Seldon9 Is Painting HeroQuest
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About the Project
A friend asked me to paint up his HeroQuest set. I foolishly said yes.
Related Company: Hasbro
Related Genre: Fantasy
This Project is Completed
The Fireplace
Easily the most interesting piece of furniture to paint. I used the stone techniques for the fireplace and thought the pigments worked best here. Props to Gerry’s Gerrycan for that one.
The fire was painted with hottest parts – nearest the wood – painted a white / yellow and wet blended the colours out to red at the edges. I used Scalecolour Sol Yellow, Mar Orange and Aldebaran Red to do this over a white preshade.
The picture frame gave me a bit of a quandary. I could print and cut out a suitable figure. But I thought my friend might like to do that. So I went with a mirror effect. This was done using the loaded brush technique using Daler Rowney Paynes Grey ink, Scale colour Deep Blue and white. Took quite a few goes and then the paint reactivated when I glossed it. Fortunately it settled ok. I added a little purple in later.
The Wizard
Hero time and I wanted to put a bit more effort into these characters. I tried to follow the wizard’s scheme but found it a bit dull. His yellow jerkin had some nice details in orange but they didn’t show well when I added them. I’ve added more and more red to get them to show up.
So to give him a bit of pizazz I painted a MAGIC cloak. I cribbed the technique from a Dr Faust video I now can’t find. I used a cocktail stick to dot silver dots around his cloak. Then I cut the stick down to smaller and smaller sizes to keep dotting and filling any gaps. After dotting I used inks to tint it. I felt I overdid the tinting and dulled it a bit too much. So I gave it a gloss finish without a matt coat.
Edit: found the vid:
The Elf
So I was using metallics for these figures but I’ve always ended up overdulling metallics. This time I stuck to inks for shading to preserve the brightnew and I didn’t matt coat metallic areas. She’s pretty bright now.
Some interesting details on the figure including vials of some concoction.
The Dwarf
Some good details on this figure I felt I could paint and ignore much of the rest. The edging around the hem of his jerkin worked for that purpose.
I was using a lot of gold and wanted to differentiate him somehow. I undercoated his metallics with a red then progressed from Brassy Brass to Gold.
I wanted a nice effect on his blade and eventually decided to shade them using Liquitex Turquoise ink. Really liked the colour. I’ve never been convinced shading metallics works that well but this was as good as I’ve done.
The Barbarian
Here’s the centrepiece in my opinion. I went through almost every colour in the Scale colour skin tones set.
Same concerns as painting the dwarf. I wanted the metallics to stand out but I’ve never been keen on shading them. NMM always looked better in my opinion. But I’m pleased with the result.
I didn’t matt coat any metallics. It has too strong an effect on the TMM so I left them glossy.
And That is Time!
So I finished the core box. It’s all packed up ready for a courier to pick up. I have a couple of expansions to paint but their content isn’t different to what’s in the main box. I’ll keep this going and see if it’s worth updating with new paints of the same sculpts.
The Figures on the Table
I asked my friend to take some pics of the figures on his board. We don’t live that close to each other so only catch up every so often. He’s given each floor of his 3d print a different colour. I’ve chosen one pic where the floor was a closeish match to the colour of the flagstones I painted. I’ll include the other pics in the gallery.
The Expansions
I have a couple of expansions to complete and this project is done. My friend bought his copy at retail so I don’t believe all the KS expansions were available. The two he got are pictured.
It’s a shame that these expansions only have repeats of the minis in the main box.
Kellar’s Keep has 8 more orcs, 6 goblins and 3 abominations. Actually there are a couple of doors which are different.
Return of the Witch Lord contains 8 skeletons, 4 mummies and 4 zombies along with the same two doors as Kellar’s Keep.
I’ll be honest I was flagging a bit with this project. Something a bit different would have helped boost motivation a lot. The KS had some big bosses which appear not to have been available.
More Orcs and Goblins
Orcs and goblins from the expansion done. I tried to make the zenithal a bit less shadowy to make their finish a bit brighter that the last set.
End of Kellar's Keep
Last part of the Kellar’s Keep box had 3 Abominations and a couple of reinforced doors. They’re done and that’s the first expansion complete.
The Witch Lord's Skeleton Henchmen
Half of The Return of the Witch Lord expansion contains 8 skeletons. They’re done along with a couple more doors.
The Witch Lord's Zombies and Mummies
The other half of The Return of the Witch Lord contained 4 zombies and 4 mummies. They’re complete now. It was nice to finish on the mummies as they required the least effort of all the units.
It's Done! Bye for now.
The project is finally finished. Near 100 minis including scenery in a bit over 2 months. I’m pleased with that.
I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to play so I’m going to close the project now. If I have the opportunity to get some more pics I’ll post them. Thanks to everyone who’s followed along and to @avernos and @sundancer for their kind feature on Twitch.
All the best folks.