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I’ve been a great fan of HR Giger‘s art for years. Nothing unusual among us, fantasy and sci-fi fans. But being a miniature painter I always wanted to paint a miniature in a style inspired by HR Giger’s art. When I wondered how to paint Rasputina from Wyrd Games, the concept came to my head…

Everything became clear immediately when I grabbed the base that I chose for the model. The image I had in my head was so strong that I can’t even think about how disappointed I would have been if the customer would have said “no” to my concept.

[inset side=left]I wanted the paintings to immediately remind of Giger’s work.[/inset]

But how can you be surprised? If the whole world is so full of Giger references, how can my little head be an exception? I started with what I had a complete idea ready for – the face on the base (from Scibor Monstrous Miniatures).

My intention was not to copy any particular artwork, but more along the lines of using it as inspiration and fitting it into my own compositions. Still I wanted the paintings to immediately remind of Giger‘s work.

Is there anything that I regret now? Oh, yes. The fact that I didn’t decide to put screws in her cheeks. The idea is still on my mind, maybe to be used one day?

How to paint Rasputina’s base

For the base my inspiration were these two paintings:

Here’s my initial color palette, the colors that I started with.

And the brush that I chose for this part of work. It was going to be fine-detailed painting, so a 3/0 brush from Raphael 8404 series was a good starting point.

And off to painting we go…

While painting such parts remember to take advantage of being able to rotate your model. Adjust its position so your brushstrokes aren’t too much of a challenge to pull off.

[inset side=right]I turned my model upside down, so the rounded shape didn’t require any corrections.[/inset]

Here I wanted to achieve a nice, rounded finish for the stripes, so I turned my model upside down so I could pull the brush from the top downward, so the rounded shape didn’t require any corrections.

I know that everybody is holding their brush in their own way, so I recommend that you pay attention and observe the way you’re working with your brushes, so that you can take advantage of your own work style. Such little details make painting much more enjoyable and faster.

I added little touches like the shadow under the diadem. They may seem to be only minor things in the overall picture, but I found they add a lot to the feel and completeness of the whole paintjob:

Sometimes I thought it would be better to break the surface into smaller ones somehow. And in fact sometimes I treated this idea quite literally. 😉

And this is what my palette looked like by the time I finished painting the head. Much richer than at the beginning, isn’t it? 😉

Now here is a photo of the finished head. This photo shows its colors, tints and hues much better than my humble WIP pictures:

How to paint Rasputina’s cloak: front

Here’s what I started the cloak with:

For the cloak I chose motifs that would look good in the composition, but also the ones that I liked more.

Sometimes shapes or edges of the sculpt suggest me where to place those motifs. A photo is always flat, so you may have difficult time noticing the reasons why I placed those details the way I did…

When I planned how to place the first three graphic elements, the surrounding space inspired me with its shape and shadows to arrange it this way, with the skull and female body:

And here’s another motif from Giger, arranged to follow the edge:

And the lower right part, below Rasputina’s feet, just begged to be painted with those… let’s call them “fishes” for political correctness’ sake:

When I covered all the surfaces with freehands, I considered the front of Rasputina’s cloak done:

How to paint Rasputina’s cloak: back

I got a bit distracted and forgot to catch the earlier stages of painting this element on my photos, so here’s the first shot of this part I managed to get:

There were two paintings from Giger that were my inspiration for this part of my paintjob:

This time I had to start with some larger shapes, so I started with a larger brush. A 1 from Raphael 8404 series:

I planned to place the skulls on raised parts of the surface and started painting the weaved pattern. The way I painted it will be easy to follow on the next few photos. Painting such plaiting could be explained in a few points:

[inset side=right]Painting plaiting could be explained in a few repeating points.[/inset]

sketching the lines,
separating them with the classic black line, creating a chaotic plaiting,
glazing over the whole surface,
adding more lines,
separating them with the classic black line, creating a chaotic plaiting again,
adding another layer of highlight on visually more raised lines to emphasize zenithal lighting of the model,
glazing over the whole surface again,

… and so on, until I ended up with what you saw on the photo above. See the whole process on the following photos. After this the surface was ready to paint a few skulls on it.

