Atlantis Miniatures Wood Elf Warband part 2

Wrapping up the Wood Elf Warband from Atlantis Miniatures.

The Panther Warlord with a small bear companion.  The Warband continues with male and female versions for every role except the druid.

Continuing with the signature aqua partial cloaks and family group hair colors.

The female cavalry are on Golden Hinds which I thought of as a kind of golden elven type of deer rather than a more natural tan base color.  To that end the color is achieved with Iron Oxide over white and white blazes and other markings via Graveyard Bone and Splintered Bone from the Reaper Bone Triad.

The make up the light cavalry or mounted scout element.

The male riders on Golden Stags to serve in the heavy cavalry and shock role leveraging the massive antlers for additional impact.

The Elk Warlord is the warband's penultimate leader on a truly massive mount with a bird of prey as a personal companion. I went with a dark scheme to contrast the golden mounts of the balance of the warband and make this one even more obviously a centerpiece.

There is also an Elf Prince on foot with bird of prey and a wolf guide. Both the Elf Prince and the Elk Warlord are sporting Dragonbone shields as house/family heirlooms.

These models were great fun to paint and lent themselves to the creation of individual stories.

Back to the desk! 
 

Atlantis Miniatures: Wood Elf Warband

 

Atlantis Miniatures take on the wood elves is deliciously feral. Cast in a very high quality resin they are easy to handle, finely featured, require little or no clean up and take paint well. 

They are not your happy woodland tribe full of song and drink... oh no!...they are the wrath of the wood and are festooned with horns, bones, and living companion creatures.

I've imagined this as a Kinband that share a lot of common features.  The red, blond, and sandy hair for example. 

All of them share the mystical green/blue elven cloak and most have a skull attached at the waist, often with belts or strings of red beads.

There seems to be a correlation between the presence, and size, of antler like horns and the social status of the individual.

These first two are typical of the offering which usually has a male and a female version of each type of character. Here we see two Spell Caster/Wizard types.

I've further imagined this group to be travelling in a swamp so the bases are water soaked with stones and dead trees dominating the theme.

The set included a couple of scenic bases for specific models and a generous amount of scenic scatter like mushrooms, stumps, roots, and small animals. The remaining features were quick sculpts of greenstuff. The result was an entire warband with unique, but coherently themed, bases. It was a good approach and a nice alternative to the usual limitations of commercial base sets where there would be between 5 and 10 unique bases that would have to be repeated in various aspects throughout the project.

Here are two Assassins/Scouts, again in male and female versions. 

 

The druid is the only model that does not seem to have a female version.

These elves are obviously Hunters and use a lot of animal components in their wardrobe.

Below are grouped by weapon type. The warband has Bow, Spear, Pole arm, and Sword represented.

Bows.

Swords.

Many of the cloaks have complex embossed symbols.

The Elf Princess and her Guard all with a type of Polearm.

The Princess is differentiated by her blue cloak but she retains the mystic green hooded robe. The Princess and the Prince lead their family's infantry in its grim task.

As for infantry... all that remains is the Prince, and a small group of spear.  The rest of the warband is the cavalry lead by male and female Warlords.

Raging Heroes Berserkers and Warriors

I've been a follower of Raging Heroes for many years now and have been an avid collector of their 3D print file Patreon, and now through their in house service, even though I didn't have a 3D Resin printer until now. I've done a fair bit of FDM Printing but that is really limited to terrain or accessories and I've never had any luck printing humanoid figures in any game scale. With the addition of the Photon Mono X printer to my workshop all of that has changed! I still have a lot to learn but the earliest results are now making their way to the paint desk.

First up are the troops from the Raging Heroes Viking Gods and Heroes theme from the Patreon.  these models have really heroic proportions and are quite beefy models in line with RH's more recent offerings.

I'm hoping to use these in Frostgrave and Kings of War. The bases are also printed from the set and painted in a winter theme. The set has bases sized from 25mm to 50mm. These are 30 mm bases.

I thought the cloaks to be made from the hides of Black Bears for which I imagined this fraternity to have traveled to the wilderness of North America to obtain.

I also had a stab at a unifying tartan for their kilts. These will be repeated throughout the warband.

Flesh tone: are Dark Flesh (Vallejo (V)),Flesh Wash (Secret Weapon (SW)), Dark Flesh (V) Layer, Sunny Flesh (V) Top Layer.

Bear Hide: Carbon Gray (Reaper (R)),Cobalt Grey (R) drybrush, Soft Body Black Wash (SW),Sunny Flesh (V) weathering. 

The Kilts are a bit more complex and I'll likely do a post on just that as I get more comfortable with the process. I think these were a good first attempt and should improve with more iterations.

