Eons After Warmachine Ended, The Marcher Worlds Finally Got Painted*

*Mostly; it'll be a while yet before I get around to finishing the jacks. But hey, at least the infantry from the starter set are finally done.

I wanted to get these guys done quickly so I could play painted. I also wasn't in the mood the try to pick out all the details in different colours as I usually prefer to; these models are very busy. So I came up with the idea to lazily use a low-effort monochromatic colour scheme with the addition of a coloured glow for visual interest. I figured it should be extremely fast to do; I was hoping to get them knocked out in a weekend or two. Instead it took me about three months.

That wasn't three months of painting of course. These days I find painting requires time, energy and motivation, and it's just rare that I have all three at the same time. To paraphrase: life, uh, uh, gets in the way. It was really only the impending end of the year that got me to power through them in the end.

Anyway. I didn't like the heads that most of them shipped with, so I set about finding replacements. Eventually I settled on some helmets from Destiny. I modfied them slightly before 3D printing them on my dying Photon. It took a few iterations to get the sizes right, and a couple of models needed to have their old heads removed, but it was very worth it.

I tried to pick a glow colour that was close to the official colour of the Marcher Worlds logo. In the fluff and gameplay, units are powered up by "Arcanessence" that is transmitted down from orbit. So I wanted to apply glows to the dishes on their backs and the attached conduits to show that energy being received and channeled down to their weapons. Of course helmets received glows to help draw the eye. The Hunters also had glows on the cloaks to make them a bit more visually distinct from the Rangers; this felt appropriate because in the rules they gain Stealth when charged. The Weaver just got glows all over the place since he does the most "Arc stuff".

I wanted to tie the Void Gates to my Marcher Worlds, but not use the same colour scheme. My idea was that I would use the same colours for Void Gates for any factions, but use the bases and outer glow details to tie them to the faction in question. To that end these two gates got a purple main glow, but the same copper bases and teal outer glows as I was using for the Marcher Worlds.

Recipe
To start with all the infantry were airbrushed with a layer of Vallejo 73.660 Surface Primer Gloss Black. I wanted to apply a zenithal highlight, so I airbrushed on Vallejo 70.862 Model Color Black Grey from the sides. I followed this with Vallejo 70.992 Model Color Neutral Grey from about a 45 degree angle, then Vallejo 70.990 Model Color Light Grey from directly above. Actually, iirc initially I only went up to Neutral Grey (or maybe a mix of Neutral and Light Grey), because these greys look darker after they dry. So I ended up needed to apply the zenithal highlights twice after the models dried and I realised they were too dark.

I then applied simple edge highlights everywhere with the same Light Grey so the forms would be readable. I considered going lighter for the highlights so that they would stand out even on the lightest areas of the model, but decided not to; I figured have the brightest zenithal highlights be the same as the brightest edge highlights made more sense. A wash of Citadel Shade Nuln Oil then darkened everything down and shaded the recesses. I feel like most of the zenithal highlighting was lost in this step, but I guess that's OK; some of the gradient is still there, and tbh think the models might still be a little too bright overall.

For my first attempt at the infantry glows I applied a basecoat of Citadel Layer Sotek Green, then drybrushing over the surrounding grey areas. Next I painted on narrow layers of Citadel Layer Temple Guard Blue, and also highlighted some of the surrounding edges. This was followed by another drybrush of Sotek Green and then a drybrush of Temple Guard Blue, both targetting the boundry between the two shades (the Temple Guard blue was also drybrushed over the immediate surroundings to brighten the "cast light"). After this I did the same thing with Citadel Edge Baharroth Blue, again drybrushing the Temple Guard and Baharroth Blue over the transition. The final layer was done with Formula P3 Morrow White, blended in with two drybrush passes of course. Finally I went back with the Sotek Green over the outer edges of the light sources (such as the outer edges of the helmet visors), to create a dark line that separated the light sources from the cast glows.

While this worked quite well for the Rangers, when I came to the second batch of infantry I decided to try to streamline the process; this time I painted Sotek Green, then the Temple Guard Blue (including edge highlights), and only now applied a single drybrush of Sotek Green. Next a layer of Baharroth Blue, then a drybrush of the darker Temple Guard Blue to start smoothing the transitions (and brighten the cast light); the Baharroth Blue drybrush that was the second part of the smoothing process only came after the layer of Morrow White. Basically I cut the number of drybrushes in half (or at least tried to; I may have messed up a couple of steps and had to repeat them). When I was done I noticed that the conduits on the Weaver needed a bit more definition, so I painted some Green Stuff World 1712 Wash Ink Aether Blue directly into the recesses.

The bases were made using Green Stuff World's 1224 Factory texture rolling pin. They were basecoated in Citadel Colour Tin Bitz, edge highlighted and drybrushed with Vallejo 71.068 Model Air Metallic Copper, then washed in Citadel Shade Agrax Earthshade.

The Void Gates were also primed with Gloss Black, then the centers were airbrushed with Vallejo 72.715 Game Air Hexed Lichen. This really didn't seem to look much like purple no matter how much I put down; it actually looked a bit like a very dark brown, at least at the time. Perhaps I needed to apply it over white for it to actually look purple? Anyway, I continued by airbrushing a large spot of Vallejo 72.776 Game Air Alien Purple on each side of the sphere, followed by progressively smaller spots of Citadel Edge Dechala Lilic and Vallejo 72.701 Game Air Dead White. I was originally planning to apply a glaze of Green Stuff World 1714 Wash Ink Vicious Purple, but as soon as I started I decided it wasn't working and I quickly washed it off.

I painted the ring in Vallejo 71.073 Model Air Metallic Black and edge highlighted it with Citadel Base Leadbeltcher. I painted watered down Vallejo 70.950 Model Color Black directly into the recesses for shading. I then carefully edge highlighted the inside of ring and the edges of the tendrils with a mix of Vallejo 71.063 Model Air Metallic Silver and Green Stuff World 1875 Metal Color Persian Violet. I believe I then applied a thin line of shading around the tendrils with the Vicious Purple.

To try to get a bit of a lazy OSL effec, I drybrushed the inside of the ring with the Metal Color Persian Viol. Similarly I drybrushed the areas around the outer glowing recesses with Green Stuff World 1876 Metal Color Aqua Turquoise, which I did before actually painting the glowing areas with the same Sotek Green, Temple Guard Blue, Baharroth Blue as the infantry glows. I did not try to go up to white this time, or try to soften the transitions with drybrushing, but I did edge highlight the edges of the glowing areas with the Metal Color Aqua Turquise. Finally I painted the base in the same copper.


I ended up spending far longer on the Void Gates than I had intended to, and while the purple colour is far less saturated than I had intended, overall I really like how they turned out. The subtle edge highlights around the tendrils have a surprisingly large impact. I did wonder if it would have looked better to paint the purple glow as eminating from underneath the tendrils rather than from the center of the sphere; perhaps I'll try that if I ever paint another pair of gates. As for the infantry, I'm happier with them than I expected to be considering the lazy and simplistic paint scheme. I mean, they're not great, but they look fun in the right light; kind of Tron-like. Some day I would like to do something similar but with a flat black rather than a shaded and highlighted grey, to try to really make a glow pop as much as possible - the inspiration being the aliens from Attack The Block of course. I don't think these were the models for it though. Anyway, I'll try to find time to get the jacks done, but, you know, life.