Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Dreadfleet: And now for something a little different...

So MBG asked me to write up an article as to how I painted up my Dreadfleet ship, The Shadewraith, for the Halloween costume contest. Mumbling about how easy it was, just washes and drybrushing, I was conned into eventually writing it up, mentioning the internet fame I would stumble upon. So here I sit, in the theoretical man cave I call my loft, typing up this painting article. Sorry, as I don't have any work in progress photos, as I was rush painting this and decided against wasting time taking pictures.

My initial inspiration for how to paint the ship came from a old aquarium terrain piece I had in a fishtank from a lifetime ago. From there, I decided that it would be a eerie ghostly color, similar to the old disney pictures I had lying around in the house. With my source material handy, and a gleam of hope in my heart, I began the process of turning a chunk of plastic into something that looks half decent in time for a contest.

Priming the mini the night before, the model was ready for painting the next day, which was good because the speed painting I would need to do for the ship to be ready for the contest, in 4 hours. Welp.

Starting with a basecoat of Astronomican Grey, i hit everything on the ship with it. Everything, not a single detail was spared from the wrath of my brush. With the ship drying, I worked on the base, deciding I wanted it to have a roiling and turbulent sea, after all, the name of the game is dreadfleet, not ships in calm seas. I basecoated with Regal Blue, and applied a heavy drybrush of Vallejo Enchanted Blue. a further, more deliberate drybrush of Steel Grey was applied, and I washed it all with Badab black, to darken it to storm sea colors. Once the wash dried, Ihit it with Dead White, just barely, on the crests to simulate sea foam.

Now that the base was ready, i began working with washes. Already deciding on Thraka Green to give it the ghostly look from cartoons made in the 90's. (Scooby Doo, you where such a inspiration..) Washing the entire hull with it (sails and all), and then when it dried it was drybrushed with Astronomican Grey. It was then washed, again, with Thraka Green - but with a hint of Scorpion Green, to make it look like it was under water for a long time. This was not my idea, but one of my friends who suggested it to me on the fly, as I hit the two and a half our mark. When that dried, I proceeded with another drybrush of Astronomican Grey, and then a super light drybrush of Dead White.

Painting the entire ship took me approximately 4 hours, and apparently was well recieved by the bayying wolves at the store, hungry for pizza and magic cards. Thats how I painted this, and I hope that you enjoyed reading this, now I have to work on more ships. Ships that will one day, hopefully soon, see the table top.

TerranRaida~~

Also, a big thank you to MBG for taking the picture, otherwise I am sure it would have turned out like a pile of garbabe (I am not all that great at taking pictures of minis...yet...)