wpm #3

Also in this Issue... • World War II British • Saxons • Verdigris

Contents Editorial

I have just finished moving house. This in itself is not very important. However it’s only when you have to pack up and then un-pack when you realise how much stuff you have! As well as taking the opportunity to re-organise all my modelling and painting equipment I have been able to take stock of my “lead mountain” and paw over all those projects I bought but never got around to ever starting. Needless to say I now have plans for many more projects (projects, that is, I had previously forgotten about). So in the future you should be expecting a few painting

guides on 6mm Napoleonics, 28mm Romans, Battlestars and Zombies to name but a few… This issue is larger than previous issues mainly because there has been such a delay getting issue 3 to you, the punters, that I felt obliged to increase the content. We have some lovely 40mm Napoleonics from Brent Watterson as well as work from Andrew Taylor who has stepped in for our regular WWII camouflage article. Right, I’m off to stick some more Centauri spaceships together… Dave Robotham

Editorial & Contents

2

Review: Miniatures by Gary Hunt

3

Painting and Angry Man

4

The World in Black and White

5

Write for WP&M

10

Soldiers of the Peninsular War

11

Saxons

19

Tommies: Painting WWII British Soldiers

24

How I Paint My Centauri

32

Verdigris

42

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Gary Hunt was kind enough to send WP&M a few miniatures for review. We received a Samurai Monk, a Samurai with Naginata and a Zulu Warrior. The Zulu has made a trip over to Ireland and is being painted up for a guide in a future issue. I’ll be looking at the Samurai Monk for this review. All of Gary’s miniatures are 54mm in size (or 1/32nd scale). They come packaged individually and cost around $24 each. He does not produce a huge range of miniatures (indeed making these models is just a sideline for Gary who spent a great deal of time working on the Lord of the Rings films and other projects for Weta). There are a few different historical ranges each with 24 figures available as well as a science fiction range, which rumour has it is being sculpted

in 28mm specifically for wargamers. The monk comes in 4 parts: the base, his katana, his naginata (with hands attached) and the rest of him (head, arms, body and legs). The base is textured and has “Garry Hunt” imprinted on it but can easily be replaced with another or textured over with your own basing material. All the parts of the model come very well cast with minimal amounts of flash and faint mold lines. Assembly is a dream. Due to the almost single piece casting of the model you just need to attach the katana and naginata, both of which fit almost perfectly. Something you don’t often find with weapons that have hands attached, on most models trying to get the hands to match up with wrists can often turn into a nightmare but not here. The anatomy of the figure is very good and

the pose although quite static is passable, you won’t be finding any lamp-post sized weapon shafts in these kits that’s for sure. Although the Samurai Monk is mainly wearing fabrics (there is a small amount of armour showing beneath his outer layers) the detailing on the miniature is still very clean and well cast. If I had one complaint about the Monk it would

be that although there are not much in the way of mold lines some of them were difficult to remove because of all the folds in the fabric. You can see all of Gary’s miniatures (I particularly like the Pacific Islanders, lovely models and not something you see every day) as well as order them at his website. Dave Robotham

This model of the Butcher from Privateer Press is an absolute monster, in both size and prowess on the table. Although a relatively minor part of the figure his face is still incredibly expressive and a good focal point for the piece. To paint the flesh I cheated and used the Privateer Press flesh colours (so it’s almost an official colour scheme). I started the skin with a basecoat of Plaka Red Brown painted over the entire head. I then blocked in the details with P3 Khador Flesh, making sure to leave the darker Red Brown showing in the recesses. Next up, I painted several watered down highlights of P3 Midlund Flesh. The final highlight was made with GW Elf Flesh. Attention was paid to the eyebrows, scar and nose. To finish off the skin I heavily watered down some Plaka Red Brown (with a touch of red added) and painted it into the eye sockets and folds of skin under his eyes. This really helped give the crazed, brooding feel I was aiming for.

I was to be a gamemaster for a pulp roleplaying game, so I ordered a few packs from Copplestone’s excellent gangster range for miniatures to use during combat within

our game. I hadn’t thought about the colours I was going to use, so I checked out a few old gangster movies from my library for inspiration. It took me five minutes of watching

The Maltese Falcon to decide to paint my minis in black and white. What better way to set the tone for a pulp roleplaying game than to display it visually as a 1930s or 40s movie serial.

It worked on another level in that our game took place in a dark city that lacked life or soul; what better way to illustrate that than to deprive this city of its colours.