To add some color variation between the elements – the skulls and the background, I shaded the skulls with a slight addition of this color:

Although it is not a huge difference, it brings them a bit forward and sets them off from the background, as you can see on this photo:

Adding the fern

Now that the main model was painted I decided to tweak the base a bit, so I can also show you how I played with the fern:

Despite all my admiration of this pattern of bases, I must admit that the way those floral motifs are sculpted is not making painting any easier. I decided to cover them a bit, but to tie the real fern a bit more with the sculpted ones, I had to exaggerate a bit on the real thing, making it a bit grotesque:

[inset side=left]I used strong hair modelling gel to shape the fern[/inset]

As you can see I applied some glazing and then drybrushed highlights on it before applying the fern on the base. Later I only needed to tweak shading a bit, and adjust the shape of my fern.

I used strong hair modelling gel to shape the fern:

See how it added some detail and depth to the base?

Finished model

Done! My model was ready.

Now you can see which bits from Giger’s paintings were my inspiration for which parts of my paintjob.

Here’s the finished paintjob. I think the question “how to paint Rasputina” has at least one answer now. Not the only one for sure…
But if you happen to have any more questions, feel free to ask them. I will try to answer and offer my help where I can.

I am really curious what you are going to do with your interpretations of this little miniature. Looking forward to seeing your versions!

Want more?

[inset side=right]This special pack includes the tutorial enhanced with even larger photos.[/inset]

Although this is already the whole tutorial that I prepared for you, and I think the size of photos is completely sufficient for understanding the process and concepts behind my paintjob, we prepared some kind of a gift for some of you! Or actually a way of saying THANK YOU to those who offered donations that help us run the website.

This special pack includes the tutorial enhanced with even larger photos. They allow to see details that you might have difficult time spotting even in real life, including flaws, imperfections and often even individual brush strokes.

So if any of you decided to share a donation with us and let us know you are interested in the bonus, and we’ll make it available to you. This is our way of showing our gratitude for supporting us.

Thanks for your interest and enjoy the tutorial!

Bases, Converting & Sculpting, Tutorials

How to make candles – tutorial

November 19, 2012 CofC Admin

It’s been some time since Urbik described how to make candles for your miniatures. Still, after all this time the tutorial may still be interesting for many hobbyists, so we’re making it available again. Urbik wrote:

Hello!

I thought that since I already registered here and have been browsing the forum for a few days, it would be nice to write something too. And because I have a lot of time, I decided to describe my own way of creating candles in scale of Warhammer Fantasy Battles miniatures, like the ones I presented during Polish edition of Golden Demon.

Note: If anybody had a similar idea and published it before me in the internet/paper/radio/poster/leaflet/TV/another medium, I would like to explain that this idea is my own and hasn’t been stolen from anyone. In case of any similarities, I am not responsible. 😉

OK, so you want to know how to make candles? Let’s get started!

What we need

wire or a piece of “something” of 1-1.5 mm diameter
thin string or thread (much thinner than the wire above)powyżej)
PVA glue
greenstuff

Step 1

At the very beginning we have to decide about the size of our candles. After a few attempts I found that their standard height would range from 3 to 6 mm.

We divide the wire (or “something” else) into pieces of our chosen length. These bits will become the main (wax) parts of our candles. I used a chopped spear of an Empire soldier, something that I have a lot of, so I could use it with no regrets. 😉

Step 2

We make a small greenstuff ball (proportional to the size of our candle) and press it to a chosen part of our model. We put a piece of wire into it and wait for the greenstuff to harden. Whe wire is to become our candle.

It looks more or less like this:

Step 3

Now it’s time for the most important part in the whole process of candle creation. Sounded very serious, didn’t it? 😉

Because burning is the most important job of a candle, we should create a few drips of wax – just like we tend to see on real candles.

We’re going to use PVA glue for this purpose. We thin the glue down a bit with water (don’t overdo it!) so it has convenient thickness for us to work with. Then we use a toothpick (or some other little thing) to apply some glue onto the candle body, creating “spots” in several places of our choice. When the first application of glue is dry, we can add some more in the same places. Usually it’s enough, but if we want even more prominent drippings, we can add even more layers.

Step 4

Now it’s time for proverbial icing on the cake. What would a candle be without a wick?

We make a wick from thread (which can be hardened with some superglue) or thin string. Then we glue it to the top of our candle with strong glue.