Hair colors: A lot of red heads a couple of blondes and a guy with black hair... Vikings.

From a printing perspective some of the weapons, particularly the two handed axes, have a bit of a curve to them like they are flexing with the swing. I like the look as it implies motion but I don't know if its an intentional effect or just fortuitous.

The regular Warriors have much more tartan visible so it was easier to get a flow going. 

You'll notice that these guys are in super wide leg stances. So wide, in fact, that it was difficult to contain them on the 30mm bases. Since I want to use these as gaming pieces I really did not want to make the move to 40mm bases because that is usually more of a monster or crewed weapon size. The result was some creative mounting...

The first of these has a stance so wide it literally cannot be contained on a 30 mm base. I decided to mount him with one foot firmly planted on the ground and his kilt attached to a rock to support him solidly. I think its a passable look of a warrior leaping over the rocks to press the attack.

The next fellow had a ...slightly... less wide stance and has the insole of one foot and the very back of his heel touch the base... it was a little dicey and one foot has an extra bit of support on the bottom to insure continued contact.

This guy is more less aggressively spread and you can see the shield design. I kept to the same general colors as were used in the tartan to strengthen the theme.

The group Leader is, ironically, the only one that fit easily onto the 30mm base.

The group shot. One thing I'd love to see RH do is increase the number of troop poses. typically there are 3 troopers and one Troop Leader for a total of 4 discrete poses. Many games use unit sizes that range from 5 to 10. These print as a single piece so it would be nice to have a couple more unique poses. With 5 poses they could be printed as mirrors giving the feel of 10 different poses. Just a thought.

Overall I am super happy to finally be printing these out. The themes are lavish and include Centerpieces and Terrain bits that make the journey from imagination to physical model only because they can be 3D printed. 
 

Reaper Fantasy Scenics Ritual Circle and Statue

Reaper Bones 4 has a Fantasy Scenics segment that I'm working my way through.  Today I've got the Ritual Circle and The Statue.. which also includes a small ruined temple.

For the Ritual Circle I thought I'd go more towards a horizontal Stargate or Portal since more of my scenarios would find that useful. Transiting models can stand right on it.

First its a black Primer coat then the red lettering with Blood Red (Reaper (R)) and a Drybrush to Highlight the edges of the lettering with Fiery Orange (R).

A quick Drybrush of the whole model follows moving through Cloudy Gray (R), Sky Gray (R) and Solid White (R).

Then the Washes. Blue (Secret Weapon (SW)) in the circle center and inner Surface of the Arc Structures then Sapphire around the outer edge of the circle and on the outer side and crevices of the Arc Structures. The coverage of these was intentionally uneven and the edges blended. Once completely dry Solid White (R) was dry brushed near the cracked details and to create some sense of motion across the main circle. The edges of detail on the Arc Structures were treated the same way.

The sandy earth areas were washed with Flesh (SW) and Dry Brushed with Sunny Skin Tone (Vallejo (V)).

For scale you can see a WiP Wood Elf from Atlantis Miniatures.

The Statue and Temple were treated similarly to the Ritual Circle but use a lot more colors. The floors got some of the same Flesh (SW) as a glaze in places to show the effects of traffic and time.

The Pillars have glazes of Blood Red (SW) and Green (SW) and are re dry brushed with Solid White (R) in an effort to represent some of the more complex Marbles and other stone types used in temple construction.

The Statue itself got a wash of Blood Red (SW) and The Robe of Verdigris Light Green (SW) before getting a final dry brush of Solid White (R).

Both of these models are intended as regular to heavy use game scenery so I avoided putting in details like weeds and leaf accumulations in favor of simple and durable in hopes that they wear better.

Our Atlantis Miniatures Wood Elf WiP has returned to provide scale.

Speaking of the Wood Elves. Here is a WiP shot taken just after the red lettering was started on the Ritual Circle.

These have had color blocks and shading done but not yet highlights or fine detail. I'm using a lot of blue and purple to shade to give some verve to the green base color. I'm painting the bases at the same time as the model to see if that helps to get a camouflaged feel but maintain enough separation to keep them from actually disappearing into the base. Early days on these.
 

Atlantis Miniatures Wood Elves WiP

 

I'm really excited about these Wood Elf minis from Atlantis Minatures. They are part of a Kickstarter fullfillment so might not be up in the shop yet but they historically move pretty quickly from Kickstarter to regular product.  Very nice and kinda rare!

The models came with an assortment of bases. Some are fully detailed resin some are beveled plastic rounds. There was a good supply of basing bling to add details like forest critters, mushrooms, vines, big stones, and the like. This really inspired me to dive into the greenstuff and get to sculpting!