Once the decision was made, I turned to figuring out how to convert specific colours to a grey scale. I set up a colour scale bar on Photoshop, then converted the image into greyscale to get the specific greys I would need in painting my minis. I used this technique to paint a few test swatches, but

it was taking too long to decide on a colour, check it out on the grey bar on Photoshop and then find or mix the correct gray from my available paints. It was time to go freestyle. In the black and white world, colour was not important. I would suggest trying to paint specific colours into greys only if it is dependent

on the game you are playing. For example, perhaps a scenario in your game requires the Lady in Red. The Trick is... So what is the trick to painting black and white? Truthfully there is no trick. Painting in black and white is just like

painting any other miniature. There are simply fewer colours from which to choose. When I had first started, I dived right in and painted my first gangster within an hour. And then I sat there and looked at him for another hour and thought, “Am I ruining my (expensive) Copplestone gangsters? This fellow looks OK, but he doesn’t look OK sitting on my (rather colourful) workbench.” So I got a small piece of masonite board and painted it up to look like a sidewalk (in greyscale) and a added a grey backdrop. Then I set my painted gangster onto my little piece of urban terrain. Perfect! I simply needed to commit to this black and white idea. Any terrain I used was painted black and white. Any accessories, black and white. All of the vehicles I bought were painted black and white. I even custommade a grey battlemat and

bought grey playing cards for use in the game. My players knew what I was up to and some went so far as to come dressed only in black and white! It wasn’t just black and white painting - It was a full commitment to a black and white world, to a black and white “experience.” So how do you do it? Besides your own technique, there are only three areas to consider: Colour, light and contrast.

made by mixing a little red, yellow, tan or brown into the mix. If there is enough brown mixed in with your greys, they begin to form sepia-tone colours which are good for painting subjects such as Old West or adventures in the desert using the black and white method. I would not mix the cools with the warms. (I have honestly not tried mixing cools and warms, it may have interesting effects, but you’ll have to find out on your own.)

You can base your choice of Colour selection warm or cool based on the Choosing a good palette of movies you watch or based on greys is important, but no one the paints you have available. palette is the right one or the I used Reaper Pro Paints since wrong one. What is important they had a relatively good is keeping the greys analogous. number of cool greys. The Either a palette of cool greys colours I chose were, in order or warm greys will work. Cool from darkest to lightest, Dragon greys are those with a neutral Black, Armor Grey, Ash Grey, (straight mix of black and white) Granite, Dove Grey and Dragon or blue (or even green) base. White. I also mixed a custom Citadel Colours’ Spacewolves grey to fill a shade “jump” Grey is an excellent example between Ash Grey and Granite. of a cool grey. Warm greys are

Light source and effects The easiest is simply to place your imaginary light source above your miniatures when deciding where to paint shades and highlights. But try different light directions. Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster look more dramatic when their

faces are lit from below. If you need to figure out where to put shades and highlights with the more radical light sources, try looking through books on how to draw comics. They are good sources of pictures of faces with different light directions and effects. Also

in darkness, the only light source being the burning ember of a cigarette. In the example (left), our gangster’s face is bathed in sunlight, but his eyes have not been highlighted to represent the harsh shadow a bright sun would have on someone’s face.

pay attention to the movies. Where do they place their lights? How bright are their lights? Is a actor entirely lit up by light, or is the light focused onto one area of the actor? Sometimes a face is entirely bathed

Contrast As is true in colour painting, so goes for grey: maintain a wellbalanced contrast. When painting a mini, try using an equal number of greys closer to the black end of your greyscale palette as you use toward the white end. If you use the three greys in the centre of your scale to paint an entire miniature, it will look washed out, and the details won’t be as prominent. Again, this is personal taste. Some movies have not been restored very well, and have that “washed out” effect where all the greys seem to fade into one another. Perhaps this is the effect you want to achieve. I have intentionally painted my citizens using the same three greys for almost the whole figure. This gives a low-contrast

model. I did this because I wanted the eyes to focus on the gangsters and not the bystanders during the game. Now look at the street tough (below) and you’ll see grey, low-contrast pants. But he

wears a dark vest with a white shirt, a high-contrast combination which is visually interesting and attractive to the eye. You could also contrast a dark tommy gun with a white suit as is shown with the tommy gunner (left). Even the tommy gun itself is edged with a little white along the barrel and around the drum magazine to showcase its familiar shape. Contrast should be considered even within each specific colour. The transition between the shaded and lighted sides of a colour depend on the material and the colour. Finer material may have a more prominent highlight while thick weaves look more washed out. Raw wool has a very subtle fade from black to a grey highlight, but suits woven from fine threads will

sometimes have brighter and more dramatic transitions from shade to highlight. Wrinkles on a fine suit should, for example, be more prominent than say those on a pair of wool pants. That’s it? Well, those are the only guidelines I set for myself for painting my gangsters. Really, the best lesson you can undertake is to watch a few black and white movies and use your own interpretation of what you see. If you’re not interested in painting an entire black and white world, try it as a tool in your colour painting. Painting a miniature in black and white helps “reset” what your eyes see. Painting a couple of miniatures in black and white then going back to colour painting is like having a glass of water to clear your palette before trying a new wine. Give it a try!

WP&M is always on the look out for articles and ideas we can use in the magazine, adding to the plethora of content we have already been sent and are generating ourselves. We are looking for anything painting and modelling related, be that a stage by stage painting guide, a discussion of the latest glazing techniques or an article discussing your first tentative steps into the world of figure painting and modelling. Firstly and most importantly I will say this…. We want to cover every aspect of the

modelling and painting hobby by providing a platform for everyone to share their tips and experiences, not just the ‘big name’ painters and modellers. So if you have something interesting and informative to say we will always be interested... Download our writers guidelines take a look through them and then get in touch. E-mail us with your ideas and we can work towards getting your articles into the magazine.