Step 5

Painting! As we should know from our experience, candles can have very diverse colors. And I don’t really mean cheap candles in bad taste that you can buy at fairs, but different colors that can be spotted in various lighting conditions.

I tend to use two ways of painting my candles:

Method 1:

basecoat of Rotting Flesh (maybe slightly darkened with a little black or Catachan Green)
highlight up to white

Method 2:

basecoat of Bleached Bone (also darkened – for example with light brown)
highlight up to white or to Bleached Bone (if the basecoat was darker than that)

This time I decided to use the first method, which is the best imitation of wax in my opinion. I recommend using naturally smooth transition of colors, without rapid changes or radical contrasts. The results may look like this:

Done!

That’s it. As you can see the technique I use to create candles for my miniatures is not that complex and one doesn’t need to prepare more greenstuff and then remove excess with scalpels. How precise your approach is going to be depends only on you.

Such candles look great on religious-themed models – like flagellants, war priests or inquisitors.

It’s a pretty original method of making the model look more unique and interesting, and many Games Workshop models don’t include candles at all. Well, there are some exceptions, but they only prove the general rule 😉

I hope you find this tutorial useful and now you know how to make candles for your miniatures.

Regards,
— Urbik

Bases, Tutorials

How to paint ruins bases – tutorial

November 9, 2012 Lemartes Leave a comment

In this tutorial explaining how to paint ruins bases from Micro Art Studio, I’m going to show you two of many possible colour schemes which you can use while painting ruins – first one will be with standard grey colours, like if you’re in some sort of castle (and later on I’ll call grey bases “castle bases”), and the second one will be “desert ruins” – some kind of old temple/church, once great, now forgotten. So, without any more introductions, here we go:

How to paint ruin bases: The ground

Step 1:

First thing you need to do, is basecoat your bases. I did it with Vallejo 950 Black, just because I ran out of both Citadel paint and spray:

Step 2:

So, now what to do next… Which part, which element now? Well, first thing you want to ask yourself, is: How much time do I want to spend on 1 base? Is it 1 minute? Maybe 5? Can I spend 20 minutes on 1 base? And, most importantly, will it be worth that time?

Well, let’s assume that we want to do it fast, without going back to destroyed elements, because we must do 200 of them. In that case I suggest you to make the deepest parts of the base – in this particular case, the earth. I used Citadel brown colour Mournfang Brown, old Bestial Brown, which I applied normally on specific parts. Remember – you don’t have to be precise at this part, so don’t waste your time trying not to paint stones:

Step 3:

After that step was done, I decided that I’ll create some shadows on the earth, to make deeper parts darker. I could just drybrush those parts where the earth should be brown instead of painting it, leaving black shadows everywhere – but I want dark brown shadows, not black.

That’s why I decided to use Citadel Agrax Earthshade shade, which I applied on brown parts. The same effect I could accuire using darker brown as a prime earth colour, and then drybrushing those parts with Mournfang Brown – pick your favourite method:

Step 4:

Next thing to do is light up the earth a bit – I mixed 1:1 Mournfang Bown and Citadel Ushabti Bone, and then applied it on brown parts with light drybrush:

Step 5:

To finish up the earth, I lightly drybrushed every brown part with pure Ushabti Bone – remember, make sure your brush is really dry, otherwise you’ll ruin the whole effect! It’s better to mix or even waste more paint that do everything from the beginning:

Step 6:

As the earth is done, we can go on. Next and last, in this particular case, thing we have to do, is paint stones. At this point I separated bases – 3 for grey bases, 2 for desert ones. From now on, we’ll split the tutorial into two parts – one about each kind of bases.

How to paint grey ruins bases

Step 7a:

While painting the earth you didn’t have to care about precision – now you have to. Especially near the painted brown earth. So I applied very gently 1 layer of Citadel Eshin Grey paint. I think that it’s the second darkest grey colour they offer, comparable to Mechanicus Standard Grey, which you can also use here. That’s how it looks (notice that we don’t care about the rims of base at all right now):

Step 8a:

After painting it with your favourite grey colour, I mixed 3 parts of Eshin Grey with 2 parts of Ceramite White, and then quite heavily drybrushed the whole base (but be careful, don’t destroy your beautiful earth!):

Step 9a:

Next step is to light it more – you can mix 2 parts of Eshin Grey with 3 parts of Ceramite White, or simply use colour named Administratium Grey. It will look pretty much the same.

