Bushido, for charity!

Welcome one and all to this, the very first post of 2013 from Pirate Viking Painting! Huzzah! And I am delighted to report that it is a terribly ethical one as I have finished yet more stuff for charity. The Paint the City Pink campaign had several prizes donated back to the auction and I volunteered to paint them for free to add some value. I did the Pulp City gang a little while back and now the first of two Bushido sets from GCT Studios, the Prefecture of Ryu.

These are very pretty figures, and the closest I have seen in sculpting to getting Samurai armour right. Of course, this is a fantasy Japan so it doesn't matter all that much! Painting anything Japanese is something of a nightmare, there are lots of twiddly bits and the colour pallete is unfamiliar to our western eyes.

Look at some pictures of real samurai armour, they are a riot of colours. I thus resolved to use a rare colour combination for me, a tetrach. Four colours in two contrasting pairs, in this case red and green along with orange and blue. Note that in a tetrach the colours are also complementary to another colour, orange and red, green and blue and so on.

At some point in the painting I realised that the blue I was using (Kantor highlighted with Hoeth) was far too blue, too cold for the scheme and was making it a jarring clash. I warmed it up to a delightful indigo by glazing with violet wash. Wound up a gorgeous colour and created the harmonious tones I was going for.

For the skin tone I added Ungor Flesh to the Cadian Fleshtone but otherwise treated it as normal! Selecting the placement of the colours was what was important in this scheme, not necessarily the techniques used to apply them, as in the end it was mostly careful build up of various washes to achieve the effects.

The end result is exactly what I wanted, a general feeling of a red and indigo colour scheme with enough interferance from the green and orange elements to give that riot-of-colours oriental feel without compromising western aesthetics.

The final model in contrast was simplicity itself, ninjas usually are! Just pick a different black highlight colour for each area of the model and then use a couple of black washes to drab it all down. Lovely.

I am going to do a full on review of all of the Busido models that I have my hands on when they are all finished, but for now, just feast your eyes and enjoy!

TTFN

I've decided that I will do the Wargaming fitness spots like this, beneath the main posts, after the TTFN so that anyone who simply doesn't care can just ignore them! For the first one, I thought I would lay out the problem. I am 33, 6 foot tall and weigh 137.1 kg, that's 21st 8lb or 302 lb for our colonial cousins. Yikes, better news is that the weight is only 44.4% fat. I am actually a big guy even without the fat. This means that BMI is meaningless (it usually is btw) and so I will be using Body Fat % to "fix" me. Healthy range for guys my age is 9-19%, overweight is 19-25%. I think a realistic first goal is just to shift from the obese range to overweight. That means shifting my body fat from 44% to 25%. That means loosing 26.5 kg. Or 4 stone 2 lb (58 lbs) of fat. I don't care what my weight is, as it will probably go up on reengaging muscle groups. I care about the fat. Also, focusing on this well help with my truly scary stat. A visceral fat count of 21. This is a fairly abstract measure from my machine but the safe range is 1-12. Eep. This is the really dangerous stuff and needs to change. Some people can be overweight but not have this, my wife is an 8 on that scale. Seems that my body just loves to clag fat around my internal organs. This will not stand! I declare war on claggy fat.

Well, that is all for now, I'll let you know in a month or so how I am doing.

Peace out.

What a Difference a Base Makes...

A few days ago I showed you all a 54mm Pegaso Ninja I painted, check it out now:

When models are intended purely for display it helps to make a presentation base for them to increase the visual impact of the work. Recently I had been getting curious about the Voodooworx range of resin display bases. Decent spread of sizes and acceptable prices. I got a 40mm round and a 40mm cube to check out.

The plinths (and isn't "plinth" a word that wants to be dirty but isn't?) come in a beautifully cast grey resin. There aren't any bubbles, voids or casting blocks. You can even see where Voodooworx sand down the bases to make them ready for instant usage.

I wanted to use a plain black base with the Kanji for Ninja. I used the computer to create a perfect 40mm square and then fit the Kanji into the centre of it. Printing out the design allowed me to flip it over and block in the design in graphite (pencil). The block was primed black and then the design masking taped to the block.

A quick rub with pencil over the top transferred the design to the block in a faint graphite shadow.

Once the design was transferred, the paper was removed and the design carefully painted in with Mithril Silver. Annoyingly the camera saw more of the black through the silver than is actually there, the design is solid silver.

Before I primed the block I laid down a masking tape shape of where the base of the model touches the surface it is placed on. That made sure that the glued join between the base and the model was strongest.

Glue is only as strong as the surface it is applied to, if you try and stick parts to a painted surface then you are only getting the strength of adhesion that the paint has. Not much in other words, I superglued the Ninja to the resin base.

I had previously test-fitted the Ninja to the block to ensure the alignment would look good.

And there you have it, a display miniature rather than a wargaming mini. It just finishes off the look and creates another source of visual interest with the Kanji. I can heartily recommend the Voodooworx plinths for this kind of work. The only problem would be if you wanted a wooden effect base as these resin ones only work for solid colour. Until next time.

TTFN

Paint a Ninja (how to paint black!)

Greetings all, today I've got something a little different to my normal work. This is a Pegaso models 54mm ninja (54mm is roughly double the normal height of my normal 28mm models). This was a pressie from Charlie of the Beard Bunker and represented a pallete cleansing afternoon of painting in the middle of other projects.

