Sedition Wars Cthonian - Boss Fight!

This is the latest addition to my Sedition Wars Project: the Cthonian, a large, tough Strain monster used in the final scenario in the Outbreak Campaign rules included in the Battle for Alabaster boxed set. In the above photo, the Cthonian is shown next to a 28mm Hasslefree figure, that I painted in the same colours of the Samaritan infantry that oppose the Strain.

From Studio McVey:

"Phase 5 Exo-form – Cthonian: A massive conglomeration of evolved bio-mass combined with a powered armour carapace. The outer shell is a fully functional exoskeleton wrapped around a squid-like body composed of extremely resilient tissue. Capable of regenerating damage with dark matter conversion, this creature is nearly impossible to kill without the use of high output energy weapons. In addition to its defensive capabilities, the creature is armed with a gravitic beam weapon and a lethal nano-weapon capable of mutating a living target almost instantly."

Again, cleaning up this resin/plastic model  had its problems, which I outlined when first starting this project some years ago. You can't file it, you can't scrape it easily; you have to cut off mould lines with a fresh, sharp X-acto knife. It took hours with a zirconium nitride blade, and I am still not fully happy with my cleanup job.  I posed the figure lifting one foot, and cocked the head off a little to its left, to add some visual interest. There's a thick piece of wire pinning the right foot to the 50mm diameter plastic base.

I used many very thin layers for the zenithal highlights. Only 6 drops of colour (5 drops Vallejo white and one drop Golden sepia airbrush paints) in the small metal cup in the airbrush, 5 drops of thinner, and the rest water. This was airbrushed downwards at a 45-degree angle all around the model. Then, switching the pigment portion of the mix to 6 drops of only Vallejo white, I airbrushed downwards at about a 60 degree angle from above and in front of the head of the model, giving a spotlight effect on the front of the figure. As I have described before, with such thin coats you don't see the spray pattern of dots of pigment, just smooth transition from light to dark.

The various exposed tubular bits and the flower-like protuberance of the left "arm" (the nano-weapon) were highlighted and shaded with various purples, reds, and pinks from the Army Painter Zombicide Warpaints Sets (Crusted Sore, Toxic Boils, glazed with Zombie Shade).

The chitinous armour plates got several glazes of Citadel Seraphim Sepia shade. The upper portions of the carapace and the armoured face got some punched up highlights with various Vallejo acrylics and artists' oils. I also did some dot filters using oil paints to break up the surface of the plates a bit.









The rear of the figure falls into shadow, but details of its major structures can still be seen.



The gravitic beam weapon on the right arm was worked up from Winsor Blue to Titanium White.



The base was airbrushed with Secret Weapon Stone wash, then finished off with weathering powder and some oils.

After the whole figure got a coat of Tamiya Semi-gloss spray (TS-79), I went back with some Citadel Blood for the Blood God, to add some fresh blood effects. This was used judiciously around the fleshy tubes, the flowery nano-weapon, and seeping from between some of the chitin plates and between the tentacles.

After painting up the figure, I actually like how it looks. It seems to radiate menace, and is a good implementation of the original Studio McVey concept art:

With the 55 figures I have painted up, I can now run all the games in the Outbreak Campaign provided in the basic box, with some extra Strain models to boot.

I recently received some pre-production Strain models, cast in a very crisp resin; easy to work with, and will paint up nicely! I look forward to adding more to this project. With those plus all the extra boxes' contents and some Kickstarter exclusives, I am spoiled for choice

Sedition Wars - Commodore Grist

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

I have mentioned before the cool heavy armour of the Sedition Wars universe, the Gnosis Battlesuits. In-game, such equipment is issued to the elite of the Vanguard. These suits are like little tanks; they're immune to nasty things like acid and fire, and when finally wrecked the pilot can climb out to continue the fight!

Back in 2013, Studio McVey released a high quality resin sculpt for Salute 2013, Commodore Grist. I managed to find one over the summer online, and just finished painting it up.