Then again, drybrush the whole base – but now lightly. Pick your way with that – I decided that I’ll make sides of the base lighter. You can choose differently:

Step 10a:

The only thing to do now is to make one, final highlight – take your white paint and apply it very gently using drybrush on parts which were before treated with Administratium Grey. At this point, after you finish with white, you’ll also have to paint rim of the base with black colour – Abaddon Black from Citadel or any other black paint (like my 950 Vallejo black). And after doing so, your bases are done.

Here’s the final effect:

Let’s move on to the desert bases.

How to paint desert ruins bases

Step 7b:

Let’s move on from the common part about painting ground, as parts from basecoating up to fully painted earth are the same in both cases. Here again, while painting the earth you didn’t have to care about precision – now you have to. I used Citadel Tallarn Sand as a prime colour for those stones:

Step 8b:

Then I came up with an idea – why do I have to make it look like just plain stones with highlights, can’t I add anything catchy, something that will make my base special?

Well, if it’s old ruined temple why not some frescoes? You can make them as you want, with many colours or very few, big or small, untouched or very destroyed, simple patterns, complicated or just some letters. I made a simple pattern on the side of base – line of purple(Citadel Xereus Purple) and turquoise (Citadel Sotek Green) triangles accompanied with blacklining:

Step 9b:

As for something that is destroyed (in my case), frescoes also have to in bad shape. That’s why I “scratched” some frescoes paint from the edges of the base, and made some cracks inside the painting. After that, I used Citadel Seraphim Sephia shade to make shades all over the base (I skipped the earlier painted earth of course):

Step 10b:

Ok, frescoes are destroyed, bases have shading. Let’s move on a little bit, and start lighting things up. Before you’ll grab a brush, think for a while – how I want my base to be highlighted? Centre of it, just edges or maybe some other pattern?

I’ve decided to highlight edges and a little bit of centre of my base.

I used mix of 2:3 Ushabti Bone and Tallarn Sand, and then drybrushed the whole base lightly. Remember, you should also drybrush frescoes, but do it gently, otherwise you’ll ruin the whole effect by covering them fully:

Step 11b:

Then I reversed proportions, and made a mix of 3:2 Ushabti Bone and Tallarn Sand. After that, I heavily drubrushed the area of stones and very lightly frescoes:

Step 12b:

And at the end, I drybrushed whole base lightly with Citadel Ushabti Bone and painted the rims of the bases with black. That’s the end of making desert bases, here’s final effect:

Finished ruin bases

And so, here it is, the final effect of my work on 1 picture. A perfect bases for your Dwarf, Empire, Tomb King or any other army you want, which you can easily make by yourself in a matter of minutes!

List of used paints

Abbadon Black, Vallejo 950 – Basecoat, frescoes blacklining
Mournfang Brown – color of the earth
Agrax Earthshade – Shade used on earth
Ushabti Bone – Highlights on desert bases and earth
Eshin Grey – Prime colour for castle bases
Administratium Grey – highlights on castle bases
Ceramite White – Highlights on desert and castle bases
Tallarn Sand – Prime colour of desert bases
Seraphim Sephia – Shade used on desert bases
Sotek Green – frescoes triangles
Xereus Purple – frescoes triangles

– Lemartes

Bases, Miniatures Step-by-step, Painting, Tutorials

Painting Hell Dorado Immortals warband – Tutorial

November 2, 2012 Sea.Man 4 Comments

Welcome to the article devoted to painting a whole warband. I will try to give you a step by step photo report. And the main actors will be Immortals from Asmodee/Cipher Studios.

Stage 1: Know your models

So we spent few euro or dollars, bought some cool looking models and it is time to have a good look what did you get. Maybe there are some parts missing? Maybe there are some miscasts?

If everything is ok, then now is the last call to have an idea how to paint the warband. What theme or background story? What color scheme? What units? What bases?

In my case the answers are no theme, original red-gold scheme, all units, Scibor‘s bases. It makes putting such group easier when there is a clear idea in your head. I know I am not being original, but this is also a decision later to stick to. 😉

So I take a good look at all the miniatures and put in separate piles. I try to, without glue, put these together and see if the parts match. Now is the perfect time to think about conversions and to look for extra parts in your bits box. If you found something there, just put it on the pile.

