A Tale of 12+1 Warlords: Checkpoint 4 Order Alliance updates

With quite a bit of delay this month, we want to finally show you what the Alliance Order has been up to right after the terrible painting hangover of Checkpoint 3. There are not many news but we are certainly not going to forget about them!

Alliance Order Checkpoint 4

Mitico

The ranking leader of Alliance Order has so much slack with his flying duardin that he is using the hangover time after Checkpoint 3 to paint other armies of his (one of the many he collects).

Therefore, there are no news from his band as of today. And everything stays as is:

Mariano

The ancient elves from Mariano are unaffected by hangovers. That is why Mariano keeps on working, steadily, painting those rusty old pieces of lead that he loves so much.

He left us some pictures of the progress, but this time he is not going to sing one of his songs as he used to do. Pity…

So much love for all things old would not definitely lead to changes in his list:

It might be complicated for Mariano to teach his children about the love for such antiquities. No children in their right mind would like them unless they were born in the 80s…

Paloji

With the most wanted hairdo of the campaign, Paloji is suffering from his high sense of ‘hype’ for all things new or shiny (he loves distractions when it comes to hobbies).
Let’s see what lousy excuse he has to justify the lack of news from his part.

In this Checkpoint I cannot bring you any painted miniatures, I have taken some time off from the campaign to concentrate on other projects, but rest assured, I will not abandon the Tale so easily! 😉

What I can show you now are the next few miniatures that will join my army, no other than these three flying dwarves that are just about to land on my painting table.

Wow, a picture of a box. That is impressive. At least he’s done more than many other Warlords in these dark times!

While we are here I’m going to take the opportunity to ask the very wise, celver, intelligent and pretty audience following the campaign: what would you like me to do with them? Would you like me to paint them in any especial way? Any specific effect? Conversion? Anything you would like me to explain in detail about how I do it? Anything you want! I will try to comply with your requests as much as I can! 😀

Interesting questions thrown to the audience. Let’s see who wants to give new ideas to guide Paloji’s distracted mind.

In the meantime, he clarified the remaining forces on his list!

Volomir

Years go by and hangovers are not as easy to overcome than before.

Checkpoint 3 has been a huge challenge for me because I had to take time to comply and not be eliminated. So logically Checkpoint 4 has meant some time for me to think and regroup about what’s coming in the last weeks of the campaign.

The second half of my list is the most interesting because that’s where the big guys are and these are the coolest to create something unique. Also, the great work done by the rest of the Warlords has motivated me to work harder and finish the story with something more ambitious. The board is now set, and the pieces that I am going to use to build the griffon and the phoneix are waiting on the table.

Obviously now the idea is to make something original out of them. Simply building them up and painting them is not going to be enough. I am debating possibilities with the two miniatures and I’m coming up with some ideas that could turn out to be really cool in the end. Or at least I hope so!

Time to dust off the putty!

Looks like whatever happens, Volomir is going to stay true to his list:

Will he be able to make time for his ambitious plans? Or will he embarrass himself again begging the referee to add some more extra time?

Gryndal

After the great success of his little dwarves, Gryndal has gone on vacation to Finland. They say he has been measuring the resistance of his lower intestines… (seems like this is a tradition of Finnish college students, we are no one to be judging here!).

Fortunately, before being defiled by some ruthless blonde man, Gryndal has decided to give us a guide where he explains in detail how he is performing the painting of the bases of his duardin.

Hi everyone. I’m probably not the first to join #hangoverCheckpoint, but it’s true that the last Checkpoint caused everyone to stress out and I for one needed to rest a bit. Even so, I haven’t been idle and I used the time to work on a couple of projects I had lying around on the table. If anyone is interested they can check them out in the social networks (Alejandro Casa in Facebook, gryndal93 in Instagram).

Anyway, I wanted to give you something this month. I haven’t really shared much about the progress of my miniatures so I decided to write a little Step by Step article of my bases. I seem to be achieving great cohesion in the army thanks to them by adding a little ambience to them all. Let’s begin…

First of all, you need to choose material. In my case I opted for DM for the bases, for two reasons. The first reason is that once the campaign is completed, I will use them for a diorama, and thanks to the straight cut of the bases, I can introduce them in it without having to show a big gap. The second reason, and more important, is the texture. Since the surface is not sealed and is irregular, it will provide the texture that will reduce my work considerably, even though it’s a texture I am not going to control entirely. If I wanted a smooth finish, I would use plasticard, to better shape it. Another option would be the typical bases from GW for the possibility of attaching some magnets and ease transportation. But that is for the weak ones.

One the material is chosen for the bases, I went on to prime them. I applied 3 layers of the same base colour, quite watered down and letting them dry in between, and without covering the whole surface entirely. This served me to generate a natural pattern of stone (and keep the texture of the DM). I stressed this pattern by adding different washes of very saturated inks to enrichen the colours. When I began painting, someone said to me, ‘the beauty in nature is that colours are in everything’, so that is basically my guide. (By the way, Liquitex reps, if you are reading this, please call me and consider sponsoring me or something!).

When we are happy with the tones, it’s time for some texture. Stones are never smooth (with the exception of very rare cases), so we need to apply some texture. For this, I quite randomly selected 3 colours, something that would fit my idea. Don’t look for ‘grey’ colours, just give life to the mixes. The idea is that you need to take a background with much colour, and then we integrate everything. Once colours are chosen, we stipple all over. In this case, to make it faster, I used flat brushes and I covered everything fast. If you want more detail, you can paint them dot by dot and control paint spreading and accummulation much more.

Once I’m happy with the texture, I integrate everything. In this step I use the airbrush to cover it all well. I used the base mixed with light grey. I do this because it’s easier to darken a surface than lighten it up with washes, and though it is covering the previous texture, the idea is not to have to use so many layers so that the work is not visible. So be generous and chaotic. Cover some areas more than others, change dillutions… be irregular!

When everything is dry, I give some last texture with grey colours, in this case using a sponge with a very low paintload, just to provide the last highlights and shadows. Once this work is done I apply some washes with the base colour to obtain the desired tone (thus the airbrush strokes have to be lighter). I follow the procedure of avoiding a regular result, and layer by layer I generate richness. Lastly, we can edge highlight some areas, we can scratch the ground, create some mud or whatever we can imagine. This last step is better done with the miniature on top.

I hope this has been useful to you.

Very interesting! Thanks Gryndal!

Regarding the campaign, even though I think this is more complicated than ever, I am still going to abide by the original list. Next month, a little bit more and a little bit better. See you!

So Gryndal’s ambitious list stays as it was last time, before Gryndal succumbed to the Finnish saunas.

The question is… will Gryndal ever be the same again after this Finnish “life” changing experience?

And that’s all from Alliance Order after the Checkpoint 4 desolation. We think that the Warlords are gathering their forces these days to strike back very soon.

Stay tuned and join us for the next chapter of A Tale of 12+1 Warlords!