Sssk's quest to paint toys

[sssk]

Hi folks,

(Feel free to skip the following few paragraphs of background blurb)

Some of you may remember me from such “tale of fantasy painters” as the 2010-2011 tale of fantasy painters. Unfortunately, motivation and opponents vanished part way through that (though I do now have an almost completely painted goblin army). Anyway, now I’m back with a painting log.

I’ve been planning to do this “plog” for a few months now, and it’s already gone through a number of different iterations (despite the fact that a paintbrush has not yet touched a model). To start with it was a plog of “models sssk likes”, but then I realised that many of the models I was planning to paint fit nicely with warhammer quest – so then it spent a while as a warhammer quest log. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have the motivation to paint all of the monsters, and I don’t have much space to store stuff, so lots of models isn’t really a possibility at the moment (and scenery is a big no-no).

Whilst hunting around for nice models to paint, I found wyrd miniatures (most famed for “malifaux”). If you don’t know about wyrd’s stuff, I really recommend you check out the website. The artwork and models have a really dynamic feel to them, and the game mechanics they use are fantastic (basically using a deck of cards rather than dice to determine the outcome of combats etc). Anyway, because I don’t really have many opponents here, I thought it’d be good to start a game which my non-gaming friends might enjoy. “Puppet wars”, by wyrd, is just such a game.

In terms of story, the game takes place in an old witch’s hut in the middle of a marsh. The place is full of magical energy (as so many placed seem to be), and long story short, the toys come to life (hence “puppet” wars) and fight. In terms of gameplay, I’ll describe it as a mix of chess, magic the gathering, and warhammer... but that doesn’t really do it justice. I might try and describe how you play sometime later in the plog, but I make no promises. I’ve never been outside the world of GW in terms of models, but the art and models which wyrd produce are amazing. So there are a few aims for this plog (in no particular order, as I’ll be chipping away at whatever takes my fancy at the time):

1 – Paint up some heroes for warhammer quest
2 – Paint up my puppet wars set
3 – Improve my painting skills (I’m intending to try out some non-metal-metal, source-lighting, maybe a bit of blending too)
4 – Improve my photography skills (not a strong start, as the photos in this first post are all taken by lamp light)
(end of blurb)

I’ve only just picked up my paints from my dad’s house (hence the reason it’s taken so long to get the plog rolling), and I’ve not sat down to paint anything yet. However I have got some of the stuff I’ll be using for my warhammer quest dungeons.

First up, we have some nasty denizens of the dungeons. As I have a goblin army for warhammer, I quickly decided that my dungeons would be heavily goblin themed. Sticking with my theme of not having to many models (storage space issue), I have a bunch of snotlings, who will be representing bats and rats too. Then I have some average night gobos, who’ll represent gobbos, skaven, anything else there’re lots of. But they’re pretty dull. So here’s my gobbo big bosses, who’ll be representing orcs, elves, daemons....anything with more skill than a bog standard goblin really (I really like the mail order only guy with the hook and crown, he’s an amazing model). And my trolls, who’ll be representing anything big. (feel free to request close ups of any models, I want to practice my macro photography)


I know what you’re thinking: “Oh no! These dungeons have some nasty critters, where’re the heroes who’ll save us!
Well, maybe you aren’t thinking that, but here’s some heroes painted over the past 7 years or so. The dwarf miner is the oldest (and I think that shows), and the dwarf ranger, the newest (which I hope also shows). The High elf shadow warrior was a hired sword for my mordheim warband 4 or 5 years ago, and the wardancer (one of my favourite models of all time) was painted 3 or 4 years ago, as part of a wood elf army. These may well all get stripped and re-painted later in the plog, but who knows if that’ll actually happen or not.


So on to the first things I have to paint. I figure it makes sense to have one quest model, and one puppet wars, so here they are. The first one is a limited edition marauder champion from 2002 (I think). I managed to pick him up on ebay pretty cheap, I only hope I can do the model justice. Needless to say, he’s going to be a barbarian for quest. For puppet wars, I want to paint up the models used in the practice scenarios (puppet wars comes with 5 practice scenarios which gradually add more rules as a gentle introduction to the game), so we have a razorspine rattler, and a convict gunslinger.


Right... I guess I need to stick some paint on these things huh?

Hope you all enjoy the plog

[sssk]

Well, managed to get a bit of paint on them sooner than expected. The barbarian is just undercoated white and then washed with badab black (to see the details), but the gunslinger and rattler have come on a little further, so here's a pretty picture.


I think I'll make myself a light box when I get the chance, see if I can get some better pictures with that.