He has formed a nice study of how I paint areas of adjacent black as a ninja is nothing but adjacent black tones! There is always a problem with capturing these subtle differences in tone on camera but you can clearly see each element of clothing. That would not be the case with using one colour. On this model there are an absolute ton of different colours used, the next image shows where:

Each of those colours were mixed with a little black for the basecoat. A Badab Black wash was then used to darken all of the shades and to provide the deep shading. Using one colour for the shades also helps to unify the shades across the model. You'll also note that I've made extensive use of foundation colours. This is deliberate as the less saturated colours give a more natural feel to the cloth. The exception is the saya (sheath) of the ninjato (sword) and the silk bindings on the hilt. These have been painted with what is now called a layer paint. Fully saturated and making a contrast between the hard saya and the soft cloth. Once the shading wash had dried I went in and highlighted the raised area with the original colour. On a 28mm miniature I would have used a second highlight with a little bone added for more kick. This is not needed on a 54mm as the light does a lot of the work for you. Much of the extreme highlighting you see on 28mm miniatures is there to simulate the light's effect.

One of the things I love about Pegaso are their posing and casting. Absolutely brilliant. He came with that scenic base too.

I've been painting a fair amount of oriental models lately and have settled on an oriental skin tone that I am happy with. It starts with a 3:2 mix of Tallarn Flesh and Vallejo Bronze Fleshtone. My usual shading of Ogryn Flesh is followed up with the original mixture as highlighting and then further highlights of the mix with increasing amounts of bone. The eyes were painted a mix of bone and white as pure white looks unrealistic on a larger scale miniature. Rather than just dotting in a pupil I first painted a larger brown iris and put the pupil in the centre. Seriously, don't try this on 28mm minis, your own eyes will bleed.

This shot shows how the adjacent blacks work, take a look at the sandle straps. You can clearly see them but they don't stand out. Now, while the base was nice I felt it needed a little more interest. Thus I glued tufts of static grass in the vertices of the cracks between stones and scattered some Antenoceti's Workshop leaves around to give it a more natural feel. That's all for now folks.

TTFN

Aren't you a little short for a Samurai?

Well that was quick! Four hours after deciding to paint the classic Citadel orientals they were done!

These fine fellows are both elderly Games Workshop Dwarf Adventurers (still available here). I'm using them to represent the Pathfinder classes and races of a Dwarf Samurai and a Gnome Ninja. Why a Gnome? Say it out loud... "Gnome Ninja". That's why! Something I forgot to mention last time was that all of my Oriental Adventures party are being based on these cool Black Cat Bases bamboo base inserts. They're cast metal and all sorts of nifty.

So, the Samurai first. The armour is actually sculpted in as authentic a manner as you can when you are dealing with fantasy! It represents a later period suit where solid breastplates had become the norm to try to defeat the rising power of the handgun. Yep, this armour was being worn in the 1600's, while Britain was fighting the civil war with muskets and cannon the Way of Horse and Bow (Bushido) was still king in Japan. I started off the model by giving the whole thing a coat of Boltgun Metal and Black which was further drabbed down with Badab Black. I wanted the metalwork present but to retreat behind the brighter colours of the silk bindings and laquered helmet.

Speaking of bindings, the red was my usual Blood Angels method shortened to: Mechrite Red and Blood Red mix basecoat, Blood Red overbrush, Blazing Orange and Vomit Brown mix highlights. In this case every line of silk in the armour needed to be highlighted individually. For those who don't know, Samurai armour is actually thousands of thick silk cords plaited and woven around steel plates. Silk is so good at slowing cutting edges that it was in the original bulletproof vests. This armour is perfect for resisting the slashing cuts so familiar to wielders of the katana. The plates helped to stop arrows from penetrating. I glazed the red cords in a mix of Red Ink and Glaze Medium and then picked out the yellow contrast threads in Tausept Ochre, a little white added for highlights and a Gryphonne Sepia wash sealed the deal.

Most of the sculpting was nice considering this model comes from the mid-eighties but the katana wasn't quite up to spec. To make this stand out - and to make it look different to a steel katana, thus solving the sculpting problem - I decided to make a jade sword. Jade is a magical stone to the Chinese and I thought I would use it as a Ghost Touch katana (it can hit etheral creatures). This was achieved with a base coat of Vallejo Scurf Green highlighted with increasing amounts of Bleached Bone. Incidently, those are furry boots and they also are perfectly authentic!

Sadly, the ninja sculpt has not weathered the passage of time so well. The arms are awful and a real indicator of just how far GW have come over their thirty years. Most of the painting was actually correcting and minimising the effects of the wonky sculpting so don't expect miracles in the close-ups!

Painting any model like this - ninjas, imperial asassins, policemen - is an exercise in making areas of adjacent black stand out. I discussed this at length in the Hot Fuzz article so I won't go through it all again, suffice to say that used Scorched Brown for the leather breastplate and mask, Adeptus Battlegrey and Charadon Granite for the cloth and then several washes of Badab Black!

With that the Oriental Adventures adventuring party is almost complete! Just the sumo to go and I'm going to try some serious tatooing on that bad boy...

TTFN