I think Contrast (like the dipping method and other shortcuts) is designed for painting armies, not individual models. If it looks fine on the tabletop, then leave it alone.
What I've been doing recently, a painting and modelling log...
- Thread starter Raven Morpheus
- Start date
In relation to how most people will use it I would not disagree with you. I'm certainly not aiming for a Golden Daemon so I'm happy to include myself in the group of "most people", and frankly as it often takes me months to complete a unit, or even a single figure, I need all the shortcuts I can get...
However, Contrast paint is essentially a fancy glaze, glazing is a technique that's been used for donkeys years, and there are figure painters out there, like Juan Hidalgo, that are using Contrast paint to achieve phenomenal looking single figures, they look different to the "traditional", i.e. layering, painting methods, and might not win Slayer Swords or Golden Daemon awards but they look far better than the average guys work.
It just so happens that I'm nowhere near as skilled as people like Juan Hidalgo, and I completely effed up early this morning by going back and trying to fix, twice, the problem areas on the bottom of the coat.
I think I know why those areas occurred in the first place, I only thinned the paint 50/50 and I tend to load up my brush too much. If I thin it more and try not to load my brush up too much I might be able to avoid that problem...
However, Contrast paint is essentially a fancy glaze, glazing is a technique that's been used for donkeys years, and there are figure painters out there, like Juan Hidalgo, that are using Contrast paint to achieve phenomenal looking single figures, they look different to the "traditional", i.e. layering, painting methods, and might not win Slayer Swords or Golden Daemon awards but they look far better than the average guys work.
It just so happens that I'm nowhere near as skilled as people like Juan Hidalgo, and I completely effed up early this morning by going back and trying to fix, twice, the problem areas on the bottom of the coat.
I think I know why those areas occurred in the first place, I only thinned the paint 50/50 and I tend to load up my brush too much. If I thin it more and try not to load my brush up too much I might be able to avoid that problem...
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Seconds out, round 2!
I redid the OG GW Steel Legion Lieutenant. There's a blob of varnish that hadn't quite dried yet and was still misty when I took these photos, grrr!
And I finished off the resin one -
I'm happy with these. Everything you see, besides the bases and the silvers, is done with Contrast paint, over either a Citadel Wraithbone or Vallejo Model Air Silver undercoat, including the "gold" which, if nothing else, is very handy for doing bolter shells.
The coat on the OG GW figure turned out better than my last three attempts!
I really need to buy a pot of Citadel Steel Legion Drab, what is VMA Dark Earth on the base rims and is brown to the mk1 eyeball, looks to have an olive-esque look to me in my photos!
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
I redid the OG GW Steel Legion Lieutenant. There's a blob of varnish that hadn't quite dried yet and was still misty when I took these photos, grrr!
And I finished off the resin one -
I'm happy with these. Everything you see, besides the bases and the silvers, is done with Contrast paint, over either a Citadel Wraithbone or Vallejo Model Air Silver undercoat, including the "gold" which, if nothing else, is very handy for doing bolter shells.
The coat on the OG GW figure turned out better than my last three attempts!
I really need to buy a pot of Citadel Steel Legion Drab, what is VMA Dark Earth on the base rims and is brown to the mk1 eyeball, looks to have an olive-esque look to me in my photos!
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
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Midweek madness, or early Thursday morning malarky...
Mother got admitted to my local hospital yesterday evening with a cardiovascular problem...
So, after getting some sleep last night I spent early this morning doing some bits and pieces. One of which was painting the beams, quoins, windows and door for the Mordheim OG starter set Tavern building. And I made a roof piece.
Photos of it assembled, again -
The parts after it's pulled apart, they'll go nicely into a box -
The push fit groove I made for the roof to fit, nice and simple, nothing fancy -
The quoins were painted with Vallejo Game Color Cold Grey, over the Vallejo Model Air (some kind of grey) undercoat, then they had a layer of Citadel Contrast Basilicanum Grey, then a drybrush of the Game Color Cold Grey again. I could go in with a further lighter colour drybrush on the edges, and I may do so at another time. I used the same process on the door/windows.
The roof needs shingles, and painting and I need to make and paint a dormer window for the front, but other than that this building is ready for use in a game.
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
Mother got admitted to my local hospital yesterday evening with a cardiovascular problem...
So, after getting some sleep last night I spent early this morning doing some bits and pieces. One of which was painting the beams, quoins, windows and door for the Mordheim OG starter set Tavern building. And I made a roof piece.
