Browsing the archives for the wargames tag

Priming Models with Gesso

May 22, 2010
Johan Svensson

Gesso, Italian for chalk, is a substance historically used in panel painting to prepare the surfaces before painting on them.

Acrylic gesso is used to prime a canvas before painting. But I’m finding another use for it: priming my wargaming miniatures!

I had seen it mentioned a couple of times, but it wasn’t until I was randomly googling for inspirational pictures that I found this excellent article about priming models with acrylic gesso that I decided to try it myself.

I have a Panduro hobby store within walking distance, and sure enough, they had non-toxic white acrylic gesso. A big can with half a liter for 115 SEK, which is a bit more expensive than a spray can of primer paint of the same size. But gesso will most likely end up cheaper in the long run, since all of it actually ends up on the model, unlike spray primers.

The Trial

I dug out an old sacrificial model: a Chainmail orc druid, and went to work.

I decided to try gesso without thinning it, and squeezed out a thumbnail-sized pile on the palette. It’s acrylic and intended for canvases, so it’s a lot thicker than the Vallejo paints I normally use, which are designed for miniatures. It still spreads nicely though, with a viscosity something halfway between cream and toothpaste.

There’s one habit you’ll have to throw out the door right away: don’t paint it on in thin layers. In fact, just goop it on there generously in a thick coat. Don’t worry if all the details vanish — gesso shrinks as it dries, and all detail will be preserved just fine. Make sure to use stabbing motions with the brush to get it into all crevices and finer details so you don’t end up with air bubbles between the model and the gesso.

Out of old habit I used a thin coat on one of the arms, and it didn’t take many minutes for that to dry enough to show that the brush strokes left visible streaks on the model. Use a thick coat and let it shrink on its own as it dries!

Once dry it has a chalky texture, but it stays on and doesn’t leave any residue when you touch it. You may want to have a dedicated brush for this — I used a fairly big, soft brush.

Final Verdict

Priming with gesso has a few downsides compared to spray priming — it takes longer per model, and needs a lot longer to dry. But the upside is that I can reach all spots on the model I can normally reach while painting to make sure I get a good cover on the entire model, unlike spray primers where you need to turn the model around, put it on its sides, and spray from funny angles to reach all areas.

The biggest upside for me is that I can prime it right here at my desk — I don’t need to hope for suitable weather and air humidity to do it out on the balcony, or set up a paint box and snort funky fumes in the bathroom if the weather is too bad.

It does take longer, but I don’t really mind priming five models at a time and let them dry overnight before getting to work on them. So gesso will be my new primer from now on.

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Pirates!

Jul 3, 2005
Johan Svensson

No, not Sid Meier. Pirates of the Spanish Main from WizKids!

I was idly browsing the shelves at EB Games, when I spotted a small display with Pirates of the Spanish Main in it. It looked cute. It looked interesting. It looked cheap. I had a closer look, and then walked away with a booster pack.

So here’s the skinny: Pirates is a CCG, a collectible card game. And a constructable card game. The booster contains a pretty large fold-out map with the basic rules on the back, and a bunch of plastic cards the size of normal playing cards, about as thick as credit cards.

The plastic cards have various parts that you punch out and build ships from, as well as treasure markers, crew and some other stuff. The cards also serve as distance rulers and a stat sheet for the ship you build from it. Small ships typically take two cards for all the parts, the Leicester took three cards.

I got two ships in the booster: The Carrion Crow and the HMS Leicester. The Carrion Crow is… well, crap, stats-wise as well as looks-wise. It has two masts, and a fair chance to lose one each time it fires. But it is also a measly 4 points.

The Leicester is a big but still decently speedy four-masted ship with lethal cannons, although the accuracy is pretty bad, and looks like a good centerpiece for a fleet, but it’s pricy at 18 points.

The recommended point value is 30 points worth of ships and crew per player, unless you want larger battles.

On this image the Leicester just blew the crap out of the Carrion Crow. If a ship loses all its masts it can’t move, and if it takes another cannon hit it sinks. If you have more ships in your fleet you can tow it back to your home island and repair it, and then it’s as good as new.

My kitchen table may not be a very realistic ocean, but that’s what your imagination is for. I used a cardboard environment object from Chainmail as the wild island that contains all the treasure, seen in the background. If you want it more realistic, just get some blue cloth to play on.

This could probably be a pretty decent wargame. I’ll nag at my friends until they also get themselves a fleet of ships, then we can duke it out on the open ocean!

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Darn expensive hobbies

Mar 19, 2003
Johan Svensson

I’m seriously thinking about picking up wargaming again. I use miniatures to represent combat in D&D anyway, so there’s quite a bit of overlap.

Too bad that Warhammer (or Warhamster, as I call it) is so expensive. Games Workshop has lots of nifty miniatures in both their 40,000 range and Fantasy Battles range. 40k is probably the most popular, but if I get started I’m thinking about Fantasy Battles. I get the impression that FB players are more mature, while 40k draws all the low-end teenagers with its big guns, tanks and heavy armor. Not that FB doesn’t have big guns and heavy armor too, though…

For the latest edition of FB, the Undead have been split in two different (and often opposing) armies: Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings. In previous editions, the Undead used to have all sorts of ghosts, skeletons, zombies, vampires and mummies. Now the Vampire Counts have all the typically gothic undead, and the Tomb Kings have been refitted with a pseudo-Egyptian style with mummies and skeletons.

What I really like about the Tomb Kings is that it isn’t just a shambling horde of bones and mummy wrappings with rusty weapons; it’s a resurrected, well-organized army lead by an undead Pharaoh. Just the way I like my undead.

There’s one scene in The Mummy (you know, the pulp movie with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz) that sums up the Tomb Kings perfectly. Near the end of the movie, three undead tomb guards march up in phalanx formation with their shields and kopesh swords held ready.

Ye gods, I’m in rant mode. Sorry about that. I just like Egyptian mythology. And undead. Especially in combination.

Skeletons and mummies are easy to paint, too. Black primer (I never use a white primer, even for skeletons), base coat of bleached bone, a brown ink wash, and then drypaint and highlight with skull white. Or skip the skull white to get a weathered and ancient look. These guys are supposed to have been buried in the desert for a thousand years.

Well, there’s more to paint than just bone, since the Tomb Kings are organized and well equipped. But still pretty easy, with open areas on shields and weapons.

…but as I said, it’s darn expensive to have a GW game as a hobby. The Tomb King battalion box costs 1800 SEK, but gives you a full army. A bone giant costs 300 SEK…

Not planning to start playing WFB at the moment, though. I have better things to waste my money on. And I would like to have a look at Mechwarrior: Dark Ages too.

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