Frostgrave Part 5: Frostgrave Game Day


Now for the seriously overdue conclusion to my Frostgrave series. I truly do not know where to begin, I’ve spent the last few weeks ruminating on how to articulate the experience and journey. In short it has caused some serious writers block.

Its been an absolutely wild ride. I started this project at the end of July with the quest towards an epic day of gaming and playing Frostgrave with my wonderful husband. Over the course of the past two months I’ve been tirelessly planning, printing, and painting as much as I could to truly bring a terrain dense and immersive game day. This was to accomplish two primary goals.

  • Try to overcome some of the downfalls from truly enjoying the game in our first few games from February which I discuss in Frostgrave Beginnings.

Due to the lack of terrain the game was significantly overpowered towards ranged attacks which reduced the fun of the game for me and really felt tremendously unbalanced as a game. Conclusion Learned: Yes increased terrain does significantly reduce the power of ranged combatants and really make things fun for all warband members.

  • I really needed a day to bond with my best friend which wasn’t just about our kids.

If those of you do not know we added another member to our crazy family four months ago and of course newborns can take a serious chunk of time out of your schedule. On top of that, due to Covid it has been incredibly difficult to have a date night or get out of the house. So the result was to find a baby sitter to watch the kids and be able to have a day of action filled gaming. As we do not currently have an active Tabletop group I was sorely missing being able to play and is a big piece of things we enjoy doing together. This was something that I could plan in advance and really get hyped about with him.


Overall I think these goals were accomplished. Now before I get into it more lets check out a few of the action shots. 

Game One: Scenario Mausoleum

Scenario: The Mausoleum

Our first game consisted of playing one of the very first scenarios you read in the core rule book for Frostgrave the Mausoleum. This scenario requires two things; a mausoleum and skeletons.

The mausoleum is placed in the center of the board and has 4 sides with doors on each side. There are four treasures on each of the corners of the mausoleum and two placed by players within nine inches of the mausoleum. Of course Mr. Crazy had to place a treasure on the very top of the mausoleum to climb and get to while I placed my extra on a stack of barrels which also had to be climbed (or a well aimed Telekinesis spell). The added features about the scenario is the fact that a skeleton will come out of a random door at the end of a turn along with the monster rolls when treasure was picked up and we added the optional monster encounter rules. This of course lead to a growing danger of more and more monsters as you started to dwindle in warband members.

Overall it was a great and very close game. Mr. Crazy shut down my Sigilist really soundless with Curse and Plague of Insects making it almost impossible to cast any spell. My wardog Yippers was the real MVP and killed almost half of his warband in protecting my people trying to get the treasure. In the end I captured 3 treasures while he only captured 2 with one left on the board swarmed by monsters and unable to be retrieved.

Scenario: The Keep

For game number two we played the scenario the Keep. This story sets up with four magical discs which hold treasure but could magically teleport to a random one of the four. When a player tries to pick up the treasure you would teleport. What made this game interesting is the fact that you could potentially teleport into the enemy own disc and suddenly it becomes incredibly difficult to run away.

This game I really loved the set up of the discs and usage of the ruins from Hagglethorn Hollow. However I did find some areas too clustered for good movement. The more open area allowed for significantly more movement and sometimes advantage for team Necromancer and made my Sigilist warband only transverse less than 1/4th of the board. I definitely feel as if I swung to far in density. But you never know until you try right?


Conclusion of a Major Project

While I of course didn’t complete every goal I set out to accomplish in this endeavor, I’m incredibly thrilled in what I have accomplished. Ironically during the course of this project I have been constantly reminded by friends and family that I am incapable of doing anything halfway. So to not even start painting pieces of terrain or even prime in some cases definitely bothered me. However there was an indescribable feeling of satisfaction and excitement sitting down at that table after all that time. Knowing you put in so much time and effort and seeing the fruit of your labor and enjoying it for a game is why I started the hobby in the first place.

Overall project and experience are definitely going to end up being a hobby highlight for the year. I had so much fun, my cheeks hurt from smiling for hours afterwards. It felt incredible to have things to plan for and talk about moving.

The Highs


Printing
Almost every single piece of terrain 3D printed on this map was created in the 2021 year (exception of the Mausoleum in the center). Approximately 80% of the terrain was made in a two month span August – September 2021. Some ruined buildings and pillars were made earlier in the year.

100% of this Battle Mat and our Warbands are 3D Printed! Note some random encounter monsters are manufactured miniatures, mostly reaper.

Battle Mat
Usage of Scatter Terrain was 100% a game changer for me and fantastic. I loved having treasure stacked on top of a bunch of barrels requiring you to climb up to them (Or use telekinesis) along with having figures standing on crates to get a better vantage point for shooting. There is so much versatility in spells and cover and highly recommend putting in the time for a collection of scatter terrain.

Painting
Lastly the largest high is that every single member of our warbands had paint on it. They were not 100% finished to my typical standards but having painted minis on the table was an incredible feeling. In the end I painted a record of 19 models in the two month span and of course took the majority of my painting time.

All painted models for August and September

The feeling of community. During this project I really bonded and shared what I do and what I enjoy with not only my husband but also friends. They cheered me on and even helped in the painting of some terrain and models. The tabletop crafting and miniature painting hobby can sometimes be incredibly lonely and it was an absolute treat to be able to have others apart of my journey. If you have been following along with me on this project I thank you for cheering me on.


