Death of a Rubricist

+ inload: Warmachine +

+ My gaming group have recently – or at least, over the past year – taken up Privateer Press' Warmachine game. Collecting and painting the models has been an interesting contrast to the Games Workshop models with which I'm more familiar, and I'd like to explore this in a future blog post or two.

+ However, time is at a premium at the moment, so instead, here are some WIP shots of a figure on which I'm currently working, a Cygnar Journeyman Warcaster. + 

+ This figure is metal; and intended as a gift. As a result, I wanted to make sure that it's as good as I can make it. Since I'm fairly unfamiliar with the Warmachine aesthetic, I wanted to start with something I am both enthusiastic about and familiar with – the face. 

+ Journeymen are supposed to be young, up-and-coming Warcasters (a sort of steampunk wizard), so I painted this figure with a cool, pale basetone leaning towards green; then added touches of red and purple for the lips and the areas above the eyes respectively. This sort of work is a balancing act between making the figure feminine and making her look like a drag queen.

+ As the full figure shot (left) shows, the 'make-up work' is subtle when viewed from further back; but the face successfully gives the model a feminine feel. +


+ Human skin can be painted fairly similarly across genres, and the face is an obvious focal point for any miniature. I would normally leave it 'til near the end of the figure; a reward, if you will, for painting the rest. 

+ That would have been a sensible idea here, as I painted this ages ago and then never got round to finising her off until very recently. +












+ The aesthetic is brighter and considerably less Gothic than the Warhammer world, and the recipient is a Final Fantasy fan, so I didn't want the figure to be too muted. Bright blues, strong contrasts in the metals and cloth, along with some gold hints give the model a nice rich, positive feel. 

The figure now awaiting basing.

+ With her bright new armour, she's got a nice feisty, optimistic atmosphere that fits in nicely with the background. +

 + This close-up of the face shows why I used a greenish base. The green is muted by subtle touches of Ogryn Flesh (a red-based GW wash) in the recesses and on the surface of the cheeks, which gives a much more realistic final effect of pale skin. Working from a pink-, yellow- or red-based paint would have left her too ruddy or bright, which would have lost the bright, fresh youthful look (emphasised further with some blonde hair). 

+ Note also how the eyeshadow and lips are enriched by the red wash, but become more subtle as the skin also gets warmer. The overall effect knocks back the more obvious make-up look, giving a more au naturel appearance more suited to a pragmatic, capable, military figure like this woman. +