No game night this week which was something of blessing to be honest. Tuesday was my first day back at work after a couple weeks off and it was manic. Phone never stopped ringing and I was like a zombie by the time I finished. Two mostly relaxing weeks wiped away in a few hours. It’s not like I the world was ending or anything like that. Anyway back into the groove so onto the important stuff.
This week has been an Age of Sigmar week and that is something I never thought I would be saying. I’ve never played Fantasy so didn’t really have an opinion when GW killed it off and brought out AoS and to be honest I never thought it would be something I would try. Then Al picked up some minis there were up to the usual high GW standard but I still wasn’t sold on the idea. But following our trip to Warhammer World a couple of weeks ago I committed to picking up one of the getting started box sets and it arrived this week.
Now not having played the game yet I’m not sure it is something I will stick with but I thought the Sylvaneth presented I nice painting challenge and were worth taking a punt on. I’ve got a few ideas in mind for them but I’m really not sure how to transfer them out of my head and onto the minis. The result is that the starter box will probably turn into a box of test pieces until I stumble across the look and feel I’m after.
For this week I’ve started off with one of the Dryads and whilst I’m happy with how this first one has turned out I can’t decide if it’s what I’m actually looking for. I wanted a contrast between dark and light wood which I think I’ve achieved but I’m not sure it has the pop I was looking for. The green leaves add a bit of contrast and I’ve also added some green to the swirls but I think they are a bit too subtle. There is certainly room to experiment but one thing I’m not keen on is the amount of time I’ve had to spend cleaning them up. This has nothing to do with the quality of the models, which is excellent. But because they have so many squiggly bits there are a lot of very fine mould lines to remove which takes time. I’ve also not thought about how I’m going to base them yet, other than the fact that I went them be forest themed, but I’m not sure what that actually means to me at the moment.
I might need to paint up a few like this and then see how they look as unit before making a final decision on what to go with. As it stands I’m thinking about bringing some more autumn colours like orange but not sure if I will use it on the leaves or in the scroll work at the moment.
Wanting to have a play with something a bit larger I’ve also made a start on the Tree Lord. I’ve no idea how these things actually work in the game but I couldn’t resist having a go at painting a giant sword wielding tree. When looking at the different parts on the sprue I decided to change out the loin cloth thing, from dangly skulls to this leafy version simple because I preferred how it looked. This thing took an age to clean up with all of the fine mould lines but it went together really well. I decided to magnetise the body, legs and arms mainly to make it easier to transport when complete but I think it will also make painting it easier. There are just so many fiddly bits that I think I need all the help I can get.
On the painting front I’ve gone with the same idea of dark and light wood colours but I this case I’ve decided to do the inner hart wood in a light colour and then the outer bark a darker colour. My thinking being that the outer bark is more like armour and putting the light colour on the inside somehow makes these areas look a bit softer, like they need protecting. Not sure if that’s just me being all philosophical but it sort of makes sense. Or it does to me.
At the moment I’ve mainly been working on the darker wood colour but haven’t been blown away with how things were looking. But once I started to add a few other colours such as the green for the leaves on the head and the red on the dangly leave thing it started to pull things together for me. I’ve also tried some orange in the swerls but it didn’t seem to work who I wanted it so I’ve also given a green a go on the arms. I’m happy with how this has turned out but think I need to have a go expanding it a bit. Trying to go for something that looks like it is glowing and lighting up the area around it. Not sure I know how to achieve this but I have a few things I’m to try, so fingers crossed one of them will work.
And that’s it for this week. Plans for next week are to carry on with the Tree Lord and possibly make a start on a few more Dryads. I’m also planning to add a few more things to the galleries looking to add something that gives them a bit of twist but will need to see how that one pans out. Anyway that’s it for now. Have a good week and see you all again next weekend.
