Hello guys, welcome back to Not Just Mecha, it s Marco here and today we start painting
my first personal Age of Sigmar army! In the last three years I ve painted almost
a dozen of fantasy and sci-fi armies but not even one for myself so you can understand
why I m so excited about this project. It s also the first time I tackle the topic
of army painting here on the channel, and the variety of units and styles in the Kruleboyz
roster is perfect to discuss all the planning and problem solving involved in my high quality
speed painting process for a project of such a scale!
I fell in love instantly with the old school look of this new wave of orcs, a mix of classic
80 and early 90 Citadel and Peter Jackson s Lord of the Rings aesthetic, so I tried
to maintain these two main influences with my painting, fusing the colourful GW scheme
with the gritty realism of the cinematic orcs and the latest AoS artworks in a very efficient
and rewarding process that, for these 13 models, took me just a little more than four hours.
I want a lot of natural diversity in this army so when the boxes for the single units
will come out I m going to paint them with different skin tones and then mix the batches
for a very chaotically organic look, but I want to start the series with my version of
the official iconic scheme that s probably what most people will try to replicate.
Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE and hit the bell button to always know what happens on the
channel and if you want to support my work, like, comment, share watch another video and
maybe check my Patreon page where you can find the real time footage of my videos with
every single little line and brushstroke! Thanks a million guys!
I always start the work on armies fully building, basing, priming, and applying a zenithal light
to every single model I have access to, in this case every single orc in the Dominion
box. These are all steps that benefit greatly from an assembly line approach and even more
important, when you finally get to your evening or weekend of painting being able to jump
directly into the fun and creative part of the work is much, much more motivating and
rewarding than starting from the boring preparatory stages.
Don t worry, we ll talk about the swamp bases in a dedicated video because I have a lot
to say about them and these are only the mark one, work in progress version of the plan
so I want to give you the full and perfected process that I m currently using on the heroes.
The zenithal white light over the black primer is the cornerstone of this speed painting
plan. I often use a quick general coat of white that ends up being more a grey scale
but, in this case, I push my white to its maximum in the upper volumes. The idea is
to set from the beginning the highest values possible because every single new step of
the process will be a transparent progressive shadow. Even the lowest parts and extreme
recesses are more grey than black because later I ll create their extreme dark values
with proper colours. You can do the same starting from a solid white primer, but I still prefer
the greyscale sketch, because it gives me from the beginning the right proportion and
position of every light and shadow and from there I have only to follow the path and have
fun with colours enjoying the flow without thinking too much.
I always start my armies painting the basic troops that share the same look and scheme
all at the same time. In the box there is only a single unit of ten basic Boyz and one
of three Boltboyz, making the speed run on this first batch a bit less efficient compared
to the work on an established army where I can plan a couple of lists and have every
single model I ll even need on the table from the beginning. But we probably didn t see
half of the models of this army, and this is a personal project without a pressing deadline
so I m not too concerned about the force as a whole at this point, and I think it s better
to focus my efforts on creating an even more efficient process that I can quickly and easily
set in motion and repeat with coherent results on the upcoming units.
I start working on the skins applying a gentle, transparent layer of Contrast Plague Bearer
flesh. I love this colour that outside the miniature world is known as Green Gold and
I have a tube of it for every type and brand of paint I own because it s one of the most
versatile tones in existence. Ambiguous colours like green gold, turquoise,
and most of the violet spectrum contain the potential of being cold or warm or express
a hue or another depending on what you pout next, under or on top of them and I m going
to use this chromatic potential to quickly set a deep, interesting skin tone in two steps.
Green gold delivers a greenish hue when applied in thin layers, especially with a luminous
underpainting like this one but it contains a lot of yellow that becomes more and more
dominant layer after layer. Here I use the green sensation to set the
general direction of the lights but what I really need is the yellow part to boost the
next layer of Sap Green ink. This green has a very natural tone in the
pot, but like every green it becomes way to desaturated or luminous and cartoony when
applied in transparency over white so using it over a base of yellow, or even a light
brown is always a good move to obtain more realistic effects.
