One of the things I'd looked forward to with this army was creating scenic bases, rather than individual models. It's a new way to create your miniatures and allows you to combine terrain making with basing.
I took this idea a step further using inspiration from a scene on one of my favorite scary movies, In the Mouth of Madness. (Which also stars one of my favorite actors, Sam Neill and directed by the legendary John Carpenter.) In this scene, reality tears and Neill stares into the void. It's a simple concept but it added extra flavour to my bases.
This won't be a tutorial - that will come later. But I will discuss concepts and details.
OK, so - goals:
- I wanted the army to be completed in a reasonable amount of time.
- This meant tabletop quality.
- To paint them quick and still highlight detail, I tried out the new Games Workshop Contrast Paints.
- I wanted it to appear as if they'd come from the pages of an occult book.
- For these I printed pages from the Necronomicon onto light yellow paper and covered in paint to age them.
- Not just coming from the pages, but tearing through reality. Blurring the lines between what's real and fiction. Is the book merely a portal into our world? Or is the world a reality woven from the words in the book?
- To execute this, all the bases have some level of detail where reality is literally being "torn" open to reveal an inky black void on the other side of the pages of the book.
- The book is created by gluing down portions of the Necronomicon which are ripped outwards.
- Void
- The inky blackness is made from Heavy Sculpting Gel mixed with Black Gesso and covered in matte varnish. (Some of the void creatures are created the same way, either covering an existing form or with a wire skeleton.)
- For the colours, I'm working with a limited palette:
- Browns and yellows for the core of the creatures, with accents of red and white tipped weapons.
- Terrain is primarily rendered in the green spectrum, (Grass, leaves and stone.) with some brown dirt and paths, small red rose bushes and some yellow hay and flowers.
- Even the water is coloured green and to keep the limited palette I've used white sand / shells for all the shore and lake features.
- Sturdy Scenic Bases
- Each unit has a thin wooden base.
- Most units have 3D printed structures that I designed myself to build the form of the terrain they're built upon.
- Tokens needed to stand out from the rest of the army somehow so they don't blend in.
- I ended up going with blue, taking a line from the movie where the author makes everything change to blue, his favorite colour, to prove the control he has over the world.
- Tokens were also 3D printed.
Overall I feel I executed a nice army with a warm colour scheme on a cool backdrop with strong white accents.
Below, you can see the full army. Click through for more army photos and individual shots and descriptions.