By Brent Watterson Brent Watterson operates a painting service out of New Zealand and is famous throughout the industry for his ability to create jaw droppingly beautiful armoured vehicles. I can safely say without fear of being accused of hyperbole that Brent is one of, if not the best painters out there when it comes to painting up and weathering armour of all kinds. And as he shows in this article he’s quite the painter when it comes to tackling other projects...

My Basic Techniques Throughout this article I will be explaining the colours I used to paint these miniatures along with how I have painted them. To avoid repeating myself I shall describe the basic techniques I use over the next page or so…

First things first… After cleaning up the figure with a knife and various files, I assembled it and filled any gaps with “green stuff” from Games Workshop (GW). Instead of a heavy black or white undercoat most painters would use, I like to start with a watered down coat of black paint, just enough to help pick

out the details but without creating a heavy covering of paint. All the colours I use are GW acrylics. I use these paints purely because they are easily available and despite what some people would have you believe, they are good quality. Washes: When I write about using a wash on a figure I have used a technique that can also be called a “pin wash”. Instead of slapping the wash all over the miniature a “pin wash” is far more accurate. Using a fine brush and thinned down colours I apply the wash around any jacket or clothing seams, into folds and around equipment straps.

It’s not a general wash applied to the whole surface, the base colour should be showing through on the raised areas. Sometimes to build an even deeper shadow I will also go back over and do a second “pin wash” painting a darker wash into the deep folds and recesses. Filters: Also known as glazing, I apply a filter to an area after I have highlighted it to help tone down the highlights and help blend them together. Filters of different colours can also be used to subtly alter the tones and shades of a model or to tie a colour scheme together. Filters or glazes usually have to be very thinned down, sometimes to the point where the paint is incredibly transparent. I will often use a very thinned mix of the base colour or similar coloured ink for my filters. Highlighting: Although I highlight in a manner that might well be called the “layering” style akin to painters such as Steve Dean, Tome Weis and Andrew Taylor, my final results look different enough that a little explanation might be needed… I will start with a dark colour and paint layers of progressively lighter colours onto the raised areas (straight forward

so far…). However I use very watered down paint that is quite transparent and I will often paint each “highlight” 2-3 times to build up a proper opaque colour. The bonus of using so many layers of diluted colour is that you can get a much better gradient from dark through to light avoiding the really “gaudy” jumps in colour some people are not keen on. And on these wonderful 40mm Perry figures you need to try and keep the paint work subtle.

Red Jackets and Turnbacks 1. I start with a basecoat of Scab Red.

2. After the basecoat I paint the entire jacket Blood Red. The first layer of Scab Red was purely to help build up a solid red colour over the undercoat. 3. I apply a wash of watered down Chestnut Ink. 4 & 5. I then start building up the highlights starting with another layer of Blood Red and then add small amounts of GW Bleached Bone to that for some final highlights.

Skin

1. I start with a basecoat of Dwarf Flesh. 2. To start the highlights I add some Elf Flesh to the Dwarf Flesh. 3. I finish with a final highlight of Elf Flesh. 4. To tone the highlighting down I then apply a heavily watered down filter using Chestnut Ink mixed with a little Dwarf Flesh. A note on eyes: I don’t paint eyes on most of my figures as I find that it doesn’t really detract too much from the overall finish where as badly painted eyes will always stand out and detract from the rest of the model.

White Trousers and Turnbacks

1. Any white areas are painted last. I start with a basecoat of Skull White. 2. I then apply a series of washes. I start with a brown wash. This wash is very thinned and is almost like a filter. 3. A second wash of grey is painted onto the model. 4. I apply some final highlights using Skull White along the edges and raised areas. 5. I finish the white off with a thin filter of Skull White across the whole surface.

Hats Boots and Belts...

1. I start with a basecoat of Chaos Black. 2. I add a variety if flesh colours to highlight the black. I will usually apply two highlights using very watered down paint. 3. Finally, to tone down the highlights and paint a filter of thinned Chaos Black over the entire surface.

Blue Jackets and Trousers

1. For French Officer’s and the British Hussar’s jackets I start with a basecoat of Regal Blue. 2. I then apply a wash of thinned Chaos Black, paying particular attention to the deep recesses and folds. 3. I start highlighting with Ultramarine Blue. 4. Next I highlight the blue with a 50/50 mix of Enchanted Blue and Ultramarine Blue. 5. I then apply some final highlights with Enchanted Blue. 6. To finish off the blue I then apply a filter of thinned Blue Ink.

Weathering...

You will have noticed that Brent’s models are also sporting a layer of dust. On figures of this scale you can really go to town with things like weathering and hyper detailing. Brent uses his own powders made by crushing up old dried up enamel paints. Although the same effect can be obtained with commercially available weathering powders. A good tip is to make sure you also dust the base as well as the boots and trousers, just to tie the figure to the base and make it look like it belongs...

Gold / Gilt

1. I start with a basecoat of Mithril Silver. The silver colours cover much better than the Golden ones so I start with Mithril. 2. I then apply a coat of Burnished Gold. 3. I wash the model with a very, very thin wash of Chaos Black followed by a wash of Chestnut Ink. 4. I then re-apply a highlight of Burnished Gold. 5. I finish off the Gold with some final sharp highlights of Mithril Silver.

