hero to get here. For those concerned about tiny metal man wiener display, a model lower down this post has his out, hence this post is Not Safe From Wieners.

This is the Hoplite.  It is Achilles from Wargames Illustrated’s Heroes in Miniature range.  He meets the requirements of the rules having heavy armour, spear and shield.  His cloak was painted with Turnbull Turquoise Speedpaint to give us that ‘black in bright sunshine’ look.  Armour and shield had an extra step compared to the Argonauts as I started from a base of Talos Bronze Speedpaint before the many layers of Dark Star metallics.  This gives the armour a richer look and works well with this model who has lots of embossed details on his shield, helmet and greaves.  Chiton was Salmon Pink Speedpaint and then some layered build up with Vallejo Beige Red.

Next we have Achilles erstwhile friend Patroclus.  He is also from WI’s Heroes in Miniature and comes as a paired set with Achilles.  Painting very similar.  More chiton visible here so more of the salmon colour on display.  I went for a lighter shade of dull  turquoise to complement Achilles’ cloak, this one is Lizardfolk Cyan.  The sliver fringe on the chiton and collar and base of the quiver were layered Vallejo Chrome and Pale Burnt Metal over Broadsword Silver Speedpaint.

The Songmaster.  This is a Greek Mage miniature by Reaper Bones and he towers over most normal 28mm miniatures due to his heroic basing with additional foot on rock-ism.  The chiton is Raging Sea Speedpaint, two layers to give a deeper tone.  I liked this miniature ans athough there aren’t any magic users the Songmaster fits him well as they carry a staff.

The Guardsman is by Dark Fable, part of the Ptolemaic Adventurers set.  Ancient Honey coloured chiton with a burgundy edge stripe.  The Guardsman gets a 2-handed weapon so this chaps axe is perfect for that.

The Savage is being portrayed by Hercules by North Star, part of the Of Gods and Mortals range.  He is carrying his iconic club and in the rules this is a 2-handed weapon.  He also wears his Nemean Lion skin, in proper classical style with nothing left to the imagination.  I spent some extra time on his skin trying to get some smoother gradients with washes and glazes.  I enjoyed painting the lion’s head which I did by trying to copy an image online.  There is a lot of detail to go at.  He’s huge, nearly 40mm tall so even amongst these ‘epic 28s’ he is tall which is fitting, he is Hercules after all.

Finally we have an Egyptian savant also from the Dark Fable Ptolemaic Adventurers pack.  I won’t be able to use him at the moment as he doesn’t fit any of the Companion types we’ve been given in the initial rules.  I’m assuming we’ll get more types as the game develops so I’m sure his time will come.  Maybe if the Songmaster gets it in an early scenario he might be a suitable substitute.  Cloudburst Blue Speedpaint robes with a range of yellows to make the headdress and other yellow material elements.

My North Star order arrived last week and I’ve been busy reading through the books.  I’m tackling this solo to start off with so I’m happy to read ahead through the Quests book to start thinking about putting my miniatures requirements together.  Before I can get too far with that I need my party of adventurers, called Warriors in the game.

The Heroes book takes us through putting our main hero and their accompanying companions together.

This morning on the WoA facepage there was a link to an app someone has written to do the generation process for you.  I had a go and it seems to be working and certainly is well detailed.

Hero

You roll up for your hero using the tables provided to find out some basic information like their parent and what skills and weaknesses this confers.  There are baseline stats for the core characteristics that can then be enhanced using the allocation given and then a set of skills are selected.

Finally starting equipment is selected and paid for from a budget of 100 wealth and you won’t be able to buy all the best gear straight away.  Given the miniature I have in mind I’ve picked a hand weapon, 2x javelins, light armour and a shield.

All of this is recorded onto your Hero sheet and at the moment mine is done in rough.  Once I’ve got it written out neatly then I’ll post a photo.

Companions

Next we move on to Companions.  As a solo player my hero gets 160 base recruitment points to spend and can have up to 7 companions.  There can be a mixture of human and animal Companions.  There are some interesting choices available and I decided to stick to humans to start off with.

I’m partly working around the available miniatures I have or have just bought.  Some are larger than the majority of my standard 28mm minis, being more of the epic 28, 30-32mm foot to eye size.  I’ll try to use these as the characters as they stand out more easily.  The companions come with specified equipment so I’ll have to try to match as close as possible to the miniatures I’ve got.  I selected the following:

An Archer 20RP, a Guardsman with 2 handed axe 20RP, a Songmaster with staff 13RP, a Hoplite 35RP, a Hunter 30RP, a Savage with 2 handed weapon 30RP and a Thief 10RP =158RP Total and all 7 available spaces used. Again there is a template sheet for recording these and when I’ve got a neat one I’ll take a photo.

Some miniatures are still on order but I’ll paint the ones I’ve got next.

Second set of Argonauts are finished.  Same process used as I’d like a really unified look across this group.

I order a new background book by Jon Hodgson from Bad Squiddo.  Arrived super quickly.  Annie still has the best customer service in the industry.

