Mercenary Leprechaun Warcaster Attachment

I've been experimenting with airbrushing lately. One of my first experiments was to put down a green basecoat on this little gobber. And for a long time that's as far as I got. Finally I decided on a whim to finish him, at which point the first thing I did was to establish new basecoat colours by hand. The original green colour was completely covered in different shades that I ended up preferring, so nothing of the original airbrush layer survived. Oh well.

Early on I was struck by this model's resemblance to the Leprechaun of horror movie fame. To be clear I've never actually seen any of the Leprechaun movies, but that's OK, I'll get around to them someday. Probably...

Anyway, a little bit of sculpting and whole lot of circle-punched plasticard and I had myself a Leprechaun standing on his precious pile of gold.

A simple but effective little conversion. I actually enjoyed the process of painting this guy more than I have with any other model in recent memory. I'm not sure why; perhaps it was a balance of experimentation (I don't have much experience with shades of green) and familiar techniques that I have grown comfortable and confident with, so it was somewhat interesting but fairly easy. It didn't hurt that the model, while varied and detailed, was quite easy to paint. Also I have a new lighting setup that's making it easier to see the fine details, so that helps.

There's a couple of mistakes and questionable colour choices, but overall I'm happy with how he turned out. I think I managed to give him a dark look, without him actually being so dark as to be hard to read from a distance under normal lighting. He's not my best work, but he's a very acceptable tabletop-level mini in my opinion.

BTW I named him Warrick. After Warrick Davis of course. Obviously.


Colours:
It felt like I used more paints than usual for this guy; or at least more than I expected to use, seeing as I had planned to give him a limited colour palette. Well, in this case at least figuring out the right colours was part of the fun.

The skin was basecoated in Vallejo 72.730 Game Air Goblin Green, washed with Citadel Shade Athonian Camoshade, then highlighted with Citadel Layer Moot Green. The teeth were just Formula P3 Menoth White Highlight. The eyes were first painted Formula P3 Morrow White, then washed in Athonian Camoshade with the rest of the skin. After this I touched up the Morrow White then painted in the tiniest dot of Vallejo 72.106 Game Color Scarlett Blood that I could. I had intended to dot the centers, but I screwed up a bit and ended up with both eyes looking off to the viewer's left (probably something to do with the angle that I hold the brush?). Luckily I screwed up by about the same amount on both eyes so they do seem to be looking in the same direction, so that's fine.

For the coat I started with the lovely but very dark Citadel Dark Angels Green, then carefully shaded the recesses only with Citadel Shade Coelia Greenshade. Unfortunately my next brightest green of the right hue was Vallejo 72.729 Game Air Sick Green, which I felt was too bright, so I reluctantly mixed it with Dark Angels Green to get a colour somewhere in the middle for the highlights.

I wanted the four-leaf clover to stand out a bit. I experimented with mixing yellow into greens to try to get a plant green, but the results felt a bit too close to the skin colour, so I settled for the beautiful but not very organic Vallejo 72.026 Game Color Jade Green. Perhaps it's not an actual four-leaf clover, but rather a jade Lucky Charm? Or is that the wrong leprechaun? I highlighted with Citadel Edge Gauss Blaster Green, but it ended up looking almost like pure white so I gave it a couple of glazes with Citadel Glaze Waywatcher Green to try to up the saturation.

The leather bits were basecoated in Vallejo 70.862 Model Color Black Grey. I applied some heavily watered down Vallejo Model Color 70.950 Black directly into a the recesses for shading, then highlighted with Vallejo 70.992 Model Color Neutral Grey.

Figuring out what colours to use for the rest of the clothes was a bit difficult; in the end I settled on a dark brown for everything as a compromise between what I saw in screenshots from the films and what would be easy to paint and fit the dark earthy colour scheme. The basecoat was Citadel Layer Doombull Brown, which was washed with Citadel Shade Agrax Earthshade before being highlighted with Citadel Layer Skrag Brown.

I made a mistake with the brass and gold, accidentally shading with Agrax Earthshade instead of the much lighter and redder Ogryn Flesh. As a result both colours came out darker than I had intended, which is especially unfortunate for the pot of gold. Well, perhaps it's better this way: I did say I wanted a dark colour scheme after all. Anyway, the gold was Citadel Layer Auric Armor Gold, washed with Agrax Earthshade, then drybrushed with Scalecolor SC-74 Elven Gold (which I think is actually less nice than Auric Armor Gold), then lightly drybrushed with Vallejo 72.052 Game Color Silver before being given a glaze of Citadel Glaze Lamenters Yellow. The brass was Citadel Layer Gehenna's Gold, Agrax Earthshade, and an edge-highlight of the Auric Armor Gold.

