If you don’t know who Wappellious is, you’re in for a treat. He’s one of those painters who is so freakin’ good, you kind of want to hate him – just a bit. But you can’t, because he’s such a decent, approachable guy.
And James Wappel’s site is a Blogosphere treasure. Don’t take my word for it; just check it out.
No, not now. Later. It’s why the link is at the end. I know what happens if you start perusing content – you’ll never make it back here. But don’t worry, today’s content is fairly picture heavy. You’ll breeze right through.
One of the things that James does so well is bases. Here’s a more recent model for the Dark Eldar army he’s building for this year’s Adepticon. Who goes to the trouble of adding a Thunderwolf to the base?
Here’s another. His bases 1) always tie a unit together and 2) are invariably colorful.
I met James last year when we played in Game 4 of the 40K Championship. Here’s one of the Assassins he beat me up with, but it’s also an example of how he free paints murals on his bases.
I was determined to give it a go this week. First off, I’m not sure how anyone can blend without a wet palette or piece of wax paper. I bought mine at Michaels, but you can find them at any decent sized hobby store. A buddy just made his own with foam and wax paper – works just fine.
Anyway, here’s my first attempt. I had no idea what I was going for… so maybe a plan was in order. I knew I wanted it to be colorful and I was determined to try a design, no matter how basic.
This is a Mordrak Counts-As I whipped up, just for the base. I added a minimum of flock, just for contrasting textures, and that was that. I think maybe a green warp effect, like Goatboy is so fond of doing, would have worked well here, but I’m pretty happy with it for a first try. I’m already planning my next attempt…
Here’s another idea I tried out this week. I’ve seen lots of people paint models on paint bottles and the like, but I figured something similar could be used for base coating.
These Deathwing models have tabard sections that will be painted in a completely different fashion than the armor; dark green fabric versus bone white armor. I thought it would save time to paint them separately. I know which tabards fit best with which model, having given them a test run, so I tacked the tabard section to the bottle. It was easy to spray both sections gray, then hit the armor with ivory before flipping it over to hit the tabard with green.
Speaking of spray paints, I have a bunch – probably 50 cans or so, collected over time for different purposes. By far the best are the Army Painter, but frankly they are too expensive for ‘every day use.’ I’ve been using Krylon flat (white, gray, and black) for awhile now, and remain happy, but recently…
I tried out Rust-Oleum’s new Ultra Cover Primer, which you can pick up for less than 4 bucks. The result was a “Holy Crap!” moment. I’m usually pretty picky, but this product is pretty perfect for basing models. It doesn’t over spray, but it also instantly gets into the tricky spots.
Color me impressed.
Unfortunately, not every idea is a good one. Here, I was working on some terrain and I wanted to get a bit happy with a blood effect.
So I stole the food coloring from my wife’s kitchen and mixed up a batch of something. It looked great! Then it dried. Slowly. Over days. Then it was gone.
Water evaporates. News at 11.
So we’re back where we started. James Wappel… decent dude, great painter. Much man-love, James.
As promised, here’s the LINK to James’ blog. Go, have a blast! I’m leading you directly to an article on Tomb Kings that demonstrates how he goes about painting his bases.
Meanwhile, feel free to share your links! This is your opportunity to pimp your own blog. Also, any ideas you guys have about painting – your tips and tricks, or things you learned the hard way – are also welcome.
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That’s it for today, then. If you’re up for it, you can always check out my blog, Strictly Average. Anyway, thoughts? Comments? Hugs and… so on?