I bought all four sets of Argonauts from Wargames Foundry.  I’ve wanted to paint them for so long and now have a project worthy of the expense and effort.  The inspiration for their design was the Harryhausen “Jason and the Argonauts”.  The Argonauts had a similar costume which looked like this:

I was also very inspired by the diorama “Attack of the Harpies” by Martin Buck in ‘Kevin Dallimore’s Painting and Modelling Guide Master Class’.  Martin uses three of the Foundry Argonauts and he wanted to show the black armour as shining in the sunshine.  To do this he went for a deep navy blue midtone and then navy blue highlight.  Personally I think there is too much blue and it doesn’t look black any more, but each to their own:

On to painting mine then.  Small batches of 6/7 at a time as there is a bit more detail to do than usual for me.   I want an unbleached linen/wool look for the cloaks, chitons and horsehair crests.  I blended Pallid Bone Speedpaint with medium and some Vallejo GameAir White (2/2/1) to give an unbleached material undertone and because it is mostly Speedpaint the darker tone element still falls into the deeper areas and any uneven surfaces to give a look I really liked.  This  was highlighted with a wet blend of Vallejo Game Bonewhite (cream), P3 Menoth White Highlight (ivory), and GameAir White.  I put a dot of each onto the palette and then depending on where on the model I’m working I can blend a great tone or highlight by hand.  I can also work up gradually to a highlight colour which is never plain white so I keep the unbleached look.

Armour was Tyrian Navy Speedpaint with highlights in AP Blanche Masterclass The Darkness (my new favourite paint).  This is less blue than the harpy diorama but still looks like light is reflecting off black.  Shields are black undercoat with Tyrian Navy overcoated and then highlighted with The Darkness before edging with Dark Star Royal Gold.

Skintone was a blend of Speedpaints – Crusader Skin and Warrior Skin with occasional highlights/blending using Vallejo Beige Red.

Metals are a base of either Dark Star Baroque for the steel and Dark Star Royal Gold.  These were highlighted after varnishing with DS Bright Steel and DS Renaissance Gold with edge highlights added using Vallejo Pale Burnt Metal and Gold from the Metallics range.

I had to wait for the sun to come out to try and get some nice pictures that give us a feel of being in Greece.

I also did a Warlord Games sacrificing priest I had lying around.  The Argonauts are forever sacrificing to the gods so this felt appropriate to go with them.

The game uses D20 for both the player’s party and the monsters.  There is also a standard deck of cards that is needed to help with randomising activations.

I found a cool looking deck of cards by searching for Greek myth themed cards online.  Someone had a deck on eBay and after some negotiation I got them for £15 which wasn’t too bad.

This may seem like an unnecessary expense, I do have plenty of other packs of cards.  I’d still rather play with everything designed to fit the theme.  This helps with the suspension of disbelief and keeps you in the game’s world.

Then to The Dice Shop to get some specialist dice.  I’m getting old and the minces are going so I need bigger than standard dice to see the numbers at playing distance without my glasses.  I’ve therefore bought 34mm D20.  They are more than twice the size of a standard dice.  You are supposed to only need two and I already had two for playing Silver Bayonet (black and white) but I wanted something different for this game.  I went with blue with gold numbering for the player die and the multicoloured metal ones with extra glitter for the monsters.  These were on sale (£20 down to £3) and clearly aren’t popular but they suit this purpose just fine.   They look and feel totally different which is great for getting a different “feel” in-game.

As well as those I got a bag and tray and a D6 to use as a turn counter.  Don’t know if I’ll need one of those but it doesn’t hurt and so got a bigger one again.

The theme for this month’s PaintComp here in the OTT Forums is “Olympian”.  As I can’t paint the North Star gods yet, (ordered but not released until the end of the month) I’ll have to go with what I’ve already got.  I have an Avatar of Artemis miniature by Crocodile Games.  A brilliant sculpt from Chris Fitzpatrick who some might know from his GW days (he did a famous range of Dark Elves in the early 2000s amongst others).  This miniature is in the 36/40mm range and North Star say their gods are 36mm so it should be a good match.

Inspiration.

I wanted a nice bright look for her drape emulating the look of silk in the sunshine.  She is the goddess of hunting so I’m going for green as her main colour.  For her bow I’m going for a yew longbow look.  A yew bow is made from two types of yew wood, the springy outer wood which is very pale and the strong and resilient dark orange of the heartwood for the back of the bow.  Looking closely at the model there is a clever bit of sculpting to cover the awkward space in the crook of the right elbow.  This might have a hollow in it that would be difficult to cast correctly.  Therefore, Chris has put a couple of feathers in there, either attached to the top of the quiver or her wrist cuff.  I’ve looked at pictures of hunting birds and have selected a hawk feather as the most obvious pattern to paint.

Process

I started with a zenital highlighted undercoat using rattle can spray, white over black for the maximum in contrast.  Skintones next.  Crusader Skin Speedpaint folowed by so boosting of the tone with Darkoath Flesh and Guilliman Flesh Contrast paints.  Then in with a solid acrylic, Beige Red which was blended with the three speedpaints on the palette to strengthen the tone further in key areas.  Finally highlights added with these mixes and Bonewhite acrylic added to brighten the tone.  Thin washes over and between applications to complete the blending.

Clothing was next, Shamrock Green which is described as vivid green and certainly doesn’t disappoint.  Then bow, quiver and metallics followed – all using a blend of paint types and tones, carefully overlaid.

Hair and face followed.  Thinned Dark Wood Speedpaint, extra blending and highlights.  Eyes are filled white and then a thin black line is added.

Basing
Krautcover Soil of Sparta is being used with all of the models, as a one and done finish for most.  For the gods and characters I’ll add some extra tufts and flower tufts from the stack, mostly from Tajima1 or Mininatur.