Steel and Metals

1. I use a basecoat of Chainmail. 2. This is followed by a wash of Chaos Black. 3. It is finished off with a highlight of Mithril Silver.

Horse

1. I start with a basecoat of Bestial Brown. 2. I then paint a very heavy wash of Chaos Black into the recesses. 3. I then drybrush the surface back up to Bestial Brown. I drybrush using a stippling motion to give more hairlike surface. 4. I then start drybrushing/stippling the highlights onto the figure. I start by adding Bleached Bone to Bestial Brown in increasing amounts until the final light highlight is pure Bleached Bone. 5. The Horse looks very bright at this stage so to bring all the colours back in line I apply a rather heavy Filter of Chestnut Ink. When painting several horses at once I will vary the colour used for this filter to make each horse slightly different. Muzzle: The Horses Muzzle was basecoated with a mix of Dwarf Flesh and Codex Grey. Some white was added as a highlight. Socks and Blaze: Any white patches are painted on to the horse in several thinned layers after step 4 ready to be painted with the filter in step 5.

Hussar’s Trousers

1. The base colour of the trousers is Codex Grey 2. I then give the trousers a dark wash, this might be black or dark brown. I will often mix up the colours to give variety to the troopers. 3. I then re-apply my base colour to help neaten up the wash and make the surface ready for the highlights. 4. I highlight the Codex Grey with Fortress Grey. 5. Finally I apply a filter of watered down Codex Grey. The leather parts of the trousers and saddle are painted first with Dark Flesh, then given a Chestnut Ink wash and finally highlight back with Dark Flesh.

Yellow Stripes and Decoration

1. I start by painting all the yellow ares white. Then I basecoat them with Golden Yellow. 2. I apply a careful wash of Chestnut Ink. 3. I then re-apply the base colour. 4. I add some final highlights by adding white to Golden Yellow.

care on this. I also find that having the face done brings the figure to life and this really helps drive me to finish the models. First up are a few Gedriht, or experienced bodyguard warriors. I usually try to use brighter colours on the leaders and these

By Eric Bonsell Recently I have been painting a horde of various Dark Age troops, the most recent of which were some Musketeer Miniatures early Saxons. I thought I’d put together a quick article about the colours I used on them.

figure preparation to remove any flash or mould lines I painted the figures a matt black.

These were done as a commission and the customer requested that they were all given large shields rather than bucklers, so I suppose that they could be classified as mid period or late Saxons.

The first thing I paint on to all the miniatures is the silver. I drybrushed any metalwork with GW Chainmail. This tends to be messy and the silver colour gets everywhere, which is why I do it first of all. Sometimes I tidy up the black areas but if I am in a hurry it’s not a huge problem to leave it.

I use a layering technique (a base colour with 1-2 simple highlights of solid colour) to paint figures. This gives a good result for gaming figures in a reasonable time. I work over a black undercoat as I find that helps speed things up (although some people will not like the deep shadows a black undercoat often gives). After the initial

These days I tend to paint the eyes first, then flesh. Partly this is because it is the part of the figure that requires most care and takes me the longest. I find that a good detailed face can make or break a figure, and most of the bestknown painters seem to take extra

guards as I suspect that they would have the pick of the booty when raiding and be able to have richer (and probably cleaner) attire. I tend to make the lower class troops more dull and drab.

painted with Foundry Bone Yard and the leather section of his helmet were painted with GW Snakebite Leather. His footwear was painted using Foundry Canvas (but with only the tiniest hint of the highlight C colour).

Whenever I reference a Foundry colour, more often than not I will have used all three shades but I’ll let you know if I changed things up...

Figure number three (pictured left on the next page) has a red tunic, which I wanted to be really bright. This was Plaka Signal Red, darkened with purple for shade. The highlight was a mix of Plaka Signal Red and Plaka Orange. I have only recently started playing with Plaka paint, as I find it difficult to get hold of.

For the first chap (pictured on the previous page) I used Foundry Arctic Grey for his tunic. For his trousers I used Foundry Bone Yard. His cloak was GW Blood Red, darkened by adding some purple and brown for the shaded areas, highlighting by adding some GW Bleached Bone. His beard and hair are Foundry Chestnut. I used a mid green to add a coloured stripe to his tunic sleeves. The shield design is a “Little Big Men” transfer. They are an excellent product for adding detail. They fit on the flat surface of the shield, which has previously been painted white. I then tried to colour match the edge of the design where it laps over the shield edges using Colour Party Red Leather, again highlighted by adding some GW Bleached Bone.

