Cerridwyn1st

Yupper! I've got an OLE (Origins Limited Edition), and there is a coupon inside the front cover to mail the book back in for one color edition and a limited edition fig. They sold all fifty copies in a day or so, and I got one of the last copies. It's already getting beaten up, can't wait for the real thing! I might have to get two - I'm doing a bunch of Warlord stuff, and I can't imagine being without a copy for the time it will take to send in the OLE and get the hardbound one back.

DOH! I'm having a day, aren't I? It's MOSSBEARD, not TREEBEARD (there I go with the LOTR thing again!) And DBC are Unique Solitaries, so in a Dwarven army, they become just Solitaries. They don't need command. Sheese. Does this mean that a 500 point skirmish goup could be made up of five DBC's? WICKED! Would it be possible to field skirmish groups made up of Solo units, with no command structure? By the time you add in spells and magical goodies, Mossbeard could be a 500 point skirmish unit all by himself.

Adepts => Grunts Unique => No longer unique No other changes Dwarven Bear Rider is a Unq. Solitaire. So in a Dwarf only company, they become simply a Solitaire and allow you to field more than one. Correct? See above - the Bear Riders become Grunts in an all-Dwarf unit, according to Bryan. I guess the other thing I'm wondering about his how would you give a group like this a commander? I'm guessing you'd use one of the Generic Heavy Cavalry Sergeants and assign the "Horrid" attribute (costs +5 points). Don't forget that Treebeard is also non-Unique for Elves. Wow, here we go with a LOTR-esque Attack of the Treants. He's certainly big enough to use oponents as amunition, per the Toss rules. Wonder if he has an RAV?

Hey, what about the painting depictions? On page 36, the middle and bottom pictures depicting paint consistancy are the same. There are some miscellaneous typos throughout (no spaces between words, contextural misspellings, things of that nature). Are you still wanting to hear about those? What about stand-ins? For example, I have the DHL Army Pack #06021 standing in for Vale Archers. The rule book mentions Musicians and other special units. While not available yet, there are Out of Print command units with musicians and banner carriers that are available. Two I've gotten are for Skeletons and Dwarves. The Dwarven ones would be really cool, due to the Dwarves Racial Ability of getting +2 to movement from musicians, instead of +1 like the other factions. What about the Dwarven Bear Cavalry? If I'm reading correctly, an all-Dwarf army could use these as non-unique, not Adept. (see the "Non-Unique/Adept Models" chart on page 112.) Would they then be considered Grunts, to be fielded in their own units? Any chance Centaurs could be added to this list for the Elves? Having more than one Treebeard would be cool in a really large army, but Centaurs are a whole lot cheaper. All in all, it is a very cool book. I'm trying to put together a Faction Roster with the order numbers of the individual units. This is for my LGS, since I'm looking at running a tournament and customers will need to be able to pick out their armies. Any chance I can get someone to look the list over and make suggestions/corrections? I'd be more than happy to make the list available to anyone that wants it, assuming it is correct.

Bet it would do the same thing if you spilled it on a nylon chamise. Though if I were painting in stockings and a chamise with my husband around, I doubt I'd be painting long enough for it to matter....

Feathering is an adjunct to layering. After you lay the next layer of color, quickly rinse and blot your brush. Then stroke outward from the applied color over the old color, blurring the edge of the paint. This helps create much smoother transitions from one color to the next.

Thanks, Ech. I'm looking forward to this.

Yeah, any modeling store (IE, plastic models like tanks and cars) will have Tamiya. You should check out your local hobby store. They have loads of goodies that the gaming stores just don't stock.

Always look out for cat hairs, especially those little awn hairs. The teeney tiny crinkly ones that you find sticking out of your brush or clinging to the surface of the mini. Man, it's enough to make you switch to the hairless kitties, except they are wierd looking and hyper as heck. Use a covered drinking vessel, one that looks significantly different from your rinse cup. I caused an entire gaming table to break out in gales of laughter after dipping my brush in my coffee cup...

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I guess all this started because I mentioned doing a tournament series to one of the people interested in Warlord, and he said, "you mean campaign, right?" As much as I hate to disappoint him, I really think that a campaign is beyond the scope of my current abilities. I was thinking more along the lines of letting people duke it out and get points for wins, looses, and draws, much like a card playing Modified Swiss tournament. That I'm familiar with. Since there is no Warlord currently being played where I game, and only a few people interested in painting, I wanted to put the two together. First couple of sessions, introduce the rules by stages and let people play with the figs I provide. Encourage them to get their own armies and start painting. Then start the tournament series, and slowly move people from using figs I provide to using their own armies. The Painting Contest is a carrot to get them to paint what they've bought. I like the idea of giving blisters as prizes. I was thinking of giving a Warlord fig of the appropriate faction to each participant that came to all the intro games to learned the rules and moved into the tournament. A blister of grunts for the appropriate faction could go to the weekly game winners, with something nice to the final grand prize winner. Thanks again for the feedback, guys, and keep the ideas coming.

