All things Fantasy

As a Dibbun I read all, and I mean ALL, the Redwall books. I loved the world and the creatures in it. The sense adventure, battles and sieges, Cluny the Scourge and the Hares of Salamandastrom (spelling it from memory).

So the metals from Oathsword are the perfect way to paint and play this world though using their Burrow and Badgers ruleset.

I bought one of their starter sets and everytime I need a palette cleanser from painting a squad, regiment or something large I  paint one of these using contrast paints and I love it every time.

Mouse Mother Muriel will be a healer type (I think this is a thing in Burrows and Badgers…)

Just a quick project update; adding a Spirit of Durthu to my Sylvaneth army. Painted much the same way as the Tree Lord and Tree Lord Ancient I experimented for the first time wet blending. I used GW Contrast paints, an orange, yellow and red. I kept the majority of the blade yellow and the red went to the base of the blade with a thin strip of orange as an mid-range blend. Keeping my brush wet and working quickly this actualy provided alot of versitility and I’m satisfied with the overall effect.

After a painting hiatus I’ve hit a hot painting streak and have painted more in the past four months than the past four years. Included in this is the continuation of my Sylvaneth army painting. Above and below are the latest units I’ve finished. I completed the last 15 Dryads and a Tree Lord.

The Tree Lord was a bit more plain as compared to Durthu or a Tree Lord Ancient, to give it a bit of interest I used Vallejo Pink to paint it’s mushroons and fungi. Then Magos Purple for the Tendrils coming from its hand.

These minis have magnets attached to under their bases; they can be placed in a Really Useful Box which I’ve superglued magnetic sheet to the bottom of. Though if you’ve ate your way through some tins of biscuits the magnets will stick to these too. My excuse for eating a tin or two of Scottish Shortbread.

Part of being a Sylvaneth player is needing GW Wyldwood Terrain. The idea for this scheme came from painting the Tree Lord Ancient. I really liked the effect of the Gore Grunta Fur Contrast paint and was looking for an excuse to use it.

So autmunal trees was as good an idea as any and the Silver Birch bark seemed a good contrast to the rich leaves.

I started on the base useing Cygor Brown for mud, Apothecary White for rocks, Bsilicanum Grey for fallen branches, Skeleton Horde for bone. Finish with a light highlight of Ushabti Bone to tie it all together.

At this point I found it was difficult to paint the tree trunk (Basilicanum Grey) and leaves (Gore Grunta Fur) and painting the base made it more difficult as I had less areas I could hold the mini by. The fungus was painted first with Skeleton Horde and the mushroom tops with Blood Angel Red.

The leaves looked good but lacked something. So to complete the autumnal feel I chose my brightest green (Moot Green), red (Evil Sunz Scarlet) and yellow (Flash Gitz Yellow). With these I stipled the leaves using some scrap foam and this completely lifted the look of the leaves. I may have gone too light asit isn’t too noticable from a distance so I may add more.

After a break I’ve come back to this project and dived in with the Kurnoth Hunters. The Main colours are the sames as the Treelord Ancient.

Again on the bigger models I find the Wyldwood cotrast paint is enough without the need to drybrush. Also a second coat can add some added depth to the recesses.

The Branchwych is my second one and has a blue bug instead of red to differentiate them.

The Main difference is that I used Bronze on the bows for the handle and the tips of the bow. In my mind this is like a lightsaber and the blue zzzzmm’s out from bronze bits. These are highlighted with silver which actually gives a good effect – I had been dubious when I saw this being done on Utube.

Next up is my first go at the Wyldwood terrain.

The method for basing is fairly simple so I’ll just list what I did in order of application:

Paint the base brown to help hide gaps that may be cause.

Cover the base in PVA Glue, I’d recommend watering it down slightly – I’ve had problems when applying pva thickly.

Sprinkle grass, it’s to your preference but I added less grass than grit as more green will be added later.

Sprinkle the grit to cover the rest of the base, do it second as it settle better among the grass and the grass itself looks more like it is growing through the dirt rather than sitting on it.

Next use super glue to add the clumps and the mossy grass with the red flowers. Let it settle and gently tease away any loose pieces and add more if needed – broad headed tweezers were great for adding the clumps to the super glue.

The rim is painted a darker brown…

Once the glues have fully dried I add a little pva glue to a disposable spray bottle I bought on amazon and heavily diluted it with water. I spray this over the base. The rest of the mini will get drenched with this but it will dry clear and leave no marks.

The final step is waiting for all this to dry and end with a matt varnish.

So like any good boss level it should be a test of previous skills accumulated. Likewise here the Tree Lord ancient uses all the skills and techniques used to paint the Dryads and Branchwych. I really like the Goregrunta Fur used for the beard and have an idea for later where it will be used more signficantly. I also found that Cygor Brown makes a good muddy colour for the base which I used around the base of the ruins.

The first character I’ll paint is the Branch Wych from the start collecting box. The main thing I want is a consistency across the army to tie everything together, which also helps me paint quickly and get an army together quickly.

I painted the branch Wych and three squad leaders to lead dryads at the same time. The main parts of these, the body, the leaves and branches, eyes and mouth etc. are painted exactly the same same as the dryads – as shown in the previous entries – so I will just show the differences below.

So the end of the previous step leaves your miniatures looking presentable and ready to fight; but I’ve found that dry brushing really ties the minature together and helps smooth out the contrast paints.

Ok so first things first I assembled my paints and below is a list of the paints I have used, there may be a few more that I will add later. There is a hand written list in the photos below which shows everything that is used.

Usually I paint the largest areas first starting with the darkest colours, however due to the nature of these minis and the nature of Contrast paints this is completely reversed.

I saw it would be easier to use the lightest colours first and hit the smaller details first, this meant when it came to doing the bark I could quickly and easily see what was left to paint without covering other details due to over zealous bark painting.

This part is the painting of the Drayds and the Branchwych. I split these into 3 batches – 7 Dryads, 6 Dryads, and the 3 Leader Dryads with the Branchwych.

Ok so this is a good point to take a break and let all the contrast paints dry. So go outside and top up your sunburn or get a cup of tea – since I paint late in the evening I usually call it a night at this point. The contrast Medium tends to add to the drying time and I find that even when dried the contrast paint still slowly becomes a slightly lighter shade – or I could be imagining it…

Next up is the dry brushing stage, you could stop at this point but the next stage really brings everything out and it the best tiem to correct mistakes. Trust me despite the rubbish photos they look quite good on the table in natural light.

It’s getting late I’ll do this later.

First things first, my purchases started with a start collecting box, followed by another ;). A third is needed but for a change I later purchased a box Kurnoth Hunters and Tree Revenants. This is roughly 1250 pts of minis.

As I purchased the minis they where clipped from the sprues, had their mold lines removed and assembled using plastic glue (revel being my prefered choice).

After this it was time for priming. Since I planned to use contrasts I chose to use Wraithbone. I wanted brighter finish for the contrast paints, hence Wraithbone over Greyseyer.

The final step in prep is to gather the paints and materials I will use for this project. These are mostly GW contrast paints but I will likely have at least one vallejo as well and a variety of basing material.