Privateer Press' new previews

Yes, there has been a lot going on with Privateer Press lately. The company has just launched Warmachine into Mark II, it has just finished the field test to do the same for Hordes, and it has recently started replacing many of its older warjacks with plastic kits. And faction books are on the way.

But there's something else they've started doing recently. They've started previewing many of their new minis online.

For a long time, we've received previews of upcoming Warmachine books through No Quarter magazine. These have always had mixed reviews, since they would often preview so much that when the book was released, it felt like there was hardly anything new in it.

That hasn't changed. The most recent issue of No Quarter previews two new units each for the upcomming Khador and Cygnar books.

Now, they've started previewing their new models online. Now, we don't have to wait until the next No Quarter comes out to read the rules on the minis that we'll be drooling over for a month or two before they're released.

Mind, the most recent one happens to be a mini that I already have. Yep, good old Taryn di la Rovissi has been sitting in my painting box, just waiting for me to make a steampunk gunslinger character in an RPG. Well, she need wait no more.

You can find some others if you start looking around. Tabletop Gaming News has compiled cards for the previewed Rhulic warjack and Protectorate of Menoth units.

Painting with Silver Metallic Metals

One thing that people often get distraught over is how to paint realistic looking metals. Just look around on your local game night, you'll likely see more than a few people who can get everything else in their army looking great, and run into tons of trouble with the metals.

There are even a good number of people who only paint non-metallic metals because they're intimidated by metallic ones. (Yes, there are people who refuse to paint NMM for the same reason, but that's a topic for another time).

The biggest problem with metallic metals is that we see them as being different from other colors. They have their very own special section on the paint rack, and even their very own set of inks and washes.

So, the great secret to getting great looking metals is to treat them like any other color you are layering. They can be blended with other metallic colors or layered over other metallic colors in exactly the same way as your non-shiny paints.

The treads of this tank were painted first in Citidel's Tin Bitz, and then highlighted to P3 Pig Iron. Starting with Tin Bitz is a good way to get a metal with some good depth, even before adding in any washes.


Treat your Mithril Silver is like metallic white. You can do your final highlights for anything in Mithril Silver, but you really can't highlight Mithril. You can take any metallic base color, and mix it with Mithril for highlighting.

You don't really have a metallic black, but your darkest color is probably Tin Bitz. Tin Bitz works amazingly well as a base color for both silver and gold metals. For silver metals, the different color gives you a greater sense of depth to the metals that you cannot normally get from simply starting out with a darker silver metal.

Glazing is another great method to use on metals. Its best use on metallic colors is to tie your metals to the other colors on the mini. It can help keep the metallic colors from looking separate from the rest of your mini. Also, certain glazes can be great for weathering and rusting your metals.
Darius' metals were all given a strong blue wash, giving them a slightly oxidized look. Washing your metals can tie them to the colors on the rest of the mini rather well.

One quick note- you can wash, glaze or ink your metals in any color you want. You can even base your mini in non-metallic colors and highlight him with metallics. But you cannot highlight your metallic colors with non-metallic colors. Going up to something that is less shiny than the recesses never looks right.

Also, it is best to never dry-brush a metal. The method of drybrushing tends to leave the metal flakes in the paint pointed in different directions, giving you a very spotty and unrealistic look. It may seem like a lot of work at first to layer your metals, but once you get used to it, it is very simple.
Viktor Pendrak's armor has been painted using all of the techniques below. It was based in Tin Bitz, highlighted up to mithril and washed with a thin black ink and a blue ink to tie it to the blue coat better.

Stormlord Superheavy tank

This is a Stormlord tank that I recently finished for a client. As an absolutely massive mini, this tank is set to become the centerpiece for a very large force of Imperial Guardsmen.

There are a number of interesting techniques that I've employed on it, each of which warrents its own entry and tutorial. So I'll leave the instructions for later and right now just show off the tank.

Commentary is always welcome.

