An experiment in Wappel-style painting

[OneBoot]

Among the classes I took at Reapercon this year was Shaded Basecoats, by James Wappel. For those of you unfamiliar with his painting style, it basically breaks all the "rules" of painting miniatures in all sorts of awesome ways. He uses huge brushes, doesn't rinse them out, blends most of his colors together, slops paint on all super messy in the early stages, it's quite the mind-blowing experience!

 

I had SO MUCH FUN in his class that I decided to give a try at home, using a Bones werewolf that MrBoot needed painted before Friday's game. 

 

Here's the brush I used for 90% of the work:

 

Yes, that does actually say Size 8.  

 

The other 10% was done using one of my trusty Size 0's for claws, eyes and teeth.

 

And here's the final result! (I had to tweak the color balance of the final pictures to get the reddish skin/fur to show properly)

 

 

I only spent just a little over an hour on this guy, and yet I'm just as happy with how he turned out as I would have been had I spent 4. Perhaps even happier!  And even better, I was so relaxed and just having a lot of fun painting with this huge brush and not even caring about being careful.

 

After looking at the pictures, I can tell his fur could really use one last highlight, but eh, I've got 20 other minis that need painting, so I'm not going to worry about it.

 

List of paints used:

Violet Liner (special thanks to @Guindyloo for the suggestion)

Redstone shadow (fur, skin)

Earth brown (fur)

Rich leather (fur)

Golden shadow (fur)

Chestnut brown (skin)

Oiled leather (skin)

Aged bone (claws, teeth)

Splintered bone (claws, teeth, eyes)

Violet red (tongue)

Big top red (tongue, eyes)

Clear red (eyes)

Solid black (eyes)

Blackened brown (base)

Jungle moss (base, claws)

Highland moss (base)

Stone grey (base)

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

Edited October 31, 2017 by OneBoot

[VolksFest]

Wow!! really? Did you also paint its eyes with that brush? 

 

Still, the result is incredible! Give us moar? 

[OneBoot]

1 hour ago, VolksFest said:

Wow!! really? Did you also paint its eyes with that brush? 

 

Still, the result is incredible! Give us moar? 

 

Lol no, the eyes, teeth, tongue and claws were all done with a Size 0, though I probably could have managed the claws and tongue with the big brush. 

 

Since MrBoot is starting up a new Pathfinder campaign, I expect that I will be painting more minis in a similar fashion in the future. :) 

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[Glitterwolf]

Awesome!

Also BONUS points for painting a Wolf!

[Sanael]

That is awesome! The only Wappel-related note I could give is that you opened too many bottles of paint! 

 

Seriously though, at Rcon 2016 I saw him paint two stands of FoW* infantry to roughly period-accurate colors using only a red, yellow, blue, black and white...in 30 minutes...while actively and animatedly carrying a completely unrelated conversation. The man is some kind of warlock.

 

Really lovely work, though. I havent been able to apply the stuff from his classes nearly as well, yet. You got excellent results in very good time!

 

 

* I think it was Flames of War...I don't play historicals, so I can't be certain.

[Pochi]

That's great! I can't believe you got it to look so nice in an hour! I am super slow and would have it basecoated and starting on the face in about an hour. I think he looks really good!

[Chaoswolf]

That's fantastic!

I hope I can get into his class next year.

[malefactus]

I must admit to enjoying the sloppier parts of painting..one reason I like terrain so much. However you did the Wolf Man, he looks WONDERFUL. He looks like you spent quite a bit more time than you did. VERY WELL DONE!

[Guindyloo]

Needs more purple! 

Seriously though, that looks great, it definitely looks like you spent way more time on it than you did. And you had fun, which is the most important part! 

[Kuro Cleanbrush]

Way to go!  Looks awesome, and I'm jealous of your speed! 

[NecroMancer]

Amazing!  Nice work!

[Cyradis]

Geez that is neato! 

[OneBoot]

Thanks everyone!

 

5 hours ago, Sanael said:

That is awesome! The only Wappel-related note I could give is that you opened too many bottles of paint! 

 

Seriously though, at Rcon 2016 I saw him paint two stands of FoW* infantry to roughly period-accurate colors using only a red, yellow, blue, black and white...in 30 minutes...while actively and animatedly carrying a completely unrelated conversation. The man is some kind of warlock.

 

 You are completely correct! I don't know that I'll ever be able to completely move away from using the premixed colors I already have (because there's just too many pretty ones!), but I am going to be trying to do more mixing colors on my pallette and brush like he does, which will help me achieve smoother blends much more quickly. :) 

 

And yes, he totally is some sort of wizardly mad genius; watching him at work is a real treat! 

 

3 hours ago, Pochi said:

That's great! I can't believe you got it to look so nice in an hour! I am super slow and would have it basecoated and starting on the face in about an hour.

 

Thank you so much! I'm normally a slow painter as well, which has frustrated me numerous times in the past. So, this ReaperCon I specifically took a couple of classes with the goal of improving my speed: Good Fast Painting by Tish Wolter, and Shaded Basecoats by Wappel. They helped so much! 

 

3 hours ago, Chaoswolf said:

That's fantastic!

I hope I can get into his class next year.

 

If you can, you should! It's a mind-breaking experience, but so awesome! :D

 

3 hours ago, malefactus said:

I must admit to enjoying the sloppier parts of painting..one reason I like terrain so much. However you did the Wolf Man, he looks WONDERFUL. He looks like you spent quite a bit more time than you did. VERY WELL DONE!

 

Thank you! I've generally been a very tidy painter, but that costs me quite a bit in speed. So I'm sort of learning backwards, because I'm trying to be messier!

 

2 hours ago, Guindyloo said:

Needs more purple! 

Seriously though, that looks great, it definitely looks like you spent way more time on it than you did. And you had fun, which is the most important part! 

 

Totally agree, it does need more purple! But MrBoot likes realism, so I had to settle for subtle purple undertone (which the camera entirely failed to pick up). We do have another one, though, so I might do it up in very dark purples as a sort of monochrome thing, or possibly blue. Just for fun.

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[ub3r_n3rd]

VERY cool!

 

i need to do something like that too. I haven’t painted anything since I got back from the Con 

[Pezler the Polychromatic]

Clap for the wolfman.