Chaos in Oils!

Something old and something new.  In oils. Here we have some old timey Chaos Nights which were painted with oils, which is relatively new for me.

It was really interesting to work on figures which are this old, utilizing a very new product such as the Mig Ammo Oilbrushers!  I had a lot of fun taking advantage of the extended drying times to be able to create various blends without having to rush around in a frenzy.

There are also a number of muted tones here, and being able to pull the oils from one area into another keeps things in line color wise.  All it takes to shift a color more towards the cool range is to slap a little blue or green, and mix it right into those wet oils!

At first I thought the oils would mostly work for painting historical figures such as my Bolt Action armies, but I have been so pleasantly surprised that they have worked for everything else as well, even figures with much brighter and saturated colors.

Here's a recent YouTube live session where I work with the Oilbrushers and traditional oils: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB-nhuTmNbQ

Music Man

To those who don't already know, a good portion of this Chaos Knight unit was painted with oils, with the final details completed with acrylics once they were dry.

When you are working on a large number of figures that have very similar colors, using the oil paints can be very handy!  The ability to still be able to wet blend new layers of paint into those applied one or two days before is a tremendous advantage when trying to match colors!

I have said this many times before, but now that more people are seeing this idea of oil painting, there are some misconceptions about why you would use this medium.

When people ask me how to get oil paints to dry faster, I always say: "I use acrylics instead".  The whole point of these is the longer drying time, and that ability to turn each of the figures themselves into a wet palette!

I was even seeing some people claim that I wanted them to have a different look, etc., which is definitely not the case.  To make that point, I painted the last one of this unit entirely in acrylics, and it looked just like all the others.

The process itself is not all that different, since I still use glazing when I am working with oils.  I may not remove as much paint as I do with the acrylics, where I am wiping away layers of glazing with a sponge.  For obvious reasons, that is just not possible with the oils, since the underlying layers are still wet.

I hope this all makes sense!  Now that we are back from GenCon, I can start diving back into my oils again!!  Stay tuned...

A Banner Day

Each time I look back at the images of these Chaos Warrior figures, it really intrigues me to think how old these figures are, and that I am using my latest techniques and materials on them :-)  

As most of you already know, this was a large batch of figures, and most of the painting was done with oils... a combination of the Windsor & Newton oil paints and the Mig Ammo Oilbrushers.

Here's a link to a typical painting session with those oils:

https://www.facebook.com/james.wappel/videos/vb.1056181987/10211987031365225/?type=2&video_source=user_video_tab

Each one of these has had a slightly different set of colors put into the metal areas, mostly purples and greens in various combinations.  In the last post about the unit, I went into more detail about how that purple/green mix can create some interesting looking "gray" tones!

New Colors

Next up in the series of old time Chaos Knights painted with oils!  As I have mentioned on other figures from this set, a key strategy in color placement was to have some purples and greens in the 'metal' areas.

The idea is to give the metal an additional 'sparkle' by having a few colors that might be considered 'outside' the range you would expect, such as the greens.  Also, purple and green when mixed together can make some wonderful grays!  

This is another reason why the eye 'mixes' those colors together and makes the viewer perceive the overall color as gray.

I think I first realized that many years ago when I was still using the GW washes.  It seemed like I always ran out of the black wash and even the blue/brown washes (which I had also been using to make gray).  When those started to tun out, I turned to mixing green and purple, which were in abundance by comparison!

After making that realization. I started mixing pink and light seafoam green to start making gray.  Doing so ensures that you will have a far more interesting gray, as opposed to the 'dead' flat grey that you often find when you get them as jars of paint!

Shaman

We have some more images of the old style Chaos Warrior knights which were painted primarily in oils.  

As I have mentioned before, when I am working in oils I try very hard to gather together as many figures as possible which will be using "common colors" in order to maximize the effectiveness of those oil paints.  In this case, I had a number of Bolt Action figures which needed a variety of tans and brown shades.