I used many very thin layers for the zenithal highlights. Only 5 drops of colour (4 white and one green) in the small metal cup in the airbrush, 5 drops of thinner, and the rest water. You don't see the "dots" of the spray as much, just a smooth transition from dark to light. See the shoulder pads and gun in the photo below.





I did most of the head/face in Vallejo acrylics, with some oil paints to smooth out transitions.

I augmented the usual glazes of Coelia Greenshade (the green parts of the armour) and Fuegan Orange (shoulder pads) with actual painted colour layers in acrylics. The armour and shoulders used the Vallejo Yu Jing paint set. However, Seraphim Sepia continued to work well on the gun and the "plumbing" of the suit. I used artists' oils for blending, point highlights, and special effects such as chips, scrapes and impact damage. Vallejo powder went on the lower part of the boots. I airbrushed the base separately with Secret Weapon Stone, and weathered it with oils.





Below, the nominal light source for painting highlights and shadows was above and in front of the figure's forehead.





The rear parts of the figure fall into slight shadow.




I also debated painting Vanguard insignia on the shoulders using freehand techniques. Decided against it. The Vanguard don't seem to use insignia on their Gnosis armour. Maybe their connection to the Tac-Net precludes the need for visual identification? I can always go back and add some markings.



I debated using OSL to make the muzzle of the plasma gun glow, but decided against it.




Below, details of the power fist and its damage.




Comparing this to previous Vanguard figures, the armour colouring  is deeper and richer, I think because I am not just relying on glazes over white for the highlights.

Just one more figure, the big boss Cthonian, to complete phase one (the Battle for Alabaster boxed set) of the Sedition Wars project.


Kara Black's sword in NMM

Back in September, I attended a great painting seminar put on by Polish master modeler Michal Pisarski, winner of both the Crystal Paintbrush and GW Slayer Sword. The seminar was all about skin tones and non-metallic metallics. The figure we used was a large scale bust of a vampire. At the end of the seminar weekend, he shared some tips on painting wargame scaled figures.

He completely repainted the blade of my Kara Black figure from Sedition Wars. From Michal's POV, at this scale less is more. He painted the blade flat black. The hottest highlight is at the tip of the blade, in pure white. IIRC, he added blue to the mix as he worked down the blade toward the hilt. Note also the very fine scratches and irregularities along the blade's length. Michal's brush control is superb; this was all done in about 10 minutes with watered down acrylics.

Sedition Wars Project Revisited

(Click on pictures to embiggen.)

Sedition Wars is very fun, but is currently a relatively unknown board game. Very much like playing Resident Evil, as the hi-tech Vanguard are pitted against the nano-virus-fueled zombies ("Revenants" in Sedition Wars parlance), and other (d)-evolved creatures of the Strain. Always lots of cinematic events.

A little while ago Conscript Byron and his lovely wife Kim shared side-by-side cabins with Jen and I near Clear Lake. With no WiFi, we hiked and stuff in the daytime, and played board games at night. I had originally wanted to bring out a table of terrain and some minis to do skirmish gaming. With the car already full of luggage and provisions for a week away, I decided to bring Sedition Wars as my figure gaming fix. We had fun playing a couple of scenarios with Byron's friend, Thomas.

(Below) I really like the Vanguard miniatures; the Grenadier is a crisp, resin version from Studio McVey, the other two are restic models from the Sedition Wars boxed set.

Below are three types of undead Revenants (the most horrific is the one with the deflated human head in the middle), and a couple of "evolved" Strain, a Stalker and an acid-firing Quasimodo.

We usually play the game on fully terrained tables, but the cardboard map elements from the game are colourful, and much more portable!

Don't roll low when fighting evil from the depths of space!

Our recent games prompted me to turn back to my (fairly large) collection of Sedition Wars models. I have the contents of at least three basic game boxes, plus some KickStarter exclusives I picked up online, and some very nice resin pieces from Studio McVey before they stopped trading. I decided to tackle the second-toughest Strain model in the entire game, an awesome Grendlr.