The Lows

I of course was disappointed that I did not have the time to paint everything. Yes I know I was being overly ambitious but a girl can dream. At least you can get a glimpse of the colored filament I was trying to use up, I almost always paint what I print (or aspire to) so colored filament doesn’t matter to me.

It also strangely bothered me that I did not have a 3 foot by 3 foot battle mat and I used green construction paper to flush it out. I also do not own a frost or snow themed battle mat (yet) as the 2 foot x 3 foot mat I bought is coming later in the year from a Kickstarter by EC3D Dungeonmats who made the current dungeon mat I am using. I love the double sided mats so much I decided to back their latest kickstarter to get a frost one.

I didn’t fit in all the aspects of map layout design I really wanted to accomplish. I worked hard on a bridge and river to attempt to incorporate water into my board but in the end it did not make sense space wise for the games. I did spend a good deal of time on that and am definitely disappointed it didn’t make it in. This resulted in all the research I did in my map design to be kinda thrown out the window but did turn out to be a fun table in the end regardless.

Hobby burn out. Working so hard on so many things seriously have taken a toll on my hobby printing and painting since game day. It was incredibly difficult to keep up with all the various things I was producing, their hobby status, what I was missing and keeping it all organized. I normally am great with creating pages and print logs for every single thing but in the mad Hussle to get stuff on the table I have yet to compile the data for better searching of what is out there in the community. This is definitely something I plan to fix in the future.

Since the conclusion of this project I haven’t dove seriously into anything yet for personal hobby time but have officially started working professionally in the 3D printing space. Don’t worry i’ll share more in the time to come.


What’s Next in Frostgrave?

The Frostgrave series on the site has truly been something special for me and obviously based on comments and feedback a project others can relate with. So I am opening this up to a group conversation and am curious what you think you would like to see and read.

  • Would you like to follow on our adventures with Battle Reports of our games?
  • Would a useful section of the site specific for Frostgrave be useful on images and tools of how some of the rules work? (A birth of a game section for the site)
  • A quest to paint every miniature in the bestiary?
  • Reviews of supplements and expansions? What is in them, what they provide
  • Simplified “what you need to play?” so other new players can join in the fun.

Or perhaps should I start and prep for a different game in the Joseph Mccullough collection such as Ghost of the Archipelago, Ranges of Shadowdeep, Stargrave.

Let me know!


As always happy hobby and have a wonderful day.

Cheers,
Carrie, Crazmadsci the Crazy mad scientist


Frostgrave Series


Past Hobby Blog Posts

Frostgrave Part 4: Status Update


19 Days Til Frostgrave!

We are over half way through the timeline of my Frostgrave project. So far it has been a wild ride and to summarize my feelings over the last two weeks, overwhelmed. I’ve spent a little bit over a month on my most ambitious terrain and miniature project to date. Its going to be extremely close to succeeding my goals and reaching the deadline of creating a 3×3 foot epic and immersive war gaming board to play with my husband. It has been hard to schedule games lately and this will be a real treat. If you want to follow along my journey from the beginning. Start at the Frostgrave Beginnings post of this series.

Since we are over the halfway mark lets reflect on my current project status. It has been two weeks since my last project update and I have quite a bit to talk about so buckle up.


Laying Out the Map

Since this project has so many moving pieces, I definitely began to loose track of what I had and what I needed. I couldn’t figure out what should be in the queue to print and produce, what was missing, and needed to visualize what our gameboard would look like. So like any person I decided to play with my toys and set it up as if I would play today.

Using some 12 inch x 12 inch colored construction paper I laid out my total desired board spacing to best visualize not only how much space a section of terrain will take but also if a region would “ooze” into other quadrants. Overall i’d call the experiment a success but my tiny assistant, did start tearing apart paper as you might be able to tell from the pictures.

Overall i think i’m beginning to have enough large terrain to be satisfied but still want one or two more feature pieces that really stand out along with significantly more verticality in movement such as bridges, planks and more. I’m also going to incorporate scatter terrain such as crates and barrels to provide more cityscape clutter for line of sight breakers and cover.


Printing Status Update

Since this project began I do not think my 3D printer has truly stopped producing more models and figures. I tend to have a few mass production cycles for the year and this for sure is one of them. So lets list the highlights of pieces made (definitely not all).

Infinite Dimensions Modular Rivers

While I only have a few pieces printed of the entire set of available pieces I do have enough printed to cross a section of our board. I am calling these pieces “good enough” to play with without producing more and are currently in progress on the painting bench.

I definitely have high goals and ambitions for river tiles and currently consider these more experimental pieces. I want to use some water effects, maybe stone pebble the river a bit, along with perhaps some grass? I know its the game of Frostgrave but by having some greenery on these would give me the best versatility for my tabletop as a whole. Maybe the Frozen City is showing signs of thaw?

Printable Scenery Graveyard Walls

These walls come from the Shadowfey Kickstarter of printable scenery. I decided upon using these over the options presented in Frostgrave part 2: Map Design. I am so glad that we choose this one as the walls themselves are taller than I anticipated and will be great for unique sections and break a decent portion of line of sight.

My wonderful husband has decided to help me and worked on these. The really wanted to try unique choices with orange stones and the white pillars and tombstones match the aesthetic of the original mausoleum.