Plaka is a very pigment-rich paint, which dries with a really matt finish and it mixes well with all the acrylic paints I use. Obviously mixing colours can be very time consuming compared to simply opening a pot of the desired colour but it can also be very rewarding. The second figure (above) has Foundry Storm Blue trousers and his tunic was painted with Foundry Deep Maroon. His shield was painted white, then a black “quarter” pattern added, with some lighter grey highlights on the edges. His beard was

The trousers were painted with Foundry Arctic Grey and his beard and hair were painted Foundry Chestnut, and the shield is another stunning transfer from Little Big Men.

too bright, or too “washed out”. His leggings are Vallejo Russian Green 894 highlighted by mixing with Plaka Grey, which gave a nondescript grey/ green colour. For the binding on his shins I used a base colour if GW Blood Red mixed with Black. This was then highlighted by adding Blood Red back into the mix. His hair and beard were painted with Foundry Bone Yard. The rim of the shield was painted to match the LBM transfer. I used Foundry Canvas for the beige quarters and a touch of mid-grey added to black for the others. The lower class warriors I tend to paint with The second model more drab colours, since I expect that they would have less access to new, bright, clean (pictured left on the next page) has a Tunic cloth. painted with Foundry Raw Linen. When The first of them (pictured right) has a painting this series of duller red tunic, which is Foundry Madder colours I mixed a couple Red. I like this colour for a “natural dye” red colour. It has a good tone without being of intermediary stages

to stop the highlights looking so harsh. His trousers were painted with Foundry Granite, a lovely grey/brown colour. The bowl of his helmet is Leather. This was GW Snakebite Leather, highlighted by mixing with GW Bleached Bone, although any leather colour would suffice. Again his shield is an LBM transfer. I matched the yellow edges on the shield with Foundry

Ochre, and the red with an old Humbrol red/ brown colour (although I cannot remember the exact colour). When it came to matching colours to the shields it was more or less a case of trial and error... Lastly is a Saxon Ceorl (pictured right). I

really liked the character of this figure’s sculpting so I wanted him to look like a fairly grizzled warrior. His Tunic is Foundry Bone Yard, and leggings are Foundry Storm Green. His cloak is Foundry Orange. For his beard I used Foundry Granite with an extra highlight at the end by adding white. His pouch is Foundry Deep Brown Leather. The shield is a transfer again, with the shield edges painted with P3 Gun Corps Brown (just to ensure that the entire figure wasn’t painted with Foundry paints). Although this colour was close it didn’t quite match the brown on the transfer so I painted a few highlights of very thinned P3 Beast Hide on the shield’s flat surface and an extra highlight on the edge of P3 Jack Bone to bring all the colour together. I use a layer of a gloss varnish for toughness, then multiple coats of a matt varnish as I prefer the matt appearance. I prefer Humbrol varnishes but do use many others. The figures are mounted on 20mm square

Plasticard bases, cut precisely to size with a shaky hand. I use PVA glue to fix on some Sharp Sand bought from a local garden centre or DIY

I use Foundry Spearshaft, although I will often make the shade colour a touch darker or the highlight colour a touch lighter for some variation. For the flesh (found once you fight your way through all the beard) I used Foundry Flesh.

store since it’s much cheaper than small bags of basing sand. I then paint it with a very thinned down coat of Foundry Base Sand deep colour. This soaks into the sand and seems to help bind it all together a bit.

of the darker colours from the sand itself show though a bit. Once dry I highlight it with the highlight layer. For bases I generally don’t use the mid tone. I then glue small clumps of static grass to the base in patches.

Since it is very dilute it is easy to apply, but also some

All the spears and other wooden areas (shield backs)

(We were able to grab these last two pictures just before publication so sadly they are not featured in the article. But we wanted to squeeze them in at the end because they are Grand... Ed)

Andrew Taylor is the very talented painter behind Ares Painting. When he started posting pictures of these Commandos and SAS online I contacted him straight away as I knew thousands of people would sell their grandmothers just to find out how he paints his Denison Smocks and Battledress or just how he achieves the right shade of Maroon...

Denison Smocks

1 & 2. I start with a base colour mix of three Vallejo Game Colour (VGC) paints. I mix Desert Yellow 50/50 with Camo Green and then I darken that with a Dark Green. I will vary the Dark Green used to add variety to the Smocks. I then highlight that base colour with the original 50/50 mix of Desert Yellow and Camo Green. 3 & 4. I then paint the green patches. I basecoat them VMC Military Green and then add VGC Camo Green for a highlight. The trick is to keep the pattern random and make sure you never continue a pattern over a seam. 5&6. Next up I paint the brown swathes. I basecoat all my brown patches with Vallejo Model Colour (VMC) Flat Brown. I add a little Orange (again various colours for variety) for the highlight. . And Finally... I shade the entire smock with a Black/ brown pin wash carefully painted into the deep recesses around any folds, pockets of stitching. A final highlight of very thinned GW Bleached Bone is then applied to some of the most sharp edges.

The Maroon Beret

1. The Famous Maroon Beret... For my basecoat I use a mix of VGC Scar Red and a dark blue. I vary the dark blue used for variety (some berets would have been new, others old and worn). 2. I then highlight the base colour with pure VMC Scar Red.

Helmets and Scrim

3. For the Helmets I paint a base colour of VMC Reflective Green. 4. I drybrush a mix of VGC Desert Yellow and VMC Reflective Green over the helmet. The scrim is painted using the Foundry Colours “Rawhide A, B & C”.

Webbing

5. To paint blanco’d webbing I start with a basecoat that is a 50/50 mix of VGC Camo Green and Olive Green. 6. To highlight it I add VMC Khaki Grey. If I am painting webbing that has not been blanco’d I use the Foundry Rawhide triad.