Photos of it assembled, again -
The parts after it's pulled apart, they'll go nicely into a box -
The push fit groove I made for the roof to fit, nice and simple, nothing fancy -
The quoins were painted with Vallejo Game Color Cold Grey, over the Vallejo Model Air (some kind of grey) undercoat, then they had a layer of Citadel Contrast Basilicanum Grey, then a drybrush of the Game Color Cold Grey again. I could go in with a further lighter colour drybrush on the edges, and I may do so at another time. I used the same process on the door/windows.
The roof needs shingles, and painting and I need to make and paint a dormer window for the front, but other than that this building is ready for use in a game.
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
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Best wishes to your mother!
Building is looking fine, a full table like that would be great!
Building is looking fine, a full table like that would be great!
The building is looking good! One thing I would suggest would be get a grey/black sharpie and go round the edges of the card, as the white cut lines are quite striking.
Thanks.
That's the plan, I think with the 4 original buildings I've assembled so far I probably have enough buildings for a square foot. My faulty maths tells me that, besides the 5th original GW building I've yet to make, that I only need another 3 or 4 sets (or equivalent buildings), I guess I could be right though as I've seen photos of tables with 15-20 buildings on them...
Aye, I keep meaning to do that, I'd prefer to use paint and a brush though as there are a few awkward tight spots, for some odd reason though I seem to be running low on black paint! It'll get done eventually.
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Sunday afternoon at the table.
Mother's been moved to another hospital within the county (Basildon, Essex) and is now waiting for a heart bypass operation. I can't get to the hospital so she's very much on her own at the moment.
It's no good me ending up in hospital when she'll need care when she's out of hospital, so, to take my mind off it, so that I don't worry myself into hospital myself, I did a couple of bits of modelling stuff this afternoon.
I started making 8 more quoins, ready for the 5th OG GW Mordheim building. Unfortunately I've run out of suitable styrene strip to finish them off with! Grrr! These however should push fit into the OG GW beams in the same way the OG quoins do. And I have enough beams left over from the few I bought that I can use for the 5th building (I think/hope), if they're a little loose I'll see about gluing them in place -
I then set about having a look at and putting together the Witch Hunter from MOM Miniatures that arrived the other day. I think it might be 3d printed resin because there's what look like they might be support struts in various places?! If it is I'm very impressed with the quality, it'd be my first 3d resin printed miniature and whilst I've seen some on youtube and stuff I've never really believed that the quality is quite what people make them out to be.
MOM's pea shooter vs GW's hand cannon -
A bit of jiggery pokery later and I have him assembled, the hand with the torch is actually a nice push fit, for the moment, and that may come in handy when painting him. There's a tiny bit of filling needed (I'll probably use green stuff) where I joined GW's hand to the model but other than that I'm happy with how the hand/weapon swap looks, I think the GW hand is a bit bigger than the MOM hand, but it's not too noticeable.
Apologies for the blur on these 3 photos -
Part of me really wants to start painting him today, especially as I have an idea for trying to do some very basic OSL from the torch he's carrying, but I know if I do it'll trigger my insomnia, and being awake all night (and subsequent nights, because I know it'll roll on and on) is the last thing I need right now!
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
Mother's been moved to another hospital within the county (Basildon, Essex) and is now waiting for a heart bypass operation. I can't get to the hospital so she's very much on her own at the moment.
It's no good me ending up in hospital when she'll need care when she's out of hospital, so, to take my mind off it, so that I don't worry myself into hospital myself, I did a couple of bits of modelling stuff this afternoon.
I started making 8 more quoins, ready for the 5th OG GW Mordheim building. Unfortunately I've run out of suitable styrene strip to finish them off with! Grrr! These however should push fit into the OG GW beams in the same way the OG quoins do. And I have enough beams left over from the few I bought that I can use for the 5th building (I think/hope), if they're a little loose I'll see about gluing them in place -
I then set about having a look at and putting together the Witch Hunter from MOM Miniatures that arrived the other day. I think it might be 3d printed resin because there's what look like they might be support struts in various places?! If it is I'm very impressed with the quality, it'd be my first 3d resin printed miniature and whilst I've seen some on youtube and stuff I've never really believed that the quality is quite what people make them out to be.
MOM's pea shooter vs GW's hand cannon -
A bit of jiggery pokery later and I have him assembled, the hand with the torch is actually a nice push fit, for the moment, and that may come in handy when painting him. There's a tiny bit of filling needed (I'll probably use green stuff) where I joined GW's hand to the model but other than that I'm happy with how the hand/weapon swap looks, I think the GW hand is a bit bigger than the MOM hand, but it's not too noticeable.