Hagglethorn Hollow

I am currently in the process of printing the Hagglethorn Hollow ruins and some of the ruined buildings. Although difficult to see these ruins scream character and are perfect for play with a variation of verticality, windows, places to take cover, and places to add crosswalks and bridges.

The biggest thing i’m going to have to decide is if I should paint them a classic gray color or stay more true to the Hagglethorn Hollow color scheme (shown below). What do you think?

Hagglethorn Hollow Ruins Product Image

Printable Scenery Rope Bridge, Ladder, Stairs, and Gangways

Since laying out the models I had on my tabletop I’ve started to begin printing more pieces that would connect buildings and terrain in multiple story play.

While this is only a small portion of what I want to print I plan on making more and painting up these pieces.

I’m sure I’ve printed other things in the last two weeks on this project but it has honestly been hard to keep up with all the moving pieces. Also since so much of my hobby is printing in general I doubt I’d ever be truly done with printing stuff for my tabletop.


Graveyard Almost Complete

With the completion of painting the graveyard walls the graveyard feature piece for our Mausoleum scenario is almost complete. While some pieces like tombstones only are primed the whole area is just screaming for a game day. I’m so thrilled with how much fun it all looks and I even finished painting the Zombie set from Lost Adventures Volume 1. I was testing different skintones for what I wanted to use for the Zombie thugs for the Necromancer Warband.


It takes a Village

Last week I definitely suffered from the beginnings of feeling overwhelmed and hobby fatigue with how much i’ve produced and needed to paint. However at that time my wonderful husband offered to have a painting date night when all the kids went to bed (with a cat supervisor). What an incredible blast it was to share my hobby joy with him again. He had so much fun he even painted all days that weekend even on nights where I was too tired to paint. He is not someone who paints often but finds joy and pride in anything he gets done and ends up on the table. This is one of the most perfect of examples of sharing games and crafting with others and the joy it brings. I’ve greatly missed crafting with others and sharing the joy of experimentation and color choice. Also I really love seeing the color choices and techniques others use as they are different from my own.

In the last few days as well I had the incredible opportunity to teach a lifelong friend how to paint miniatures. I had no idea that he has always dreamt of trying to paint minis so I handed him some of my sigilist warband to try. We only got to spend a little bit of time together but he helped me start to basecoat my thugs and crossbowmen. I hope that I have corrupted him into joining the ranks to miniature painting so we can meet up and play games together. I still haven’t decided if i’m going to send him a care package in the mail of 3D printed models to kickstart his collection.

This Frostgrave project has become something truly special this year. My friends and family have been cheering me on and following along on my instagram as well as everyone reading here, so thank you. I have appreciated all the support and when I started to feel a lull in motivation i’ve been so surprised who offers to help or mention how motivating it has been for them.


Can I Make My Deadline?

For the goal of building my gameboard for Frostgrave I am well on my way to have all the terrain pieces I want to really make it a fantastic and fun experience . This will also work on improving some of my previous frustrations from past games.

My secondary goal of having everything painted for gameday will be cutting it really close. I would say that this goal of having all the terrain and miniatures painted will hinge on this upcoming week. You see i’m traveling back home to see my family to get some much needed vacation time in as well as celebrate the life of my grandfather who has been my inspiration in gaming. He will always have the title as one of my largest influences in my life to make me a gamer at heart. That along with my love with fantasy books.

In order to make this deadline I have packed some hobby stuff, perhaps too much paint and am working on using some of my time to paint on the road. I also bringing the warbands as well as scatter terrain and various pieces. Handsome hubs has still really enjoyed helping me so am bringing plenty to give him options and give him inspiration while trying to knock out my most time consuming pieces the miniatures. Stay tuned next week and find out how much I’ve accomplished. My goal would be to have at least my warband miniatures painted but time will tell.


Whats Next?

We are coming down to the wire and although I almost completely lost all momentum my friends and family have really come through in supporting my hobby which has felt incredible. Even a few have shown interest in playing. Maybe i’ll work towards expansion to a 4×4 board and more warbands for Christmas with a complete bestiary for a mega game with 4 to 5 players.

So far setting this deadline and chronicling the process has been an incredible motivator as well. The blog has been such a fun addition to my tabletop crafting hobby this year and so glad I finally started it. I still really want to add up all the data on materials, product sourcing, time printing etc to give people perspective as to how long or how much certain things take before the big game day. Maybe i’ll get some writing in as well this week.

What do you guys think? Think I can make my goals? Have you set a goal for yourself? Post, comment down below.

As always Happy Crafting,

Carrie aka Crazmadsci the Crazy Mad Scientist.


Frostgrave Series


Past Hobby Blog Posts

Contrast Paints: Understanding Their Usage


Last week I posted I paint job of the Hill Giant Tyrant Ogi Skullcrusher and my experimentation for painting skin. While it was setting my baseline for skill and observing room for improvement when painting skin I also really wanted to finish the model.

Since I already spent quite a few painting sessions on the miniature and already am behind schedule in painting my Frostgrave game with over 15 miniatures over the next month I decided to try in more detail the usage of citadels contrast paints. I am still very much new to using contrast paints and acknowledge a lot to learn. However here are some of my first experiences and observations using the paint.


What Are Contrast Paints?

