Dog Food

One of the latest new releases for the Song of Ice and Fire miniatures game is the Stark Heroes 2 set, which contains some interesting miniatures.  I knew right away that I was going to have a lot of fun basing the Shaggy Dog figure.

It all started out with my usual bark and branch method of basing.  Here's a peek at how that works: https://youtu.be/INPfPLCTZcE

However, between the dog itself and the pose, I thought that I could use some of the nifty body parts from Secret Weapon Miniatures!  The sprues have heads, torsos, arms, legs and even feet!  I chose the bit that has one arm still attached to the torso.

Keep in mind, I was positioning this to take advantage of the movement tray.  I would place the rest of the body parts on the corner of the tray.

The rest of the tray had the "branch" bit, which will give me the opportunity to create some icicles, which you can see on the end of the previous wolf painting tutorial: https://youtu.be/dB4qtag5r9g

You can see the rest of the body parts placed in strategic areas on the base and the movement tray.  I will be doing some really fun blood effects with the snow, where the blood will be seeping into the snow.  I think I also did that effect at the end of this live session: https://youtu.be/3dpSONjJGQw

All of the pieces of bark were placed and angled so that the wolf would appear as if he were up on a rise.  The leafy material that you see is actually loose leaf tea that I had collected for my terrain pieces.  When it is crushed up, it makes some very nice ground cover texture.

I also did the rest of the characters in the box with a similar method.  These will be painting tutorials for the YouTube Channel and the Patreon Page!  ShaggyDog will be an exercise in painting black, just the opposite of Ghost.  The rest of the characters will be painted during live sessions and other one off tutorials

Basing is such a vital part of everything that I do, it even has its own pledge level on the patreon page!  You can check that out here: www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Stark Marble

While much of my focus has been on the Night's Watch and Free Folk lately, I have not forgotten about the original Starks and Lannisters!  Tutorials are under way for the full range of Starks... Outriders, Archers, Berserkers, Greataxes, etc.

I am also doing some tutorials on the NCU's of course!  Sansa and Caitlyn will certainly be part of that.

These will try to follow the concept art as closely as possible, but tossing in a few extras where I can.  I have been creating some marble bases for them with a bit of wolf iconography.

It's been just as much fun to work on these as it has the "new" stuff, so stay tuned!!  Speaking of new stuff, here's the link once more to the Savage Giant tutorial video, as and example of what is on the way!  https://youtu.be/1LvJv3dyjEw

Raise your Sword

This Stark Outrider has a slight conversion to it... that is altering the angle of the sword arm.  In this case, I am still using the alternate color scheme to give them more of a historical look.

All of the Non Metallic Metals were still done in the same way as the previous sets of Stark infantry.  They were meant to have a shine, but not the same sort of Sky Earth Non Metallic Metals as the Lannister unit that was featured in my latest Army Painting series on the patreon page.  Here's a look back at that unit: https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2018/12/shiny-lannisters.html

As I have mentioned before, I will be featuring the Stark army in the "official" color scheme when I create the how to videos for the Patreon Page.  I will be creating videos for the units and the individual characters/NCU's as well.

Each of the series is usually 10-13 hours of tutorials, which take you from prepping and basing the entire unit all the way through the painting process!  You can check that out here:  www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Starks with Sticks!

It seems that every time I discuss the Song of Ice and Fire miniatures with people, they ask if they could also be used for other things aside from SoIaF... and if they can be converted.

That made me curious, and when a project popped up which required such conversions, I thought that would give me a definitive answer!

As you can see, it was not too much trouble to get some spears into the hands of the standard Stark swordsmen.  All that had to be done was to cut away the sword, place a pin in the hand, and then add the two sections of spear to either side.

I did shave down the pointy ends of the spears, as they were originally an odd shape.  With the pin running through the hand and into each end of the attached spears, they are very sturdy!

