Do you ever really irritate someone, but you don’t care because you want their input? That is my painting relationship with Ron Kruzie here at Privateer Press. He is technically my boss when it comes to sculpting, but when it comes to painting we are both just hobbyists. He just happens to be really good and me….not so much. I try, though!
With the release of Empyreans, I knew I wanted to assemble and paint up some models despite my obvious love for Aeternus Continuum. Like any good gamer, I ordered WAAAAAY too much stuff, and when it arrived I assembled and primed it all of course—because why not overwhelm myself and set myself up to never get anything painted?
Well, I convinced myself to just paint up the Empyrean Starter Box first and ideally have it ready to go when the Kickstarter ships to backers. So, I moved everything off of my desk except the starter and a couple of other models I was using in a skirmish-scale game and got to work.
My first goal was to pick out colors, and this is where I start to bother my buddy Ron. I sent him messages asking questions, the same questions I ask every time I start a new project. I don’t know why he gets irritated. What’s the big deal? To try and keep my colors “working,” I like to look up sports teams and see what works for them—I figure they put way more thought into it than I would. Then, once I settled on a few main colors, I sent those to Ron, and he sent me back a pallet to work from.
I tried to prime with two different colors to help with some lazy gamer shadows (talking about myself here). I like a fully painted army, but I also don’t put as much time into it as I should. This is where I screwed up by using a cheap colored primer that spattered and globbed up. So, what did I do? Naturally, I sent Ron another message and asked what I should do. He laughed maniacally…multiple times…pretty much all day. (No, no picture of that.) I did redo my priming with a base brown primer and then airbrushed on a lighter color.
Moving forward, I was able to start laying down my colors and keeping it very simple. I am a 2–3 color painter, meaning I have a base, a middle color, and a highlight, and that is usually all I go for. A good example of this is the tentacle heads of the Empyreans, for which I took three shades of blue and just blended them down the tentacle to try to give a glow effect. Simple, easy, and within my painting skill set. After that, I put in my yellow glow lines—a little sloppy, I know, though I have gone back and cleaned them up a bit. That kind of line work has always given me issues!
Lastly, I needed to do my basing. I see a lot of people paint up a nice model and leave the base empty. What a missed opportunity!! I feel like a cool base is as important as a painted model. It doesn’t take me much time for bases; I flood the inset with Elmer’s Glue, spread it around good, and then dip the base in a custom mix of fine sand and pebbles. After that dries, I put on some grass tufts or anything decorative to help add character. For my Empyreans, I went a little beyond my normal approach and ordered some alien grass from Gamer’s Grass. I picked up several color variations plus some brambles, and when I couldn’t decide which type I liked the best, I decided to mix them all together for some truly alien landscape work!
Thus…behold my painted Empyrean Starter Box for Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika! Now the rest of you, get painting! I have already started on the next couple of models—a Factotum and Astreus! Kindly keep up with me!
