A Week In Miniatures: July 25th to July 31st

I admit to being a bit late in getting this post written.  I also admit I was late in writing this because I was working on models.

I am finally getting off my butt and painting more Age of Sigmar stuff, as readers may have noted last week.  I've been enjoying that game more than 40k lately, which fuels my enthusiasm for getting these models done.

But they're not my Stormcast Eternals, because the Stormcasts require about 6 hours for just a single model for me to complete.  There's a lot to do with them and I really want to make them look spectacular.  So I've been growing a forest of angry trees; Sylvaneth specifically.  Not sure what drew me to them, but they're very nifty looking.  So far I've accumulated a Spirit of Durthu, a Treelord, forty Dryads, a Branchwych, four Branchwraiths, five Tree-Revenants, three Kurnoth Hunters, and Drycha Hamadreth.  Why haven't I bought Alarielle?  Well, she's $130, that's why. 

According to the General's Handbook, that is 2100 points in a Pitched Battle game.  Maybe I ought to add an elf wizard and call it The Lorax.

Angry Trees

Fortunately they're fairly simple to paint.  Basically I basecoat them, add a wash of Citadel Agrax Earthshade, and then add the glowing bits and ashy surface.  The plan is to get some Woodland Scenics Burnt/Dried static grass to put on the bases for a bit of visual texture.  I'm pretty happy with how the glowing ember effect came out as well.

The trees are burning.

The glowing areas were first colored in using a watered-down white paint, then washed with Citadel Bloodletter.  Then the areas around the burny embers were carefully layered with Citadel Stormvermin Fur, and cautiously drybrushed with Citadel Administratum Grey.  The effect is pretty eerily close to actual embers IMHO.

Anyway, I have 28 more dryads to paint, which will be done in an assembly-line fashion.  Get the base colored in, then the model.  The base is textured with just plain old sand.  Since the colors involve a drybrush and a wash, it's best if I complete all those first.

There will be some variations on the colors though, as I also kitbashed together some Branchwraiths out of Dryad and Spite-Revenant parts.  They're not immediately visually distinct from the Dryads, so I am tempted to paint them as if they are either mostly ashes and embers or as if they have new growth in addition to the charred look.  Either way, they do need some kind of visual cue to distinguish them from the ordinary dryads.

A Kurnoth Hunter with bow

Another variation will be found in the Kurnoth Hunters and Tree-Revenants.  In the case of the Kurnoth Hunters, they need some additional variation in all the vines that cover them.  There's way too much dark brown on them presently and it looks a bit boring to me.  The Tree-Revenants will basically look like a fusion of wood elf and dryad, instead of the more spirit-form the official paint scheme has.  In either case, weapons will be a kind of silvery-blue to offset all the dark earthy tones being used.