Contrast paints are a paint formulated by Games Workshop to help assist new painters or even those who choose to speed up their painting process. Contrast paints are designed to base coat, shade and highlight the miniature in a single coat and most commonly used over a light undercoat. By suppling so many steps in a single application it can help a novice painter glaze over some technical steps and save valuable time going back to apply multiple coats or even colors to achieve similar effect.

The largest benefit of these paints can be used in tandem with a zenithal highlight (light color prime over a dark like the sun is shining at its zenith). Contrast Paints appear similar to a wash or shade but also appear somewhat thicker to allow for full coverage in painting the model.

While there are other companies who have created paint similar to the contrast paint, access to Games Workshop paints are widely available in my area and are considered by some to be the best of their type.


My Bias

Since the release of contrast paint in 2019 into the hobby space, I admit I’ve avoided buying and using a them. Having watched many YouTube channels during their release reviewing the product line the consensus was along the lines of interesting but not necessarily valuable to the experienced painter. You see the market of contrast paint was aimed towards the new painter as a way to do several painting techniques in one; base coat, shade, and highlight. Why would a experienced painter want to use them? An advanced painter has significantly more control and finesse doing these things the old fashioned way. As for me, why would an aspiring painter use them if it takes away from the practice of other techniques. I aim to grow not necessarily avoid tasks.

Over time however I’ve begun to notice an increase of usage of contrast paints in various applications for people. Many paint models for their games and are absolutely happy with the tabletop standard contrast paints provide. There is a growing category of people who have begun to use contrast paint as a unique tool in various situations providing yet another SKILL to use rather than a shortcut. Due to the increase in the latter I’ve decided to over come my prejudice and try them for myself.

I will also admit the that cost of contrast paint is something that has turned me off over time as well. Contrast paint can be roughly 40-50% more in cost than a standard container of paint.


My First Use of Contrast Paint

I was inspired to use contrast paint for the very first time during my woodworking deep dive color palette test. I saw several people in the painting community painting wooden objects such as doors and barrels with contrast. I absolutely loved how they turned out and asked “What was your process?” “Did you use a particular color?” The response: Contrast Paint.

Since contrast paints are commonly referred to as a “transparent filter” I loved seeing the difference in behavior using the three different undercoats: white, gray, and black. The biggest difference was noticed in the Gore Gunta Fur Contrast Paint. With a white primer the paint appears more red as opposed to brown.

I absolutely loved these colors and to be honest testing contrast myself on these tavern tiles made me excited to use contrast paint in my arsenal for other projects.

Contrast paints tested for Wood painting deep dive

My First Real Application of Contrast

After the wood working testing and not knowing how I wanted to finish painting the Hill Giant after my experiment with skin I realized that there were three areas on the Hill Giant that I technically had contrast paint for: Wood, Leather, and Fur. This was the perfect opportunity to see the contrast paints in a real application for a three dimensional miniatures instead of a relatively flat base. This distinction is valuable as contrast paints are intended to help add shade to a model.

For this test I attempted to experiment with three different starting processes to see how they responsed and behaved.

  • Tree Trunk: this tree trunk is mostly white but technically a zenithal highlight and would represent the most default usage of contrast paint. This would ideally produce shadow and contrast upon the addition of the contrast paint.
  • Fur texture: I painted a light grey color as a uniform bright undercoat to see what would happen. With a consistent color and not preshaded. This would be most similar to the white primed Gore Gunta Fur painted base from above.
  • For the leather I wanted to try to use two pre toned colors and see if the contrast paint was transparent enough to be impacted by the contrast paint and therefore potentially produce two variants of leather.
Hill Giant Prepped for Contrast Paint

The Leather

When I applied the snakebite leather contrast paint to the leather you can absolutely see below that the contrast paint completely over powered the under coat color of the hill giant. There is zero indication that any work went into painting the leather differently. This was by far the most disappointing portion of my testing with contrast paints. In order to fully use them the way I want to in the future I will have to learn more methods to thin down the contrast paints or mix them to increase the variety of color and tones for the paint itself.

To help compensate for this singular hue in color I did end up dry brushing and a small amount of edge highlighting to try and get more of that worn leather look.

Close up to the Leather work after Drybrushing

Fur and Wood

Applying the contrast paint to the wood and leather also yielded interesting results for me. While the fur behaved approximately as expected with darker recesses and lighter tops the wood overall did appear very splotchy. While this works very well for a tree trunk as there is no uniform color to the bark of a tree I am left frustrated in the consistency of the paint and my skill working it. I found the paint pooling in locations and not applying in a smooth layer. Again learning how to thin out the paint would be ideal.


Highlighting

At this state of using contrast paint I was largely disappointed. I know I am not the most skilled of painters but was frustrated that I could not move the paint in the direction I wanted to go and could not anticipate the results. Which is of course silly because the whole purpose of using these paints was to see how they behaved and to learn and grow.

Deciding to move forward and see what would happen I decided to apply more dry brushing and highlights to the contrast areas of the model in order to get more areas to pop and add variety of color. I added some of my original light gray color to the fur and some light brown to the tree. Overall I am really happy. I do and think overall there is much more life to the model and applying highlights yourself over the contrast paint is a necessity.

Perhaps I just need to learn more to add skills of contrast paints to my arsenal overall? What else could I have done?

Hill Giant with Highlights

Painted Hill Giant

In the end I am really happy with this model and the quality of its paint job. This is a fantastic tabletop standard piece and looking at it across the room brings a smile to my face. There is always aspects of any project you want to grow upon but in the end I think this figure is a great representation of my current skill and knowledge.

