Warhammer Underworlds - Ylthari's Guardians - Grime of the ancient forrester

We left these guys particularly pale and interesting. Despite the pre-shading and zenithal highlights I was far from happy with where they were going. I had envisaged a reduce palette that was indeed pale but my natural desire for high contrast and the lack thereof in the white compelled me to add more shading.

I mixed some Waywatcher Green Glaze and Army Painter Soft Tone together and washed it over the recesses and anti-zenithal areas. The green gave me a hint of 'mossiness', despite the fact the moss is orange on their bases! That extra tone has made so much difference in the models.

The 'amber' blades have also been highlighted [that white sparkle got a bit messy] but the Bloodletter Glaze has worked a treat and is a good alternative colour replica of the original green version [I think]. The fact these glazes have been replaced by Contrast equivalents is rather annoying as I was under the impression they don't mix with water/washes. 

My ability to blend those colours has really helped and you can see the subtle effect on the weapon haft that will require 3 new Contrast paints to achieve in the future

The yellow tree sprites have also come out OK. I had no idea what I was going to do with the originally but the yellow was a sensible choice and they could all theoretically be psychic manifestations hence why despite their different physiology they're all yellow.

I think this is my second favourite sculpt out of the four. I like the Halberd dude most, then the Horny guy and lastly Ylthari herself.

That said the washes have helped me to come to terms with her vine legs, I mean it's far from perfect but I'm hoping some subsequent highlights will help define all the details a bit more and bring it altogether.

I also need to highlight all the dark wood elements too.

So, there we go, almost done and I can see the end now as things have resolved themselves.

Warhammer Underworlds - Ylthari's Guardians - Hobby progress at last

Horny dude! With a plan in my head I started to get the bark lighter, this was a pretty big gamble going pure white as there's no going back from it.

I left the red primer and bone primer visible in some areas - there's no point zenithal highlighting if you don't take advantage of it. Although I'll probably cover it all up with shade washes in the end.

Now at this stage I started to hit the snags with my blog which didn't inspire me to keep regular records of where I was at. It took a bit of time to reconcile the bases and suddenly I have the orange moss done and went for yellow leaves on the ground... how the hell that fits with the red leaves on the Sylvaneth because usually they go yellow, orange then red before they fall off. But this is all make-believe so maybe in my wood they go red, orange and the yellow when they fall off?

And horny dude progressed a fair bit while I was 'off grid'. All the skin tones got shaded with Bloodletter glaze, mixed with a bit of soft tone. I also shaded his sword and added Rhinox Hide to break things up a bit.

Leaves got painted red and Strong Tone was applied in places for greater depth, shading and to blend the end of his branches into the leaves.

The other guys got highlighted and skintone done but I haven't got round to shading the bark. The tree spirit went yellow, to try to capture some of the extra autumnal colours lost in only choosing red for the leaves [I appreciate I was trying to keep the palette of colours down but I'm also trying to capture all of the inspiration].

The halberd got shaded much the same way I see the standard green one done. Plenty more to do with highlights but early days. The haft game out really well and I suspect it'll be the most Birch-like element when I add in all the bark splits.

I went with the bow being orange, as that's the 'heart' of it but part of me things it might have been better with it white and the fixing orange but nevermind.

Lots of shading to do next to try and stop all the whiteness blending everything together.

Ylthari is a real challenge, her vines don't fit my design at all and I need to sort out her back thing. I can't glue her to the base either as then I can't get inside to paint. Still I'll get there eventually.

There we go - progress, finally! A good few hours [5 or 6] to get here. I doubt I'll get them done for this months' Squad painting challenge but they'll be ready for the next one.

Warhammer Underworlds - Ylthari's Guardians - Big Build - TO DONE!

As everything is so disrupted at the moment and I had officially admitted to myself I'd entered a mojo recession I did the only thing I could do - bought more toys! Ylthari's Guardians have long been on my mind and I thought I needed something to try and kickstart my mojo.