ETA: Here's Studio McVey's post about the design and sculpting of the figure: 
https://studiomcvey.blogspot.com/2012/06/sculpting-grendlr.html

To start off with, there were some severe gaps on the restic model, which I filled with epoxy putty . Restic has its own problems, which I outlined when first staring this project some years ago. You can't file it, you can't scrape it easily; you have to cut off mould lines with a fresh, sharp X-acto knife.

The creature has the in-game ability to swallow a human-sized figure whole, and convert it into something else. Bleah!

I pinned the tongue to the mouth, and the feet to the base, with brass wire. I drilled extra-deep locating holes for the tentacles.

Studio McVey also provided their own tutorial on the assembly of this model: https://studiomcvey.blogspot.com/2013/01/grendlr-assembly.html

Below on the right is the assembled figure; alongside for scale is a resin alternate sculpt of Kara Black (in the game, she's a clone of the Vanguard commander, actually).

After initially priming the figure with Chaos Black, I started zenithal highlighting with flat white using an airbrush. Partway through the session, the paint started to spatter. I finished the high highlights with a quick dusting of Citadel Wraith Bone (which is an off-white spray can paint used as a base for GW's new line of Contrast Paints). Project saved!

I started from the inside out, as it were. The various exposed muscle striations, inner mouth, tongue, and tubular bits were highlighted and shaded with various purples, reds, and pinks from the Army Painter Zombicide Warpaints Sets (with apt names like "Crusted Sore" and "Toxic Boils"). I used Citadel's new Technical Contrast Medium to add to the paints and washes, which helped with wetness and flow.

The skin areas around the lower mouths and torso were glazed with Citadel's old Ogryn Flesh wash, then painted with tones from the Vallejo Face Painting Set. The chitinous armour plates got several glazes of Citadel Seraphim Sepia shade. The claws and teeth were highlighted with various P3 and Vallejo cream and off-white colours, then glazed with Army Painter Zombie Shade. The upper face (with the guns) got some NMM work.

The base was glazed with Secret Weapon Stone wash, then finished off with weathering powders and oils.

After the whole figure got a coat of Tamiya Semi-gloss spray, I went back with some trusty Citadel Blood for the Blood God, which provides a suitably viscous, fresh blood effect. This was used judiciously where skin was tearing, and dripping from a couple of claws.

The gaping maw is truly disturbing, as Jen opined.

With this figure I can now run 8 of the 9 scenarios in the included Outbreak Campaign setting.

The only model left to do is the Cthonian, a large, tough model used in the final Boss Fight. I actually find the model to be a little underwhelming, not having the bulk of the Grendlr. I have at least three of these, so I could paint up one as stock for play, and convert another with some GW Juggernaut parts I already have.

Keeping Track of the Strain

I had previously labelled the various identical Vanguard models with etched brass numbers, to keep track of the similarly-armoured and -equipped models during play. From our recent games, it occurred to me to do the same for the Strain. So, I used etched brass letters from Hasslefree Miniatures to label the Revenants, Stalkers, and Quasimodos from, literally, A-Z. The remaining, larger Strain have no dupes, so there's no need at this time to label them (likewise there's no labels on the individual, named heroes on the Vanguard side). I affixed the brass letters with Micro Krystal Kleer, and washed them with a bit of GW Nuln Oil to help pick them out.

Project Progress

So far, it's 53 models (plus a bunch of terrain) for this ongoing project. For immediate carry and play, I got a foam insert from Battle Foam which fits in the original game box. It holds the figures I have completed, plus dice, counters, rules, and the cardboard map boards. It doesn't hold the models' printed stat cards, which I have sleeved to use dry-erase markers on, to track wounds.

With another 30+ Vanguard, including some awesome heavy powered-armour resin figs, and a horde of Strain, I could be painting SW stuff for years to come!

Below, a full squad of Vanguard wearing Gnosis heavy powered armour; resin figs by Studio McVey, painted by Angel Giraldez:

Byron's Painting Challenge Theme Week Submissions and Results

One of my goals every year when entering Curts Analogue Painting challenge is to try and get better at painting.  We can all learn and improve over time, but it takes a lot of time to paint the best we can, so most of us don't do it often.  I try to paint my best for the theme week entries that Curt has throughout the challenge, and see if I can do some new things on them.


