25/28mm Armorcast Terraform Terrain - Bone Piles

Had these for ages and thought I'd try out Citadel Contrast paints here. You guessed it: Skeleton Horde was the color.

These were of course primed with Wraithbone. I did half at a time so I had something to hold on to and was immediately thrilled. Almost perfect without any further attention.

I decided to do some dry brushing over the lot anyways since it looked a tad too uniform. I used the Citadel Wraithbone brush on first followed by a cream and then finished off with an off white.

I thought about staining some in red as if they were new, but decided against it for these core pieces.

Those are Dwarven Forge Cavern pieces in the background.

Lovely pieces in only a few minutes. My productivity, you may have noticed, has gone through the roof!

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28mm Reaper - Phantom

This is one of the last entries in my Ethereal Creatures experiments. This one had such a nice texture on the material that I wanted to see how Contrast Templar Black would look over Wraithbone instead of Gray Seer as nearly all the others were done. Came out great I think.

Basilicanum Gray over the flesh and I dropped in some pale white eyes that are a tad hard to discern here.

 I have a number of other things near finished using many of the Contrast browns that will be up shortly.

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28mm Reaper - Angels of Sorrow

Nice "Doctor Who" inspired models from Reaper. One coat of Citadel Contrast Basilicanum Gray over Wraithbone provided much of the work here.

I added a green wash and stippled in some lighter green for mossy effects near the base. Then the whole thing was given a light drybrush with the Wraithbone  brush on and then an off white.

I've experimented with this basing before trying to get a deep green grass and am not liking the unnatural results here. The grass I'm using is from the last century and I'm much happier with current offerings. (The grass sheet from Walmart underneath them is pretty good too.)

I'm adding a new category with this entry: Graveyards & Cemeteries. i have tone of graves and crypts anf the like that can be done quite quickly with Contrast. Nice low hanging fruit.

Here's what they would look like if I had just done the Basilicanum over the Wraithbone with no additional work. Perfectly fine honestly.

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25mm West Wind - Lucifer's Wars - Incubi

Citadel's contrast paints have me digging around for miniatures that require mostly one color. I picked up a number of demons and demonettes to strengthen my witches against Solomon Kane and his witch hunters. These two are from West Wind's Lucifer's Wars miniature line which contains some rather interesting models. These are the Incubi.

After a coat of Citadel Wraith Bone spray I got started.

One of the benefits of Contrast is that you can cover large parts of a model and be done or, er nearly done. My intention was to one-coat these on all the parts: Flesh Tearers Red for the skin, Skeleton Horde for the horns, finally Templar Black for the hair. I did go in and yellow the eyes on the one at left - the one on the right doesn't have eyes sculpted and is kind of deformed with a very asymmetric face. They're demons and also fantasy so I can forgive this here. But after putting it all on - the only thing I was happy with was the hair. The painting community has revealed, after much experimentation, that not all Contrast colors are created equal and have different behavioral effects from one another. Other factors are also dependent on the sculpt of the model and whether or not it has surfaces amenable to this kind of pigmented wash. I'm thinking these ones, having large smooth surfaces without anything to break them up may be poor models for this particular color. To me, Flesh Tearers Red looks like 'hell" (hehe) as does the Skeleton Horde on the horns, even after highlighting them up a bit. The horns are considerably brighter than the model underneath them so they are the first thing one notices so for me, not the right choice then.

So to fix the skin, I went in and did a selective final highlight with Citadel Blood Red (Now Mephisto Red) on the one at left. Happier with that,  I did the same with the one at right for the finished photos at top. I also repainted Wraith Bone over the horns and tried Wyldwood instead of Skeleton Horde hoping for a more antler like color. That was also highlighted back up with an earth color to give it more pop.

In the end, I don't love these models. I was more careless than I thought on the clean up and left some big seams get through to the painting stage which are painfully noticeable to me. These are also not sealed and dull-coated yet so the shine is also contributing to my dissatisfaction.

On the bright side, I wouldn't have even gotten to these models if I was going to layer paint them up from black. So though I'm uneasy about them, I have two more gameable pieces than I did after the 30 mins it took me to complete them. Arguably - that's the benefit of Contrast Paints - to get more minis on the table faster than before. On that score these wonderfully suit their purpose.

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Recent finds at Michael's & Walmart

These are a bargain at Walmart in their Seasonal section. I don't know what I'll use them for but the colors are really natural. It has a vinyl back on it. I reckon I'll cut and reshape into larger than normal tuft sections for terrain pieces. The pile is in the 2-3mm range making them good for a lot of things.

These are a new item at my Michael's - good for command or artillery bases in 25/28s or even scenic terrain litter. Hard to beat the price though some come pre-warped for you. Check to ensure they are flat ere you buy.

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25mm Ghost Miniatures - Wizards

Here's the set of Ghost Miniatures Wizards

Which one is your favorite?

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25mm Ghost Miniatures - Wizards 6/6

Not much to say about this final one - mostly happy with him though.

Thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged!

25mm Ghost Miniatures - Wizards 5/6

Finally finished the last of the Ghost Miniatures Wizards this weekend. This one's the most Gandalfy of the lot.

 

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15/18mm Blue Moon - ECW - Civilians

In between all the ghosts and Contrast paint, I've been quietly putting together these vignettes for an upcoming ECW project using exclusively Blue Moon minis - criminally underrated in my view! That's an old Gallia house in the background.

The gents steps in between his lady and danger.

Fists clenched, the boy is ready for a scrap while his uncle hides behind his mum.

"Surely, Vicar, in every government there must be somewhat fundamental, somewhat like a Magna Charta, that should be standing and unalterable…that Parliaments should not make themselves perpetual is a fundamental. Do you not agree?”

Haven't yet sealed these, hence the bothersome shine.

English Gothic

"The fields won't tend to themselves, war or no bloody war."

"Right chooar flower, I'll have a pint ready for yeh, when ye coom back."

"If they coom any closeh, run to the 'ouse w'all speede".

Bonus: with the flash on

And the initial shot sans the house.

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28mm Reaper - Wraith Harvesters

I've found some odds and ends that benefited nicely from a quick ethereal treatment with Citadel Contrast paints. I'm basally out of ethereal figures now and looks like they'll be a little over 50 of them. Here's some of the last ones done with one thick coat of Contrast Templar Black.

For the scythes I wanted to try out Contrast over metallics. I used Citadel Boltgun Metal over most of the blade then did Mithril Silver for the sharpened edges. Then I used Contrast Basilicanum Gray over that. I've lost the picture I had of that, but they did not look great at all. So I stipled VMC Flat Brown over much of it, followed by another stipling of Polly-S Rust. As a final touch I went in and drybrushed Mithril Silver again on the fine edge of the blade and all over the rest of the edges leaving the bulk of the metal untouched. These came out out pretty good I think.

I've since added some new colors to the collection including Wyldwood  - a brown I used on the scythe shaft. One thick coat over Gray Seer primer, no additional highlighting of any kind.

This scythe came out well and you can still see where the Contrast Basilicanum Gray settled at the bottom of the blade tip.

Working with Templar Black on a mess o' wolves that will be up shortly after my premier ECW interlude.

 Thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged!