Blog Deer Riffs' thinking, inking and skinking.

This is great advice... unless of course you want a "spring loaded action" effect!

 

That's a really awesome tip. I would never have thought about keeping the polarities consistent. Thanks you!

 

This past week I've shifted gears a little bit and gotten on to building a lot rather than painting. I've started work on my wife's wood elf army. She's a big fan of elves. Whenever she starts a new character in Skyrim it's always as an elf Mage. I ask her if she wants to try one of the other races for a change, but she always wants to be an elf. So when I showed her the warhammer models the elves were the ones she liked the most. Particularly the wood elves.

I asked if I painted them up for her, would she like to try playing Age of Sigmar with me. Seraphon vs Wood Elves, but she's quite insistent that the elves and seraphon would be friends.

So, this past week I've glued and primed 16 glade guard and 10 eternal guard. I'll be honest, it was a nice change of pace from the Saurus Knights.

I think I burnt myself out on them a bit. I haven't really looked at them since I finished them, though I am proud of them and learnt a lot painting them. I felt like I needed a break from painting scales. Do any of you ever feel like this?

I also felt like I needed a break from the seraphon, because my next project on the go is my ripperdactyls which I'm really not happy with at the moment. I don't really like the colours I've chosen for them, so I've lost a lot of motivation there too. How do you all deal with that lack of motivation?

Anyway, with these elves I've decided to try a few very different things. My goals were to get better at my basing and my shading/blending.

I've tried to employ a lot of the techniques I learnt in painting the Arena Rex gladiator, plus a few things I've heard about on some podcasts. Namely the "Painting With Menoth John" podcast episode on zenithal highlighting with Seth Watkins, and an episode of the "Facehammer" podcast concerning Byron's painting journey.

In the Facehammer episode, they discuss Byron's monochrome grayscale and tourquoise high elf army. They way Byron described them was that they were quick to paint and visually striking. Both of which appealed to me. I want to impress my wife and give her something awesome, and give it to her quickly while she's still interested. It also sounded like an excuse to try to give non metallic metals a try.

In the Painting with Menoth John podcast, Seth Watkins, who is apparently a commission painter. Discussed a bit about colour theory and painting with washes. It sounded quick and really cool. He talked about using green to shade red and vice versa. This sounded really interesting to me. It sounded like magic.





The shadows on the cloak are Mephiston red! It's crazy. This blew my mind I only used a wash in one tiny section of the model. It was a totally different way of painting.







I like the colour of the autumn leaves. I think it's really striking against the subdued tones of the model, but I'd like it to look a bit more realistic. Any tips or thoughts on products to get a autumnal leaf drift look?

 

And because it's a lizardmen forum, here's my eternity warden work in progress.

 

I really like how you shaded the cloak on that elf, never would have guessed that the method would have worked so well. Looks beautiful!

 

Thanks! And I know - when I heard about it I thought that it can't possibly work. But it does! It's crazy magic to my brain.

 

@Aginor I feel that. I wasn't super into the Stormcast, but after hearing some of the fluff I've got a real urge to paint up a totally rusted and beaten down vanguard unit.

Rusty browns and orange with just the occasional speck of gold left on their armour. Water stains marring their once pristine armour. Like taking back the mortal realms has gone a lot slower and harder than any of them thought.

 

@Crowsfoot maybe their armour isn't as gold and shiny as it looks. Maybe it's just lies. Maybe it's just gold plated or not like gold at all, but like some gold looking metal because Sigmar is secretly full of it and now his foot soldiers are up against it in the field in the mud knee deep in chaos and oruks and undead fighting a never ending battle in their armour that, like their faith in sigmar is deteriorating around them.

Or maybe, no I didn't know that

 

That's why it is historically so valuable.

Which would make sense, since gold is not a suitable metal to be used to make armour (other than decorative ornamentation). Gold is way to soft.

I'm not sure about that. I think a fair few do in fact oxidize. Copper and aluminum oxidize for example.

Noble metals such as gold and platinum resist oxidization, as well as some man made alloys.

 

Actually rust is iron oxide. The oxidation of iron or an alloy containing iron (which is what steel is) gives you iron oxide, which we call rust. However, oxidation occurs with other metals as well, but we reserve the term rust for iron specifically.

I had not previously heard that term. I did a quick google search and came upon an urban dictionary reference to it. Ewwwwww

I'm not sure if that specifically is what you were referring to, or if it has another meaning.

 

I think it's a weird british saying, or maybe @Crowsfoot is just really into fecal matter.