I was amazed at how natural they looked, on all three poses!  These were plastic spears from another game system, and this is part of a commission where the 'official' colors are not being used, but those of another story line created by the client.

This reminds me that I have also been asked if these could potentially be used in more of a historical setting, and I think that answer is yes.  That is one reason behind the quartering of the colors on the tunics.

The purists need not worry, though, since I will be doing an entire Stark army in those standard colors.  This will be part of the Army Painter series available on the Patreon Page here: www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Steaks for Dinner

I suppose that working on all the Bolt Action artillery pieces have been the perfect training for creating some fun basing around the new Builder Scorpion crew sets for the Song of Ice and Fire miniatures game. :-)

Each box contains two of the bolt throwers, with full crew as you see here.

When I looked at the box art, I noticed the steaks that the Knight's watch had built in front of it.  That seemed to be a very fun way to create the proper setting for the basing.  

Using the same Oxide Paste, glue, sticks and gravel that I have on all of my artillery pieces, I built up a little terrain around the crew, which will get some additional textures after painting.

Sharpening the sticks with my wood carving tool gave the steaks that hand chopped pointed appearance...

I will put mud on the base and the figures, along with snow (and even some icicles!).

You can see a bit of the mud effects on this artillery crew:

https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2017/01/mud-and-guts_19.html

Once the mud is applied, then I can do the snow and ice effects.  I want to have parts of it be melted, or at least look trampled on by the crew.  Perhaps even some footprints!

After a quick spray of Badger Stynlrez primer, it's all ready for painting!  I will be creating a tutorial video on the basing that you see here for the Patreon Page.  There are more war machines coming for Song of Ice and Fire, and we want to be ready to make those look great!

Here's a link to the page:

www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Stark Choices

I think most of you know that I LOVE painting horses!  So much, in fact, that I did two different painting tutorials as part of the Painting Pyramid series.  One covered Appaloosa and the other Dapple Grey. 

I love painting horses even more when they are sculpted this well, and the Stark Outriders from the Song of Ice and Fire miniatures game definitely are!

With so many nicely sculpted muscles, I was able to do some very fun color shifts in the shadow areas.  I am not sure if you can see it, but you might notice that the shadow colors are not merely a darker tan shade.  In fact, they are green!

Because there is such a predominance of blue, along with yellows, having that green in the shadow areas is not very noticeable, and registers as grey to the eye instead.  This is not the only place where the green was used.  I also placed in on every metal piece as well.

These fun subtleties in shadow and mid tone areas are not very difficult to work out, ad adding them creates so much additional depth to the piece.

As the Song of Ice and Fire miniatures are a slightly larger scale, this also means you have a bit more surface area to work on.

I will be doing a number of Cavalry tutorial videos for the Patreon Page.  While some will be for the Army Painter series, you will also be able to get access to some for the $5 pledge level as well!

These would also cover specific breeds of horses, such as the two Painting Pyramid videos that are already available to the patrons... here's a link for you!

www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

The GreatJon

This GreatJon figure from the Song of Ice and Fire miniatures game was painted in oils, using mostly the Mig Ammo Oilbrushers.  It was a lot of fun to do various blending of colors, etc. a few hours after the paint had been applied to the figure.

The idea behind the use of oils is to make it easier to work on large batches of figures at the same time, as the figures themselves become the palette!  This will allow me to work my way through an army more quickly, but still get the same kind of subtle color transitions as I might on a single figure.

In fact, this figure was painted at the same time I was working on the Winter Soviet Bolt Action minis.

One of my favorite features of the Song of Ice and Fire minis are the weapons.  These are well cast from a stiffer plastic, which means they are very strong,  and have little to no clean up!  Practically a perfect weapon every time.

I am creating tutorial videos for each of the Stark and Lannister special characters, focusing on the basing and individual aspects of the clothes, faces, etc.  These will become available to the Patrons on the Patreon page:

www.patreon.com/JamesWappel