My goal in the theme week entries is to come in the top 5 each time, as past that you really have no control.  As with shows like the Golden Demon or Crystal Brush (of which I will never even qualify for either!) the top group are all amazing, and then which wins comes down to the judges preferences of the day.  Any of the top 5 are really good, so even though this is a much smaller pool of painters, that is my goal here as well.  If I can get into the top 5, I have done well.

This year I managed to win 2, place 2nd once, 4th once, and 6th once over the course of the 5 themes.  Not bad considering 1 of those pieces I decided on 2 days before the closing of submissions (obviously the 6th place).  So, almost met my goal of top 5 each time, but I think 2 wins can almost let me count the 6th as ok, right?  It is the closest I have come so far, so I think I can safely say I am getting better, which is what I am aiming to measure anyway!

Theme week 1 - Armour - Sedition Wars APC (5th)

This one was a very cool piece to work on, and while the photos wash it out a bit, it still shows very well considering that it is mainly white.  I used a lot of tips and tricks that Greg shared from his learning from Tacobat about hard edge highlight and shadow.  I really thought it would place better than it did, but oh well.

Theme week 2 - East - Arena Rex Egyptian Gladiator (1st)

This is probably one of my best pieces yet.  I finally learned to do NMM correctly, and learned that it is in no way worth the damn effort.... I also tried different skin tones, and glazes to a much higher degree than I have done before.  I even tried crackle medium for the base for the first time.

Theme week 3 -Terrain (Home) - Middle Eastern Compound (6th)

I had so many plans for this theme week and kept delaying them and eventually ran out of time.  So I just grabbed some of my Middle Eastern MDF buildings, coated them with stucco and painted them up.  Nothing fancy, but I needed them done anyway. Over all though, pretty sad from a guy who loves making terrain!  In my defense though I had just forced my way through several Napoleonic regiments!

Theme week 4 - West - Chinese Rail Crew from Malifaux (2nd)

I was pleasantly surprised with this entry, both in how they came out and how they were received.  I played around with a super fine airbrush tip to do all the flesh on these figures and I was really happy with the result.  It was a new way to do something so small, yet worked very well in my opinion.  It was also probably a very good thing I didn't win, as I was the sponsor for this round and gave away a western MDF building to the winner.

Theme week 5 - Movie character - Mary Poppins & Bert - for Kim (1st)

A really fun set of characters to paint, and one that I used a new glazing method for the dress on.  Apparently I have been going about glazing all wrong in the past (according to an excellent new painting book by Arsies anyway) so tried to learn the "correct" way (I am sure there are many ways that work just fine, I just mean correct according to the guide I read).  The results were super smooth on her dress and the faces.  I was very happy with the result here, and another of some of my best figures (I think).

Overall, I am pretty damn happy with how my entries did.  The only slacker being my 2 day terrain project, which was my own fault, and I am actually lucky it came as high as it did!  Oh well, until next year, were I will try to learn more and improve my painting level yet again.

Taking it to the next level

This figure is "Capt. Nee Sun", a 28mm scale resin master from Hasslefree Miniatures. IMO, Kev White sculpts the best human figures in 28mm scale. His "resin master castings", though more expensive than Hasslefree's regular resin or metal models, are extremely cleanly cast, and capture most of the detail of the original, epoxy putty sculpt.

I started this thing 18 months ago, and worked on her face during a 2015 painting seminar with Rick Taylor.

I decided to finish her after recently leafing through Angel Giraldez' book, "Painting Miniatures from A to Z: Masterclass Vol. 2". Angel's painting method uses both airbrush and bristle brushes to accomplish prodigious feats of painting. His style is marked by very high contrast between highloights and shadows, and pure white highlights and catch-points to emphasize cast light. Sometimes there's not even a lot of blending, but rather bold slashes of colour. I find the style very painterly, like old Dutch masters such as Peter Paul Ruebens.