Avatars of War update

Felix Paniagua has given us another excellent addition to his brilliant miniatures range Avatars of War. This time it is an orc general mounted on a war boar.

Avatars of War is an absolutely fantastic range of miniatures that fit in perfectly as generals and champions for Warhammer Fantasty Battle.

They also have their own game attached to them called Arena Deathmatch. It throws all of these fine fantasy heroes into gladiatorial matches against one another. The full rulebook is available for free download, or purchase for those who'd prefer a hard copy.

The esiest way to find these great miniatures in the US is to go through the Coolminiornot.com online store.

Lightning freehand effects

This is a particular technique that I have found to be very useful. Painting lightning arc freehand.

It is far more useful a technique than I had expected. It is terribly useful for painting on Space Marine power weapons or for adding some splashy effects onto Cygnaran weapons.

Also, if the same effect were painted in orange rather than blue, it would look less like spider lightning and more like cracked earth lava effects (good for Salamanders and Balrogs).





These gun mages show the details of the lightning pretty well. You start out with a completely black area (highlighting the area up isn't really necessary, and might even conflict with the freehand if you're not careful).

First, paint on the lines of lightning with a slightly watered down turquoise. Make sure the lightning is branching out in the right directions. These lines can be a little thick, don't worry about it. For realistic lightning, remember that lightning usually branches out as it travels downward. It is best to start at the top and draw the lines down the mini.

The next step is to go over the center of the turquoise lines with mix of turquoise and white. This lighter mix should go over the center of each line, allowing the edges to still show your darker turquoise, making the lines look like they have a faint glow about them.

The final step is to simply put dots of pure white into every intersection of the lightning. Lightening up the intersections will make the whole design fill come more alive.


The process for the gun mages is almost exactly the same as the process as used on weapons. The only real difference is that the lightning should travel down the weapon from point of impact backwards. For example, lightning shoudl travel from the tip of the hammer back, or from the tip of a sword to the hilt.

Often on weapons, you're working with a smaller area, so you have to make sure that your lightning arcs out without overwelming the weapon. This isn't too difficult to do, since you can always simply clean up any troublesome lines by adding in more black.




That's about all there is to it. Happy painting.

Movie Space Marines- the story so far

A while ago, I decided that I wanted to collect and paint a Movie Space Marine force. For those of you saying "huh?" right now, Movie Marines were an unofficial force list that was included in White Dwarf 300.

The force list itself is full of satire and self awareness. We all know that Space Marines can't actually function in game the same way they do in the fluff and fiction, but it seems wrong that there's so much disparity between the unlucky terminator who is killed by a lasgun when he rolls a 1 on his save, and the terminators who can stand back to back and take on the entire Hive Fleet Behemoth by themselves. I mean, in Space Hulk, my terminators are panicking when they see one Broodlord showing up.

Anyway, the Movie Marines list represents Space Marines as action heroes from a film. Ten Space Marines gives you a 1500 point army.

So I decided that I'd like to spend as much time converting and painting ten marines as I would normally use on a 1500 point army. I've posted most of these up in other place before, so I'll start with the most recently finished marines.

I'm not quite done with them all just yet, but I'm getting close. I have three more converted Marines to paint, and one tank to go with them.

Old Witch and Scrapjack diorama

I recently had a chance to put together this diorama for a client. I really love the Old Witch character from Warmachine, and her mini does not disappoint.

Naturally, she and her scrap jack had to be pretty beat up and battle worn, or they wouldn't look right at all. In addition to the battle damage, I added some glazes made from a medium brown to dirty the bottom of the 'jack's legs and feet.

This diorama is mounted on a CD- they tend to be just the right size for dioramas like this.

Here's something strange that I got to paint recently. The mini in the center is from Reaper's Chronoscope range. Everything else is either kitbashed from my bitz box or sculpted from green/grey stuff.

The midget mad scientist was a lot of fun. I used the same techniques on the face that I normally use. There is actually a very subtle grey for a five o'clock shadow on him, even though he looks fairly clean shaven.

