Cthulhu Wars Onslaught 2: Painting Sleeper & some IGOOs

OK, admission on mis-selling/advertising here - this isn't really painting the CWO2 minis, it's starting to paint them! There's a lot, and I also wanted to test out my new airbrush (more on that in another post), so this was really about priming them ready for painting. I went down the zenithal priming method, and I think it came out pretty well, as I hope you'll agree.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with zenithal priming, this involves three steps (all sprayed, I'm afraid - it's not impossible to do this by brush, but that's really better done with your final colours):

1. Prime the mini with a good-quality black primer - I use Vallejo and can't recommend it highly enough, it's great stuff - good coverage, sticks well and airbrushes like a dream.

2. Spray at 45 degrees with a mid-tone grey (I used Army Painter Cool Grey). This has the effect of covering the primer in all but deep overhangs, creating an illusion of depth - don't be worried if the effect is subtle at this stage, it'll soon pop at stage three.

3. Spray from directly overhead with white (in this case Tamiya Model Colour flat white). In practice, you need to spray from 90 degrees minus 10-15 degrees to create a good effect. Start with the directly overhead and then examine your mini to see how much you need to adjust - you'll get a feel for it quickly and it will differ depending on the make-up of the mini.

Here's it in action - Zenithal spraying (this isn't my video, but it illustrates the technique well and there's no point re-inventing the wheel)

So here's how the Sleeper faction turned out...first it's Tsathoggua

I think the fur really shows well using this technique. Next are the Wizards...

The cultists after that - again, the technique really shows up features like the robe folds well

I love the Formless Spawn - tentacles also come out well using this zenithal shading - you get good gradation and not such harsh definition as on some shapes which helps I think.

The Snake Men look good - elements of the cultists with the robes plus their heads have very clear definition

The High priest will probably need more post-work than the cultists, but the smaller elements here show up well, like the emblem on his chest.

I've found Sleeper challenging to play so far - I've not got the hang of them yet - played two games and come woefully behind in them both. Opener of the way, however, I blasted through and won easily - they're (quite literally!) monstrous!

I also had a bunch of IGOOs that I primed at the same time (oh, and some insects from Shaggai)...here they are:

This is one of my favourite figures:

So there you go - it might not look like much, but it does make the minis easier to paint and I think it enhances their appearance to play with them before they are painted. What do you think?

Painting Cthulhu Wars: Yellow Sign

It has to be said that over the past six months or so I've been pretty lax in the old painting side of the hobby - all for understandable reasons - house move, job change, new kitchen, decorating, DIY, birthdays and now holidays - but I've been lax nonetheless. I've not had my airbrush set up, my outdoor shed has been a mess and the loft room is likewise full of somewhat disorganised stuff.

So the past few weeks have seen a bit of a change in this. It started with a damn good clear out of the outside shed, which was used as a bit of a dumping ground for stuff from the old house we weren't sure what to do with or where to put. I got rid of a load of rubbish, reorganised what was left, put up shelves, drilled mounts into the walls for tools and cleared the bench. I installed my compressor, regulator and Tamiya paints, and now I have a decent place to both do some DIY stuff, and to spray my models.

Next was to sort out my modelling space. So again I cleared the area out, put up shelves and organised things. I went that extra step and extended this to the rest of the loft room, getting the kids to sort out the FIVE (yes, 5) containers full of cuddly toys down to one for storage, everything else was to be kept in their rooms or recycled...(car boot coming up!!). I put up all the old shelves I had from my unit, and organised our storage stuff, making it more accessible, creating a ton of room and even impressing my wife.

The grand upshot of this is that I have been able to start painting properly again. I've primed god-knows-how-many Firestorm ships and Planetfall vehicles, sprayed a load of Terrans and Dindrenzi, and am half way through the base coating of Oscar's Aquans.

Now whilst i love airbrushing, it's rare you can finish a model this way, and most of my figures are pure handpainted. I'd been inspired by some awesome Cthulhu Wars minis I'd seen on line, and whilst I wasn't going to achieve that level of excellence, trying to achieve it would certainly stretch my skills and help me get better. So I started on my Yellow Sign minis for Cthulhu Wars with a Byakhee, which is still work in progress and I don't have any pics yet - I'll get some when I'm back off holiday and it's done.

What I do have pictures of are the undead and the King in Yellow. I wanted to keep them low-key in terms of faction colouring, the KiY being the obviously "yellow" mini, but the undead I was going to stick to a dirty bandage bone colour, it being yellow only nominally. As I'd already primed them white, this was a pretty simple process. First, I based each of them in a bone/light khaki stone mix.

I wasn't too careful about this colour, and I mixed more than one batch to vary the shade - I didn't want the six minis to look identical. Next stage was to mix a flesh colour to paint the oozing, mutated flesh, and again I used different base shades on the six figures.

So far so good, and after painting the tongue a darker, pinker shade a wash with Army Painter Soft Tone to bring our the detail without darkening the model too much was next.

Next was painting the original colour on the bandages and the pinker flesh on the high spots of those areas, followed by highlighting and detail (mainly the bandage edges and teeth). 

I'm pretty happy with the way it came out - it looks suitably disgusting and more tentacley than your typical undead - which is exactly as it should be!

The King in yellow was a much bigger job, and is mostly complete, but still needs further work on the base and a few touches. Technique was similar to the undead, but with a lot more shades. I also wanted a dirty and blood-flecked finish on the yellow garments. I'm not 100% with it, but it's OK for now - I wanted the King to look gaunt with almost bloodless skin, whilst the more living flesh colour of the tentacles draws the eye and gives more of a feeling of life there...at least I hope it does! Painting Yellow is always a pain in the arse, but it didn't come out too horrible here (unless you think otherwise!)

Next on the list is Hastur - he's one of the largest minis in the game (i.e. he's HUGE!), but he also needs more work than any other mini too, having numerous gaps and seam lines, so before any painting could start on him, I needed to get all this sorted, or he'd look too toy-like when done. So out with the Green Stuff again, and wet-blending those seams!

Here's Hastur base airbrushed

I actually cheated here, because I've already painted the eyes and masked them before spraying....next step is to remove the masking...

Around the eyes needs tidying, but that's fine as I need to add the redder rims to them anyway...

So there it is, the first forays back into painting, and the first monsters I've tackled from the Cthulhu Wars set. They paint up nicely, and I think painted minis are really going to enhance the gaming experience.

Feedback, suggestions, comments and ideas always welcome - would love to hear from you all!

Links for the Hub Systems Episode 17 Kickstarter

I thought I'd put up some links to accompany the recent Kickstarter episode 17 of The Hub Systems podcast, in case people were interested to look...enjoy!

Why no-one is getting rich from Exploding Kittens...

Allies vs IS (oh dear...)

The Walking Dead

Polyversal

Twisted

Dropfleet Commander

The others: 7 Sins

Cthulhu Wars Onslaught 2

Traazorites

Aetherium - House Ikaru

Lands of Ruin

Awakening Gaming Terrain