Lone Swordsman and Archers from the Ten Thunders Faction
After finishing the Guild models I bought with the Starter Set I went ahead to paint the Ten Thunders models I bought at Salute. Let’s have a look at them.
Before I get to the paint job, a word of warning: the kit is awful to assemble. Check out the various tutorials on the web before you start assembling them or you will meet your Waterloo. 20 years of modeling experience didn’t prepare me for this. The head is the worst part, consisting of 4 parts (the veil is made of 2 pieces), three of which fit ambiguously into sockets and all need to be glued simultaneously. I had to scrap a veil of one model. The finished models look very nice, however. I read somewhere that the archers were some of Wyrd’s early plastic box sets (alongside the Ten Thunders and Jacob Lynch boxed set), and it shows. More recent models are said to be better, very much hope so.
Painting was the easy part, really. Although yellow is a hard color to highlight, I used a rather quick and easy method, painting the parts in a very light yellow (GW Bad Moon Yellow, yes I am that old) and then adding some thinner medium (GW Lahmian Medium) to Golden Yellow (Yriel Yellow) and using that mix as a wash. I then added some white to the Bad Moon Yellow and sparsely highlighted the model. You can achieve better results with building up the colors but this is a much faster way. After some more experience with yellow I now go with a mix of Golden Yellow, Anthrax Earthshade and medium, which makes the shadows more shadowish and less yellowish. Check out my Ototo (upcoming).
I also discovered an easy way get nice shades and highlights on the black trousers (which you should paint before the yellow parts): Just paint the trousers white and paint over them with a mix of medium and black. I’t important not to use water, and this mix is also not the same as black wash (or Nuln Oil). This creates deep black shades and almost perfect highlights. The only disadvantage is that adding highlights didn’t work very well since grey, even if it has the right lightness, looks different than the white shining through. So if you look close enough you can see the difference between the raised parts where the white shines through and the parts were I added a grey highlight.
The other challenge was to glue the models to the bases, especially the one above jumping sideways. I went for the right way (don’t do it the Homer Simpson way!) and ruthlessly pinned the trousers because the true scale bunion just is too small for the smallest drill. I planned to cover up the pin with some moss but ended up leaving it as it is since it is barely visible anyways.
Finally the Lone Swordsman, a samurai, really. As a kendo practitioner I feel a strong bond to this guy. And he has some cool rules. One – “You shall not see another sunrise”– reactivates him while declaring to kill another character. If he doesn’t kill at the end of the turn, he commits seppuku. Awesome!
Paint job was fairly straightforward, using the same method for painting black as with the archers. In hindsight I would have better painted that lower arm protector brown as well. I consciously try to limit my color palette, but in this case some more wouldn’t have hurt. I went for nonmetal metal with the sword, just copying what another guy had done. The face was scary, he has a beard but it is so small you have to imagine it. Especially the mustache part was hard. I also used gloss varnish for the breast amor because the Japanese lacquered a lot of their amor parts.
The Good, the Bad, and the Undead 