I realised that I haven't really explained much about the puppets, so very briefly here's the jist:

In puppet wars you basically have a small gang of puppets, which fight with other gangs of puppets. There're 3 different types of puppet. First up each player has a "master". These guys are pretty much the king and queen in chess, rolled into one. By that I mean they have a lot of powerful abilities, and can smash up puppets quite successfully (or enhance your other puppets), but if they die, you've lost. Then you have "sidekicks", who are fairly hard, with a few abilities (you're limited in how many sidekicks you can take). Finally you have "pawns", who're the basic troops as it were (usually with one ability each). Anyway, the razorspine rattler and convict gunslinger are both pawns, so they're fairly bog standard.

Hope you like the progress so far

[sssk]

Hmmm, no comments... perhaps puppet wars isn't well loved over here. Anyway, I've finished the convict gunslinger and the razorspine rattler at last. I'm not totally convinced by the blue plates on the rattler. This may require some additional work. I did have a go at some non metal metal though, and I think for a first attempt it didn't work out too badly. This is also my first time mixing paints, and now that I've done it, I don't really understand how I managed to paint without mixing before.... ah well. Here's a pretty picture:



Next up I'm going to be painting a deathmarshal, and a punk zombie. I'm feeling a lot more confident on the painting already, so I may start on the barbarian sooner rather than later.

[HereBeDragons]

Great work on those dungeon monsters! I like the yellow scheme you've used on them, looks nice. You've done some good work on those puppet wars models. I don't have much experience with the game, but they are fairly small models aren't they?

Edit: and I've just realised you used NMM on them! I think that means you've done a great job with that!

[juicytomatoes]

Those are from puppet wars? That's some really macabre going on there.

I have to say though, that your O&G stuff looks good! Would like to see more of those too.

[sssk]

Herebedragons - Puppet wars puppets are roughly the size of a modern night goblin (so having painted an army of night goblins, I've got the hang of painting small stuff). Thanks for the NMM comment, it's actually not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be, and in my opinion it looks a lot better than using silver paints (which I've always done in the past).

Juicytomatoes - They are pretty macabre, the whole art/modelling style is really unique. When I get a bit of time I'll spend a while doing some photos of the goblins to practice the photography.

In the meantime, here's a tiny update. I intended to paint the death marshall and the punk zombie, but accidentally got distracted and basically made a start on lots of stuff, so here they are:

From top left to bottom right we have: Rotten belle; Judge; Ronin; Silurid; Death Marshall; Punk Zombie


As you can see, they're all massively in progress. The Death Marshall is closest to being finished, but he's still got a load of stuff needs doing. I'm also not convinced by the green trousers. Just to explain my choice of green trousers, I decided that as these are supposed to be toys which come to life, they should be coloured like childrens' toys. As you can see from the punk zombie, I tried out using some more earthy colours (greys, browns, blacks), quickly decided that they just didn't fit the bill, so repainted the death marshalls cloak in yellow (and will soon re-paint the punk zombie in something a bit more lively).

Hope you enjoy

[sssk]

Hi again folks,

I’ve got an update for you. Once again, I got a bit distracted, and therefore I’ve made a start on a few more puppets, but they’re all gradually progressing towards being finished (though none of them are finished yet).

WARNING: BIG PILE OF BLURB ABOUT PUPPET WARS, IF YOU JUST WANT TO SEE PRETTY PICTURES... JUST LOOK AT THE PRETTY PICTURES.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, in puppet wars there’re 3 different “types” of puppet, and now that I’ve started on some of each type, let me explain a little further.

Each player has a single “master” puppet, who starts off on the board at the start of the game. They’re basically your “king” to use the chess analogy, but they also have lots of abilities.



I’ve made a start on Seamus (the green guy in the top left pictures), who is kind of an undead master. He’s not very strong in a straight up fight, but he can enhance his own puppets, and sabotage enemy puppets very successfully.

I’ve also made a (small) start on Lady Justice (the red lady with the big hair in the bottom left) who is also a master puppet. She’s pretty good for getting stuck in at the deep end and hacking enemies up in person.

So I guess you’re now wondering why I’ve painted Seamus green and Lady Justice red. Well let me explain in a long and convoluted way. As I vaguely mentioned in the first post, puppet wars uses a deck of cards rather than dice to determine the outcomes of...everything. There are 4 suits in the deck, called Crows, Rams, Tomes, and Masks. Each puppet is associated with one particular suit, so when you want to do certain things with the puppet, you need to draw a card of that particular suit (and usually a certain number as well). Each master puppet is also associated with a particular suit (Seamus = Crows, Lady Justice = Rams), and basically allows you to ignore that suit cost when you’re using other puppets. So for example, to do things with the punk zombie you need to draw a 7 (or more) of crows, however, if Seamus (the crows master) is your master puppet, you can ignore the fact that the zombie needs crows (so a 7 or more of any suit will work). Each suit is also associated with a particular colour (just for aesthetic value), so crows = green, rams = red, tomes = blue, masks = pink/purple. I’m painting each puppet’s “skin” in the colour of it’s suit, and I’m painting the masters entirely in their suit colour (so Seamus is Green as the crows master, and Lady Justice is red as the rams master).

