Pathfinder Andy

Aelfgar was awoken from his sleep by the sound of a drum.
A single beat repeating over and over again. He arose from his bed and glared out the window.
Other villagers were doing the same and all of a sudden the sound of squealing pigs echoed through the valley, then the screaming began. By the Gods he muttered,
before he could do much else the village preacher bellowed from the bell tower "ORCS!!! The orcs are coming!!"
Aelfgar quickly armed himself as did the other villagers, those that could not hold a weapon (the old and the young) took refuge in the Griffin Inn.
If they were to live through this night and see another dawn they had no choice but to fight.
Aelfgar stood in the town square shoulder to shoulder with peasants and noblemen alike,
His eyes focused on the darkness flowing over the horizon……..

Wow, what a 2 weeks it’s been. The sun has been shining, the previews from Mantic HQ have been flowing and I sliced my thumb open while busy working away on my dastardly orcs.
2 things I’ll cover before I continue with the project.

Kickstarter
Well I’m sure you’ve all seen by now the mantic kickstarter campaign has been running amazingly! And to say I’m excited about chariots and fight wagons being on the cards would be an understatement! I’m sure you’ll all agree Ronnie and the rest of the team are doing a fantastic job and the outlook for KOW looks very bright indeed. If you haven’t already seen it there here’s the link.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...f-war?ref=live

And I have to ask – what kind of rock have you been hiding under? It must be pretty amazing to have missed this!
Second thing I really should cover, and this is only because I’ve been a completely numpty myself, is safety… as I’ve already mentioned I managed to slice my thumb open this weekend. Luckily it wasn’t that bad but the type of craft knife I was using and a few millimetres to the side it could have been a lot more serious!

Now with 14 years’ experience I would love to say the beginning of my orcs army went to a flying start But (there’s always a “but” isn’t there?) as some of you who know me personally will know, I’m a complete klutz, needless to say I was rushing the orcs because I wanted to get ahead on this project and slipped up, I was concentrating more on what biscuit to have with my coffee (my usual hobnob or to give myself a treat and have a chocolate bourbon) than where my knife was.
I was NOT impressed! Not only did I have to spend x amount of time just getting it to stop bleeding, I managed to get it all over the boars too, so they needed a bit of a scrub too! Moral of the story – don’t take blood, sweat and tears seriously! Now I bet you wonder why I’m actually putting this in here. Obviously none of you are stupid, you all know to take care with your hobby, but safety is an aspect I don’t see discussed often so I thought there was no harm in mentioning it.

Anyway on to brighter things. Or should I say meaner things. I would like to say at this point I’ve managed to write an awesome army list but…. I haven’t. I’m just too damn indecisive so will save the army list for the next instalment. BUUUUT! I thought of a very awesome concept for my orcs that’s going to require a lot of converting and some complete scratch makes. I’m not going to reveal it now, I’m going to save it for when I have some real progress on them, but I will give you a clue…. Johnny Depp played one.
But what I have managed to achieve over the past couple of weeks is the Orc Gore Riders set. Which is a totally awesome kit. If you haven’t yet put one together then I fully recommend getting a set. Anyway enough gushing and onto something a bit cooler.

Tutorial
Now before I start this attempt at a tutorial I will be completely honest. This is the first time I’ve ever written a tutorial. So be gentle with me and I will revisit it in a later instalment.
This tutorial is going to be based upon my Gore riders.

Now ordinarily my general painting style is several layers to bring it up to the right shade, some washing and finally some highlights. For the purpose of this I’m going to skip that entirely and focusing on what some have called the army painter method, though it will not be done using solely their products.

Now my understanding of how this works, is you spray your miniature using a colour primer (the colour most suited to that particular miniature), then add in block colour to other areas. At this point no shading or true detail is to be applied. Once complete and dry wash the entire miniature in Strong Tone Ink OR dip (though when using dip allow the dipped miniature to dry for a minimum of 24 hours and use the deglossing spray to (obviously) degloss the miniature after the 24hrs have passed) At this point you can choose to call the miniature complete or continue with fine highlighting.

So for Gore Riders like mine you will need -

Army Painter:
Strong Tone Ink
Fur Brown Spray
Plate Mail Metal Spray
Goblin Green Warpaints
Fur Brown Warpaints

Citadel Paints:
Foundation Tallarn Flesh
Foundation Charadon Granite
Shining Gold
Scorched Brown
Chainmail
Bleached Bone
Blood Red
Vermin Brown
*NOTE – please allow miniature to fully dry between steps*

Step 1: I first begin by giving the boars a coat of “Fur Brown”
Step 2: I then begin applying block colour detail. For the skin I used Tallarn Flesh, for the hair and fur i used Vermin Brown, and leather straps Charadon Granite (apologise for the missing pic of this part – unfortunately I painted the damn things BEFORE I wrote this…I will be getting more to paint though so will add a picture at a later date)
Step 3: For the armour I decided to add in a little detail early on. After giving it a prime coat of Blood Red I used Scorched Brown to give the core colour of rust and damage. Then within the centre added Chainmail to show the metal underneath. To which I would hope the end effect is a painted metal plate that has been battered and seen better days.



All of which was then give a heavy wash with “Strong Tone Ink” with an end result looking something like this.
The riders were done very much in the same fashion. They were given a prime spray of “Plate Mail Metal” their fur was painted using Fur Brown, then added Goblin Green tot eh skin. At which point I gave the whole thing a wash, obviously allowing to dry, then carefully added Shining Gold to rivets and bolts.
I then proceeded with neat bleached bon to fill in the teeth and carefully added blood red to the eyes.



For the shields I used the same method that I used for the armour plating on the gores. And at which point that was pretty much him done.
Now my main aim was never to make him a competition winning miniature but to paint something that could be done quickly and consistently with minimal effort and maximum effect.

Well that’s about it for this instalment. I’d like to thank you all for reading. As I’ve already mentioned I will revisit this tutorial once I’ve perfected my method. So until next time look after yourselves and happy gaming.