My Windmill Odyssey

By Kiwidave

Back in September 2007, the Cheltenham Warchiefs decided to organise a Warmachine tournament for February 2008. We were planning on 50 or so people, so there was a need for more scenery to be made to supplement what we already had. As I enjoy making scenery, I volunteered my services. Little did I know that this would become a bigger task that I originally thought, and was very much a ‘labour of love’.

I have previously made a Tudor style cottage, and a ruined market, and so I decided I’d go move away from the Elizabethan look (ruined or intact), and make something that stood out. Literally as it turns out. After much contemplation and navel-gazing, I decided to make a windmill, as seemed to fit the background of the Warmachine world (and more specifically my chosen faction, Cygnar). Granted it is more a rural type of building, and Cygnar are industrialised, but all industrial nations still have farms and mills! (and it could be used for Warhammer and other 28mm games J)

I started by trawling the ‘net for inspiration and images, and discovered that there is a lot more to windmills that meets the eye! There are quite a few different designs for starters, as well as uses (not all windmills are sued for milling flour – they make good pumps too). I eventually settled on a fairly traditional shape, tallish, octagonal, with 4 sails. I went for octagonal, as this would be easier than a round one. I then drew some templates for the sides, cap (the roof) and the sails using CorelDraw, and started construction.

The bulk of it is made from 4mm-thick plasti-card (the sort that advertising signs are made of). It’s denser than foam-card, but can be cut, drilled, sanded (sort of) and takes paint well enough. The sails, tiles, balcony, fence, windows, door and stairs are made of Basswood (a bit like balsa wood, but harder) which I bought from Hobbycraft. The cap is cardboard (base and supports) and 0.5mm (10 or 15 thou) plasti-card (from the local model shop).

Construction started fairly well, with the walls going together quickly, along with the cap former. It took me two attempts to get the roof sections right because as well as being triangular, they are curved, so I had to make allowances for the curvature. The sails went together fairly quickly as well, as all I needed to do was lay the piece on top of the template I had made, and glue them together! I found a design flaw once I had completed the cap – I hadn’t made the diameter of the base big enough for it to rotate around the tower! Not that this matters much for a static model, but I like getting these things right. I didn’t want to start again, so I decided to live with the oversight.

Next came the tail section, which was built partly to a plan, and partly made up as I went along. I also discovered at this point that the cardboard formers I had put into the roof were in the way! I had put them at the centre of each section, but this meant that I had to drill out parts of two of them to allow room for the sail drive shaft and the bracing for the tail.

Once the tower was made, I filled in the gaps (another slight oversight) at the edges, and gave it three coats of textured spray paint, with each coat fairly soon after the previous one. I think I may have overdone it a bit with the coats, as it took about 3 weeks to be fully dry! Oops….

I then began the (very) long process of putting the tiles onto the roof. The tiles were cut from ¼” wide strips of Basswood, and I needed lots. And lots. I had to go back to Hobbycraft to get more strips, as I had underestimated what I’d need. Then the fun really started. On a normal roof, tiles are easy to put on, as it is flat, and generally rectangular. For this roof, each row had to have the end pieces cut to fit, and as I got near the top of each section, it got fiddlier. For the joins I eventually decided on using tinfoil, folded over three times and glued into place. It gives the impression of lead sheeting, which is what I was after. I think the roof alone took me about 12 hours of work, but the end result was worth it.

After the roof, the window frames and door where put in, then I made the balcony. The design of this was inspired by a couple of pictures I had downloaded. It’s amazing how useful having a picture or two for reference when making or paint things is.

Now I had reached the (for me) difficult part of deciding what colour to paint the thing! I wanted it to be an eye-catcher, so for me that means bright colours, with a darker contrasting colour to offset the lighter one. I bounced ideas off one of our painting guru’s, Rach, and eventually settled on off-white/pale tan for the walls, and a faded burgundy for the roof and woodwork. I was originally thinking of staining the wood, but that shows up all the glue that I hadn’t cleaned up….you can hide a multitude of sins with a coat of paint…J

The burgundy I mixed myself using Vallejo Dark Red and Violet. Luckily I mixed enough for the whole project! The walls were first done with Vallejo Tan Yellow, and then highlighted with Pale Sand, and then White. The wooden sections were highlighted with a lighter shade of my burgundy, then a very light dry-brush with US Earth Tan.

To give some stability to the model (it stands about 12” tall), I wanted to add a base. This would also add to the visual impact and ‘wow!’ factor! J The base is made from hardboard and laminate flooring boards, with the contouring done with filling plaster from Wickes. As there was quite a bit of filler, I had to leave it a few days to dry thoroughly before sanding down, adding the gravel paths and fence, and then painting. The whole base was painted brown, and then the paths and garden were highlighted up to Pale Sand. For base-coating I usually use Inscribe paint, which can be bought from craft-shops and some stationers.

Finally, the decorative bits. I was originally going to have plants in the garden (lettuce, tomatoes etc) but this would have been beyond my skill, would have just got in the way from a gaming point of view, and would probably get damaged over time. I settled on making the flower pot and potted trees. The trees were very simple: chop the end off two matching ball point pens, insert the trees and paint! The flower pot was from another pen, but the flowers themselves were more difficult. I eventually used model ivy leaves glued to a short section of picture wire (the stuff used to hang pictures with), as I could tease out each strand of the wire for individual flowers. The cart is scratch-built from Basswood, and the wheels are from the old GW Snotling Pump Wagon. And now for the piece-de-resistance: the tree. It took me about a week to find one I liked, as it has to be the right height, and suitable bushy and colourful to go where I wanted it. The one I settled on is a Faller OO gauge one, bought from Gaugemaster.

