Weekly Waffle #332 – Technology in the shadows
11th May 2024
For this week’s Weekly Waffle I have stayed in the under-hive. But we have moved away from the guiding light of the Inquisition and moved into the shadowy world of under-hive technology. Specifically the dealing of House Van Saar, who I like to think of as the Apple of Necromunda. Because they have all of the shiny toys that everyone else wants and they and they are going to extort you if you want them. Said by someone who is typing this on a Mac so I guess I’m already a customer / victim of House Van Saar.
Before I get into the details of this crew I have to say that they have been primed and sitting waiting for some paint for quite a long time. I just haven’t had the mojo to do anything with them. But a bit like the last couple of weeks I just wanted to plug away and get them finished with the hope being that as I clear old projects down I get the mojo back. And I think it’s safe to say that has worked here. But not really in the way I thought it would.
I had had been plugging away at them and all I could see were the little errors all over. Now the aim for these guys was that they will be gaming minis as opposed to me trying to paint a display piece. So they don’t need to be perfect and I think I get stuck in the minutia some times when I’m painting and expect everything to be perfect. And that is how I was feeling when I was working on these. So when the paint work isn’t living up to expectations the mojo starts to drop. I had to leave the dest for something, a loo break or a brew, and when I came back I got a chance to look at the squad from a few feet away. As you would if you were looking at them on a gaming table. And I thought they really popped and stood out. Which is what I was trying to achieve. And that really encouraged me to crack on and get them finished.
Yes they are a long way from perfect but on the table top I think they work well. Especially because I also made some mistakes with the weathering. I when a little heavy with the dark rust and had to apply the weathering to a lot more of the model than I had originally intended but I think they look a lot better for it. To me it just seems to tie everything together nicely.
So I’ve explained that i’ve got some of my mojo back and that by the end I was enjoying painting these guys but it didn’t start off quite that well. I knew I didn’t want to paint them in a standard Van Saar colour scheme but at the same time I didn’t know want I wanted to do instead. After some scrolling through the internet I saw some that had been done in a black / dark grey with yellow highlights and decided to go with my take on that. I thought it would really give them some pop on the table top. But it did take quite a lot of trial and error.
I started with some contrast paints trying to save some time but this didn’t really work out and I ended up painting over nearly all of it. It was good for sowing me here the highlights and showdowns needed to go but it did add to the frustration of painting them. I spent quite a lot of time doing edge highlights to try and keep everything else dark and give that black feel to the body suite without it actually being black. Then that bit of yellow to give it some contrast. WIth the final highlight being done with fluorescent yellow to really try and emphasis the highlight.
But even with all of the edge highlights and the yellow the minis still felt a little bit flat. So I had a look at my colour wheel and decided to give the whole mini, with the exception of the yellow areas, a very light purple wash. Just because this was the contrast colour to the yellow and I had some notion it would add a bit of depth to the mini. Now it is quite subtle but I do think it works, up close the dark colours just have that little hint of purple which makes it just a little bite more interesting. I used the same technique on the skin tones, but I’ve done this quite a bit recently so I know that works.
I also used purple of the plasma type effect not the weapons along with eyes on the face masks and the top of the backpack. My thinking was that it was little bit different and kept the colours aligned. For me going with a more traditional blue effect wouldn’t have worked as well. I also kept it simple when it came to painting the skin tones and the hair with all of them having the same feel. This was mainly because I was on a bit of roll by this time and I didn’t want to lose the flow by having to stop and work out individual hair colours for each of the minis. So I took the easy option and kept them the same.
The final stage was to add some weathering and as I mentioned above I was a little bit heavy with the weathering powders. This has hidden a lot of the shading that the purple gave to the grey body suite but it has also hidden a lot to the early mistakes. So all in all I think it has worked out quite well. It really ties the minis to the bases and I’ve used similar bases and weathering on all my Necromunda minis. This gives all of them a similar feel making the appear to be all in the same setting. Not that I’m ever going to use multiple gangs at the same time but it’s nice that they all have a tie in with each other.
To finish things off I vanished them all using AK Interactive Ultra Matt Varnish. This was something that had been recommended by a lot of people at Adoption so I got some to give it a try. I only got a 100ml bottle and I’m gong to have to tack down some more. Not because I’ve used a lot of yet but I really the way it goes on and the finished look. It seems a lot thinner than the Vallejo mat I have been using for years and goes through the air brush a lot easier. And the look is real good so I think this is now going to be my go to vanish going forward.
Any way that’s enough of me waffling on at you what to do think of this House Van Saar’s gang.
You can find more Necromunda mins from a few faction on my Necromunda Gallery here.
That’s it for this week and with the mojo back to a nice level I now need to thin about what to bring you next week. I’m not a hundred percent sure yet but rest assured I do have a couple of fun things lined up. I think it will just be a case of whichever on calls out to me when I next sit down to paint. Until next week I hope you all have a good week whatever you are up to and that you get some time to get a least a little bit of hobby in.
