Topic: Witch Hunters and Hochland army

[Wolfenbaum]

Managed to paint 10 more crazies. Well 9, one of them I sneaked in from my old Middenheim Mordheim gang.

[Wolfenbaum]

The first five of my Hochland greatswords:

[mr chumley warner]

really good work!

Both units look outstanding .

I have been having real problems taking photos against a white BG, the camera keeps compensating by making the model really dark.

How do you achieve the pure white BG without losing out to the dark mini effect?!

the greatswords are very crisp and clean

nice 1

[Delthos]

How do you achieve the pure white BG without losing out to the dark mini effect?!

You've got to make sure you set your white balance before taking the picture and then adjust your exposure compensation. Taking a picture on the white background makes your camera think it's taking the picture in brighter light than what you are. That causes it to adjust the exposure to try and compensate for it. Adjusting your aperature and shutter speed can also help. The exposure compensation is the biggie though. Look it up in your manual if you don't know how to adjust it. If your picture is too dark, adjust it up. If it's too bright and washed out, adjust it down. On most camera's I've seen it ranges from -2 to 2 and is adjustable in either .25 or .5 increments. Even then it can be a pain.

As for the models I love the greens on the Greatswords. Very nice.

[Wolfenbaum]

Thx for positive feedback!

Regarding the photos: I have built my own lightbox consisting of very white foamboard. I light it up with 3 strong daylight bulbs (these were hard to find where I live in Sweden). You will want to use bulbs at around 5000-5500 kelvin to get rid of that yellow tone you get with regular ones. The camera will compensate some even at this set up, but only a little. I only had to lighten the pictures up a little bit in photoshop.

Don´t know if you want to go this far with your photographing.  But if you want t create a lightbox I found some good tutorial here: http://jasontomczak.com/2007/12/17/a-quick-easy-white-box-light-box-for-product-photography/

taking photos in pure daylight is an alternative, but we don´t get much sun this time of the year.

[Wolfenbaum]

Finally finished the standard bearer's banner, that plus five more greatswords. Hope you like!

[mr chumley warner]

superb,

that's one thing i can't do, and haven't tried in fairness, is free hand baners !

well done ,

that unit is top notch ,

now add 20 more !

[Spjuth]

A true beauty!

[Otaku]

VERY nice!  Thanks for sharing them all   

[Maza]

This tread is so inspiring, thank you for posting! Wonderful colours on the unit of greatswords.

[Shadowlord]

Super awesome freehand FTW!

And extremely crisp mini painting to boot. 

So how long on a mini in time?

Everytime I see something like this I get the urge to paint Empire dudes but then I remind myself they cost about 5-10 points a pop = at least 200 minis to paint before I can call it an army.

[Wolfenbaum]

Thanks all! 

now add 20 more !

So how long on a mini in time?

You are both touching on the time aspect here. And yea, painting to this standard takes some time. When going for rich colour with alot of highlighting like in this case it takes me about a week to finish 5 models. I almost always paint in batches of 5. That's my goal at least, to paint five every week. If I had known how much time it takes to get this rich red when I started my army I would not have gone for Hochland  .

But I don't spend that much time on all my models. My swordsmen horde and knights for example (which you can see parts of further up this thread) is painted in a much darker tone. That's alot faster and effective. Consist of basecolours all washed with the same wash, most often devlan mud, and then a single highligt.

I like to see my army as one part kind of city guard with alot of rich colour (slow painting) and one part forest patrol (faster painting).

The free hand banners takes alot of time of course, but I really enjoy it. There is much more artistry involved there, very challenging and fun.

My army is slowly groing, and has been for about 3 years now when I found my way back to this hobby. Happy painting!

[anvalous]

That unit of greatswords is fantastic!  I love the clean colors and the crisp highlights on the greens and reds.  Really a sharp looking assemblage of men.  Also, your banner makes grandmothers weep with pride.  High five!

[Wolfenbaum]

That unit of greatswords is fantastic!  I love the clean colors and the crisp highlights on the greens and reds.  Really a sharp looking assemblage of men.  Also, your banner makes grandmothers weep with pride.  High five!

With the prospect of pleasing some grannies out there, I could not resist a close up on the banner 

[Spjuth]

Truly well done! And a really good photo at that 

[Noble Korhedron]

Some of my huntsmen (I have 10 so far). These are the first models I painted for my Hochland army. If I ha painted them today I´d probably go for less prominent state colours and use more brown and black; more like the xbowmen posted earlier.

If you'd be willing to touch them up, I think  ll you need to do is make the red areas muted somehow - perhaps by washing with the red wash/ink followed by a brown wash/ink?

[Wolfenbaum]

Some of my huntsmen (I have 10 so far). These are the first models I painted for my Hochland army. If I ha painted them today I´d probably go for less prominent state colours and use more brown and black; more like the xbowmen posted earlier.

If you'd be willing to touch them up, I think  ll you need to do is make the red areas muted somehow - perhaps by washing with the red wash/ink followed by a brown wash/ink?

Thanks for the tip! These are the first I painted in the colours of Hochland I believe, a few years ago. It's tempting to paint 10 new from the new huntsmen box. They were not around when I painted these.

[Noble Korhedron]

Nah, I like your guys as is. I think the greatcoats they model Empire troops with sometimes are actually a bad thing in terms of packing and/or transporting them. If I dump most of the greatcoat bodies, I find I can fit most of my troop types 2 men/tray space. The ones I cannot do this with are the old 6 Ed. one-piece spearmen and my halberdiers unit which is armed with Halberds from the milita box.

And BTW, the reason I talked about muting the reds is because these are huntsmen. In RL, them and archers would usually be the scouting/reconaissiance type troops - so they wouldn't want to be able to be seen very easily - by their own side OR the enemy, I.M.O. Perhaps to help with this, you could try muting the green on the pants also?

[Wolfenbaum]

Took a brake from my greatswords and painted up five more x-bows. Quite quick work apart from the striped pants.

[Silver Wolf]

Sorry if I missed it, but I'd like to know how do you paint the faces...

Because they look excellent.

[Wolfenbaum]

Sorry if I missed it, but I'd like to know how do you paint the faces...

Because they look excellent.

It depens on the quality I'm after. But it's almost always the area on a model that involves most layers. There is actually a slight difference in method on the x-bows here. Five of them is painted this week while the other five are quite old. On these four it goes like this: 1. Talarn flesh 2. wash with bhaal red (not to much) 3. highlight with mix of talarn and bleeched bone 4. paint black slits where the eyes are. Depending on how visible the eyes are you might want to add white dots here 5. final highlight of bleeched bone (might need a pinch of talarn in the mix depending on mix on step 3.

When it comes to the greatswords further up it´s about the same method only with a few more steps of highlighting

[Michael W]

Sheesh.  Just fantastic, quality work from start to finish, eh?  This has to be the most attractive Hochland army I think I've ever seen.  "Christmas" hasn't crossed my mind once - just "Wow," "wooooah," and "WOW!"

Don't stop. 

[jhig]

Very Very impressed by your work. Especially the free hand banner.

[Spjuth]

Oh my! That Marksman is brilliant!

[Wolfenbaum]

Some more shooting. Working on a detachment of 10 handguners for my forest patrol. All guns blazing! 3 to go.