I also am really happy with the usage of some vallejo earth texture paste and a mixture of grass toughs to add final touches to the base. I tried to add the tuffs in between the rocks where grass or shrubbery would grow.


What’s Next?

While I have learned to no longer write off contrast paints and consider them a valuable tool. I definitely realize that I want to do more with them. Talking to some other hobbyists and watching more videos I realized that the use of Contrast Medium or some water will help thin down the contrast paint. I think perhaps the use of thinning down my contrast paint could help me unlock its potential. There is also different types of contrast paints. There is so much I can do and learn!

Maybe contrast paints deserve their own deep dive? Do you use contrast paints? What has worked for you and not? Lets start a dialogue to add this tool to our range of skills. How do you feel the model turned out?

As always Happy Hobbying.

~ Carrie the Crazy Mad Scientist


Previous Writings

Skin Deep Dive Part 1: Setting a Baseline


Recently on my hobby desk I picked out the Hill Giant Tyrant Ogi Skullcrusher from the Lost Adventures Volume 1 Kickstarter to paint. This was largely before I decided to dive into my Frostgrave series and I decided to attempt to work towards paining some of the models that I have printed. I refuse to call it a pile of shame but rather a collection of opportunity since I am really proud of my printed model collection. 2022 I’m looking at you as a major shift towards painting my backlog (already thinking of next years goals).

Hill Giant Printed Model

One of the things I wanted to do and focus on with this model was to set a baseline for myself and figure out what kind of questions I had when painting skin on models. You see in the past I have almost only used a flesh skintone paint and a wash in the past and call it done. This results in a glossy dirty finish of my miniatures. You can see the image below of some of my past painted models (2018-2021). Some of these represent models that I’ve painted perhaps only 20 miniatures ago (took a long break in 2019-2020) this does not include any of the terrain and building painting.

Previously Painted Figures

This collection showcases two 3D printed models and 3 figures from Reaper Bones. Other than the lack of depth of expression, and in the case of the bugbear on the far right any facial features painted what so ever. You can see I have quite a long way to go for improvement.

Other observations I can draw from these are a few things.

  • Even though I have painted very few models I feel as if my skill has grown tremendously
  • The skill sets and tools I have at my disposal for painting miniatures have grown.

So it is the perfect time to attempt to gauge my current baseline of skill for painting skintones. As I want to document my growth in the hobby more and current understanding to watch my growth of long period of time these baselines are incredibly helpful. I also attempted to dig more into contrast paints, how to use them and expectations of the paint but there is enough there that I am going to release a contrast paint deep dive part 1 from this model next Monday!


The Research

Around the time I really wanted to do more research around painting skin I was listening to a fantastic miniature painting podcast. I love to listen to and highly recommend: Paint Bravely the Podcast. In their July 5th episode “The Best Primer is NOT Black, White, or Grey” they discuss that using a red brown primer on models is great on showing the blood flowing through the figure. It is incredibly rare not to see a red or rosy hue on people of skins somewhere.

I also watch Squidmar Miniatures youtube and keep going back to one of his “Professional Painting Secrets – Squidmar Masterclass”. I have continuously watched the first 20 minutes of him painting the muscles of the bust. I really appreciate him breaking out into photoshop and explaining more about muscles. However in some ways I am still confused (more of that to come).

Regardless, this is a great spring board for me starting to do more.


The Inspiration

Now that I have more knowledge as to the mentality of painting skintones the second thing I struggle with is what colors to use. However as I was going through the Shadowfey Kickstarter updates for my Frostgrave buildings I noticed that they included a painting guide for the giants they released. I used their guide as the initial color reference and found paint similar in my collection although not perfect (thats ok).

Printable Scenery’s Giant used as inspiration

Paint In Progress

Using the Printable Scenery guide as a starting point I used paint conversion charts online to attempt to get as close as I could. The largest challenge for me is that I did not get a large chunk of time to paint and constantly had to remix the same tone since my workspace can dry out my wet pallete if i’m not careful and its been incredibly dry lately. This is when my paint journal came in really handy, I would commonly paint small squares next to my “official” mix to see how it compared before placing on the model. If you don’t keep a paint journal I highly recommend it. You can actually see all my “test” mixes next to the original as tiny dots clustered around a main one. I really struggled with my mix when I started using Elf Skintone.

For the very first base layer I used Citadel’s Deathclaw Brown, Terracota & Scarlet Red from Vallejo Game Color. I attempted to mix it so that way it had a strong red brown tone and after painting it on the model I actually really loved it. It felt like I already had great variable of the skin tone and a color I really appreciate.

Layer 1 (Mix #1): Deathclaw Brown, Terracota & Scarlet Red

I then used this layer and mixed in more Deathclaw brown to lighten it up and painted on top. This was the beginning of my first area of confusion. Watching the Squidmar master class it showed that I was supposed to paint the lighter tone into the muscle recesses and use the dark I believe only for the underside of the muscle. This is what I attempted here but do think it was the beginning of just “dark in the recesses” painting behavior.

Layer 2 (mix #1): Mix #1 + Deathclaw brown

I began to then continue building up and attempt to slowly paint less and less on the model to give it a better transition. This time my mix included the Vallejo Game Color Elf Skintone

Layer 3 (mix 3): Mix #2 + Elf Skintone

I then built up two more layers and the 5th layer was barely applied.