Apologies for the blur on these 3 photos -
Part of me really wants to start painting him today, especially as I have an idea for trying to do some very basic OSL from the torch he's carrying, but I know if I do it'll trigger my insomnia, and being awake all night (and subsequent nights, because I know it'll roll on and on) is the last thing I need right now!
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
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Looking at the pic of both hands, I’d say it’s pretty spot on for scale. I think the GW pistol was a better selection than the original. That is a nice mini, but the hair is a bit too tendril to me. Unless maybe they have dreads?
Possibly the only good thing about Mother being in hospital is that I can leave what I'm doing on the table as it is, i.e. paints and brushes I've been using out on the painting mat, rather than having to "tidy" it up at the end of the session, i.e. sticking paints all back in boxes and brushes into a pot that lives on a tray I have that is full of model related stuff which sits on the table when I'm not "in session"...
So, this afternoon I made a start on the Witch Hunter from MOM Miniatures.
I started with the undercoat, as you do, it's just Vallejo Model Air Black, probably the last few drops of regular black I have (besides a pot of Citadel Abaddon Black), apologies for all the shadow in this photo -
And then I did the coat and some of the details -
Still much stuff to do. I'm not happy with the face, what there is of the face isn't very well defined, but it's under the hat brim so I can get away with not doing much to it. There's also some detail on the sword hilt, but it also isn't very well defined, which is unfortunate.
Because he has pleated trousers (pants to our US friends) I decided to do them the same as my Empire Captain, i.e. Reiklander colours. Somewhere under all those bits and pieces on his upper torso front there is a shirt, so I did that an "off-white" also.
Having just checked references, what I've painted, believing it's a second pistol (stuffed sideways behind the stakes), is in fact the end of a belt, probably the one that goes round his back and has that bag on it, which I hadn't realised until just now! So that'll have to be repainted to match the other 2 belts he's wearing...
Need to tidy up one or two areas on the back of the coat where the highlight is a bit stark/not very well blended, and I feel I might put another layer of black glaze down on the coat, but away from the highlights, just to accentuate the contrast between the dark brown and the highlights a little more...
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
So, this afternoon I made a start on the Witch Hunter from MOM Miniatures.
I started with the undercoat, as you do, it's just Vallejo Model Air Black, probably the last few drops of regular black I have (besides a pot of Citadel Abaddon Black), apologies for all the shadow in this photo -
And then I did the coat and some of the details -
Still much stuff to do. I'm not happy with the face, what there is of the face isn't very well defined, but it's under the hat brim so I can get away with not doing much to it. There's also some detail on the sword hilt, but it also isn't very well defined, which is unfortunate.
Because he has pleated trousers (pants to our US friends) I decided to do them the same as my Empire Captain, i.e. Reiklander colours. Somewhere under all those bits and pieces on his upper torso front there is a shirt, so I did that an "off-white" also.
Having just checked references, what I've painted, believing it's a second pistol (stuffed sideways behind the stakes), is in fact the end of a belt, probably the one that goes round his back and has that bag on it, which I hadn't realised until just now! So that'll have to be repainted to match the other 2 belts he's wearing...
Need to tidy up one or two areas on the back of the coat where the highlight is a bit stark/not very well blended, and I feel I might put another layer of black glaze down on the coat, but away from the highlights, just to accentuate the contrast between the dark brown and the highlights a little more...
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
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The river Stir runs through it...
Mother is still in hospital awaiting her heart op, so life must go on...
I'm in a bit of a planning and building mood today. I finished the Witch Hunter yesterday evening, but I haven't taken final photos yet. I'll do that later.
One thing I think a table for Mordheim should have is a river or canal type waterway feature. Back in the day (1998), I had my own version of GW's Tsaragrad 40k ruined city board, (GW's featured in White Dwarf 220) complete with a river/canal. It took me weeks to build, tons of PVA glue, and a 2" thick bead foam 8' x 4' sheet. B&Q mixed the paint I bought from them wrong, and the table ended up looking blue, rather than grey, but it had a built in river/canal.
Now though, because I have to cart terrain back and forth to my gaming buddy's apartment, having such a board isn't really possible (unless I build it and leave it at his, and I'm not prepared to do that as we have trouble meeting regularly) so, modular, as flat pack as possible, terrain is the order of the day.
