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I love your basing! It nicely compliments the models.

Great themed warband you got!

Seductress from Forces of the Abyss is a Command model.

wasflipper wrote:
i'm pretty new to the hobby aspect of gaming, my only other experience is a 10mm salamander army i've put together. so i figured i should go with the polar opposite of 10mm and ended up with the mantic frost giant!

Excellent job!!!

Succubi join the Forces of the Abyss Warband. The mount is from River Horse's (Alessio Cavatore) Loka chess variant game and was made by Mantic.

Gargoyles join the Forces of the Abyss Warband.

 Arctic Dragon wrote:
Gargoyles join the Forces of the Abyss Warband.

I really like your theme and the basing! Colours compliment and contrast each other well. Well done!

For future projects, you might want to invest in a wet pallette as -I think- you can improve your painting even further by keeping your paints a little more moist. (in some cases, your paint appears a little thick, thereby obscuring the details a little)
Thinning down paints really help in allowing for more layers and a more smooth transsition from one colour to another.

vince1248 wrote:

For future projects, you might want to invest in a wet pallette as -I think- you can improve your painting even further by keeping your paints a little more moist. (in some cases, your paint appears a little thick, thereby obscuring the details a little)
Thinning down paints really help in allowing for more layers and a more smooth transsition from one colour to another.

But is it really always what you want? if you thin it down you MUST do multiple layers because its not thick enough, thus you need more time (and more time per model = less models)?
I always shied away from the wet-pallette so far because of this (and the effort to get/build one). on the other hand i've heard it so often now already that it helps to improve...



and to arctic dragon for your original post:
cool models and great inspiration for my own abyssal painting task. thanks!

@Schmendrick,

First things first: I'm not that great a painter. I only happen to have learned some tricks to make life easier. So this is not a post how to paint like a champion (since I'm not that good. A mate of mine can do stuff that puts me to shame...) but more of a how-to-make life easier!

On your question:
I've never had the problem with paint not being thick enough, this is due to the fact that highlights are always the same colour as the original -only a few shades lighter-.
a wet pallette is also not really needed. The trick is to keep the brush wet between applications of paint and add a bit of water before starting to paint.

Let's thake this horseman's saddlecloth as an example:


https://imgur.com/a/J6ssHvd


The base colour is plague brown. https://www.sceneryworkshop.nl/game-color-plague-brown-17ml-72039.html
then I used a brown ink to shade it. https://www.sceneryworkshop.nl/game-ink-brown-17ml-72092.html
(This ink I used for the whole horse model, I just thinned it down a bit more on the saddlecloth while wet.)
After that I highlighted it with with moon yellow https://www.sceneryworkshop.nl/game-color-moon-yellow-17ml-72005.html

And yo answer your question: because I thinned down the paint, I had to highlight it twice, but that's only because yellow paint does that.

So it's"base colour, ink, two highlights. In all other colours I only need a single highlight.
That;s not more work than usual? I find the ink wash very good to hide painting mistakes, so I almost need no time to repair the model after my first base layer.



Then a pic of my own:

A horde of skeletons that I recently finished as part of my Army of Darkness formation.



WIP photos of the project (and more pics) here => http://kingsofwarvince.business.blog/2019/02/25/army-of-darkness-2/

Related to this, whats the preferred image hosting alternative these days?

@vince1248 and @Schmendrick thanks for the compliments and encouragement.

dyndraig wrote:
Related to this, whats the preferred image hosting alternative these days?

Imgur and Google Photos are just about the only ones worth mentioning - Imgur is better for quick sharing to forums, Google is better for storing and organising large cross referenced albums, though both can do either.

@vince1248:

Thank you for the explanation. i will follow the tip with the well-wet brush and see if anything changes!
And you are right, what you describe is not more work than what I now usually do. But I can remember that when I started, I was already happy if I put one layer of paint on any spot the model and never wanted to touch that place again. painting over one spot 4 times? shading, drybrushing? not that I knew back then what that was, but the mere thought of not being done after one go: unbelievable!

Cheers!
I must admit that, ever since I completed a battle worthy army, my painting has improved quite a lot as there is no time limit.

I found online a much better tutorial than I am able to write:

basics
https://creativetwilight.com/layering/

and the advanced version
https://creativetwilight.com/blending-layering/

Looking forward to the results!

Lower Abyssals join the Warband. I used one of these last Sunday and he died lime a true Grunf the first time he eas charged lol! It was my first time to use Anyssals and I got real good results from tje Lurker, Succubi, Abyssal Guard and the Flamebearers. My Hellequin got pulled through the portal end of turn 1 and the Hellequin Blood-Masque got beat down by NA Frostfang and a Huscarl. I still managed to get a draw playing Secure the Portal.

Are those abyssal photos coming through sideways for everyone else, or is it just me?

They look great, by the way, though their ability to induce a stiff neck is killin' me!

