Hello guys, welcome back to Not Just Mecha, it s Marco here and today we paint this huge box,
I can't even put it all in the frame, starting with the Rotmire Creed!
Knowing that I'm a big fan of the game, Games Workshop sent me as a gift
the new incarnation of Warcry! And in the spirit of my trademarked high quality speed painting
I want to complete this whole thing as fast as I can, because, as you can imagine, I really want to
play, but as always delivering a ton of visual depth, atmosphere and a strong painterly vibe.
To put it in simpler terms I want to catch this, with all its grittiness, sketchy energy
and more subtle, but for me essential, its yellowish, greenish decaying mood
and sense of the virtual environment. It sounds complicated and yeah, a bit esoteric but I m going
to do the whole job in basically two steps! Deconstructing and retro engineering cool
illustrations you can really understand what makes them so interesting and appealing
and this gives you the ability to internalise and to translate that information in our different,
but not so different medium; at the end an extra dimension it s not a big deal and even if
2D, the artworks give you all the data you need! And this is great also from the
purely mechanical point of view of efficiency, because heavily relying on reference material
cuts a big chunk of planning and processing time. Don t forget to like, share, and SUBSCRIBE
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I publish the real time footage of my videos and extra cool stuff. Thanks a million guys!
But before diving into painting I feel the need to make a little improvement to the sculpts!
The main guys stand on poles to avoid the toxic fluids of the swamp but the original stilts are
quite short and I feel that they don t stand out enough from the crowd of the warband.
I know I ll regret this choice when I ll try to fit them inside buildings
and low terrains but in this case I really can t resist the rule of cool! I hide and blend
the armature wire with the rest of the sculpt with a mix of modelling putty and plastic glue.
I use just a tiny bit of glue as solvent to keep the compound thick and rough and
because of the density and the super quick drying time of this putty I obtain with
just a few brushstrokes a pretty convincing rendering of wood and old crusty bark!
And I keep the bases crazily simple part because I want to maintain the focus on the models
and part because at this point I can t afford to add a single millimetre of extra height.
Always, always create your bases before painting; your work will be easier, safer and quicker
and you get a better, more believable integration between models and bases both physical and purely
visual because the paint job will naturally flow between the two as a single, coherent entity.
Let s move to priming, and there s a lot to unpack here! Let s start clarifying some terminology;
a primer is a product created and optimised to be the prefect connection between the material
underneath and the subsequent layers of paints, but technically you are not really obliged to use
something labelled as primer as your first coat and most of the modern acrylic formulations have
all the grabbing power and elastic strength you need for the job. The access to a full range of
tones opens a ton of cool possibilities because even this very first preparatory layer can become
a key chromatic part of your scheme. Plus you save a ton of time stealing it from a boring step!
Here I use violet because I want to set from the beginning a warm, sick, livid sensation
that will influence every overlapped new layer. I m basically priming my canvas to set a mood more
than a colour scheme like traditional painters do on the actual canvas to start painting over
the general environmental or emotional vibe of the scene. So the first coat as it is, doesn't really
represent my shadows or my midtones and it's more the unhealthy, livid mood of the warband
and if you were wondering, that s also why I m going with this kind of neutral mid value.
Now I can set the real shadows using a darker, deeper and slightly colder violet that will be
a nice complement to the warmer greenish tones I ll set in the higher midtones and lights.
I m going for a simple wargame friendly zenithal light setting so I establish the deeper shadows
by simply spraying from below with the steepest possible lower angle.
The next step is quite brutal and if you are veterans of the channel you know that
it s something that I usually recommend avoiding but this is an extremely calculated move!
Let me elaborate: as you can see from the tube and the tone I have in the airbrush
here I m jumping from one side of the colour wheel to its saturated complementary opposite.
Complementary tones neutralise each other into desaturated greysh, brownish mixes and if you want
to preserve their vibrancy you have to add steps and bridges to avoid crossing this tricky central
path, but in this case that s precisely what I want to bring this basic saturated semi opaque
green straight from the pot closer to the sick tones of the illustrations.
Basically I m using an optical mix happening directly on the figures
to create a complex modulation in a single step and cut again a ton of working time.
I keep working with a steeper zenithal angle switching to a simple skin tone again straight
from the pot. This semi transparent application moves the minty slightly cold green tone I
have in place to warmer, yellow-orange territories and because it s naturally
quite light it sets the high values of my lighter midtones and the position and pattern
of the soft extreme lights that later I ll enhance and refine with the higher precision of the brush.
I close this stage using a bit of pure white on the naked skins.