So there you have it. The whole this took me 4 months to make (with a break of about 3 weeks over Christmas and New Year due to time constraints and finance), but it is the best piece of scenery I’ve made so far. I’m now back painting 10mm WW2 models and making a river, but will rise to the challenge again no doubt.

COLOUR THEORY AND HOW IT RELATES TO PAINT SCHEMES

We all know about what different colours portray to us visually – Red is fire and blood, Blue is water and cold, green is grassy and natural, brown is earthy and so on. We also all should know by now how these relate to painting figures – Red for Khorne and Chaos, Green for Wood Elves, Blacks and purples for Dark Elves.

What I’d like to try and cover in this article is how to choose complementary colours, colours that will make an army look clean and uniform. I’m not saying in any way that I abide by these rules myself and am not professing to be a great painter but I thought it would be helpful to go at this from an artists perspective and actually put some of my wasted school years to good use! Also, I’d like to point out that as far as I’m concerned it really is best to keep it simple. Maybe one or two strong colours or tones of colour accented with browns an all the other colours you need for leather and skin etc.

Firstly, it is useful to know how colours are made.

There are tonnes of theories on how colours work but the first colour circle or wheel was put together by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666.

The basic concepts are as follows:

Primary colours:

Red, Yellow and Blue.

These are the colours that can’t be mixed or made by combining any other colours.

All other colours are made up from these 3.

Secondary Colours:

Green, Orange and Purple

These are the colours that you get from mixing the primaries together.

Ok, so your thinking this is Childs play…..I know, bored yet?

Well this is where it gets interesting!

Tertiary colours:

These are colours formed by mixing a primary and a secondary colour together. That’s why they have two word names (yellow-green and blue-purple for example). This is where we get onto how to use the colour wheels to help you paint figures.

Colour harmony is really important when choosing a colour scheme for an individual figure or an army. When you look at a figure (or anything for that matter), A harmony within the colour is pleasing to the eye. It makes you want to view the figure in greater detail and it creates a sense of order and cleanliness to the painting.

If colours do not harmonise they will either bore the person viewing or overwhelm them so your figures will either look boring and dirty or chaotic and messy. There are loads of theories again about how to use colours together and here are a few of the basic formulas.

Analogous colours:

Basically, this is 3 colours which are next to each other on the tertiary or 12 part colour wheel – for example yellow-green, yellow and yellow orange.

Complementary colours:

This is the bit that is really useful for figure painters!

You would choose your colour scheme from opposites on the tertiary wheel for example – purple and green as above or turquoise and orange,(I know, but seriously, try it because you’ll surprise yourself!)

The best way I believe to use these theories as a tool is to look at what you’re painting.

If, for example, you were painting wood elves you want them to be uniform and understated – gentle even. So you would use Analogous colours – a green, yellow-green, yellow and yellow-orange (you can see this colour covers the browns too).

If you wanted to paint an army that would really stand out and pop you could use complementary colours. For example, you could choose to paint an empire army in blue-purple and yellow or blue-green and red-orange.

You can take all of these colours and mix them as you like.

Say you decided to use blue-green (lets call it turquoise) and red-orange (lets call it mid-orange).  The more green that you add to your turquoise can be balanced out by adding more red to your mid-orange.

It swings both ways! – make your orange more yellow and add more blue to your turquoise to gain a balance.

I’m sure that there are loads of instances where these theories and techniques are pretty useless and everyone knows black and white go with everything but I hope you find them useful – even if they help you choose which shade of brown to use!

Anyway, that concludes your lesson for today – Homework on my desk by next week or detention for you all.

Professor R Pert

Next lesson: How to apply make-up (No, seriously!)

Painting Late War Germans Quickly

I’ve recently began painting my German Grenadier Company and without knowing too much about german colour schemes I began by doing a little research by looking at how others had painted theirs and came up with my simple technique with the paints I already had.

Stage 1

Began by mixing 2/3 mix of codex grey and black and applied to the jacket, trousers and helmet this was done without concern for getting it on any other parts( quite liberal) this was followed by highlight of 50/50 mix grey and black which was sued to highlight just the jacket of the soldiers. And finally the jacket was highlighted using pure grey.

Stage 2

All pouches were painted bestial brown, blankets and bags were painted commando kaki and metal painted boltgun, flesh was painted with water downed tanned flesh. The jacket was covered with catachan green heavily watered down almost like a watered down ink.

Stage 3

The blankets and bags were highlighted with rotting flesh, gun butts and stocks were painted brown and the boltgun highlighted with mithril. The faces were highlighted with dwarf flesh and once dry a little elf flesh was applied to the skin. The helmets had a small red then white line added to the right side.

Basing

A mix of English uniform and white was mixed until a milky coffee colour appeared this was dry brushed over the black undercoated bases, static grass was applied to scattered areas and then hedging was added with superglue the base rim was painted black.

By Scott