Moving along with the presentation I had a visual of what the army somewhat looked like here,
I played a few test games with this “quick and easy” basing I did on another post. However I didnt want the “stormcast” look with the gold armor. It escaped me the types of colors I wanted. Blue seemed like an Auto-pick along with any of the cool colors like teal and aqua that I was already using. Also, I already pulled some of the models as Basilean Ogres, so now I already had a theme, but really I didnt want to do Ocean knight army. For some reason it didnt spark anything. Doing a unit or two of the Basilean ogres seemed fine to me. So I left those models for that project. And Ill use the connected Elohi winged Stormcast models there. Back to these models then.
One of my favorite painters for his simple to understand presentations and value of quality yet fast to complete projects showed two presentations I really liked. Red Armor and a complete other project was lava bases.
With a bit of a suspension of disbelief, I liked the idea of these Armored Titans walking through the super heated inhabitable landscape of hades.
Before I go into how I’ve been working on the cindered Hades landscape, I wanted to show layout and the inspired art to set the tone on what Im after. looking at the ground, I want it to be super heated. So not lava, but super hot, discouraging any travel unless completely prepared. Being Titans, they have the resilience and fortitude to sustain high heat and wear heavy armor in such conditions.
I start the landscape with the all the bases I need and work through it all in a factory kind of production to get the same unit results. I do the complete landscape then do the models.
Materials, I need all the bases I will use, so I pulled off all the models from the old bases. And purchased MDF bases for all my units. Now, I generally order 30-40 $ worth at a time and that often can make several armies. For those that are considering making the bases yourself, Ive done that and it is suitable. But for what Im doing with reheating and fluids cheap materials are not the way to go. So lets jump into it.
I started by mixing Sand and White glue in a small can and speading it on “sealed” MDF. Use the sealant of your choice if you’d like to try this. History has shown that MDF can warp if it gets too wet. Sealant helps keep the form
I let it bake in the sun for an hour and it seemed fine to start painting.
I used a paint and matt varnish mixture of white. Than airbrushed over yellow.
Than moved onto Orange and then some Red in some areas. This was maybe 15 min of time. I use a hot air gun to lightly fast dry the paint to work like an oven to speed up the process.
the next step is another wash of Whiteglue/water mix. About 50/50 I guess. let it dry before painting.
Put a heavy coat of Mordant Earth I think its called. This stuff works like a crackle paint. Its about 7 bucks and it did covered all the bases. I still have some actually.
Once it starts to dry you’ll see some cracks and the standing dark rock with heated rock undertones.
Than I follow up with another coat of whiteglue/water and let dry. The results I find are seemingly interesting to look at.
Not sure what part of the landscape I want to work on next. Thoughts are about how to capture a location, not just the landscape. Do I want to add rocks and landscape?
One of the ideas I have is mounds with weapons sticking out of them from past battles. Anything organic wouldn’t last long, so no bones or none metal items. I almost want the items to be more silhouetted, dark and less detailed to capture the underworld.
Would love to hear any input.