All along I had plans to paint these at autumnal Silver Birch and luckily there are is a lot of art out there to help pin down that look. In fact too much because you can do the leaves yellow, orange, red or clearly a mixture. On top of that the Birch itself can be shaded in all sorts of ways from monochrome, to ivory or even turquoise shades. And that doesn't even take into account how to treat the ground, or how most of the Sylvaneth in the warband do not have smooth bark to do the little black marks on.

And Spider-Man, into the Spider-verse threw in this inspiration. Not that it helped pin down what I was going to do.

So I just went with what I was familiar with. Army Painter Skeleton Bone Primer zenithal highlight over Red Oxide. 

The bases look like they're covered in moss, but this will be orange on mine and I decided on red leaves to make them less busy looking. However, that does venture into the realm of Game of Thrones' God's Wood trees, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

All the skin tones will be golden orange/yellow, as that will stand out quite nicely against the white bark I'll doing and is also the colour of the inside of a birch tree [or at least it was in one picture I googled].

Hair is all red, to match with the leaves, but there will be some Rhinox Hide in places to try and break things up and tie it all together.

I still need to do the little tree sprite holding the arrows here, I've no idea what colour to do them but even though they're all different little critters I'll do them all the same colour. The bases also got Trollslayer Orange on the moss, but I don't know what t do with the little puddle area in the middle...

I wanted to do the weapon material the same as his skin tone. Even though that should be 'soft' [because it's skin] I think the heartwood is the strongest part of the tree so it makes sense to also have it for the weapon. I may also paint the thing on his back bronzed flesh too, now that I look at it.

There are still a lot of questions to answer on colour choices so I'll be working on the horned guy a bit more to feel more confident in the direction before I apply it across the other three, till then BW shot!

 Big Build - TO DONE!

I builds it, I gets the badge!

4th Anniversary of the birth of the Man Cave

It's the 4th Anniversary of the birth of the Man Cave. Things are still going OK in 40kaddict towers. I did a rejig a month or so back and installed a second shelving unit to help store some figures.

There had been a second oil radiator I never used so I got rid of that giving me the space and somewhere to put my big figure case. I'm hoping it also gives good aeration round the bottom of the shed so it keeps the mold at bay - thankfully that's not been a problem since that first winter.

I still think a solar powered fan would help improve ventilation and I have a huge tin of Protek waterproofing paint so I can paint it again. There's enough for another four coats at least which will protect it for many years. The coats I've already put on it seem to have worked really well. The product is expensive but as it's the main thing protecting the wood worth the investment if I want it to last and last. I really just need to find time to paint it again.

Anyway, 4 years ago the Man Cave was born, then I took another 2 months fitting it out! Sometime I can't believe I ever did all that.

It also means my car is four years old too - those ludicrous wheels!

GW Manchester Battle of the Brush - June - Characters

Following on from May's Battle of the Brush [or 'Tale of our Warlords', as it's also known], June's category was Characters. I entered Deathleaper, I wanted to get my assassin done, but it wasn't meant to be. My goal is just to achieve the 12 entries over the course of the year and as you can see the standard is exceptional each month so the competitive aspect will be tough, hence why I'm just along for the ride.

This Inquisitor Scale Eisenhorn [oh my!] and 'Deadpool' Assassin took the top honours.

Smash Captain was 2nd.

A third of the Fellowship came third!

Custodes took the 'most inspiring award. The rest were all inspiring too...

Robo-ambull

Abaddon was popular

Close-up.

Kharadron geezer.

Slaughterpriest [?] and Locus.

A Knight from the May challenge I didn't get to take pictures of.

alongside Canis Rex.

Alarielle the Everqueen on her gigantic Wardroth Beetle.

This was primed with Retributor armour and everything else was Contrast paints apparently!

More of the amazing Orruk store display, love the tone and details that has been applied to these.

The Giant was amazing, the picture does not do justice to the highlights on his head

And lastly a giant squig chariot.

This month is units again. I have my Chosen Axes to display but I have been trying to get on with these, again as a way to avoid that darn Dark Shroud, however I have a plan to tackle that at the end of the month...