Welcome to Wargaming Tradecraft

This website is dedicated to helping new gamers learn the miniature hobby as well as introduce unique techniques and supplies to advanced artists. Start with the navigation bar or search field above to choose the category you'd like to find information on. My primary project is a Warcraft inspired Hordebloods army. You can view my Gallery on DeviantArt  to see all my creations, miniature related and otherwise. I do have Twitter and Instagram as well. If you feel you've gained something from Wargaming Tradecraft, please consider a donation to offset fees associated with the website and the quality tutorials you're used to. If not, why not leave a comment on something that inspires you?

Wargaming Tradecraft

Musou Black - An Actual Blackest Black

 As some of you may be aware, I'm on a bit of a quest to find the blackest black paint... I love working with contrasts between dark shadows and lighter highlights and like the idea of creating evil or pure darkness... void-like eyes, etc... This journey has even taken me to painting with actual carbon nano-tubes that NASA uses, but that was a foolhardy endeavor. (Though I like to think I'm the first miniature artist to have travelled that road.)

BUT NOW, thanks to a video I saw on Facebook, I present you with MUSOU BLACK and boy, am I extremely pleased with the results.

There are a few drawbacks however, so read on...

(I didn't receive anything for this review)

Impact Miniatures Review: Follow-Up

This is a follow up to my Previous Post that compared Impact Miniatures 3D printing to that of Hero Forge. If you haven't read it, the long and short of it is that you can expect even higher quality and more affordable printing by designing a miniature with Hero Forge, buying the STL, then having Impact Miniatures print the model for you. (Or really anything these days, from Thingiverse to the numerous Kickstarters for miniatures that are out there.)

Since my original post I've taken many opportunities to mention Impact's services on social media to people interested in getting their own miniatures printed or liked what they'd designed on Hero Forge and were looking for better printing options.

And yes, he's still able to operate during Covid!

(Full disclosure - the "Punk Turtle" miniature I designed was printed by Impact for free as a review piece due to the details on him, but the minis / parts I and my friends have purchased we paid for.)

Nightstalkers: Sutter's Nightmare (King's of War)

I've been meaning to post this project for a while, as I painted this army up over the winter. It's tabletop quality, not like my usual Hordebloods level of detail, but it's completed and I'm happy with it!

One of the things I'd looked forward to with this army was creating scenic bases, rather than individual models. It's a new way to create your miniatures and allows you to combine terrain making with basing.

I took this idea a step further using inspiration from a scene on one of my favorite scary movies, In the Mouth of Madness. (Which also stars one of my favorite actors, Sam Neill and directed by the legendary John Carpenter.) In this scene, reality tears and Neill stares into the void. It's a simple concept but it added extra flavour to my bases.

This won't be a tutorial - that will come later. But I will discuss concepts and details.

OK, so - goals:

• I wanted the army to be completed in a reasonable amount of time.
• This meant tabletop quality.
• To paint them quick and still highlight detail, I tried out the new Games Workshop Contrast Paints.
• I wanted it to appear as if they'd come from the pages of an occult book.
• For these I printed pages from the Necronomicon onto light yellow paper and covered in paint to age them.
• Not just coming from the pages, but tearing through reality. Blurring the lines between what's real and fiction. Is the book merely a portal into our world? Or is the world a reality woven from the words in the book?
• To execute this, all the bases have some level of detail where reality is literally being "torn" open to reveal an inky black void on the other side of the pages of the book.
• The book is created by gluing down portions of the Necronomicon which are ripped outwards.
• Void
• The inky blackness is made from Heavy Sculpting Gel mixed with Black Gesso and covered in matte varnish. (Some of the void creatures are created the same way, either covering an existing form or with a wire skeleton.)
• For the colours, I'm working with a limited palette:
• Browns and yellows for the core of the creatures, with accents of red and white tipped weapons.
• Terrain is primarily rendered in the green spectrum, (Grass, leaves and stone.) with some brown dirt and paths, small red rose bushes and some yellow hay and flowers.
• Even the water is coloured green and to keep the limited palette I've used white sand / shells for all the shore and lake features.
• Sturdy Scenic Bases
• Each unit has a thin wooden base.
• Most units have 3D printed structures that I designed myself to build the form of the terrain they're built upon.
• Tokens needed to stand out from the rest of the army somehow so they don't blend in.
• I ended up going with blue, taking a line from the movie where the author makes everything change to blue, his favorite colour, to prove the control he has over the world.
• Tokens were also 3D printed.

Overall I feel I executed a nice army with a warm colour scheme on a cool backdrop with strong white accents.

Below, you can see the full army. Click through for more army photos and individual shots and descriptions.