Does anyone have suggestions for how to get Warlord started at your LGS? I'm hoping to generate sufficient interest in the game that people will be on their way to getting their armies going and be eager to get the rule book when it comes out. I'm going to do an intro game this Saturday, just to let people see the rules and the system. I'm just not sure where to do from there. Would it be better to have a campaign, or just run tournament style with people getting points for wins? Seems to me that the tournament idea would be easier for me to run, since I'm new at this, too. Since I've got skirmish groups for Elves, Reven, Reptus, Necropolis and Crusaders, people can play a couple of different factions before deciding which one they want for themselves. Another advantage of having some figs the beginners can use is we could have a concurrent painting contest. People could aquire their figs and paint them up as the tournament progressed, with a final "best painted" awarded at the end of the series. I'm open for suggestions here, guys.

Dane: Not having the exact colors in your collection to shade or highlight the color you are using may not be such a bad thing. If you want your shade and highlight to look natural, they should have a little of the base color mixed in. So mixing your own shade and highlight wouldn't be such a bad thing. Since you haven't painted the fig yet, maybe you should try this. Take the base color that you want to use, and add dark blue or blue/black. Paint the mini with this. Then gradually add in more of the color you want to achive and work up the basic color until you've got pretty much the pure color that you want to be the "main" color. Then start adding in yellow or yellow-green to do your highlights. If you are a litttle shy of doing this on the mini, mix up the shade color I talked about, and put a couple of coats on a sheet of paper in a circle. Add in more of the green you want and paint smaller and smaller circles within the big one. Finish by adding in yellow or yellow-green and keep shrinking the circle. See how you like that. Hey, Errex, what's the difference between a "cold green" and a "warm green"? Do you mean a green with a little more blue would be "cold", while a green with a little more yellow would be "warm"? Say, forest green would be "cold" while Kelly green would be "warm"?

That's gotta be the best advice regarding painting for pay I've ever heard. Pretty much sums up my philosophy. If I'm too busy, it's time to jack up prices!

I'm flattered that you ask, Wiz. I'm hardly a long-time expert at this. You seem to have a lot more experience painting than I do. I just have some very helpful friends. It helps lots if you are inherently lazy. Too lazy, in fact, to mess around with doing a lot of mixing and storing and blah, blah, blah. I've been reading a thread posted on the English Confrontation Site about Ark's Painting Tips. Thierry's whole approach is very simplified. Good paint, good brushes, water. That seems to be about the gist of it. Yes, my brushes get loaded with stuff. I just clean them a lot. I have Plaid Brush Cleaner in a GW flip-top bottle, and I'll flip the top and stick a brush end-first through a piece of foam (like a blister insert). I use this to suspend the brush in the liquid without touching the sides. After it soaks, I blot the brush, cleaning with Master's Brush Soap, then coat the bristles with soap, point it and let it dry. You really have to take very good care of your brushes if you are doing this technique a lot. Think lazy. Think SIMPLE. That seems to be the Zen of Ark's painting.

This is a chart Thierry uses as a teaching tool for NMM: The ratios given are approximations, more to give you the idea than to be exact. The basic idea is to start with a color you want to blend, like the 907 Grey Blue, and gradually blend in more of the 903 Intermediate Blue onto your brush. I frequently dip my brush in water as I go, to keep the paint thin. See how he has the 50/50 blend in the middle, and changes the percentages outward? That's what I mean by "adding more to your brush". You'd take that 50/50 mix, and towards the end you wanted lighter, you'd blend in more Grey Blue, then paint over the border between the two colors. Keep going, blending in more and painting transitions, until you can't see the transitions anymore. I tend to take the "top" of the blade and glaze it with the full-strength light color, then glaze the "bottom" with the darker color, to even out all transitions as a final step. You really, really need a sable brush for this, size 1 or 2, with a very sharp point. It's thirsty enough to hold a lot of water and pigment, yet precise enough to paint even small details. I'm talking a relitively big brush with a point sharp enough to put an eyeball on a Fairy. Thierry used Raphael Kolinsky Sable #1 & #2, or another good quality artist's sable round. I've used the Reaper Master Brushes, WNS7, etc, but my fave for this technique is a Vallejo #2. Hope that helps, Wiz. Since I've only been doing this technique a few months, I'm afraid I don't have it "down" enough to do a good job of telling you what I'm on about. Showing you would be much easier, but I don't think that will be possible. I did show Matt this on a sword at Origins. You can see more of Thierry's color recipies at My Webpage

I'm getting rather fond of paint-on matt sealer. It's inexpensive, compact, can be used anywhere without choking anyone, and gives a nice finish without dulling metals or washing-out layering.

