Winter Guard Marches On

iPhone photography, still a learning process.

Resumed my painting today and made some good progress.  I did the reds, though not quite in the way I intended, and also got a base of flesh and browns down.  I started by putting a later of Red Gore on the reds, then washed them with Devlan Mud.  When I started I had planned on going back with the Red Gore, then highlight with Blood Red and Fiery Orange.  I wanted a red that was a little different than the Blood Angels, a bit darker.  Instead I did the red exactly like I have in the past, with Blood Red and then a red/orange highlight.  If you guessed the result was a highlight that was far too subtle for its own good, you get a cookie.  Since I wanted the armor to be red and not orange, I didn't want to do the straight orange highlight.  Considering my brighter than intended base red, I didn't have a lot of room to work with.  My mind boggles that the color I have the most experience with stills evades my efforts to highlight it properly.

A little dark, but in focus.

Disappointed as I was with how the greens turned out on some models, I had prepared myself to paint over the highlight and try again.  On closer inspection I think I'll like it go, but I did do a light glaze of the olive drab green (Model Color Russian Uniform) on the leader.  It didn't make a lot of difference, but it was rather thin so I may give it another shot with a more robust mix.  The flesh got two layers of Bronzed Flesh, along with the hair on a few models.  The browns are Beastly Brown thinned with Vallejo Umber Wash.  I have decided the difference between Umber and Sepia is that Sepia has a bit of red, while Umber is all brown and black.  At first I was only going to do the leather and use a different, darker brown for the wood.  Once again I had out-foxed myself on paint selection and used the brown I intended for the wood on the leather, so I plowed on ahead and did all the browns at once.  The wood might get some graining and another wash of Umber, or perhaps Devlan Mud, while I'll highlight the leather in the conventional manner and aim for a lightish brown.  I'm on the downhill stretch with this batch and I hope to have another good painting window tomorrow.  I doubt that I'll get them finished entirely, but if I can do enough that I can finish them with another session afterwards then I'll be happy.  With any luck I'll have the squad, without the UA or rockets though, finished and ready for action by next week.

You can almost make out the red highlighting.

A visit to the FLGS earlier this week was fruitless on the Wrath front.  Also missing were Great Bears, Aiyanna & Holt, Gorman di Wulfe, character jack upgrade kits, the Khador plastic jack box, Manhunter, Battle Mechanics, the Spriggan, basically anything I was looking for in the Warmachine range.  They did have a pEiryss but I haven't really felt the need to field her yet.  I did find the Menoth paladin though, Sir Ekkrion, along with what seemed like the entire Iron Kingdoms range.  It's a shame that Warmachine isn't really set up to use alternate models or to find a role for a random miniature, but it'll be a good test mini to see how the scheme goes together.  I like the studio Menoth scheme, and I hear good things about doing bone/white armor with Gryphonne Sepia.  While I don't have that wash, I'm guessing it's similar to the Vallejo Sepia Wash.  I'll also get another shot at doing a darker red.  The studio red has a bit of purple in it, just like Red Gore, so hopefully they're a good match.  I'm holding off on starting until I finish the Winter Guard for the usual 'incentivize yourself' reasons, but also because I have a new basing tool on the way.  One afternoon I found my way to Hand Cannon Online, where I found an article about a basing stamp from Happy Seppuku Model Works.  As I understand it they're a silicon mat that you press into a base covered in green stuff.  It leaves a texture behind like brick, wood planking, or sheet metal.  This seems like a good way to get some extra variety in my basing, so I ordered one of their brick samplers which puts four patterns on one stamp.  I'll try it out on Ekkrion's base and if it works out well I'll consider doing city bases for either the starter set Menoth or the Trollbloods.  They have a number of different patterns, and I like the look of the fishscale brick in particular, but I'll see how the sampler works before looking into other stamps.