Stage 2: Removing mould lines and putting models together

Those models are supposed to fight on the table and we all know what happens to them when transporting or falling over on the table. That is why I try to pin the parts together. Tools that I use:

The pins which will hold the parts together are done (or better cut) from paper clips:

There should be also a picture of super glue or any metal glue, that glues the metal parts in few seconds. 🙂

A word about mould lines… I hate them! To clean them, takes a lot of time, but I see no other way. This job takes plenty of time, but it is simple. Believe me, it is worth to clean the miniatures from them. Later they will take a lot of the miniatures’ beauty away. I spent 2 evenings to clean all the parts from mould lines, but this job needs to be done – even on tabletop miniatures! Now, when all the parts are separate and easy to reach, it is the best time to remove them. Later it will won’t be easier. 😉

So let’s move to some examples – this djin has be cleaned from mould lines and all the parts are together (so that I won’t forget anything).

First I try to glue the biggest parts, in this case it is the torso. You can see on the picture a small cut from pater clip (called a pin) and two holes (drilled by me) in both parts of the torso. Before you glue – try to pin the parts without glue – if it’s ok, put some glue on the parts and into the pinning holes. If not then maybe the pin is to long or the holes too small?

To be sure that you drill the holes in perfect positions on both parts, try this simple trick:

Drill a hole in one part,
Put some paint around the hole,
Try both parts together (with your fingers, not glue),
Remove the second part and you should see the exact place where to drill.

And there we have a finished cleaned and pinned djin.

While removing mould lines from a ‘froggy warrior’ I accidentally broke the lance into two parts. It happens quite often, when the parts are small and fragile.

So what did I do – first I finished removing all the mould lines:

… and drilled holes in both parts and pinned them:

I also had a bit of problems with glueing the small parts with the torso, but with the help from pincette it was much easier. Here are the horns that are supposed to go on the shoulder pads:

I stick glued and pinned models together on cork. It makes further steps, like cleaning/gap filling/painting, much easier. You can easily rotate the cork and not touch the miniature. Another benefit is that when you clean the miniature (more to come), it won’t get dirty or greasy from fingers.

At the end of this step we get something like this:

Stage 3: Preparing for painting

All miniatures are on cork, waiting to be painted. Before we go to this step, there are some more things to be done. Usually glued minis have gaps, holes that don’t look nice. With these tools I will fill them:

Here is a mercenary djin with filled gaps.

I must admit, that using liquid green stuff from Games Workshop helps a lot. Filling small gaps isn’t a problem, but sometimes the gaps are too big, just like here:

The best way is to use normal green stuff or any other putty.

Now we are almost ready with putting undercoat, almost… We were touching the miniatures with dirty hands and the miniatures need a wash, so that the undercoat spray will hold on the miniature better. It will also remove any fat or oils from manufacturing process. We just need an old tooth brush, soap and dish washing liquid.

Pour some hot water and gently wash the miniature. I had no problems will super glue losing its characteristic because of water, so I can say it is safe!

Stage 4: Priming

Give the miniatures a day or two to dry and now we can finally prime the miniatures. This time I have used the Tamiya grey primer:

The from a distance of 30cm I spray each miniature 3 times:

[list class=bullet-2]

from each side (vertically)

from top (from each side)

from below (from each side too)

I just hate when later there are some not covered places on a miniature and the paint doesn’t stick.

And there you have it, now we can finally start to paint the Immortals. You may think and say that it is way too much for all those steps before painting. I think it is worth to spend 2-3 evenings longer to have no problems later.

Stage 5: Painting human skin

It is important to plan the painting on all miniatures in a band. I thought the best option will be to paint the biggest areas first. That is why I started with human skin.

Step 1

First I’ve created a base color:

[list class=bullet-2]

pink 10%

Bronzed Flesh 20%

white 10%

Elf Flesh 60%

You might wonder why a bit of pink. 🙂 Well it is because in my opinion it gives a more natural look and makes the skin look more interesting. The paint was diluted 1:1 with water, so I had to cover the skin twice with the base color.

Step 2

Then I gave the whole skin a wash of Ogryn Flesh and Devlan Mud in the deepest shadows.

Step 3

When the washed surface was really dry (I waited about 30 minutes), I covered the muscles with the base color plus I added some more white to the mix.

Step 4

For the final highlight I mixed 40% base color with white.