I basecoated the steel/silver areas in Citadel Layer Ironbreaker, applied a couple of spots of Citadel Shade Nuln Oil for shading, and then tried to highlight with Vallejo 72.052 Game Color Silver. For some reason I thought the Ironbreaker was the newer name for the old Gun Metal, but it seems to be much brighter than that; there's really no visible difference between it and the silver, meaning that the buckles are a little brighter and flatter than I had intended. Which is not a big problem, they are very small and I think it's fine for them to be a shiny silver.

I settled for blue for the telescope lenses. On the larger lens I started with The Army Painter Warpaints Electric Blue and worked my way inwards with Vallejo 72.021 Game Color Magic Blue then Vallejo 79.925 Model Color Blue. On the smaller "lens" I found any bright colours looked terrible, so I just put a dot of the dark Vallejo Model Color Blue and called it a day.


A quick note: I experimented a bit with camera settings and lighting setups to try to get good photos of this somewhat dark model. I managed to get something that, on my screen at least, looks quite close to the model itself under normal lighting, but I'm finding it really hard to get consistent results. Ah well, what can you do.

Tiny Terrasaurs

When I painted the Raptix, I used P3 paints because I only had the colours I wanted to use in P3. For the rest of the Terrasaur units that I had, I was lucky in that I already had pretty much all the colours I wanted to use in Vallejo Model Air paints, so I didn't need to worry about thinning. I guess that's why the airbrushed coats, are smoother - although there was still some degree of spotting, which is especially visible on the Spikodon.

I did like the splatter effect that I inadvertently achieved on the Raptix, so for the Elite Carnidon I tried to replicate it manually by flicking paint off a paintbrush. The resulting spots looked good, but were smaller than what I got on the Raptix. I'm not sure how to control the spot size. I also experimented with a more neutral shade for the Elite, which I think worked better with greens I was using.

 

I put more effort into the eyes this time, painting the area black first. I tried several eye colours across the models; I think the yellow worked the best simply due to being the brightest. The eyes are still hit-and-miss though; they mostly look OK on the Carnidons, but don't really work on the Brontox and are just too small to see on the Spikodon (I probably should have skipped the black outline on the Spikodon since the surrounding area is so very dark anyway).

Colours:
The Carnidons were basecoated in Vallejo 72.705 Game Air Moon Yellow, then had Vallejo 72.732 Game Air Escorpina Green airbrushed down at about 45 degrees, followed by Vallejo 72.729 Game Air Sick Green airbrushed almost straight down.

The Spikodon was also basecoated in Vallejo 72.705 Game Air Moon Yellow, with Vallejo 72.729 Game Air Sick Green airbrushed at 45 degrees and Vallejo 72.728 Game Air Dark Green airbrushed straight down.

Finally the Brontox also started with Vallejo 72.705 Game Air Moon Yellow, then had Vallejo 72.706 Game Air Sun Yellow airbrushed down from 45 degrees, then Vallejo 72.708 Game Air Orange Fire was airbrushed straight down.

The Elite Carnidon then had Vallejo 72.728 Game Air Dark Green flicked down from above with a brush, to try to get a spotted pattern.

All the models then had their teeth and claws picked out in Formula P3 Menoth White Highlight, eye outlines and pupils painted in Vallejo 70.950 Model Color Black, and Formula P3 Ryn Flesh applied inside the mouth.

For the eyes I used Vallejo 72.005 Game Color Moon Yellow, The Army Painter Warpaints Electric Blue, Citadel Edge Blue Horror, Citadel Edge Guass Blaster Green, and Citadel Layer Moot Green on different models - though I can't remember which model got which colour.

Finally all the models were dipped in Army Painter Quickshade Strong Tone shade/varnish, except the Elite Carnidon and the Spikodon, which instead got the much colder Army Painter Quickshade Dark Tone shade/varnish. Once this was dry a coat of Vallejo 26.518 Matt Acrylic Varnish was airbrushed on.

The Carnidons felt a little too big for 25mm bases, so I put them on 30mm round acrylic bases. The other two were small enough that the 25mm clear acrylic round bases felt appropriate.

Lazy Lizards

Some time back I prepped all my Monsterpocalypse Terrasaur units, figuring they would be quick to paint. Then I got real busy. UNTIL NOW!

I wasn't really invested in these guys, so I decided to try to paint them as quickly and lazily as possible. I used three passes with an airbrush to try to create the gradient, picked out a few details by hand, then dunked them in Quickshade. I think I got all the actual painting done for all four models within around two hours; I'm pretty sure that's a record for me!

Other than the crappy-looking eyes I actually think these guys look decent, and the eyes are so small that they will be barely visible on the table anyway. So overall I would consider this an acceptable tabletop-level paint scheme. Nothing to be proud of, but good enough for models that are gaming pieces first and foremost. And the speed with which they came together is actually very encouraging for me; I've not been motivated to paint much due to how long it takes me, so knowing that I can actually paint fast if I decide to makes me happy.


