Mythic Battles: Pantheon – 3D Terrain Set – Trees + Contrast Paint Experiment #5

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Mythic Battles: Pantheon - 3D Terrain Set - Trees

Some time ago, (bloody hell – a year ago!) I showed the completed Ruined Pillars from the Conan Boardgame Kickstarter. Pretty small and simple things, but then they’re tokens for a boardgame, and so they can’t be too large, as they need to allow for miniatures to also fit onto the segments. These trees follow very much the same cues. Hence their sizes are pretty small, though they’ll also work in a pinch on a wargame battlefield. 

Mythic Battles: Pantheon - 3D Terrain Set - Trees

Once again, my plan for these trees was for an overall bleached, “dead tree” look, but unlike my previous attempts, where it just didn’t work using Contrast Paints, the detail on these ones was very much condusive to allowing me to achieve the dead and bleached effect I was after. I only used Contrast on the wood of the trees, though – bases were done in the traditional manner. The set came with six each of two sculpts of tree. I felt that the hunched over “C” trees allowed for more variation on their bases than the more upright ones (they’re a bit too small to be a proper Tree of Woe!) I haven’t shown all of each type here, because frankly, they’re not that interesting as individual pieces. And yes, that’s a glue line just above the base on both types of tree. That was one of the things that led to these being unpainted for literally more than six months. 

Mythic Battles: Pantheon - 3D Terrain Set - Trees

Puttying over all those joins was something I’d planned to do, but the thought of doing so was (and still is) SO tedious that it put me off doing anything at all with them for the year that’s passed since I finished the pillars. I’ve got more than a dozen Wargs backed up for the same reason. In the end, what got them painted was a combination of another thing to trial the Contrast Paints with (along with the inherent promise of getting them done quickly) along with a willingness to finally just say “fuck it” to the idea of puttying all them joins. So quite literally – the time not spent on these is the time that has instead allowed me to complete those Slayers what I’ve been posting up here in the past few days, as I was working on both in an overlapping manner in July. Figure painting time is very much a zero-sum game. Now I just need to work out why I keep painting those Shadows of Brimstone models when I could be painting Stormcast or something – probably because it’s nice to have easy wins and not care too much from time to time…

Mythic Battles: Pantheon - 3D Terrain Set - Trees

I have noticed, as I write this post up and insert the photos – that I forgot to add the touch of weathering powder to their bases at the end. I guess I will have to go back and add it (since it comes after final varnish), but again – fuck it – I’m still counting these as July-completion models. Oh, and if you’re wondering what the story is with the duplicated photo from the top one – this one’s a scale reference if you look carefully!

47 thoughts on “Mythic Battles: Pantheon – 3D Terrain Set – Trees + Contrast Paint Experiment #5”

    • Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of pics of the GW ones looking broadly similar, so if I can replicate this effect without too much hassle, they’ll play very nicely together on the tabletop. 🙂

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  4. They look like pretty good 15mm trees! At 28mm, they’re more like large bushes, but that’s still useful terrain. Then again, at 15mm, those would be some damn big crows.

    As nicely as they come out done up all dead and bleached like this, I think I’d also like to try painting up a few with more “alive” bark tones, and then adding some turf clumps or something as foliage to bulk them out.

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    • Nah, well not quite. They’re fine as small trees – plenty of those around, and one combined with the “Citadel Wood” ones, hopefully with a very close scheme, then they’ll fill out a nice mixture of sizes for a more natural feeling area on the table – alongside the obvious use in the Pantheon game.
      They could look decent with more work and foliage added, but for me that’s in the category of more work than I care to do for these models. 🙂

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      • I think we might just have different ideas about where the dividing line between a bush and a tree is 🙂

        And yeah, wasn’t suggesting you should go to that extra length, just that if I had some of these, I suspect I’d probably give that a try with some of them.

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      • When you put it like that, it might be an English vs English thing we’re having. A bush (here) is colloquial for a type of small plant, like a shrub – not a small tree. Which is differerent from “The Bush” which is both what you guys would call “The Woods”, and also includes just anywhere out in the middle of nowhere…
        And no probs – I got it on what you meant by tarting them up. It’s exactly the sort of thing I would have done myself, before I got much more into the “finish this shit off” mentality more recently – where my mind-state to myself is no longer into “paint everything the best I can” and more into “paint some of the figures to my best, and the others as much as I feel like they deserve – just get them done, you slack idiot”. 😉

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      • Around here, a bush is any woody-stemmed plant less than about 20ft/6m tall or so at full growth. Bushes more often have multiple main stems/trunks than trees do, but there are exceptions in both directions. Height is the only real dividing line. Based on the pic with the Space Marine in, I’d guess these would work out to be something like 12-16ft tall, so, bushes.

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    • That’s ok. I’m not trying to sell you some. I WISH I got a commission on each pot of Contrast sold. You can paint however you like, and continue to do so. As I’ve said, they’re a new tool in my/other painters’ toolbox, not somthing that’s going to supplant all my existing skills, methods and techniques – and also something people are interested in right now so I’m highlighting when I explore the use of them so others can see the results.
      As it happens, “Colored base-coating, washes and highlighting” are pretty much what I did with these trees, except thinned Contrast were the “washes”. I guess the other difference is trying them motivated me to start & finish these. And I can’t knock that!

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  9. I like these sculpts quite a bit and they are versatile in that you can use them in a haunted or evil place, in the desert, and probably other places beyond that. I wish they were a bit bigger and they’d make cool Mirkwood/Old Forest trees (maybe just throw in a couple since they have no foliage) to really set the mood. I’m sure there’s other places in Middle Earth or fantasy gaming where they’d fit nicely as well which I guess is only proving my point on versatility. Excellent use of contrast paints and inspirational content as always, mate! 🙂

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    • Yeah, as is, the’ll work much better as stunted, undergrowth trees amongst much larger ones. I guess their main purpose is to work as 3d markers on board segments, so in that, I guess they’re fine!
      I’ll wait until summer comes before I start on the Citadel Trees or awakened Wyldwood that I have, but once both of those are done, the three types can easily work together as I’d like to keep a similar look.

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  10. Heh mate ,love the trees ,as you know I’m out my depth when it comes to this stuff but I’m looking into it and was wondering were you purchased these ,are they local or do you buy them OS ,cheers Pat .

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  12. Aw man, that’s really cool.
    I really apprciate your page and the stuff you do.
    However, this time i can’t see any text describing how you did these. Would you please tell us how?

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    • It was awhile ago, so I can’t remember completely, but I believe it was simply Wildwood over (probably) Wraithbone on four of them, and Basilicanum Grey over Wraithbone on the other four. Both would have had some Contrast Medium worked in. Hope this helps!

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