Tale of Warmaster Painters... [SEPTEMBER THREAD]

[Meister.Petz]

@Angor & Rolgan: Thx for your nice words to my miniatures Makes me quite proud of my little mice ... and sure I will continue in this quality, bec. the whole army looks like this.

Greetings Peter

[Angor]

jchaos79 - That was exactly the kind of feedback I was after.

Rolgan - Thanks for the tips, I too am going to need to drink more wine... this hobby can be demanding!



I picked up some mythril silver to spruce up the cannons and the men are having some facial reconstrution. There waas some sounds advice on this site and I thank you guys again.

[pw]

@Lex: Here's a picture of a badly painted squig next to my almost done Empire cannon crew:



Not a bad bear proxy. He's almost exactly the same height as an Empire soldier.

[Lex]

that would REALY be a great sollution .....  but where am I gonna get 10-12 of those.....

[Stomm]

I've decided to paint a couple of B&W sample shield designs to help me decide whether to go down the B&W but varying shield design route, or to go as originally planned and vary detail colours to differentiate between units. I intend to try a couple more out before I settle on any, but I'm definately leaning towards the pure B&W sheild colour route as I think that it will have much more of a visual impact for the army as a whole.

Anyway, let me know what you think, designs and idea wise. And of course if you have any suggestions I'd be more than willing to try them out. I've been distracted by cleaning up some SH models this week, so overall progress has been very slow I'm afraid...


First up is my 'control' stand of finished B&W legion:



Then the stand with the same design, but different unit colours. Note that the shields aren't finished, I have yet to retouch the metal trim:



Now the first of my two samples, wings with lighting bolts:


And lastly wings with a sort of U shape and a pair of dots...:




Personally I'd actually quite like a combination of the two test designs, I like the wings in the later, and I think that the vertical lightning bolts would work well with it. Besides, the wings will be easier to replicated as its just painting a diagonal line between the corner of the shield boss and the corner of the shield, and then filling in-between, then repainting the semi-circle in black, painting the 'feather'-lines and adding the dot.


Oh and if anyone has any suggestions or pictoral references for design elements that are suitably 'Roman', but aren't wings or lightning bolts them please let me know... One thing that I do know is that any mention of specific colours are few and far between, and the 'Red Romans' thing is basically the product of Hollywood, but is just as 'accurate' as any other colour would be as far as we know...

Which of course is one of the reasons why my Romans have black shields...


Whilst I'm at it, here is a rear view of the currently 'finished' B&W shield stand. Whatever way I paint the shields this is how they will look from the rear, except not as well painted for all-bar two of the infantry units in the army. I will very likely still use alternating colours to differentiate units using the sword scabards as the area to receive this paint treatment:

[pw]

@Stomm: I really like the Black Legion you're doing. They make a nice change from the classic red Romans and I'm sure when they're based the black will be really striking. Of the shield designs I'd go with the colour over the white although it's not me that has to paint them so it's easy to say!

If you're looking for pictures you might like http://www.roman-empire.net/ , there are quite a few images there that might help.

If you get tired of painting designs you could try Veni Vidi Vici's transfers: http://www.3vwargames.co.uk/10_ten.htm . I've not tried them but they look pretty nice.

[pw]

Finally I've got my week two unit painted up. I thought I'd be showing a unit of knights but they're not quite ready so for this week here's my unit of cannons:



I really rather enjoyed painting these up, although working out how to get all three crewmen on the base was a bit tricky. I'm pretty sure that if this actually fired a couple of the little dudes would get wiped out!

[m4jumbo]

Stomm:  On your original post I didn't catch that the shield designs were hand painted.  I thought they were part of the model that you painted.  Wow, painting those on every shield takes dedication.  Very nice.

I like the black and white shields, (says the guy painting the black and white Empire), but I think the colored shield designs to designate elite units is a good idea.  It gives you some visual variety but still keeps the army looking unified as a whole. 

Both the wing designs look great.

pw: Very nice looking cannons.  I'm going to be painting some cannons soon and was also wondering how to get everything on the base and not look too crowded.   Did you use a wash on the cannon?

[pw]

Yes, the cannons are washes with neat Badab Black and then highlighted with the base silver again. Gold parts were washed with old GW brown ink.

[Stomm]

Finally I've got my week two unit painted up. I thought I'd be showing a unit of knights but they're not quite ready so for this week here's my unit of cannons:

I really rather enjoyed painting these up, although working out how to get all three crewmen on the base was a bit tricky. I'm pretty sure that if this actually fired a couple of the little dudes would get wiped out!

Nice cannons you've got there, I note that you've gone for an iron or 'steel' cannon, rather than bronze. I went for bronze for my Reiklanders, and as and when I paint some Nuln or Averland artillery I'll also go for bronze to tie in with the general black and yellow scheme. Although I might be tempted to choose steel for Nuln, as black and silver also go together very well...

Oh and I had a look at the websites you suggested. I might try my hand at painting some white wolves down the sides of a shield, I can't think why that didn't occur to me. I also looked at the transfers, but I'd fell like I was cheating if I used them, and besides it wouldn't allow me to really differentiate the units well enough as there are only two or three legionary shield patterns...