Battle Dress

1. As a basecoat for any British troops wearing their WWII battledress I start with a basecoat that is a mix of VMC English Uniform and black. 2. I then highlight that with just VMC English Uniform. 3. The final highlights are made by adding VMC Desert Yellow with very light highlights added around the edges of sleeves, pockets and collars. Variations: To make sure I have a nice mix of uniforms (the brand-new look all the way through to the worn-out look) I will often mix a little green or brown into my colours.

Flesh

1. I basecoat the flesh with VGC Tan. 2. I highlight that with VGC Dwarf Flesh. 3. With a final highlight if VGC Elf Flesh. To paint the 5 o’clock shadow I mix small amounts of dark brown into my flesh colours as I paint the jaw and chin.

Equipment

2. The next layer is just VMC Reflective Green

1. Any painted surfaces like PIAT’s and MMG’s are painted 3. A final sharp highlight is with a base colour mix of VMC Reflective Green mixed painted with a mix of VGC Desert Yellow and VMC Black. Reflective Green.

The Green Beret

The Commando’s berets were painted with a mix of VGC Dark Green highlighted by adding VGC Sick Green.

Variety was added to the mix by dulling the colour VMC Military Green. I varied the base colour and the highlights for variety across my Platoon.

All of the miniatures featured in this article are produced by Artizan Designs and are part of their World War II range and Thrilling Tales range.

What about the smaller Scales... Painting Denison in 10mm is slightly easier as this page shows...

1. Base colours

These next couple of pages are part of a much larger article that was printed in Issue 4 & 5 of Battlegames Magazine and the content is used here with their permission. The miniatures used are from the Pendraken WWII range.

2. Camouflage colours added 3. Highlights added and base finished.

I have painted several fleets for Babylon 5... Minbari, Earth Alliance and Shadows but it is the Centauri that I have stuck with and painted a rather sizable fleet (in fact I am still adding miniatures to it). In the Centauri fleet I found models that I liked (important), a colour scheme I liked (also important) and a colour scheme that was relatively easy to paint (VERY important...) Purple and Gold can very easily turn into a rather gaudy colour combo so I knew from the off that I wanted to keep the finish subdued. To this end I decided to heavily shade the miniatures with Black as well as introducing a

third colour (silver) to balance out the other two. In the beginning my idea for the fleet was that it consisted of two separate “families” and I started with two colour schemes. One a dark purple the other rather more pinky. I very quickly realised that I preferred the darker purple scheme so over time I will phase out the pink ships from the fleet and replace them

with new paint jobs. For this guide I have taken stage by stage pictures as I painted my Octurion Battleship, the flagship of my Fleet. I have also provided brief details of how I painted the more pinky colour scheme.

Foundry Deep Mauve A

1. After a Black Undercoat (I just use GW Chaos Black Spray) I start the miniature by painting GW’s Boltgun Metal onto the areas of the ship I want to be bare metal. The smaller ships I just paint entirely Boltgun Metal. 2. Next I paint all the purple areas. I start with a basecoat of Foundry Deep Maroon A.

GW Tin Bitz

GW Boltgun Metal

3. Anything that is going to be gold I then basecoated with GW Tin Bitz.

GW Brazen Brass

4. After the basecoat colours are applied I then move onto highlighting the Gold. I paint a layer of GW’s Brazen Brass leaving Tin Bitz showing only in recesses of the panelling and details.

P3 Rhulic Gold

5. The next highlight is what will form the main colour of the Gold. I used P3’s Rhulic Gold. The P3 gold gives a good coverage with a very smooth finish, even if it does need a good shake or mix before use.

GW Burnished Gold

Foundry Burning Gold 44C

6. To finish the gold off and really give it some depth I highlight the edges of the details and panelling with GW Burnished Gold. On the bigger ships I also apply a final highlight of Foundry’s Burning Gold 44C. This colour is a pale gold with an ever so slight green tint.

Foundry Deep Mauve C

7. After the Gold is highlighted I begin the purple hull sections. The first highlight is watered down Foundry Deep Mauve C painted in broad stripes around the panel lines. The paint should be heavily watered down to give you a good transparent colour that is subtle.

Foundry Deep Mauve C Mixed 50/50 with Ivory

8. For the third and final colour on the purple I mix an ivory colour (GW Bleached Bone or P3 Menoth White Highlight. This time I make sure my highlights are much more fine, really helping to define all the details. However the ship still looks bland after these highlights so it is time to pay some attention to the shadows.

Black Wash

8. It is this final step that brings the whole colour scheme together. The black shading is what really gives depth to the finished models. I heavily water down some black paint and over 3-4 layers I paint it into the recesses. This is done over

GW Mithril Silver

the entire model and is the only time I do any extra work on the Silver areas of the ships.

deep shadows.

I also applied some fine highlights of GW Mithril Silver to the silver hull Remember when doing this to keep the areas of the Octurion Battleship (the paint very thin and apply plenty only time I have highlighted the of layers, carefully working silver on any of my Centauri them into the really models).