Aside from that, I think everything on him was painted using fairly normal methods.

Tabletop Gaming News has just announced their 2009 Editor's choice awards.

The editors over at TGN tend to have rather good taste, so if there's something on their list that you haven't heard about, it is probably worth checking out.

My favorite category is still the miniatures, where they've picked out a good number of excellent miniatures to show up. Things like the Grunt Ape from Incursion or Eurynome, Prince of the Dead from Hell Dorado.


So head on over to tabletopgamingnews.com and see what you missed in 2009.

Working within a limited pallet 2

A little while ago I posted up a Calandra mini that I painted using only five pots of paint:


There were a lot of things that I liked about painting this mini. Honestly, Calandra is ranking up with a lot of my favorite minis to date. I also loved working in the limited pallet- it gave my work a really interesting unified look without being monochromatic.

Also, I did not keep this Calandra for myself. So that means that my own Trollblood force was in need. So, armed with many good excuses, I set out to paint a second Calandra.

I did a lot to switch things up with her.

I used four of the same five colors (I switched out a brown for a cooler brown color) but overall, she's the same pallet. Overall, she looks like she has a much cooler pallet, and that comes down to the usage of colors entirely. There was a great deal more mixing of colors than in the first Calandra- her skin and tabard are both the same color mixes, simply with different amounts of red in them.

I also picked out some details with jewel effects- most of these were simply stone the first time around.

I've tried out some other limited pallet works that I'll be posting up soon. Overall, I think they've been a pretty enourmous sucess.

I don't really get to paint Lord of the Rings stuff very often. Locally, no one really plays Lord of the Rings (although there has been a little buzz about the War of the Ring version).

Painting the magma in the cracks of his skin was quite a bit of fun. I started out with a black undercoat, then put a thinned down wash of white over all of areas that I wanted to have magma in them.

After that, I did a some wet blending with the base of his fiery mohawk as the lightest point.

It really looked funny until I went back and reclaimed all of the black areas on his shoulders. A finishing touch was added with some red washes (it helped the black look a little red even).

Forge World Praetorians

I recently got to work on a few Forge World tank kits for the Praetorians that I've been painting.

That is, in addition to the characters featured on the left.

The bright red coloring is a welcome change for Imperial Guard vehicles, and I was even a little surprised with how well the Valkyrie mini lends itself to freehand.

Anyway, below are featured some Imperial guard vehicles with Forge World pieces attached.



I unfortunately don't have any shots showing off the Vendetta crew, but they were all painted at Display Quality.


The spotter drum was painted up as a jewel effect, so that it looks a little more like there is a camera in there for targetting. Otherwise, these tanks were painted in pretty much the same way as a chimera.

Half and Half Space Marines

I've been commissioned to paint a lot of different Space Marine Chapters. I've never been surprised by that, since everyone knows that Marines are the very popular force.

On the other hand, I have been a little surprised at how often I get commissions to do color schemes in the "half and half" style. Half and Half color schemes are very popular among successor chapters, but not so much among the primary ones.

As I've gone about painting forces and minis in half and half colors, I've found some tricks to get around the pitfalls they could fall into. There are a number of pitfalls for these kind of Space Marines, so it is good to be careful about them.

One of the biggest issues for Half/Half marines is composition. It can be difficult to paint many bright colors onto a Space Marine without him becoming bright and gaudy. For example, the white, red and yellow color scheme of the Storm Lords could easily be overpowering.

The way that I've mitigated this is to make the metals fairly neutral (grey and dark metals were used on these Storm Lords). Also, I made the white into a warm bone-white color (rather than a grey-er white like I used on the Eagle Warrior). This meant that I could use the same shading color for both the white and yellow- allowing the colors to tie together effectively.



This is another thing that you'll want to note is balance in the very non-symmetric color schemes.

This Eagle Warrior's composition was balanced using the red color. It covers his knee on one side, and the opposite side of his helmet, creating a strong red balance across the mini.