Colours:
After priming white I airbrushed on a basecoat of Formula P3 Menoth White Base. I then airbrushed Formula P3 Rucksack Tan down from around a 45 angle, followed by Citadel Layer Doombull Brown from directly above, to try to get that reptilian "lighter belly scales" look. I must have either screwed up the paint consistency or the airflow (or both), because instead of smooth coats I ended up with very obvious splatters of the darker colours:

Which I figured actually didn't look too bad; the reference image I was working from (a velociraptor from Jurassic Park) had a spotted colour scheme so I decided this fit well enough and just went with it.

I picked out the claws and teeth in Formula P3 Menoth White Highlight. The inside of the mouth was Formula P3 Ryn Flesh. I initially tried painting the eyes in Vallejo 72.005 Game Color Moon Yellow to match the yellow eyes in my reference image, but it didn't stand out so I switched to Citadel Layer Moot Green instead, with a dot of Vallejo 70.950 Model Color Black from the pupils.

I dunked them in The Army Painter Quickshade Strong Tone dip/varnish and flicked off the excess, rather than carefully applying it with a brush the way I normally would. To my surprise only one of them went flying across the room in the process! And somehow the paint wasn't even damaged! Amazing!

Finally, after leaving them a day to dry I airbrushed on a generous layer of Vallejo 26.518 Matt Acrylic Varnish. Once that was dry enough I glued them onto some round 25mm clear acrylic bases, rather than the square bases they come with, to make them usable in different games if desired.

Retro-Sci-Fi Flyers

The G.U.A.R.D. flyers blister was the next on my Monsterpocalypse paint queue. I put them off for a while as that's kind of what I do, but finally I decided to knock them out. Once I started painting it was actually a pretty quick process by my standards; I think it was about two weekends of actual painting, over the course of less than a month I believe. That's largely because of this whole "isolation" deal taking my usual weekend social activities off the table.

Something about the look of the Strike Fighters brought to mind that old fashioned raw alumninium plane look. So I went for a simple silver colour scheme. The sky-blue windows are supposed to be, well, reflecting the sky. Red details just look right.

The planes are covered with very fine panel lines. Initially I tried painting a black wash directly into these panel lines to make them more visible, but it was very hard to keep it neat so they ended up looking a bit messy from up close. The end result was visually pleasing, but very cartoony; it just wasn't really what I was going for and didn't really match the style of the Monpoc models I'd already painted.

The other thing was that shading in all those panel lines individually was exhausting work that took HOURS. I was not prepared to repeat the process three more times, so instead I tried a much easier shading method, where I simply applied a black wash to the whole model then drybrushed a silver on top to try to regain the bright metal basecoat. This barely did anything for the panel lines, and the surface ended up looking duller and dirtier than the pure silver of the unwashed model, but it was MUCH faster and easier, and stilled looked alright; actually the much more subtle panel lines are kind of more in keeping with the idea of this being a large vehicle at a very small scale. So I stuck with this scheme for the rest of the fighters.

I liked the idea of the Rocket Chopper having a dark stealth look, so I basecoated it in a metallic black. Of course just black is boring, so I picked out details in silver (to stand out from the darker gunmetal highlights). I painted the canopy blue in keeping with the fighters, but when for a darker blue to fit the darker theme. Of course the rockets needed to be red, which works well to make them pop, but I refrained from using it anywhere else.

In this case painting pure black directly into the panel lines worked very well, as the effect is more subtle than with the silver fighter, but also more necessary as otherwise the panel lines would be almost invisible with such a dark colour scheme. It actually didn't take as long as it did with the fighter either, and I was more willing to put the time in anyway as, while I'm somewhat indifferent to the Strike Fighters, I really like the Rocket Chopper.

Colours
The Strike Fighters were airbrushed with Vallejo 71.065 Model Air Metallic Steel. The first one had The Army Painter Quickshade Washes Dark Tone painted directly into the panel lines, while the rest where given a full wash followed by a drybrush of Vallejo 72.052 Game Color Silver instead. The canopies were basecoated in The Army Painter Warpaints Electric Blue, and Citadel Glaze Guilliman Blue was applied directly into the recesses. The wing tips and other details were then picked out in Vallejo 72.106 Game Color Scarlett Blood.

The Rocket Chopper was airbrushed with Vallejo 71.073 Model Air Metallic Black. A mix of water, Formula P3 Mixing Medium, and Vallejo 70.950 Model Color Black was painted directly into the panel lines. I highlighted some of the outer edges with The Army Painter Warpaints Gun Metal, while several details were picked out in the much brighter Vallejo 72.052 Game Color Silver. The canopy glass was painted in Vallejo 72.021 Game Color Magic Blue, then washed with Citadel Glaze Guilliman Blue, then Magic Blue was layered back into the middle of the individual panes. Finally the missle heads were picked out in Vallejo 72.106 Game Color Scarlett Blood.