I used a similar color as a skin tone on a dryad, and I highlighted it by mixing in yellow/green. I liked the effect, but the finished color came out looking more like green than teal. What about using #8063 Glacier Blue? Looks like a kind of green/blue tint (ie, green/blue mixed with white) for a highligt. I'd kinda be tempted to use 8051, Ocean Blue blended into the Bloodstone as a shade. That's just personal preference, mind you. When I work with blues, I tend to want to shade them with a blue/black color and highlight with sky blue. I don't so much use a "bottled color" to shade or highlight as much as adding shades or tints to my base color and then shadow or highlight with that. If I don't do that - paint a color that looks like a shade or highlight on top of and exsisting color with no blending - the result just doesn't look as good as blends using the base and something else.

Anne: This is the mix I've been using for a while, as listed on Cool Mini or Not in the Articles: ************** In a clear plastic 16oz. water bottle mix (but don't shake as it creates a zillion bubbles that you have to wait to settle) the following (use pyrex beaker to get the measure roughly correct): 350 Ml of filtered water - if your tap water is good use that. 100 Ml of Golden/Liqitex Flow Aid - this stuff is awesome, combats ringing and makes paint "milk-like" in the right proportion. 50 Ml of Golden/Liqitex Retarder - Instructions say to only use a couple of drops but I threw that out with no ill effects. Paint stays open for days with a sealed wet palette. One drop of liquid dish detergent - may just be superstition but it seems to keep paint from adhering to my brush ferrule. *************** It's got more water than your mix, but works pretty well. I've been using a dropper to add this to paint, but I've been thinking of putting a small amount in a little cup and dipping my brush as I go. What do you think? It's cool that you teach painting. Teaching is what got me into the Black Lightning program. I'd started doing a workshop at my LGS, and a friend told me about BL. Product support from one of my fav companies to help me keep doing what I was doing? Talk about win-win! It amazes me what a 10-year-old can produce if you give him or her the right stuff to get started. Early success encourages them to keep going, and impresses the parents. Assuming I don't blow a gasket and forget the stuff, I get newbies started with a wet pallet and thinned paint. It lowers their frustration level and helps them get good results. If I don't have wet pallet stuff, I at least give them a disposable plate or empty blister to thin and mix paints in. Thinning paint for the first time also makes a dramatic difference to "bottle top painters" who've become frustrated with the same old results. A little help with the "newer" methods seems to go a long way, regardless of people's experience levels. I'm still working on the thinned paint myself, since you pointed out that I don't quite get it thin enough. I was wondering if the problem might be that I don't blot my brush enough when I have the paint properly thinnned, becasue sometimes it flows where I don't want it to. That leads me to use thicker paint to get the effect I want. The paint I'm using is thinned, but not as thinned as you suggest. It is cool to hear you and Jen both talk about using the side of the brush when highlighting. Tells me I've got the right idea, even if I need some work in "taking it farther". Mel

Matt, when I was at Origins I had a chance to meet Anne. She told me that when highlighting, I needed to make sure that I blended a little of my previous color with the highlight color to make the highlight look more natural. I also corresponsed with Thierry on the subject of blending. He said he doesn't mix the paints in the ratios he gives, but instead blends them on his brush as he goes. This is quicker, easier, and creates smoother blends. Now, if the blends in question only use two colors on a small area, it doesn't matter so much what I'm blending on. A cut blister pack will work to hold the colors, and if I need to "go back" later, it is a simple matter to start again with the two separate colors and blend from there. When using more than one color, a wet pallet becomes much more necessary. I'm not going to want to have to start over trying to blend more than two colors to match what is on the piece. A wet pallet keeps the colors usable for much longer than a conventional pallet would. I usually don't use the wet pallet for colors I'm drybrushing, since the paint tends to absorb water from the pallet and sometimes it becomes too wet for good drybrushing. At Origins, Anne wasn't using a wet pallet, she had a ceramic artist's pallet. I'm not sure what Thierry uses to mix on. I'll have to ask. Anyway, for me a wet pallet is indispensible. I know experienced painters who never use one. I guess it is a matter of what works for you. Wiz: Liquitex Matt Medium? Hmm, have to give that a try. I've been painting about 2.5 years now, I still have SO much more to learn. Lately, I've been forgoing most mediums in favor if dipping my brush in clean water and thinning "on the brush as I go". I'm also thinking of going back to my mix of flow release, extender and water, but put a small amount in a cup and "dip" as I've been doing with water. I'll also use a sqirt bottle or dropper to drip water on my pallet. Kevin: It's cool to hear about your experience. I've used different mediums, and like you I find that different mediums have different uses. It is cool to read about your experience, both the see where I'm doing the right thing and to pick up some stuff I'd missed.