Back in 2020, when I was building my WFB semi-display level Tavern I bought some 5mm XPS foam sheets. The new grey stuff. I also bought a Green Stuff World Cobblestone roller.
Recently for making OG GW Mordheim starter set buildings I bought some 1mm thick A4 sized (8.25" x 11.75") card sheets.
So I combined the two, and quickly (less than 1 hours effort) made 6 rudimentary river pieces today. The river itself is 5 inches wide, each cobblestone pavement strip is 1 inch wide. Each section is 11.75 inches long -
By my maths and working out that's enough to go diagonally down the middle of a 4 foot square board.
This is a rough layout plan to show what I mean, based on a 4 foot board with 3 sets of OG GW Mordheim buildings. The white area denotes a 3 foot square. The red squares are the OG Tavern, the green squares are the OG ruined corners, the long dark red rectangles are the long ruined building, and the other shape, made of 1 square and 2 rectanges, is the large ruined building (the one I've yet to replicate), the tan rectangle is my ruined chapel. You can see the river running through the middle with a couple of bridges across it -
I plan on buying a couple of these bridges to go across the river, flat pieces of card will be used as stand ins for the moment though -
A review (not mine) of that bridge is here - https://www.chaosbunker.de/en/2018/05/31/review-warlord-games-stone-bridge/
I can airbrush some browns and greens and blues etc. onto the river area for the water colour, then hopefully I can clear coat it with a bottle of Future (Pledge floor care here in the UK) for a watery look to the surface - it'll just look like a gloss coat, but I don't have a vat of PVA glue to build up a thick clear layer, so a gloss coat will have to do. The cobbled surface that is the XPS foam will get painted a kind of sandstone looking colour (so that the cobblestone texture shows nicely), at least that's the plan.
I am slightly worried about the sections warping, but they're quick and kind of temporary, so if they do warp I'll stick them under some weight and see if they lie flat afterwards. I could stick them to some foamcore sheets but I don't have enough (I've only got 2 left).
I'm going round my gaming buddy's place on Friday so getting materials for building these river plates further before then isn't going to happen, I'll be lucky if I can get one painted.
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
Mother is still in hospital awaiting her heart op, so life must go on...
I'm in a bit of a planning and building mood today. I finished the Witch Hunter yesterday evening, but I haven't taken final photos yet. I'll do that later.
One thing I think a table for Mordheim should have is a river or canal type waterway feature. Back in the day (1998), I had my own version of GW's Tsaragrad 40k ruined city board, (GW's featured in White Dwarf 220) complete with a river/canal. It took me weeks to build, tons of PVA glue, and a 2" thick bead foam 8' x 4' sheet. B&Q mixed the paint I bought from them wrong, and the table ended up looking blue, rather than grey, but it had a built in river/canal.
Now though, because I have to cart terrain back and forth to my gaming buddy's apartment, having such a board isn't really possible (unless I build it and leave it at his, and I'm not prepared to do that as we have trouble meeting regularly) so, modular, as flat pack as possible, terrain is the order of the day.
Back in 2020, when I was building my WFB semi-display level Tavern I bought some 5mm XPS foam sheets. The new grey stuff. I also bought a Green Stuff World Cobblestone roller.
Recently for making OG GW Mordheim starter set buildings I bought some 1mm thick A4 sized (8.25" x 11.75") card sheets.
So I combined the two, and quickly (less than 1 hours effort) made 6 rudimentary river pieces today. The river itself is 5 inches wide, each cobblestone pavement strip is 1 inch wide. Each section is 11.75 inches long -
By my maths and working out that's enough to go diagonally down the middle of a 4 foot square board.
This is a rough layout plan to show what I mean, based on a 4 foot board with 3 sets of OG GW Mordheim buildings. The white area denotes a 3 foot square. The red squares are the OG Tavern, the green squares are the OG ruined corners, the long dark red rectangles are the long ruined building, and the other shape, made of 1 square and 2 rectanges, is the large ruined building (the one I've yet to replicate), the tan rectangle is my ruined chapel. You can see the river running through the middle with a couple of bridges across it -
I plan on buying a couple of these bridges to go across the river, flat pieces of card will be used as stand ins for the moment though -
A review (not mine) of that bridge is here - https://www.chaosbunker.de/en/2018/05/31/review-warlord-games-stone-bridge/
I can airbrush some browns and greens and blues etc. onto the river area for the water colour, then hopefully I can clear coat it with a bottle of Future (Pledge floor care here in the UK) for a watery look to the surface - it'll just look like a gloss coat, but I don't have a vat of PVA glue to build up a thick clear layer, so a gloss coat will have to do. The cobbled surface that is the XPS foam will get painted a kind of sandstone looking colour (so that the cobblestone texture shows nicely), at least that's the plan.