There are four different types of mounts in the set. A giant elk for the Male Warlord, a big panther for the Female Warlord, large Stags, and smaller Deer.

There are male and female versions of all the elves so this will make for a very thematic, and very scary, wood elf Kinband Warparty. You'll be seeing more of these soon but I wanted to say these are not your kinder, gentler type of "Wood Elf"... they are more like "Feral Elf"... many have horns themselves... they look like the sort of merciless forest guardians that might even eat any trespassers they find! They are gonna be fun! 

Raging Heroes Holy Blades All-Stars

Raging Heroes has had a few regular releases that expand on the TGG Kickstarter offerings.  Its very nice to see them working outside the massive Kickstarter format.

The Holy Blades All-Stars are a group of female Paladins that I'll use for warbands in Vanguard, Mordheim, and Frostgrave.  I'll also get a lot of mileage out of them in some RPGs, especially High Fantasy in the vein of Dragon Age.

 The Models were pretty clean and the resin has crisp detail and is just flexible enough to make handling them easy.

 The Models are very light weight and several of the more dynamically posed, the Standard Bearer in particular, were prone to falling over if the terrain was at all uneven, or the table was bumped, so I added a 1" (25mm) steel  washer to the base and now they are super stable.

 The flag staff of the Standard Bearer is holding up a huge, otherwise unsupported, banner and I'm afraid that it will eventually break during handling.  I'll probably try to replace it with a brass rod or similar if that comes to pass.

Painting wise the banner is not finished.  I'm going to add some patterning and images to it after we get on the other side of the big move.  So its mostly just concept at this point... playable but not really done!

 I experimented with a different way of doing armor and started with Tire Black (Secret Weapon) over the standard Khaki primer/white dry-brush foundation.

This was then dry-brushed with Engine Metal (Secret Weapon) and edge highlights were Necron Compound (Citadel) then lining with Tire Black thinned 50% with Glaze Medium (Vallejo).

 The rest of the color scheme is kind of traditional for warrior nuns and I viewed them as an Order of Paladins that specialized in fighting the Undead and so are equipped with a lot of tools for the consecration/reconsecration of burial grounds so that the Necromancers could be stripped of their access to the mortal remains that fuel their endless hordes.

 With that in mind there is a lot of gold on these models.  I tried to make the embroidered cloth of gold details have a different texture to the ecclesiastical tools that are meant to be metal.  To accomplish this the gold cloth is entirely non metallic while the tools etc... are done with regular metallic.

 The gold cloth is Iron Oxide dry-brushed with Sun Yellow (Reaper) while the metals are Brass Casings (Secret Weapon) washed with 50/50 Flesh Wash (Secret Weapon) and Glaze Medium then spot highlighted with Shining Gold (Citadel)

Whites are layered with the Reaper Bone Triad (Dirty Bone, Graveyard Bone, and Splintered Bone) and lined with diluted Soft Tone (Army Painter).

Lots more to do and the packing is accelerating!  I'm hoping to get some a few more Raging Heroes, Lead Adventurers, Hexy Shop, and RWBY figures done before the end... fingers crossed!

Tabletop World Fisherman's House

Its no secret that I really like Tabletop World.  I'm super excited that they are doing a new line of Heroic scale "modular" buildings.

The demise of the old square base 20mm=human standard made me look at what to plan for in future. The current poplar base size is a 30mm round lip base which is more like a 35 mm.  This has a huge impact on terrain bits, like this one,  that were scaled around 20mm standards. 

I'm still putting stuff on 20mm squares but I also have interest in the new size bases and the associated games so... looks like I'll be going down that rabbit hole anyway!

 This is not quite complete.  I'm packing for a move of house and many of the finer details... like seagulls and hanging fish, have been left off while others like the dock rails and fish hoist are stuck on with Blue Tac.  There are enough fiddly bits on this that I may end up doing magnets to attach the parts most likely to be knocked off during handling... but that is not today!

You can see the differences between the first picture, where I used models with 20mm square bases and the following pictures with 25mm rounds.  The newer style skirmish and RPG bases are even larger so I think it'll be worth the effort to update some buildings to have larger interior spaces.

 The 'for scale' models here are (top) from the Bruegleburg: A day at the fair from Lead Adventurers and the rest from The Order of Vampire Hunters board game.

As with all the Tabletop World stuff the interior is detailed and fully accessible.

 Some of the smaller detail bits. 

House second floor.

 Roof with integrated balcony door.  The new line will feature operating doors and view through windows.  Many of the new game systems use some version of true line of sight that is a bit stymied by these solid windows and permanently closed doors.

Blue roof weathering.

The Order of Vampire Hunters Cain, Dallas, and Ash from the Kickstarter Exclusives.

Lots more to get done before the pack out so back to the desk!