Painting December: Base-ic Choices (Part 1?)

See what I did there?

With the Talos down, I’ve been doing a bit of work on the Marauder Giant today. My order of bases came in as well from Firestorm, so it’s time to work out how to base Be’lakor. A couple of things first – I don’t much care about having a square base for this guy. If/when I use him in KoW or any game that requires Square bases, I own spare bases and blu-tac, so that’s sorted. His “official” base is 50mm, and so while I do lean slightly that way, again, I’m going for aesthetics over slavishly following GW’s official basing scheme.

I’ve included the 40mm shots just for completeness, since he doesn’t actually look that bad on them, though quite cramped. I’m also considering using lipped/WarmaHordes style bases, since they look quite nice, and are especially display-friendly. I’m not going to beat myself up about not all of my bases being 100% consistent. I’ve got hundreds of painted models, after all.

Oh yeah, Be’lakor is still very WIP at this stage..

40mm Round

40mm Lipped

50mm Round

50mm Lipped

60mm Round

I’m not sure if I own any 60mm lipped rounds, but if I decide to go for the 60mm size, I’ll definitely tear this place apart looking for them. Really though, I think the 50mm bases are the top contenders for me, as it’s a nice balance between size and Be’lakor filling it out. Still, the 60mm shot was taken for a lark and he does look much better on it than I’d expected.

 

Depending on how the weather is and how the weekend goes, I might have a similar quest for the Marauder Giant, and I’m currently struggling to work out how to paint his clothing, so I’ll probably ask about that as well in the next day or so.

 

 

 

Painting December: Talos Completed!

Probably should have waited and called this post “Day of the Talos”. Ah well. Done now.

Mierce Miniatures Talos, Colossus of Bronze

Mierce Miniatures Talos, Colossus of Bronze

Aside from my agonising over how to get the verdigris done, the model was quite an easy and low-stress paintjob. Certainly the painting was much more pleasant than the assembly, which destroyed 2 drill bits.

Mierce Miniatures Talos, Colossus of Bronze

In the end I went for a direct inspiration from Ray Harryhausen’s Talos from Jason and the Argonauts (1963) regarding the dead, dark eye sockets as well as (and more importantly) the weathering and verdigris, though mine is more “gold-brass” than the “copper-brass” of the film.

freehand Greek shield

The colourful shield adds a spot of interest to the base, as do the flowers and the reddish wood of the spear. The freehand dolphin design is based on images of Greek shields, and provided me with something fun to add to the model, since it’s the sort of thing I really enjoy doing. I considered adding some damage to the paintwork, but decided against it. Naturally, I didn’t notice the errant hair when I took these photos. Luckily, it’s not stuck to anything. I’ll have to fix the small tide mark on the bronze shield, though.

freehand Greek shield, Mierce Talos

freehand Greek shield, Mierce Talos

The discarded helmet, shields and spear were chosen to add a sense of scale to the figure without being too specific in the same way that a crushed orc or Greek would have been. The wargear could have been left by friendlies, opponents or might even be a messy offering to the gods. This model might end up being used as scenery occasionally, what with being a gigantic bronze statue…

Mierce Miniatures Talos, Colossus of Bronze

Finally, a scale shot. This model is easily the largest miniature I’ve ever painted. I really need to get more of my impressive centrepiece models done in the coming years. When used in KoW which uses square bases, I found that the giant 100mm round base fits neatly into a movement tray, so I’ll just park it in there when I need to.

…and yes. I just ordered a bunch of Argonauts from Foundry this evening!