Tuesday 18 September 2012

Clash of Kings! (Part 3)

THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!

Sorry, that has absolutely no relevance to my Mantic Orc army, but it did a good job of summing up how I'm feeling about them at the moment.

I managed to get my five test-orcs dipped on Sunday, using The Army Painter's Strong Tone (which is the 'medium' tone) dip.  After letting them dry for twenty-four hours (yes, that's how long it takes), I added some final weathering on the armour, using Hawk Turquoise washed with Devlan Mud, before adding snow to the bases and edging them with Calthan Brown - which I have used for the rest of the army.

After that, I varnished the minis with matte varnish - this is essential because the dip leaves them with a very shiny gloss finish - before re-glossing the blood and eyes with gloss varnish.  (At this point, I realised that you could probably drop these guys out of a plane and they would land unscathed!)

Anyway, in all honesty, I was completely blown away by the results!

The miniatures went from THIS:


To THIS:



All in a few simple stages!

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty impressed with that and can't wait to crack on with the rest of the army.

Obviously, they're not as 'polished' as they would be had I painted them conventionally.  Below is an example of a non-dipped regiment I painted a while ago:


Saying that though, these have been photographed 'properly' and it's worth bearing in mind that this unit took three weeks to paint, whereas the dipped orcs took about four hours.

Better yet, I have forty-five 'conventionally-painted' orcs, which should be enough to form a great-looking front rank for each of my units of dipped ones.

So what more can I say?

Let's paint an army.




5 comments:

  1. Awesome stuff. Did you actually dip them or did you paint the dip on? Is the dip stuff you can use inside or are there lots of fumes?

    Just wondering as I've got a Mantic Undead army sitting in boxes in my Garage...

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    1. These guys were properly dipped. I was running the last scene of Terminator 2 in my head as I slowly lowered them into the tin with a pair of tweezers! (There are instructions for painting on the dip though, if you wanted to. They should be on the Army Painter website, or I have a booklet from Tom which you can borrow that tells you all about it).

      I don't think the fumes would be too bad, just open a window. What I WILL say is that you have to shake them a few times (according to the instructions) to remove a lot of the excess dip, so you'd need to do it in the garden or outside somewhere - they even recommend old trousers and shoes in the instructions! (Obviously this is only if you're dipping, not painting on)

      But to be honest, dead quick, dead easy to use, and a great price from Mr. Pugh at Cymbeline Games!

      Undead are an ideal army for it, too.

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  3. Replies
    1. Cheers! They'll really come together when there are a hundred and fifty of these bad-boys sprawled across the battlefield!

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