These figures meshed very well with the darker browns of the cloaks and fur, while the tans of the bone surfaces were similar enough to the tans of the Soviet bases and quilted uniforms to work there too.

I also had a few other figures whose bases were just right for that series of brown tones, and the deep skin colors of the inside of the cloaks meant that I could utilize some of the skin tones from those Soviet figures also.

Since the oils have a drying time of at least several hours, it is much easier to bounce back and forth between what might seem to be very disparate projects!

It is also a way to "keep things fresh", as I am not endlessly painting more fur cloaks or quilted uniforms for hours on end.  I could break up that by painting the metal surfaces, which would still need a fair amount of those brownish colors to be reflected in it.

Steel Green

Whenever people would ask for advice on painting Non Metallic Metals, my response would always be to "reflect the environment around the figure as much as possible".  

In my recent live demos and previous blog posts, I have been emphasizing that more and more... but there are a few other tiny touches which can also make those 'metals' a bit more interesting with a little 'sparkle'.

The first post from this unit had a purple/lavender color as an 'accent' tone.  It probably did not even register to most viewers as purple, especially in person.  However, it was still there, just as there is a greenish accent here.

What this added color does is create a bit of "spectral" highlight here and there, as if light were refracting off parts of the surface.

This is especially helpful on larger, broader surfaces like many you see on this figure.  Otherwise it would simply be a sea of blueish gray!  Now that I see many of these NMM paint sets floating around, I feel that it is even more important to talk about this concept.

In some recent articles, I suggested that the best NMM paint set is whatever colors you are already using on your miniature and base!  This really is the case... as incorporating as much of the surrounding color as you can into your metals (no matter what it might be reflecting) will make the viewer believe that those surfaces are in fact metal!

Cold Steel

This was one of the earlier "oil then acrylic" pieces that I made a while back.  Since this set of figures, I have done more and more of the figure with oils.

While it depends on every figure (and what kind of deadlines are in effect), I do enjoy working entirely with oils on figures.  They don't have to be completely finished before the paint dries... which can be a few hours or days depending on how thin the paint was.

I discovered that once oil paint dries, it is quite handy to apply new layers of paint and feather them out, almost like applying weathering powders.  Since the layers underneath are dry, you won't effect them directly.

This is something that I am doing more and more, which was an unexpected surprise.  Now I plan for this process, which makes it possible to work on even more figures at once.  Previously, I thought that I should gather up as many figures as possible to take advantage of the ability to wet blend for many hours.

Now that I am planning for the paint to dry, but continue to work on the figure, it opens up many more possibilities.

I am sure this process will continue to change rapidly as I discover something new every time I work with the oils!

Stay tuned, as always!

Snow and Steel

Another addition to the very large winter fantasy army includes some classic Chaos Knights.  The old style armor on the horses kinda takes you back to the earlier days of Warhammer...

This was approached in a similar manner to the Beastmen, using a variety of Secret Weapon weathering paints in a series of glazes.

Here's a link to one of that series that gives you an idea how that's done.

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2017/11/shades-of-gray.html

I'm hoping to paint one of these in a facebook live session, or even in a patreon video.  While I try to put as much info into the pictorial articles on the blog, sometimes there's no substitute for seeing it painted before your eyes!

Here's a link to the Patreon page if you would like to support that!

https://www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

That priest is a beast

I have not painted many Beastmen at all over the years, with the exception of some Blood Bowl minis.  Heck, I have painted many more Gnolls than beastmen. :-)

So, this was a fun piece to try.

I wanted to juxtapose a little hint of muted reds against some greyed down, blueish greens.  That is a little more evident in the back views.

Time for Chaos

With another episode of Sleepy Hollow on the way, I guess it is time for some Chaos.  A symbol eerily similar to a certain Warhammer army, and a glowy axe... :-)

Fun times!

And a big pile of skulls!

More "Mammoth" project!

Here's the rest of the "mammoth" pictures!



A little close up on the face:













Some more shots of the howdah:






A few shots without all the extra minis on the display board:




Another WIP:


And some crazy shots of me putting this thing together!