Notice that the blue on this mini is a somewhat neutral color (Ultramarines blue is a little gray). This keeps it from overpowering the cold white on the mini, and leaves the red as the brightest color.







Here is another interesting piece that I got to paint. This Sons of Malice Daemon Prince has a strong half and half scheme combined with the melding of flesh and armor inherent in Daemonhood.

Rather than keep the border between the two colors as clean as possible, on this mini I blended the white and black together around the head. That way, both colors could fade into the flesh tones that I used for the face.

The wings were painted using the same black and white as the armor, allowing them to follow suite with the mini and not seem out of place or tacked on.


For vehicles, it is often good to emphasize the metallic features, as metallic colors tend to remain neutral in the color scheme, and help tie the whole mini together. Here are a few examples:

New forum with an interesting goal

Ok, there are gaming forums all over the place. It seems you can't swing a google search without running amok of six or seven of them.

So the opening of the new "...Here Be Dragons" forum wouldn't be a big deal. But they are doing something different with their forum.

Their mission statement looks a little different to me. From their press release:

Following many years of frustration with varying companies making slightly different rules for Tabletop Wargames, we have created the beginnings of a solution, and would like to invite the gaming community to join us.

“…here be dragons” marks the beginnings of a community led project to publish a widely accepted set of miniatures rules, for free, under a Creative Commons non-commercial license. It’s a lofty goal, as we also intend to develop a rich background in which to set the games – so no IP nightmares or corporate licensing need rear it’s head. We begin by looking at skirmish level Fantasy/Steampunk/Medieval genres – which should translate into the SciFi/Modern genre quite well if all goes to plan.

Isn't that interesting? Personally, I'm not sure that the miniatures wargaming market is so full that we need a "One System to Rule them All" approach, but an open intellectual property could be a very good thing for miniatures games.

Now, they mention that this is a lofty goal, and they're right. This is going to take a lot of work to create, and a lot more work to try and help it catch on. But it has potential to be spectacular.

I mean, a number of older games have become largely fan supported. Take a look at some of Games Workshop's specialist line, that has grown into community project to support the systems that the fans love.

If you're interested in contributing to this, head on over to herebedragons.darkbb.com and sign up for their forum.

Personal history and training as a painter

I've been asked to share my personal history and training as a minis painter from time to time, so I've decided to put the story here. It is just a little long for a forum post.


I got into minis 16 or 17 years ago when I was eleven. I actually started out painting Monster in my Pockets, some Space Crusade minis and some old Ral Partha D&D characters.

For many years I was awful. I mean, really bad. Now, as an eleven year old, I was convinced that my stuff rivaled the 'eavy metal studio paint jobs.

The biggest problem I had for many years was trying new techniques. I learned to ink, guide coat and dry brush and for a long time I thought that other techniques were too complex, and that I should try them out "when I get better."

Sometime later- when I was 22, I realized that there was simply no reason I couldn't paint as well as I wanted to. So I tried out a bunch of new techniques, and my painting shot up.

After that, I actively strove to find techniques that intimidated me. I've actually chosen factions to play because I was intimidated by the painting. I often look up tutorials online or in magazines, and I try to take ideas from some of the painters I idolize.

Currently, I am as good as some of the painters I used to idolize, and I'm striving to be as good as the ones I think are awesome now.


So, no formal training at all. I did not major in visual arts in college, or even take many art classes in high school. I just started trying new things, and decided that there was no limit on how good a painter I could be.

So, the great secret is to try out something that you don't think you can do. You will always learn something, even if you don't pull it off the first time. That's how you get to be a better painter.

Full Space Hulk set

I recently finished a project to do the whole box of Space Hulk minis. These guys are the most dynamic terminators and Genestealers to come out of any Games Workshop line, and they're really quite marvelous to paint.

I painted the lightning arcs onto the power sword and thunder hammer by request of my client. I think both of them turned out rather well.

Overall this project matches the studio scheme for Space Hulk a little more closely than the previous set of terminators that I painted.