The general values are already set and you can see that the light brought by pure titanium white is
not so different from the one set by the skin tone over everything and that s because here I m using
white only for chromatic reasons, basically to set an extremely pale and unhealthy base for the
skins, that still contain in the secondary angles all the previous rich information.
Thanks to the careful study and deconstruction of my references and a good planning and set up I
can move directly to oil paints that I use to set the basic tones of the single internal elements,
using them as Contrast paints, definition and the full spectrum of transitions going from
the deepest shadows to mid slash high midtones, all at once in a single, crazily simple step.
I first apply pure magenta on all the exposed bits of skin so it has some extra time
to really soak into the acrylic layer while I work on the other colours.
For this same reason I didn t apply any varnish between the two stages because
I want oils to physically interact and tint the pale, neutral acrylics underneath.
Then brown on the equipment
and green with a few random touches of brown here and there on the fabric.
Note that these applications are just dead simple heavy washes painted with
just a minimum amount of control and precision.
Other than being really really really quick this process is also extremely relaxing
because the stakes of the single steps are really low, making it a perfect low mental
effort option for intensive painting sessions that otherwise can easily become an endless chore.
As soon as the white spirit in the mix has evaporated, five-ten minutes with the heat
of these days, I use dry make-up sponges to remove the excess of paint and at the same
time to gently blend the three basic tones of my scheme in a soft, natural smooth continuity.
This isn t probably the optimal timing but I really feel the need
to visually separate the models from the bases to better understand how the plan is working.
Tamiya clear paints are always great to render in single pass wet and glossy sensations.
And thanks to this visual check I understand that I want to see more explicit yellow elements
to make the scheme my own and to bring it to more iconic sick Nurgle territories. This is
totally something I could have planned from the beginning, adding it to my original flowchart and
oil palette, but you know, this kind of diversions from the source material can happen at any time
and you should be ready and open to adapt! Luckly, working oil on oil it s really easy to move
back and forth in the process without the need of re-establishing the base work or previous steps!
And this is what I ve got after a couple hours of work! I know it s crazy how good they look even
with this little amount of work. So, here is the good or bad news depending on your taste and point
of view. If you are looking for a clean, smooth, kind of Eavy Metal' style the work is almost done;
you can add a few edge highlights to make shapes and details a bit sharper and the trick is done,
or you can just play with these guys with great visual satisfaction as they are.
But my goal here is to match the brushy energy of the artworks so to complete the job I move
to the wet palette! I have the mandatory black and white, a couple of bright light tones for
the green elements, dark and light earth tones to add movement and variety to the natural equipment,
and two warm tones to work on the skins and their flowing unpredictable tones.
When you stretch, spread and clean oil washes to this extension and with this intensity,
the general surface is almost instantly workable
because that micro quantity of real paint remaining on the minis is all
in the deepest recesses that are done and you don t need to touch.
Here because of the little misstep on the yellow elements and honestly because it was starting to
be late night, I gave the models the rest of the night of rest before moving to acrylics. And again
of course no varnish that would just flatten and kill all this layered visual complexity!
I really love to work on these extremely organic themes and subjects because the shapes don t have
precise, strong, let's call them holding lines, and I can go fully painterly and abstract.
I use different loose brushstrokes to paint at the same time the general idea of rough textures
and materials and a sense of movement that can add life even to the most static figures,
and of course a ton of energy to the more kinetic poses. But again the actual brush
strokes don't have anything to do with reality or realism, they are just abstract,
interesting shapes loosely following the sculpt. The actual work also becomes more artistic
and less of an assembly line of mathematically optimised steps;
I work the single models one by one this time giving priority to their internal flow.
Working on single separate elements you can easily lose sight of the big general picture and
they can look a bit disjointed. That's also why I don't like sub assemblies!
With my kind of preparatory work this risk goes down to minimal levels because the general mood
is usually the foundation of every new layer but still I feel the need to make skins,
clothes and wooden equipment a bit more a single thing instead of just three separate blocks.
And here s the final result! Without considering the modifications and the
unplanned night of drying time I close the actual painting work on my classic tight four hours!
Oils are for sure our main protagonist here. Using oils on Nurgle related models
the mind goes instantly to weathering effects and gritty grim dark finishes
but in this case I really wanted to show you their power in setting basic tones almost
like Contrast paints and similar products, and easily create shades and smoothness,
ironically leaving the sharper roughness to acrylics and to their natural tendency to
remain where you apply them and in the exact shape of the brushstrokes for a great textural effect.
And in the next video I ll keep pushing on the power and versatility of these ideas but working
on the sharper, geometric shapes of models almost completely covered in armour so, stay tuned!!
If you like this video, give it a like and SUBSCRIBE,
remember that you can ask me anything down below with a comment and you can follow my
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