WarCry: Log Bridges, WarCry Catacombs: Wooden Bridges, Dirty Down Moss Weathering Effects

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War Cry: Log Bridges, Dirty Down Moss Weathering Effect Paint

Although we’re solidly into September by now, I’m posting some models that were “finished” in August, and then worked on further in September – so these may or may not qualify for Dave Stone’s annual Season of Scenery challenge. I’ll explain. Across all of my various War Cry sets, I decided to start painting the terrain, beginning with these spiky, lashed-together bridges. Between the two sculpts. it turned out that I’ve got a dozen of the things, and cleaning up the mould lines on them wasn’t fun. Regardless, I managed to do so and got them painted.

War Cry: Log Bridges, Dirty Down Moss Weathering Effect Paint

The recipe – for my own future reference and anyone else interested – spray black, drybrush vallejo Game Colour Charred Brown, drybrush Vallejo Model Colour 70987 Medium Grey. Paint the ropes a 50-50 mix of VGC Bonewhite & Vallejo Panzer Aces 70.825 German Camo Pale Brown (aka I just grabbed two colours I had to hand and mixed until I was happy, then did it again for each batch). Paint the log ends and sharpened stakes VMC 70.918 Ivory. Wash the whole effing thing in a 1:1:1 mix of Army Painter Dark Tone, AP Strong Tone and Green Stuff World Master Medium (it’s a bit thicker than Lahmian – and much cheaper!). Then spray varnish once dry. Done. Dusted. With more than a week left of September.

BUT. I knew I had some of that Dity Down stuff that all the kids are talking about these days on the way in the post, and I thought that these wooden bridges would be an ideal place to try them out. So I waited. And waited. And finally they arrived, on the 7th of September. That’s yesterday.

War Cry: Log Bridges, Dirty Down Moss Weathering Effect Paint

So yesterday evening and last night, after catching up on the last half of All Out and then while listening to reports and reactions to the fallout of the Civil War in AEW, I went over the log bridges and some other stuff with the Moss Effect. This is an example of how it turned out. I …quite like it.

War Cry: Log Bridges, Dirty Down Moss Weathering Effect Paint

Earlier today, I varnished the bridges on their undersides (I’d gone much heavier on the undersides) to see how they’d turn out. Turns out that this particular Water Soluble product behaves pretty similarly to Weathering Powders when being spray varnish – in that it’s not really a fan – leaving only the heaviest and deepest parts with any colour. Well, that’s why I tested it on these (and the other stuff you’ll see here).

War Cry Catacombs: Wooden Bridges, Dirty Down Moss Weathering Effect Paint

When painting the Archon Wooden Stairs the other day, I also knocked out the much shorter War Cry Catacombs wooden bridges. I also held off on posting these (despite the Season of Scenery) because I wanted to see how they’d turn out with Moss Effects alongside weathering pigments (added post-varnish). The underside of these got sprayed with varnish alongside the log bridges, and you can see how the sides are all pretty black – the green on them has pretty much melted away with the varnishing.

War Cry: Log Bridges, Dirty Down Moss Weathering Effect Paint, Archon Studios Dungeons and Lasers: Woodhaven – “Wooden Town Stairs Set”

After covering the bridges in Moss effects, I also decided to bring those Archon Wooden Stairs back inside and give them the Moss treatment. Again it dulled the effects right down once varnished. I still added Liquid Weatheirng pigment afterwards and I think it improves these stairs immensely for not too much extra work – even with the toned-down moss as seen here.

War Cry Catacombs: Wooden Bridges, Dirty Down Moss Weathering Effect Paint, Archon Studios Dungeons and Lasers: Woodhaven – “Stone Town Stairs Set”

Finally, I also did the same with the Archon Stone Stairs. The moss looked great initially, and after varnishing it merely looked good. Again, adding weathering pigments as a final touch lifted them back up a little more. These are all pretty low-tier bits of terrain, so I feel no need to go back and try to make them perfect or anything. They’re all certainly good enough for the table! I’ll certainly keep playing with this stuff and noting things in my posts as I learn new things about it for the next little while.

I am considering whether to try out the Moss effect on the Beastgrave Lair pieces… any thoughts?

This concludes my Season of Scenery, though there are also naturally a bunch of unfinished projects that will tricle out over the coming months. I’m thinking that perhaps instead of a three month Season of Scenery we perhaps have two of them per year. The existing July-Aug and then maybe Dec-Jan? (when us Southern Hemisphericals have nice spraying weather, good light, long days and time off work!) It’d also give people a break and time to get revved up again. Whddaya think, Dave and others? 😀

Age of Sigmar: Malign Sorcery – Prismatic Palisade & Chronomatic Cogs

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Age of Sigmar: Malign Sorcery - Prismatic Palisade & Chronomatic Cogs

Today I’m showing a pair of Endless Spells that I’ve had sitting around since I got the big box, several years ago. The Prismatic Palisade had been started a couple of years ago, while the Chronomatic Cogs were painted quickly in the last few days.

Age of Sigmar: Malign Sorcery - Prismatic Palisade

The Palisade was largely an early Contrast Paint experiment, while I was still very much learning to blend it into an existing base, so it’s a little rough in the finer blends, which frustrated me at the time. But you know what’s better than an infinitely stalled, imperfect model? A finished, table-ready model – even if it’s imperfect. Especially for something like this that’s almost scenery. So when I dug out the Beastgrave scenic elements, I also dug out this thing, and made a mental committment to getting it finished.

Age of Sigmar: Malign Sorcery - Prismatic Palisade

There’s another I didn’t get done, but it should hopefully be done and dusted in the next week or so. Anyway, the rainbow colours at the ends of the crystals aren’t perfectly blended in, but the piece is good enough to drop down on a table for a couple of turns, is a decent size to stand out on the table which sort of minimises the blending issues, and so I’m calling it “good enough”, and I’m also calling it another down for Dave Stone’s annual Season of Scenery challenge.

Age of Sigmar: Malign Sorcery - Chronomatic Cogs

This next piece. Chronomatic Cogs was a quick one. I’d not started it due to not quiet being sure how to paint the blend from dark metallics into a ghostly colour. It was actually one of those “laying in bed it came to me” things to use the same paint to represent both verdigris into a more typical “contrast paint” effect into the ghostly smoke-ectoplasm …stuff. In the end I just used Citadel’s Nihilakh Oxide, mostly because I like the colour. So.. that was that!

Age of Sigmar: Malign Sorcery - Chronomatic Cogs

This one was completed this past weekend, so misses out narrowly on the Season of Scenery, but that sort of thing is always going to happen with so many little projects on the go. Still, another pair of Endless Spells done! Will I get the introductory box done before 2022 ends? Probably not, but I can always hope.,.