In a single pass easy to replicate on future models I fix the general tone, I set a lot
of intermediate shadows in the overlap and I make the volumes more defined darkening
the dark greys with a powerful colour. Applying every colour and step with an assembly
line flow is of course the most time efficient way to paint an army but in my experience
it s not a realistic option for the standard hobbyist because you don t get any real gratification
until the project is completely finished and this lack of rewards is often an inspiration
and project killer. If you are a commission painter and you can invest a good number of
consecutive hours on the job, go for it, that s the way to quickly deliver and get paid
but in general I suggest you to work on few similar units at a time and use the results
to boost your confidence and inspiration and of course learn how to perfect and improve
your process, fixing what doesn t work along the way
The second main block of these models is made by all the patches of leather of their equipment
and for this I use a selection of browns, plus a couple of greys and black from the
Scale75 Instant colours. I want to create a lot of movement on all
the scraps of leather and fabric they wear and all these different but similar tones
and their non-uniform finish will create a ton of automatic visual noise.
I ve been testing these paints since the beginning of the year and I arrived to the conclusion
that for my way of painting with acrylics, heavily based on transparency effects, they
work better than the GW Contrast line. This is not a sponsorship; I paid everything with
my money, and I don t have any relation with Scale75, this is just my conclusion based
on a ton of experiments made in the last few months. These colours are more transparent
and less saturated than Contrast so I find them more forgiving in the single pass, easier
to control because of the softer impact of the single brushstroke and able to create
a wider spectrum of effects straight from the pots, because to obtain the same coverage
of the average contrast pot you need two or three layers, and I can do a lot of stuff
inside that virtual space. I try to create a random pattern of colours on the models,
and I use irregular brushstrokes to simulate the imperfections and textures of realistic
leather; the natural behaviour of the liquid paint and its non-homogenous staining power
when not properly guided with the brush helps creating almost automatically interesting
shapes, stains and random effects all modulated in transparency by the initial value sketch.
The
shields are painted with my copyrighted recipe for metallic contrast paints. Here I use blood
angles red as a base because I want its extra opacity to boost the vibrancy of the red,
while on the armours, I ll use inks and their extra transparency to catch better the finer
details. I also add few drops of fluorescent orange to boost even more the tone that will
be a bit desaturated by the grey of the metallic silver and the solid white of the sketch.
The suspension of heavy metallic pigments is balanced adding a bit of medium and few
drops of airbrush thinner to get this kind of transparency, still with a powerful metallic
shine! The colour gets an automatic modulation moving
and then setting on the depth of the surface full of sharp details and sculpted movement
precisely like a classic Contrast tone or a heavy staining wash, fusing together the
zenithal information from the sketch and the one from the details of the shield. And since
this time, I m painting an army I keep all the extra custom paint I prepared in a clean
bottle for later uses! Similar process for the armours but using
the incredible transparency of inks as base for the mix. I want the armours in a dark
turquoise tone made more natural and desaturated adding a good amount of brown into the mix.
You can clearly see the different behaviour of this mix that creates darker and more precise
shadows and lighter lights in transparency. Again, the brush starts behaving like a marker
creating in a single pass a perfect coverage thanks to the high pigmentation of the inks,
dark definition from the paint accumulated in the recesses and I still have all the volumetric
information of the underpainting that s also enhanced by the different levels of opacity
of this layer that sets with a vertical movement following the pull of gravity and capillarity.
Can you really ask more than this?!! And again, I store the excess for the last
steps and the work on the next units! Like I did for the skin I add a quick unifying
shadow from below on all the other parts using a transparent brown. The logic and purpose
of this loose shading is the same of using sap green on the skin but in this case for
leather and wood and I apply it at this stage because even if I m aiming to those specific
parts, a bit of overspray will touch also shields and armours adding a nice and subtle
rusty sensation and an extra free level of depth.
This is more or less, 50% of my process but I ll be honest, if you are not a compulsive
perfectionist this is already something you can play with!