Layer 4 & 5: Elf Skintone & mix of Elf Skintone and Beast Hide

At the end of the skin I was torn on using a wash and for the sake of this experiment I decided against using a wash. Perhaps it would have lent itself to more depth? I have been attempting to improve my skills with layering and am finding myself using washes less on my paint jobs. I will definitely need to back to using shades and washes and attempt to use them in more sophisticated ways.

There was definitely a small bit of painting fatigue due to the number of painting sessions this took, getting large chunks of time to paint is really hard with small kids. While I would have liked to put more time on his skin I was happy. Also the six foot rule for how it would look on a game table told me it looks awesome enough to play with. The one benefit there is that the more definite and darker muscle is visible across the table and showcases him well.


Quick Reference

One thing I made for future reference was a handy quick reference of my layers, its overall transition, and ratios of paint mixed in my painting journal. I actually really loved how it came out and let me know if this would be useful for you and if I should continue to include my reference guides.


Painting After Skin

After I finished painting his skin I still felt the need to experiment. The first experiment that I did was to see how I felt about using a blue linen or leather on his waist.

After throwing on some paint I realized it was absolutely not what I wanted on my model. Also thanks for the conversations and ideas from the 3D Printed Tabletop Discord.

I decided to revert back and paint his clothes a classic leather color. I wanted to showcase two colors of cloth with a reddish fur. So instead of trying a new color I decided to try some of my contrast paints which I do not have as much experience with. However II think a conversation about my obversions and questions around contrast paints deserve their own separate discussion, stay tune for next week on that!


Areas of Improvement

As for the skin there are definitely areas where I feel like the darker recesses on the model are too thick and transitions too short. I feel as if I should have had more visible transitions. Several of my middle layers such as #2 and #3 are not nearly as visible.

The lighter color paint and layers definitely overpower the red hue of rich living flesh I was going for. While I did end up with a Caucasian skintone it was not as rosy or red hue as I wanted. This made me remember at the very end that I should have used more of a glaze of thinner consistency which would help the transistions as well.

Lastly I realized I have no idea how some muscles of the human body actually work. For example I had no idea how to appropriately paint his back and hands. You can see that the transitions in muscles are very thick, not as well definite and look kind of goofy.


Finished Image

While I do admit I need to take more photos of this guy I am extremely happy with his final result. Check it out and let me know what you think. Biggest highlight is that these are probably the best eyes I’ve ever painted.


What’s Next?

I definitely want to continue focusing on improving my knowledge and experiment a whole lot more with different skin tone colors and also increase the amount of diversity in my models. Learning more about the skin of different people around the globe is going to be a ton of fun and I want to see if I can truly capture peoples heritage in color.

Next step in this experiment is my testing of different base colors for undead flesh before I paint models for the Necromancer Warband.

As always Happy Hobbying.

~ Carrie the Crazy Mad Scientist


Previous Writings

Wood Color Palette on 1 inch round tavern bases

Wood Painting Deep Dive: Part 2 Improving your Color Palette

It has been quite sometime since I said I was starting my Woodworking deep dive (April 6th, 2021). It is definitely worth discussing the things I’ve done, worked on, and have to show since that time.

Just to recap for those who do not remember or haven’t read “Wood Painting Deep Dive: Part 1 The Questions, Inspiration and Self Reflection”.

I have begun an epic quest to improve my knowledge, tools, and experiences for painting wood textures for my tabletop projects. Being tired of painting everything the same and having all the shields, staves, trees, buildings looking the same I decided to attempt to learn more. This knowledge along with increased practice painting wood grains and trees would also help improve my confidence while painting.

I also have many other goals and ambitions is to do deep dives into the paint process and methodology of many different types of things in an effort to increase my understanding and skills in the hobby. Read more about my Deep Dive goals here.


The Questions



I began with attempting to seek out answers to these questions:

1) How can I paint different wood species to provide a larger variety color palette while still looking realistic?

2) What are the main wood types that I can use in the space and still not break the immersion of my tabletop? Primary focus in Fantasy or medieval time periods.

3) What are the various ways to add mold, decay, age, etc to wood grain?

4) What if the piece of terrain does not have a wooden texture. What mentality should I have while painting by hand? What are great ways to practice this?

5) How do I increase the variety of plant life on my tabletop based on season and biome? Almost all my trees end up being deciduous tree from a temperate climate.

6) Is there a “best” way to make trees? How many should I have? Considerations to have when playing on the table?


The Research

I began my search for information with the go to location: YouTube. Compiling an immense playlist for all things WoodPainting. In the end I compiled four primary playlists: Wood Effects, Wood done with Airbursh, Barrels & Crates, Faux Wood. The Wood Effects was my catch all for either unsorted or truly unique videos. In the end I collected over 80 videos on YouTube ranging from 2013 to 2021 and view counts sometimes as low as 200. As I was attempting to sort, take notes, and design painting challenges to grow in this space I realized one thing. Without a doubt I realized I might have dove too deep for starting out.

So I decided to peel back a bit into more manageable chunks. Starting with:

What are the main wood types that I can use in the space and still not break the immersion of my tabletop? Primary focus in Fantasy or medieval time periods. 