I am slightly worried about the sections warping, but they're quick and kind of temporary, so if they do warp I'll stick them under some weight and see if they lie flat afterwards. I could stick them to some foamcore sheets but I don't have enough (I've only got 2 left).
I'm going round my gaming buddy's place on Friday so getting materials for building these river plates further before then isn't going to happen, I'll be lucky if I can get one painted.
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
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Photos of the finished MOM Miniatures Witch Hunter -
I was going to try doing some OSL coming from the torch, but I decided against it, because I've never done it to that extent before, and the figure is looking OK so best to stop here...
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
I was going to try doing some OSL coming from the torch, but I decided against it, because I've never done it to that extent before, and the figure is looking OK so best to stop here...
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
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Nice painting! The leather and fire really came out well! Also, I can't tell a difference in the size of the hands now that you've painted it.
I'm no expert on this kind of stuff, but warping is caused by paint or glue on one side of the piece (the top) contracting. I'm told that applying paint or glue to the other side (i.e. the underside) can counteract the effect, pulling things back into shape.
So, today I had quite a bit of a painting session, but mostly waiting for stuff to dry...
I made a start on painting the river sections I made yesterday. I'm so glad I have an airbrush because it made it far easier than if I were using a hairy stick or rattle can...
The paints I used, and the Pledge Floor Care -
The results on 1 section I used as a exemplar piece, there is a bit of a shine on the water area, you just can't see it much in these photos -
A slightly better shot of the cobblestone texture, it had a clay wash and a drybrush of Citadel Karak Stone, it looks better to the mk1 eyeball -
And all 6, unfortunately I seem to have made one section narrower than the other 5!?! You can see the shine on the back right section -
I still have to do the clay wash and drybrush on 5 of the sections, but they're done enough to be used for a game tomorrow.
As I feared they did bow/warp a little, but they're also a bit flexible so I can bend them a little so they sit OK on a board.
I need to think of some way of linking them together as they're bound to get moved during a game otherwise, but that can wait until another time, when I come to mount them on something a bit stiffer...
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
I made a start on painting the river sections I made yesterday. I'm so glad I have an airbrush because it made it far easier than if I were using a hairy stick or rattle can...
The paints I used, and the Pledge Floor Care -
The results on 1 section I used as a exemplar piece, there is a bit of a shine on the water area, you just can't see it much in these photos -
A slightly better shot of the cobblestone texture, it had a clay wash and a drybrush of Citadel Karak Stone, it looks better to the mk1 eyeball -
And all 6, unfortunately I seem to have made one section narrower than the other 5!?! You can see the shine on the back right section -
I still have to do the clay wash and drybrush on 5 of the sections, but they're done enough to be used for a game tomorrow.
As I feared they did bow/warp a little, but they're also a bit flexible so I can bend them a little so they sit OK on a board.
I need to think of some way of linking them together as they're bound to get moved during a game otherwise, but that can wait until another time, when I come to mount them on something a bit stiffer...
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
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A clay wash is clay in a suspension medium (I think it's water with a surfactant) that you put down all over a model or area that you've applied a gloss or semi-gloss clear coat to (matt coats don't work too well for clay washes), a bit like you would a Citadel Shade Wash. But, when it's dry, you then remove it using a damp cloth/tissue/q-tip, wiping in one direction only over the surface, that then leaves the wash in just the recesses and around details like rivets (if you've done it right).
It's something that is used more commonly in scale modelling on things like aircraft and tanks. I used it on my Leman Russ (a number of pages back in this thread) as the shade wash.
There's a couple of people that make them here in the UK, both well known amongst scale modelling circles, being in the US you may not have heard of them though.
Google scale model clay wash though and you should get results that include youtube videos by the 2 persons.
It's something that is used more commonly in scale modelling on things like aircraft and tanks. I used it on my Leman Russ (a number of pages back in this thread) as the shade wash.
There's a couple of people that make them here in the UK, both well known amongst scale modelling circles, being in the US you may not have heard of them though.
Google scale model clay wash though and you should get results that include youtube videos by the 2 persons.
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Yep, it's exactly that. And unlike oils you can remove it without risk of damaging the paint layers below.
Couple of photos from my first game of Mordheim round my regular gaming buddy's apartment today -
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.
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