Time for oil paint! Recently I used oils in several advanced ways, but here we are going
back to the roots of the channel and to a crude, quick and dirty but super effective
oil wash! First I apply a bit of magenta on knees, knuckles,
elbows, and heels so the tone can really stick and soak into the acrylic layer leaving a
good mark and extra colour on those areas. And I apply a light general wash on everything
else, using black and the mix of black and brown on the equipment and the mix of black
and green on the skins. All the washes are diluted like premade acrylic
washes because here they cover a slightly similar role.
I apply the wash on all the models and I come back to the first one quickly cleaning it
with a make-up sponge! The wash was super light and fluid and it s still completely
wet, so it comes off with absolutely no resistance. With this step I get back all the original
values without the darkening effect of acrylic washes, but I get the super sharp definition
in every little detail where the sponge can t reach and wipe off the paint plus a very
realistic rendering of fine dirt and grime. Another thing that I love of this step is
its power of completely hiding the finish of the airbrush. The airbrush creates a fine
micro dotting of paint that even if I can mask pretty well using fluid and transparent
paints, it s still there almost like a witness mark;
applying the oil wash over the airbrushed base without varnish in the middle the two
layers fuse together in the microscopic level with oil paint filling the gaps between those
microdots creating a nice smooth finish full of new colours!
Uh and I use the same washes on the white stones on the bases to catch all the cool
textures of the bark creating an incredibly natural look in a single pass!
Again, the wash was so liquid and light that this is all the stuff I needed to wipe off
the excess on the thirteen models! Once again, the recent reboot of the oil painting
series gave me the opportunity to use new cool techniques on the channel!
I prepare on the dry palette two light tones for the green skin and two light earth tones
for all the brown parts, plus white to reach some extreme and desaturated values. Now you
know the reason for the digression on Green Gold at the beginning of the video! Uh and
if you watched the previous video, you could already imagine why the darker colour of each
pair is transparent and the lighter colour is opaque. If not, check the video up here!
The process is crazily simple. I apply powerful maximum lights on the upper edge of the most
defined muscles, and I blend them with a soft bush. BAM! It s done, just like that; a quick
sketchy application and an even quicker blend and the extreme lights with their diffusion
into mid tones and shadow are in place! You know that my speed painting philosophy
is about painting in a smart, well planned, and super-efficient way, not physically fast,
without renouncing to quality, precision, and details so my work on the troops is not
different from what I ll do on the heroes. More precisely the work on the troops will
be the foundation of what I ll do on the heroes and monsters, the base on which I ll apply
more textures, special effects, free hands but all the important stuff like a good rendering
of the volumes, all the various contrasts, a definition easy to read from the gaming
table, it s all there creating a solid general visual quality and coherency with the rest
of the army! Similar idea with the light earth tones but
in this case, I use a bigger and older brush to stipple a quick rough texture over the
pieces of leather And I blend it on the surface, softening its presence and making the effect
look less painted on top and more layered into the browns.
The opacity of the lighter tone creates strong lights easy to read and the transparency of
the darker tone facilitates the fading into the what s already there.
Fixing all the extreme light definition took me literally less than two minutes of work
for every model and if don t believe me, you can check the process in real time on my Patreon!
I close the work with the edge highlights of armours and shield using my custom mixes
plus a light, bright metallic silver to boost their value and shine!
Of course I must finish the bases but that s a story for another time!
And here s the final result! A little more than four hours of work that after an extra
bit of tuning of the flow I m sure I can easily beat in the next runs on similar models.
But still, remember that speed is not the point and even if I use it as unit of measure
for the efficiency of a process its not an objective measure because heavily based on
skills, experience and familiarity with the various tools, and in this case totally based
on me, so what I really want you to take from these videos are the concepts about colours
and their interactions and the idea that you have the freedom to do whatever you want at
your table and that the only important thing is the result and if you like it!
See you in the next video with the horde of little hobgoblins, and cool new ideas for
skin tones and metallic effects!