Thanks to a fantastic write up, “Wood in the Middle Ages” from the Rhode Island School of Design and Art Museum website. Essentially it gives the springboard to my ponderings.

Wood Type and Usage was primarily broken down by geographical region in roughly the 8th to 15th centuries.

Germany/Central Europe: Limewood or Lindenwood
Mediterranean: Popular
England: Oak or Walnut (less common)
Flanders, Netherlands, France: Beech & Elm

Wood Samples by Type


Well here was a start. I have about 7 different wood species to attempt to work on in my painting as inspiration. However I encounter a problem. I had no idea what colors I had if I was going to work towards a specific color palette.

Which was the perfect first series of tests and experiments!


The Beginnings of a Paint Experiment

Using my previously mentioned inspiration from Michael Cavagnaro on several facebook groups, who began making color swatches for contrast paints and wood textures.

Michael Cavagnaro’s color swatches. Source Miniature Painting Tips and Tricks Facebook Group

I began to make my own collection of swatches to hopefully give me a better picture on how to paint different types of wood. I thought about making the larger 2×2 dungeon tiles of which I actually even started printing and painting them but quickly realized that it would take too much time and material. So instead I printed 25 mm, standard tavern bases. These round bases were absolutely perfect and used very little material and I could print a large amount of them relatively quickly.

Beginning with the mentality i’ve seen very frequently in my lengthy YouTube research playlist I started with a collection of 25 bases all of which were primed black to start and then heavily dry brushed with a color of my collection. Almost all wood painting tutorials start with a black undercoat to help with shading.

Wood Painting Bases using a Black Primer
First Batch with a Black Primer

While seeing this collection grow gave me a large amount of satisfaction. However I was overall feeling disappointed with the small amount of diversity in my choices. So many colors were so dark I couldn’t even see the color only Black. I’m looking at you MSP Reaper Brown Liner! Perhaps I am doing myself a disservice by only doing a black primer by blindly following the teaches of the interwebs. So in the end I decided to build the project in the only way a crazy mad scientist knows how….

I added two more undercoat colors: Grey and White making it a total of 75 bases using the original 25 colors. All of these colors were model hobby paints coming from the brands: Vallejo Model and Game Color, P3, Army Painter, MSP Reaper, and Citadel. I have slowly been growing my collection of paints from various sources to also see if I prefer any over the other.

Not only that but I also decided to test my 4 contrast paints and brown & tan colors from my cheap hobby acrylics. This was most important since I was most likely going to use the cheap acrylics like $0.50 Apple Barrel paints.

In the end I created 123 total swatches of color for wood painting! In order to distinguish between the varieties I have labeled each underside of the bases with either a number (model paint), the letter C followed by a number (contrast paint), or an alphabetical letter (hobby paint). The key to the code of all the bases are put into my paint journal so I can always search through the swatches and pick out my favorites at any time without the bias of name.


Wood Painting Color Palette

Below are the images of all the swatches used in this test along with their name, brand, and my own cataloging tag. Each color is in three columns based on the primer undercoat; white, grey, and black.

Let me know what you think!


Contrast Paint


Model Paint


Hobby Paint


Conclusion

This painting palette test for wood painting has definitely taught me a few things.

1) Before this experiment I will admit I have heavily been biased against contrast paint as a “lazy painters” paint. As a form of shade and wash many paint in a one and done fashion. Without the need of additional layers or other painting techniques. Well after this test I will say that I’m definitely a contrast paint convert. Some of my favorite choices done are the contrast paint swatches.

The twelves bases painted to showcase contrast paint at three different undercoats.
Experiment using Contrast Paints

2) Do not underestimate the power of grey. So much wood has a grey hue to it. Some of the most realistic painted swatches are using the grey primer.

3) The cheap hobby paint does not nearly have the same opacity as the model paint. This would require several coats of paint for terrain projects. Which leaves me for a later question. Is it worth saving the money on the cheaper if you will perhaps spend so much more time on it?

4) Black might be my last favorite go to choice for undercoat for woodworking. While some looked decent I have so much more variety and capability while painting when using grey or white instead of Black.

Wood Bases showing extreme dark wood colors which are almost unnoticeable
Some of my Darkest Colors using a Black Primer

What’s Next?

Now I am left with of course more questions. Will a variety of colors look good on a single project? How can I push these swatches to look even better for painting projects? Which colors will match specific wood species.

This Deep Dive of course did not answer all my questions about wood painting but has definitely helped to take a step forward in the right direction. I have significantly more confidence in painting wood and am excited to experiment further, rather than intimidated.

Do you experiment anything when painting? What would you like to see tested further? Have an idea on the next step or something you want investigated in your hobby? Nominate it here.

As always Happy Hobbying.

~ Carrie the Crazy Mad Scientist


New Website Sections!

I’ve recently added new sections to the website to make this conversation and others for deep dives more easily accessible. Found under Painting you can navigate to either the homepage of all Deep Dives or directly to Wood Painting for more easily accessible information and pictures of the color palette.


Previous Writings

Catfolk Fisher: Lost Adventures Vol 2

Quicklinks: In Process Photos, Final Photos, Where to find STLs, Conclusion

Print Log: Heartwood Tradefolk Storytelling Poses


In February, I finished only one miniature for the month. This Catfolk Fisher was a model I’ve wanted to paint since I saw it on the Lost Adventures Vol 2 Kickstarter page and extremely wanted to paint as I was working on the Fishers Hut project. In my miniature collection I have so few miniatures that are just living their life and aspiring to do more than kill monsters. Almost all my miniatures wield weapons or are monsters. I love being able to grow my collection beyond that. It also gives me a ton of opportunity to just have fun with it.