2. The basecoat for the more pink colour scheme is P3 Sanguine Base. 3. To start the highlighting I paint several watered down highlights of P3 Sanguine Highlight. 4. For a final sharp highlight I add a touch of GW’s Bleached Bone to Sanguine Highlight. 5. The gold is painted the same as the previous colour scheme. I start with a basecoat of Tin Bitz. 6. Then a highlight of Brazen Brass. 7. A highlight of P3 Rhulic Gold. 8. I finish off the gold with some final highlights of Burnished Gold.

1. Just as before I start with a black undercoat and then paint on the GW Boltgun Metal. Because you will almost never see the underneath of these miniatures I pay little attention to them after painting them the base colours.

9. And the final step that brings the whole colour scheme together is the black shading at the end. Remember when doing this to keep the paint very thin and apply more than one layer. Carefully building up the really dark shadows.

The fleet is assembled... Currently my Centauri fleet contains a mix of models from Mongoose Publishing’s “A Call to Arms” range as well as Agents of Gaming’s now out-of-production “Fleet Action” models.

When it comes to painting and modeling, it’s often the little touches of creativity that can really make a piece stand out. A great looking game layout is all the more enjoyable to play on and can make the experience that much more engaging. A little unexpected touch of style can make your figure jump out from the crowd. Verdigris is one of those techniques I think

every painter ought to have in their bag of tricks for just those reasons. It may not be one you’ll use all the time, but when you have the call for it, I think you’ll be glad that you can deliver. As with most painting techniques, it helps to have a good idea of what you’re trying to represent when you set out to figure out

how to do it. Verdigris is the common name for the chemical compounds formed when copper, brass, or bronze are exposed to air, water, and other trace elements therein, resulting in copper acetate [Cu2(OAc)4 ], copper chloride [CuCl2], and copper carbonate [ CuCO3]. It is the blue-green you see on an old oxidized penny, old wiring, and old statues in the park. The

name in fact comes from the Old French ‘vertegrez’, or ‘the green of Greece’, due to the preponderance of the substance on ancient Greek artifacts. Although it is most commonly seen in variations of blue-green, depending on the chemicals which have been present it can in fact vary quite a bit from dark blues to bright greens and even yellows and white at various stages of exposure. In this article I’ll demonstrate a couple of recipes and techniques that are quite easy to get the hang of and can be used to great effect. I’m no expert on the technique, but I have spent some time working with it, so hopefully my groundwork will be a helpful base for taking off and running with it in your own projects. For these examples I’m using some old Reiksguard Knights from Citadel. They are a good choice to use as statues, and they offer quite a bit of topographic variety so you can see how the effect works on various surfaces. All three are primed black to start. The first two examples will both begin with bronze. My metals start with TinBitz (GW), Burnished Bronze (VMC) and a little Burnished Brass(GW) to brighten them up. That just happens to be a recipe I enjoy

for a bronze that is both rich and bright, whatever your favorite starting place for these metals is will be fine.

1. Verdigris in a bottle There are various bottled formulas out there from a variety of manufacturers for all sorts of effects, including verdigris. I’ve chosen Verdigris Glaze (VMC932) for this as I’m sure the brand is familiar to most readers given the audience of WPM. The first thing to mention about Vallejo’s verdigris is that it is a glaze - not in the thin almost ink-wash sense that painters generally use for that term, but in the sense of a glazed doughnut. It has a thick consistency and milky complexion out of the bottle. You’ll want to water it down on

your palette so you can get it where you want it. Unless you’re doing a piece where the oxidation has taken over everywhere, this is going to be in cracks and crevices where water might pool, and on surfaces bounded by lips and edges where moisture may be held on by surface tension. Although it is a light blue color at first, this can be deceiving. As you apply the glaze, especially thinned to a usable consistency, you will see that it dries in a more chalky white shade.

With only one application you get this:

to control. As you can see, the result is a little less than stunning. I’ve seen other tutorials where people make moderately good use of this product, but to really finish it, they almost always end up with normal pigments. This last image (right), having been painted with several layers of the glaze, taken under proper lighting, is about as good as it gets in my experience: Hopefully this will save you from bothering with additional products you don’t need when you already probably have what you need to make the same thing, only much better.

There is not much to see at this point. There are two approaches with Vallejo’s glaze. Lots of thin coats, or fewer thicker ones. You certainly get more noticeable results if you glob it on there, but it’s harder

Using various ratios of the blue and green gets you a variety of finished looks. I find 2. The Home Brew For this method you need a good teal green, that the blue color tends to give you the and a turquoise, and white. I used Turquoise most body and coverage whereas more green in the mix tends to make the effect (VMC 966) and Emerald (VMC838). You ‘pop’ more, so I tend to start with a bluer can achieve similar results with Electric mixture and move the mix in favor of the Blue (VGC 23) and Jade Green (VGC 26). greens as I work up the effect.

To start with you once again want to hit at least the cracks and crevices with a good wash. This one is about 65/35 in favour of the turquoise, and I’m painting more nooks and crannies on one side, while hitting the larger surfaces on the other for comparison (see picture below). I then paint a few more coats to build up the wash. As I progress not only do I hit

smaller areas, and shift the colour a little more toward the Emerald, I also don’t thin the wash quite as much, so you start getting more opaque coverage once you have the tinting down where you want it (see picture below).

