Painting Tip!

[Phil]

Best to leave the heads off the Cornicen and Signifer - poking paint up under the wolf-skin is not my idea of fun. Fortunately, I discovered this before I'd gone too far and I hadn't glued the heads on very well, so they popped off without too much effort.

Yes, I am painting. I hadn't expected to get any done today, but I have done most of my chores and invented suitably plausible excuses as to why I can't do the rest. Dinner is bubbling away gently on the stove, just needing the occasional stir, and the rabble have gone out, so I'm slapping paint on Romans while there's no-one around to nag me.

Right, back to me paint pots.

(the long-suffering) Phil

[Paul @ Warlord Games]

Hehe, good point.

I've had the reversal in fortunes - I had all day set to paint but have an infection in my thumb which makes it hard wield a knife.

Didn;t stop me of course - just meant that as we eneter early evening I've on;ly got as far as cleaning 4 eastern archers ansd 3 druids up, basing them and undercoating them with the last of my old Ogre Flesh spray. I'd hoped to have gotten further than this by now.

Why, when we sell the Army Painter line, am I using GW sprays? Well, I may have accrued a can or two in my time at GW and this can was all but empty and taking up valuable room. I'm delighted we're doingt he AP sprays - I much prefer a neutral colour to black or white as it gives a true reflection of the paints colour rather than being too bright (white undercoat) or too dark (black undercoat). Of course, the fact the AP sprays need no undercoat is a bonus in terms of time and money.

I'll try to remember to take some WIP pics tonight - being dragged to the Skate Park by my youngest now. WIsh me luck...

Cheers,

Paul

[Paul @ Warlord Games]

As promised here are some work in progress pics…

Next up is to get stuck into painting them proper.

First up are the 4 Eastern Archer models.

And now the first serious look at our Druids from the forthcoming Celts range. Blurry, out of focus pics have been posted around the internet from our Salute stand but here they are in focus…

There are 3 very different Druids archetypes here - a skyclad warrior Druid dual-wielding sickles, an aged and haggard old crone Druid scrying and a more traditional-looking Druid.

I hope you enjoy the new pics - more to come as I paint them up over the weekend…

Cheers,

Paul

[Varus]

Awesome models! I particularly like the Eastern Archers! Quick question though Paul- the £8 pack is listed as 8 random models. Is this truly random, or will I definatly get one each of the four poses?

[Paul @ Warlord Games]

The plan is to give you a roughly equal amount of each type but you may end up getting slightly more of one than the other on occasion.

Generally speaking it'll be two of each pose for the contubernia and a 4 of each for the regiment.

We'll be making our models available individually once they're released too.

Cheers,

Paul

[Guest]

These eastern archers DO look gorgeous. Damn.

Missus won't be happy

Cheers

S.P.

[Paul @ Warlord Games]

OKay, good reminder by Aukenlak on another thread that I'd not posted the finished pics…!

First up are the 4 different eastern archer sculpts. I usallly spenda lot of time on painting and highlight, shade, blend, etc. As a resultit takes forever to finish anything.

This time I tried using the Army Painter StrongTone dip. I couldn'tquite bring myself to go complete cold turkey and just paint flatcolours though! I did highlight the tunic but otherwise it was flat.

Rather than dip the models I painted the QuickShade on liberallywith a decent-sized brush. At first I thought it was a horrible mistakeas the models looked less than impressive after the dip was applied.

The great news is the models look LOADS different after a coat ofmatt varnish. As a means to paint nice-looking armies relatively fastI'm impressed and will be using this stuff on myost of my armies fromnow on - I'm a believer, brother!

Next up are two Druids from the forthcoming Celts range. The speedwith which I painted the Hag model was bloody impressive! A coat of dipand a spray of matt varnish and I'm happy with how she turned out. Theother druid was equally as fast although I did drybrush the staffbefore dipping - works well I think.

Lastly is my favourite of the Druids - the twin sickle-wieldingferal nutter! As impressed as I am wioth the QuickShade on the romansand the other two Druids I think this model shows where it reallyshines - flesh!

A quick highlight over the flat coat of GW's Bronzed Flesh and thenQuickshade painted on. The results are great even up close. I've nowfound a way to paint a Celt army nice and fast without losing thequality of painting.

Now, if only I could find a plaid paint…

Cheers,

Paul

[Phil]

Looking good Paul! Did you paint the 'woad' before or after 'The Dip'? He does look very impressive.

The 'Quickshade' does look awful when you first put it on doesn't it? You get that awful sinking 'Why on earth did I do that?' feeling. They do improve as they dry, and matt varnish finishes them off very well indeed.

I've nearly finished my first batch of Romans - just dipping, basing and matt varnishing to go. I'm in danger of turning into a speed-freak - if I'm not careful I'm going to have painted 30 figures in a week! I do need shield transfers before I can finish them completely though - I'm darned if I'm going to hand-paint all those - one was enough.

Love the archers - great stuff. I can't wait to get my grubby little paws on some of them. I'm just wondering what I'd use as command figures for a unit of them though.

Phil

[Paul @ Warlord Games]

Thanks Phil - I'm very pleased with the results given the amount of time they took.

I'm holding out for the Celts. I started a Foundry Ancient Briton army but with our own models coming soon I'll replace that - especially as I can paint it far quicker now without losing much of the quality of painting.

I added the woad before - Essentially everything bar the flock and static grass was done before the dip.

Tell you what though - the QuickShade would be bloody great for 15mm and smaller armies - you get great results exceptionally quick. Will have to try that on my next Flames of War army...

[Phil]

Funny - I was just thinking that about 15s too. I've got zillions of Ansar (mixture of Two Dragons and Essex) to do for a Sudan 1898 campaign (I finished the Brits in no time flat, 15 years or so ago, but got stuck on the Ansar - very tedious to paint). They were being painted in a more 'conventional' manner, but looking at them tonight, they end up looking very, very, similar to how they might look if they'd been 'QuickShaded'. You never know, I might even finish them off!

Those Foundry Celts of yours do look bloomin' good - but slow to paint, and you need so many of the blighters. Hopefully, the Dip will speed the job up enough to make a Celtic army manageable - even for me!