This miniature painting project was definitely one however where I feel like I dreamt beyond my current skill set. For the first time ever I created a mood board containing images depicting different aspects I wished to capture for this model. The most notable goal was in making the cat calico. Having spots of different colors yielding to a truly unique and one of a kind coat. While painting I realized I did not like the attempt and instead just turned him into an orange tabby cat. While I think I did an ok job having his jacket as red with an orange coloration of lightening really kinda just blurred the colors together. This was supposed to be mitigated by having different colors broken into the fur of his coat.

Positive things about this paint job is that I made one of my first stabs at free hand painting by painting on a woven texture to his hat. I definitely feel like the intent and message comes across well but I of course see growth potential in my brush control. I printed the wooden floor base from the Welcome Pack of the CastnPlay Patreon and painted it quickly, due to project burn out.

Overall, I see a lot of room for growth in this miniature and definitely lost focus of what paints I used, how I used them, etc due to jumping around projects so much. In the end of the day this is good practice and yet another miniature for the collection. There is nothing disappointing about that!

Don’t miss the in progress shots and final photos below! See you next time.

Sincerely,
Crazmadsci, Carrie

In Progress Photos


Final Photos


Where to Find the STLs

This model is from the Lost Adventures Vol 2 kickstarter which can be found on the Lost Adventures Co website and consumers can purchase for $8.99. Design/ sculpt of this set was by Andrew Biernier and Matt Gubser and distribution made by the company Lost Adventures Co.

How to Transfer Your Paint. Dropper Bottles All the Way!

Picture of the Finished Project

I finally did it! I finally transferred all my P3 and Citadel paint to dropper bottles! I’m beyond pumped. In case you do not know, miniature paint brands such as P3 and citadel put paint in containers which are not easy to retrieve paint from to put on my wet palette. For a long time I always though citadel paint bottles you were supposed to directly paint from due to their design with lid collected paint for easy retrieval, but discovered the magic of thinning your paint a bit over a year ago.

The brands of paint I transferred


If you have not done so I highly recommend doing it. I have had a terrible time with Citadel paints drying out and never lasting due to the difficulty of closing the lid completely. P3 paints have always been so hard for me to use out of the bottle. I ended up using a lot of toothpicks to transfer paint to my wet pallet and always wasted so much in the process. Overtime I naturally gravitated to the paints that were already in bottles like Vallejo Model Color and Army Painter. So I finally pulled the trigger to investigate a better solution.

I spent a good deal of time watching YouTube videos on how to transfer and why. Here is a list of a few that I found useful and why.

Spikey Bits Youtube channel: I loved this video due to giving ideas on assembly line transferring.

Epic Duck Studios: Gave me the confidence to pour directly from paint bottle to dropper bottle

RobPaintsModels: He uses a funnel into the dropper bottle if you are not confident.


Material List

toothpicks


Method

  1. Take the paint bottle you want to transfer and sit next to a dropper bottle without a lid. Shake paint up well or use a toothpick and stir if it is too separated.
  2. Detach the lid of the paint bottle from the container. Although not required and I personally rarely did so, this helps spilling as the lid could drip while you are pouring.
  3. Check to see how viscous the paint is. If paint is stiff and not much flow go to step 4. If you feel like you can already pour it into the bottle go ahead and do so.
  4. Using the Flow Aid use the plastic eye dropper to transfer approximately 1 mL of material to the paint. If you feel like your hand is too shaky you can pour into the stainless steel funnel listed above. I did not do this and surprisingly found it easy to not spill.
    • Special Note: I found that my citadel paints were significantly dried out and required approximately 2 mL of flow aid. P3 paint was significantly easier and did not need as much
    • Special Note Part 2: Sometimes if your paint bottle already has paint coming off the side the paint would flow down the bottle instead of into the dropper bottle. Simply rotate the paint container so the paint will not flow down that path to elevate the issue.
    • You can absolutely add more flow aid slowly depending on your personal preference of thickness in your paint.
  5. Using the toothpick I would direct paint into the dropper bottle and help scoop out more (think like a spatula but for paint). You can also continue to slowly add more flow aid to your paint. However be careful to not water your paints down too much.
  6. Continue doing so until dropper bottle is full or you are happy with the amount of paint removed from the bottle.
  7. Add a stainless steel ball to the bottle. This is useful to shake up the paint in the future.
  8. Add the dropper and lid to the dropper bottle to close it up.
  9. You can slowly remove the label from the original paint container to the dropper bottle. This was incredibly easy for citadel paints and P3 paints took more patience. This is of course a nice final touch and great for documentation sake in the future.
  10. You are done. Keep repeating the steps and you are good to go!

Overall the process was not difficult but took some time to do. It took me approximately 3 to 4 hours to over 20 bottles but my household was full of distractions. Also I only needed 1 3ml eye dropper but bought a package previously as I use them for creating my own washes.

Now that all my paint is of a uniform size I can work on making a nice paint holder for it too! Next up, organizing my paint.

I hope you found this helpful. If you have anything to add, don’t hesitate to say something in the comments.