Verdigris frequently happens in localized bursts. A pock mark or scratch or surface artifact may be the first place the reaction starts to occur, so playing to that organic looking development helps the effect look realistic.

Once you are happy with the locations of your oxidation, you should stop washing, and start a more painterly technique.

Remember you’re representing a process that the metal is undergoing. Some places will be farther along than others at any

given time. You can vary the effect here by adding a bit more white as you go to brighten the colour if you want a more intense verdigris. As you can see in the picture (previous page on the right) I’ve started to use a heavier hand to get mottled splotches, and

I’ve also added some linear drippy bits to echo surface irregularities that may be channeling rainwater over time. Now it’s time to really start adding in white and get some highlighting going. At this point you’re trying to both replicate the chemical patina, and to represent the object in 3D, so you should hit the edges of the more opaquely coloured areas with more white in the mix, and the centers of linear or circular splotches and drips (picture on the far left). Now that you have a really solid and intense light blue verdigris, it’s time to bring the green back in a few places to really make things pop out. Here, I’m back to a slightly thinner and more

Emerald heavy mix. Just enough to tint over the few the places that I hit with the white, and leaving some nice green splotches over some of the blues The last step (below) is to bring selected parts back down a notch and give the whole thing a bit of weathering. Objects with verdigris are almost always old and weather-beaten and a realistic piece will reflect this. A little thinned down TinBitz, or brown inks, can work well for this. At this stage I used thinned black to do some mottling, which gives some good suggestion of tarnish, grime, and shadows, and then applied a somewhat liberal washing of Smoke (VMC939) in many of the crevices.

Here are a couple of different angles of the finished statue under proper lighting...

3. Home Brew II

My third example was created with the home brew method discussed above, but over copper instead of Bronze. This is another Reiksguard Knight, primed black, and given his initial metallic finish with Coppery Orange (Reaper Master Series) over a base of Hammered Copper (VGC59) Start as before with a couple of washes of the Emerald & Turquoise mix (below)

The process is going to be the same basic recipe as before, but I include in the in-progress shots along the way in the hope that it might be of some use to see how I’ve built up the colours. At this point (right) the base washes have given a good foundation, and now I’m working at really building up the colour. It’s at this stage that you want to decide if you want to go more blue or green and work accordingly. I’m going to get a lot of bright oxidation on this one, drifting into brighter greens at the end, so I’m using a lot of Emerald and White, and bit less blue than on the bronze statue. Once the base colours are nice and built up, it’s time to move on to highlighting. Again, it helps to work with the shape of the miniature and to keep in mind where, on an exposed statue, there might be oxidation. Pick some areas

and work them up with lighter mottling and spotting, drips, and attention to 3 dimensional lighting where appropriate. From this point on it is worth mentioning that a selectively heavier hand can help the overall effect. We’re generally conditioned to not want to obscure detail or have the paint we apply show visible layering. If you take a look at a variety of examples of corroding metal, you’ll see that the process of oxidation can have very physical effects - pitting, powdering, flaking, etc, not solely a change in colour, so getting a little thick here and there can be a good thing. Since I’m doing this example (centre) more into the green range, the highlights on the greener areas are with made with a mixture of Emerald, White, and Sunblast Yellow (VGC6), and follow the same pattern of hitting increasingly smaller areas, using little spots and a slightly thicker application in parts to suggest the powdering and crumbling at the most active areas of the process.

Lastly, I’ve gone back to tame things down again and add some age, tarnish, and rot with black stippling and some Smoke. This is another time where your timehoned techniques can successfully be abandoned - letting the washes pool a little bit can have a very effective result in suggesting different areas of the metal at varying stages of decay. On the next page you can see the final result with shading and proper lighting. After a little practice you may find you like the technique and you’ve got some great blue-green recipes going, but you find the process too time consuming. One way to take few steps out, is to return to the beginning of this article, and the Verdigris Glaze I derided as not very impressive. Its milky white consistency actually works very well for laying down a quick opaque base where you want it, which you can then start applying the heavier colour layers

on without using your pigments for as much washing. I don’t find the effect vastly different, just a touch weaker; you have to work a little harder to get a really intense bright verdigris with the glaze as a base.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, this is sort of a niche technique, not something you’re likely to use too often. It can really give life and a unique touch of realism to your projects in the right place. Statues, gargoyles, and sculptural elements are a great place to use it for a quick bit of gaming terrain. You can find many places to try it out in Victorian SciFi & Steampunk settings on boilers, rivets, giant robots, and what not. Many mechanical devices and industrial fittings can benefit from a bit of cultivated neglect - cleats and hardware on a decrepit pirate ship; sextants, astrolabes, spyglasses and associated scientific minutiae in the lab of a mad scientist or hermitic mystic, etc.

And what RPG dungeon crawl would be complete with out a set of dubious aging kit lying around? Is it magical? Is it cursed? Pick it up and find out!

Hopefully the above examples and recipes will help you to flesh out your own projects, or possibly inspire you to tackle some new ones. Thanks to WPM for the space to share my experiences with this technique.

Visit Nathan’s website “Madponies” for more example of his fantastic painting...