Wolsung And The First Sculpting To Be Done In This Shed.

On the painting table this week is a new project, namely a Triad crew for Wolsung. Wolsung is a simple steampunk skirmish game produced by Micro Arts Studios.

These miniatures are the first I have had where the bases needed some pinning to get them done. Luckily for me these come with a pin moulded to them but the bases supplied were normal slotted ones.

My usual basing method is to cover the holes left by the slot with paper then to grit it all up and hit the whole thing with a basecoat of primer spray. The model gets painted and the base gets finished last.

This time however, I decided to change all that…

So, 5 figures would usually take me about two days to paint and base.  As I have decided to sculpt individual bases for each of these guys they are going to take much, much longer…

The first coat on the bases was done with greenstuff and liquid greenstuff (the potted GW stuff). The regular greenstuff gave me a firmer mix for holding texture (in this case pressing the bases into a heavy grit sandpaper).  The liquid greenstuff was used as it gives a softer smoother finish (for water in this case). Small craft sticks made up the remaining shapes and surfaces.

The first 2 bases were planned to represent a river or shore edge. One was planned to look like a man made shoreline (banked and planked to hold back the tide). The last 2 were planned to look like simple tracks or road edges.

The miniatures base pins were pushed in while the greenstuff was still soft then holes punched for grass effect to be added later.  A sandy base tone with plenty of washing with brown ink started things off.  A little bit of green staining gave a water aged, algae coated, look to some areas.

The water was done by painting a blue base coat and green ink wash. White highlights were used to pick out the ripples that were formed by the brush lines in the liquid greenstuff. The mud on the banks was done in a deeper brown and a final coat of gloss varnish was applied thickly to add some translucent shine to the mud and water.

Overall I think it worked quite well.

So far, I’ve finished only one painted mini but all of the bases are completed.  Grass effect was done using some long grass stems that I picked up over 4 years ago (goes to prove all things find their worth in the end…)

I will add some pictures of the others when I get them done and then we may even get a game in.  The Wolsung rules look simple and fun and I will let you know how they play when I find out myself.