Plastic Adventures

Following the start of my PanOceania force I’ve been preparing to return to Fantasy and 40k as a hobbyist after a four year hiatus from any Games Workshop products. Like many miniature wargamers I have serious issues with the behavior of GW as a business, yet the appeal and quality of their systems manages to outweigh my feelings towards the company. There may come a day when this is no longer the case, but as it stands I’ve been enjoying supporting my local LGS by preparing to assemble a small force of 1000pts for both Fantasy and 40k. It’s been an absolute dream to assemble plastic instead of metal after eight months of pinning Infinity figures, as well as painting on the broad oceanic expanses of heroic scale figures.

As it stands I’ve been constructing an Empire battalion and have been experimenting with an altered paint scheme to distinguish my newly painted units from those of four years ago. At the same time I want to keep the army cohesive enough that they look good on the tabletop, so I’ll be keeping the dreaded yellow as cross-color between the two forces and replace the blue with a deep purple.

Using some old state troopers I had lying around I tried a couple different shades and techniques. Below are two different yellow base-coats over a white primer.

Vallejo Golden Yellow on the left, Army Painter Demonic Yellow on the right.

I’ve decided upon the left (Vallejo Golden Yellow) as the base, due to its better coverage and the appeal of having the yellow be slightly toned down. The contrast with the purple makes the Golden Yellow look really rich, despite it being a very creamy tone that I’m sure would look washed out with a different scheme. Furthermore it looks great when it’s given a slightly more intense shade by a yellow ink wash as seen below, compared to the brighter yellow which just gets muddied. I’m still not sure how I’m going to highlight it though, I might even end up just leaving the yellow alone after the wash if I can’t figure out a way to do it!

Both the Vallejo (left) and Army Painter (right) after a GW Casandora Yellow ink wash.

And here's a little Tau teaser for my 40k force!