I don't know why they loaded sideways but when I clicked on them they became rightside up on my mobile and PC. I wish I knew how to make them load properly.

Hi guys,
ok, time to start to show off some of my fruits of labour. I will start with 3 gargoyles that I did for my Kings of War: Vanguard Abyssals warband.

Here I experimented with nearly "only washing". Primed Grey (Vallejo), then a bit of Priming in white from the top for light effect (Army Painter), then all army painter washes (except for the belt and loin-cloth).

 Schmendrick wrote:
Hi guys,
ok, time to start to show off some of my fruits of labour. I will start with 3 gargoyles that I did for my Kings of War: Vanguard Abyssals warband.

Here I experimented with nearly "only washing". Primed Grey (Vallejo), then a bit of Priming in white from the top for light effect (Army Painter), then all army painter washes (except for the belt and loin-cloth).

Looks real good. Nice touch to document the technique and specific paints.

Realy love the results! I've been wanting to try a similar technique, but always broke off halfways.

Good to see that it *is* viable. Will need to try sometime again.

Yeah, additionally, i found it to be really enjoyable to paint it that way. i look forward to do that again with some models!

Northern Alliance Half Elf Berserker, Ice Queen and Ice Kin Hunter. Now I have painted at least one of each of the NA minis.

Time to focus on the Forces of the Abyss Warband. 24 finished, 5 to go.

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https://ibb.co/3z9vCxN

Here's my vampire lord on undead dragon; created as part of swordmaster's Monster March challenge.

The Blog post (and links to WIP-pictures) can be found here:
https://kingsofwarvince.business.blog/2019/04/01/monster-march-5-finished/

Other participants' entries here:
http://swordmasterofhoeth.blogspot.com/2019/03/monster-march-part-4.html

I've had piles of zombies lying about, and they're always such a pain to assemble into the inevitable giant, tar-pit unit I build with them. So I made a Legion of them:





I think the guidelines say you should use at least half plus one of the required number of minis; A legion is 10 wide, and 6 ranks deep (200mm x 120mm), and I think I used about 35-38 zombies (for this otherwise 60-zombie unit). I think this looks so much better than the mess of 60 models crammed into that tight a space.

How many zombie makes and models can you identify? Here's what I remember using:




Automatically Appended Next Post:
(hmmm... Anyone know how to increase image size a little? Those pics from my dakkadakka gallery are smaller than I intended...)

I've finally started working on the Vanguard minis from the KS:


More in my P&M blog.

 pancakeonions wrote:
I(....) I think the guidelines say you should use at least half plus one of the required number of minis; A legion is 10 wide, and 6 ranks deep (200mm x 120mm), and I think I used about 35-38 zombies (for this otherwise 60-zombie unit). I think this looks so much better than the mess of 60 models crammed into that tight a space.

This most definately true! 28mm mini's on a 20x20 base usually end op far too cramped. Though I cannot zoom in well to your pictures, the general idea looks enough like a mob; 35-38 seems like a decent number. I fully agree that it looks a lot better than 60 models on individual bases.
(Even Warhammer/9th age enthousiasts use unit fillers these days to avoid this mess. )
I, myself, usually stick to PMC from the FAQ (http://www.manticgames.com/SiteData/Root/File/FREE%20RULES/Kings-of-War-Version-1.9.0-Errata-and-FAQ.pdf which is 41+ for a legion (or 7 to a troop, 14 to a regiment) but only because some tournaments require such.

 pancakeonions wrote:


(hmmm... Anyone know how to increase image size a little? Those pics from my dakkadakka gallery are smaller than I intended...)

I'm also a bit hampered in this departments (as you can see from my post 2 posts above) so I'd just copied in the imgBB link, so everyone can click throug. Not the best solution, but it more or less works.
Would love to see it more up-close.

There are lots of cool paint jobs on this page

My most recent completion, the giant, magnetised and pinned for alternate parts, aside from the head which just slots onto a rod. The cloak is a little tight and damages the paint taking it on and off, so won't be using it anymore.

Nice work on that giant. I think I like it with the fur stole better than with bare shoulders, and the cross-eyed face is excellent.

I think Mantic's emphasis on the Forces of Nature this week makes it necessary to show off some of my Forces of Nature models that are already finished.

Lets start with my two Naiads.

My druid is not yet finished, but I will dig out my 3 Shamblers of which I am very proud. The rest of my Forces of Nature forces is unfortunately from a manifacturer whose-name-shan't-be-mentioned.

I love the blue-metalic armor! Did you achieve this by painting a blue ink wash over a metalic paint?

I might steal this idea for my redemption knights (somewhere in the future)

Imps for Forces of the Abyss. I used them once and I liked their 3 wounds and they did good against an Ice Kin Hunter. Then the Ice Queen fried them with a Lightning Bolt ☹️

I was trying toget a bubbling effect for the lava by putting sand on the base first. Always experimenting.