I started as always with zenithal highlighting, using an airbrush to blow Testors Acryl flat white at a downward angle over P3 black primer.

Below, I used the Vallejo face painting set to lay in the basic colours for the face. Note the photo of British actress Natalie Dormer, with her head shaved for the role of Cressida from the Hunger Games movies, used as a photo reference.



Here's the full shot of Ms. Dormer:

Below, oils laid in. Note that I cannot seem to paint eyes with just acrylics. Contrast is a little less, since this is a female figure and I wanted to soften some of her features.



The stubble effect on her shaved head was done with very thin dots of Winsor and Newton indigo oil paint mixed with Liquin, kinda patted and pushed around the flesh of her head with a clean brush.



Details of the face. The face had been "done" since last year. Last week, I used  Weber's Pro Mix colour system to slightly lighten her cheeks below her eyes. I also went back in and with tiny amounts of alizirian crimson, burnt sienna, peach black, and titanium white, added more contrast, respectively, to the lips, right eye, nose, and left upper eyelid,



Her hair was painted with various tones, mixing titanium white, gold ochre, and burnt sienna oil paints.



The visor was highlighted shaded with mixes of indigo and titanium white oils. A couple of white catchpoints were added, showing reflections off the visor.



Her weapon,interestingly, is described by Hasslefree as a rifle firing either 10mm depleted uranium slugs, or flechette rounds. I used a Nuln Oil wash to darken the rifle, used the Vallejo NMM set's  Turquoise acrylic to show some reflections,  and picked out edges and tiny details with titanium white oil.



The 25mm resin base is from Studio Mcvey's Sedition Wars line. The base was glazed with Vallejo Stone wash, and weathered with various oils and Vallejo powders. Details again picked out with titanium white.



I used several glazes of Citadel Thrakka Green over the armour, just enough to tint the armour in highlighted areas, with more layers for shadowed areas. I lined around the armour plates with Winsor and Newton Greensih Umber, and picked out some catch points in pure titanium white. Various scratches were added to the armour, using Sennelier Peach Black oil paint, highlighted generally at the bottom of the scratches with titanium white. I weathered the armour with oils and Vallejo weathering powders.



I painted a similar Hasslfree resin master almost two years ago. The techniques I used back then are very similar. However, for the present fig I have used much more contrast, used more catch points of pure white, and weathered the armour and base.

Check Your 6! meets Dawn of Aces

Awhile ago I hosted crews from both The Fawcett Avenue Conscripts and Dawn of Aces. I first met Sam and Wilton when they demo'd Sam's WWI air combat game, Dawn of Aces, at Jim-Con. IIRC, aircraft activation is randomized, and planes move according to templates. Damage degraded their maneuverability and speed. Also, there is limited fuel and ammunition. Sam also made some very neat paper model biplanes for the game.

***

We played a variation of the "Initial Encounter" scenario from the Battle of Britain book. We added some Me-110s (German twin-engined heavy fighters) to have some dogfighting.

Within their first couple of turns, Sam and Wilton got the hang of the fundamental dicta of CY6!: it's best to have both altitude and energy. One can trade altitude for energy, but maneuvering or climbing eats up energy tout de suite!

I got to try out my new Cigar Box ocean battle mat, with 3" hexes. Below, Sam maneuvers one of his Spitfires as Wilton looks on.

Bill and Frederick  ran some Spitfires, and most of us quaffed beers.



Spitfires cause some air-frame damage to a bomber!



Splash one bomber! Another Ju-88 and a Spitfire have also taken damage.





A sharp fight erupted as the fighters mixed it up. Several fighters ran out of ammo. Below, a Spitfire falls to the cannons of a Me-110 Destroyer.



Below, Frederick, Bill and Wilbert look on as some of the the bombers manage to reach the Royal Navy at anchor.





Below, the butcher's bill. Losing a whole flight of bombers cost the Germans the game.



Thanks again to Sam and Wilton for participating in our Thursday night shenanigans.

Sam expressed an interest in Sedition Wars. I will have to run a scenario...