I usually start with the face and work out, doing the shading and highlighting as I go. But for a "quicky", say a tabletop mini where I'll be drybrushing, I'll do the face last so it doesn't get messed up. I'm trying to get into the practice of using more painting rigs. If I drank more, I'd use wine corks. Just about anything will do, soda bottle caps, empty creamer holders, wooden dowels with a blob of hotmelt glue on the end, you name it. Empty paint pots are good, too. I guess I like the hotmelt blob dowels best. Lots to hang on to, can be used for priming the fig as well as painting it, can be used to dip the whole mini in a wash or varnish, easy to stick the mini on and take it off. I glue the mini on the dowel with a drop of cheap superglue. When I'm done, I run a razor between the bottom of the mini and the top of the blob, and it pops right off. Oh, one other technique: Mount the mini on its base, add the basing material, prime the basing material along with the fig. Do this with sand and a black-based mini. Once the mini is complete, apply a coat of sealer. Then drybrush green on the base material, and you have very nice looking "grass". I start with a dark green, then use a medium green, and finish with yellow-green. Sealing the mini BEFORE drybrushing the "grass" will allow you to clean up an boo-boos that occur on your main paint job. Thierry Huser gave me the colors he uses for this: #28, VGC Dark Green; #833, VMC German Camo; #854 Yellow Green. I'm not sure his exact process. I don't think he primes the sand with the mini, I think he buys sand that is already colored black and uses that.

I know a painter who never uses paint additives. All he ever does is add straight water. His name is Thierry Husser and his work is just incredible. The Pilzenbhir Project is based around one of his minis that Wiz owns. I commissioned two minis from Thierry, and I've bought minis from NO ONE else. I was lucky - picked up a couple before he was widely known with 3 - 4 months backlog of commissions. But that's besides the point. The point I'm trying to make is that paint additives are very helpful, but there are really great painters who don't use them at all. Something I've been doing that I'd like to know if anyone else does the same. I use a wet pallet, so my paint gets a little thinned from contact with that. I've also started dipping my brush in clean water and then adding the paint, effectively thinning the paint on the brush. Has anyone else tried this? What do you think of the results? BTW, Matt, I was at Origins, too, any chance I met you?

It's pretty simple, Kelli. If the figure is a normal character-sized fig (about 25 - 28mm), then it should go on a one inch square base. For cavalry pieces, use a 1x2" base. Large monsters use two inch square bases. I don't remember all the other size catagories at the moment, but the largest is resurved for gigantic monsters (dragons and such), and are the size of a compact disk (finally a use for all those AOL things lying around.) Reaper makes square slotted bases for Warlord figs. They also have a beveled-edged pewter 1" (among other sizes) that allows you to easily convert Dark Heavens figs for Warlord. Glue the mini to the base, fill it in with greenstuff, then prime and base as normal.

I've got a Masterson pallet and I like it very much. The only problem I had was the first time I dropped paint on it, it spread like crazy. I put a layer of the Wndsor Newton paper I was used to on that, and it worked fine. I could have had too much water on the paper or not soaked it enough. But I'd never had the spread problem using Windsor Newton pallet paper, so it threw me off. I make wet pallets for my students to try by taking a sandwich box from Hefty or Glad and putting first a paper towel and then baking parchment in it. I've noticed that Vallejo Game Color will clump up if left on a wet pallet. It congeals rather quickly when exposed to air, unless you use a paint additive to slow drying. It will do this even on a wet pallet. Normal tube acylics, on the other had, can stay open for weeks. I guess that makes sense, since that is what the pallet is really for.

There is this one bird that is used repeatedly as a familiar in the Reaper line. It even has its own sculpt as a familiar. I HATE that thing. No matter what I do, it looks like crap every time I do one. Grr.

Art supply store, ink section. I got mine at a place called Readiarts in Jacksonville, FL. You might try something similar where you are. The bottles they have at Michael's aren't small enough. The bottles I got have a straight dropper, which is a little wider than the tip on a Vallejo bottle. To fill, I simply squeeze out the air, stick the dropper in the paint and let the bottle suck it up. Couldn't do that with the very small Vallejo dropper. Other than that, the bottle is about the same size.