All of the rest of the puppets I’ve painted so far are “pawns”, which are the basic troops (you’re allowed a maximum of 3 of each pawn in your “army”), except for the Judge (the guy with the white coat and red head in the middle of the pictures). The Judge is a “sidekick” associated with rams (hence the red head). You’re allowed to make up to a quarter of your “army” from sidekicks, but you’re only allowed 1 of each sidekick in the army. Sidekicks are generally a bit harder than pawns.

Anyway, I hope that’s given you a bit of understanding of what’s going on. Once I’ve got these puppets finished, I’ll take some “in game” photos, where I’ll be able to do a bit more explaining.

END OF BLURB

I'm also going to make a proper start on the barbarian for warhammer quest now (though I don't have any skin tones at the moment, so we'll see how that goes), so keep your eyes peeled for that.

[sssk]

A quick update today. I spent far too much time painting yesterday, so I got quite a lot done.

Here’s the completed 2 “armies” from the first few practice scenarios for puppet wars.


And the first step on the road to a painted barbarian. I still don’t have any flesh tones, so I painted the skin using a mix of bestial brown and bleached bone.


So my aims for the week are to paint the barbarian, and I also want to get 4 more puppets done, which are Rusty alyce, Guild Austringer, executioner, and malifaux cherub. I also need to find some basing materials for the puppets, more on that when I get them though.

[juicytomatoes]

fantastic job on those puppet wars minis! How are you planning on basing them?

[sssk]

Hi Folks,

Sorry it’s taken a while for an update. Three things have got in the way of much painting progress (In ascending order of how much of an obstacle they’ve been):

Work
Lovely weather (meaning I’ve been out and about quite a bit rather than stuck inside)
Bad weather + Baldur’s gate 2 (when it has been bad weather, I’ve been playing baldur’s gate 2 rather than painting).

Anyway, my baldur’s gate stints have got me more in the mood for painting some warhammer quest stuff. I’m currently playing as a paladin, which makes me want to paint up my “brettonian knight”, but all in good time. First off I need to make some progress with the barbarian. I’ve covered him in a badab black wash, ready for some more work.... which hasn’t happened just yet, but here he is at the moment:


The next thing to do with him is to play with some more non metal metal, and try to get the skin sorted out, and the big red expanses on his armour and clothes. I keep getting nervous about doing something tragic to him though, which has put me off adding any more paint until I’m focussed and in the zone.

Here’s some more puppets as well. This is (from left to right) Malifaux Cherub, Executioner (who has some huge claws, a bit like 40k lightning claws... which I haven’t made a move on yet, because I’m not sure what colour to do them), Rusty Alyce, and Guild Austringer. They’re making a fair bit of progress, but again, it’s slower than expected. I’m not awfully fond of the cherub (in terms of both model and paint job), but once these guys are out of the way there’s some good stuff just over the hill. The Austringer (with the pidgeon on his head) is one of my favourite models, so hopefully I can do a reasonable job on him. They’re all still requiring a lot of highlights and stuff.


Then to answer Juicytomatoes’ question, here’s how I’m going to base them:



It’s as simple as simple could be. In puppet wars, any master puppet can use any sidekick/pawns they like (though of course as with anything, some sidekicks and pawns are better with certain masters), so I needed a method of affiliating the puppets with a particular master on a game by game basis (because I’m the only person round here with any puppet wars models, so everyone uses my models, but often with different masters). All I’ve done is cut out a series of felt circles (I have red, yellow, blue and green felt... couldn’t find any pink/purple stuff) with a single cut from the edge to the centre, and then a small circle cut out where the puppet is attached to the base. This makes it easy to change the colour of the base depending on who’s using the puppet that game just by changing the felt, and makes it very easy to see who’s puppet is whos.

Who knows when the next update might be, but hopefully it’ll show some progress on the barbarian, those 4 puppets completed, and the next batch of 4 puppets WIP (though I jumped the gun a little, so a couple of the next batch of puppets are already started, but shhhhh).

[Zweifler]

brilliant idea for the base and the different masters to be shown!

I do like those puppets very much, but i think that nobody in our gaming club (austria) knows nor plays puppet wars... have to ask next time. *G*

Sounds funny...

Greets Zweifler

[HereBeDragons]

Nice basing solution! Great idea, looks like all the puppets are running around on the carpets of some house!

[sssk]

I'm thinking of sticking the felt onto some bits of card to make it a bit more rigid (as you can see, it has a tendency to not be terribly flat). I'm also going to paint all of the bases black, but unfortunately I don't have a black paint at the moment, so that's why I haven't done it yet.

Sadly no painting update today, indeed there probably won't be another update before next week... that's just how life is panning out at the moment I'm afraid.