As to positioning crew members, you should try putting the crew on a siege mangonel. Needless to say if it were real and it was fired, all of the crew of my mangonel wouldn't last very long...

Stomm:  On your original post I didn't catch that the shield designs were hand painted.  I thought they were part of the model that you painted.  Wow, painting those on every shield takes dedication.  Very nice.

I like the black and white shields, (says the guy painting the black and white Empire), but I think the colored shield designs to designate elite units is a good idea.  It gives you some visual variety but still keeps the army looking unified as a whole.  

Both the wing designs look great.

Well, I've compromised on my painting standards for the current B&W unit, and have really compromised on my standards for most of the rest of the infantry in the army. But since the shields are just about the most prominent feature of most ancient armies, and especially Roman armies, IMHO if you're going to spend any 'extra' time and attention on an area, then the most 'bang for your buck' is to be found by doing as good a job on the shields as you can. You can paint the rest of the figure pretty roughly, but paint the shield well and no-one will notice that the rest of the model is painted in a sloppy manner, especially your opponent on the battlefield...


It's interesting that everyone who's commented on the colour vs monochrome decision I'm making has gone for the colour option, whilst I myself am almost certain to switch to monochrome throughout. Also interestingly IIRC Rick mentioned that it may have been the case that different units in Roman armies would have the same shield design, but possibly different background colours. The trouble is of course that there just isn't any evidence for the colours in the Roman army, the only mention of red is for the centurions, and of course purple for senators...


Oh and my intent is to reverse the B&W scheme for the elite 'Veteran Legion' units. IoW, white shields with black details...

pw: Very nice looking cannons.  I'm going to be painting some cannons soon and was also wondering how to get everything on the base and not look too crowded.

Well, one easy answer is to have the cannon overhanging the front of the base. Since 90% of the time when you're contacted to the front the unit is probably on a hill, and therefore anything charging it will probably be falling down anyway, having the cannons sticking forward isn't really a problem IMHO and leaves more space at the back of the base for those gunpowder barrels, etc...


As an aside I've been tasked with removing the sealant from the showers and kitchen sink, and then reapplying some new sealant. And then re-fixing the door cover to the dishwasher this weekend. So even my efforts to finish cleaning up a squad of SH termies has suffered, never mind my ability to do any serious painting for this project. Oddly enough if the wife gets sent abroad with work again then I'll probably be able to spend more time painting, as I'll be better able to get the kids to bed earlier and then start painting straight away each night at around 8pm...

[jchaos79]

I really rather enjoyed painting these up, although working out how to get all three crewmen on the base was a bit tricky. I'm pretty sure that if this actually fired a couple of the little dudes would get wiped out!

The distribution of the crew looks pretty. And the paint is wonderful pw. Looking forward to see those finish knights

[pw]

Thanks jchaos79!    I've just put the basing material on the knights so they should be ready to go by Wednesday. Now it's time to put some more time onto the unit of crossbowmen that I've been avoiding...

[m4jumbo]

Another week, another unit of halberdiers.  Not sick of them yet.    Just need to start getting more than one unit done per week.   Made some good progress on a unit of Flagellants this week so should be able to get them done early in week three.  Also looking to get anohter halberdier unit wrapped up and if I'm lucky, a unit of cannons.

Week two Halbediers.
Front

Back


The army so far, if it can be called an army yet:


The two units guarding the East wall of Wolfenburg:

[mspaetauf]

Hi!

Are these the FW wall sections?

Do you sell those?

Or are they from a different manufacturer?

cheers,

[jchaos79]

Work in progress (3 week).

I found two moods or fashions in the undead army:

- Bronze age egyptian style
- Medieval european style

In warmaster setting the two moods are mixed together. I understand that Khemri and liches (egyptian style) are powerful, and european style are the deaths from empire raisen recently. But this is only flavour and is not too important for the game.

Anyway, I decide make two packs of command, one in old egypt khemri style to use in battles involving sand and desert games and the other more european medieval to use in forest and rivers games.

I am working in the european medieval command. The idea is make a Tomb king with a figure represnting The Death itself. For heros (liche priest) I am making The four Horsemen of Apocalipsys. I am thinking in using this stand as a liche in chariot, because the are a main christian icon of the End, they have enough importance of gaining +1 when combat and +10 cost points. How do you see this?

The four horsemen are: War, Death, Time, and the four guy I am not sure if it is Pestilence or Famine. Do you know the correct names of them?

I know that War is represnt in the christian iconography as a archer because the fear that have to the Parthian archers. I try to think in a conversion to make an archer skellie for War, but finally I decide that the chavalery banner form GW blister is so cool to make the war icon, that I am not going to put an archer.

Any comment, idea, suggestion is welcome before I base the figure (I will do it at the end of the week), because then will be too late.

I am also not to satisfied with the background colour of the banner of Time. First I tried black with grey highlights, but did not see right the sandclock, so I went to a lighter colour, prusian blue-white (1:2) mix thinner with water. Do you recomend me a dark background or a light colour background?. Thanks in advance.