Gr. 11 Art Class project: Elven Spearmen

[NecronautDrummer]

One of the more unique things I get to do with my Grade 11 art students is this little project. I started this last year as their introduction to acrylic painting. I had them paint up a troop of GW Warhammer elven spearmen, a box set I found from a guy on Kijiji for cheap. As a matter of fact, Scott from Elm City Hobbies was the one who supplied us with the paints! About 6 months ago, I was poking around the clearance bin of my LHS when I found a box of Elven Spearmen from Mantic Games' Kings Of War line, for about $11. Perfect for this year's crop of Art students!

Today, they assembled their miniatures...

... and I got to take my new spray booth out on its test run by priming them at home with some Mr Surfacer 1000. Tomorrow, they'll be applying their basecoat colors.

Seeing as I have to stay one step ahead of them for demonstration purposes...

Here's my basecoated mini. I just slopped on some Citadel Basecoat acrylic paints, same as what they'll be using. Going for a green & gold color scheme with some red gemmies to offset the mostly green color of the mini.

Happy wargaming! ;D

 

[Chris S]

Nice project , I'd like to see some pics of the progress if you can

Chris.

 

[TRM]

Great idea!!! I agree, would love to see progress pics!!!

 

[PANZERMAN]

Congrats, on fostering creativity amongst your students. Who knows, a couple may take up the mantle
of the hobby? I look forward to seeing the end result of this project. Bill

 

[Eastrock]

The paint job looks great, ND!!! ;D

 

[NecronautDrummer]

Thanks everyone! The class has finally finished basecoating their models (using my personal stash of Citadel Basecoat paints). Since I'm only going for basic tabletop quality, I'll be giving their models a black wash on the body and some flesh wash on what's exposed of their faces tomorrow. On Monday, I start showing them how to paint faces, using my figure as the demo. Update pics in the next couple days!

 

[JMac]

Nice class project N.D.

How are the kids enjoying it?

 

[NecronautDrummer]

I take a pretty tongue-in-cheek approach to this project with the class with a LOT of self-depreciating geek humor. However, everyone in the class of about 15 students has expressed a lot of anticipation, interest, and enjoyment so far. Trust me on this, I ask them a lot about it :. We'll see how much they like it when we get to painting eyes .

 

[NecronautDrummer]

So, where were we?

Here's my guy. Face is done, shield and cloak need to be redone with paints that will behave (more on that later). None of the kid's work is really ready to show right now. They're still wrapping their heads around the idea that a single color of paint won't cut it when trying to replicate shadows and hilights on this sort of scale. However, a couple kids have taken my instruction, followed it, and realized that I'M NOT LYING TO THEM!
I've shown them eyes (the toughest part for me), faces & flesh, and given them a little idea of how to go about painting in general on this scale: dark in the recesses, a hilight in the most exposed areas, and a middle tone inbetween.

I've always used Vallejo Model Colour for this sort of work, with excellent results. But, I bought a 36 color set of Game Colour for my Art 20 classes to use. I've used these paints on occasion as well. I DO NOT like them. They're glossy and way too translucent for me. I've got a nice range of Coat D'Arms (imagine the bright, original GW paint colours in their original sealable vinyl pots!!!!!) that I bought from Brookurst Hobbies when they were clearing them out for dirt cheap. I'll be donating them to this project tomorrow.

Brushes. Nowhere have I seen this made more apparent than with this year's crop of art students. Good 28mm scale painters (maybe 70% of them?) swear by the Series 7 Winsor & Newton Kolinsky sable hair watercolour round brushes, or similar quality Floquil or Raphael equivalents. And so do I. Problem is that they usually run about $15 to $20 per brush. I have a hard time letting loose inexperienced miniature painters (especially those who don't think brush cleaning or care is something they should be bothered with, the school will pay for it, not their problem) with these brushes. Right now, they are using cheap Taklon and beaver hair brushes (in the appropriate 000 to 10/0 sizes they need to overcome their "size barrier"). Believe me, I have touted the wisdom that the brush size doesn't matter. It all comes down to the point on the brush. No matter how big the brush is, a decent point is ALL YOU NEED.
Regardless, this crop of art students are using last year's batch of beat up brushes (I taught last year's crew dry-brushing, so imagine the shape these brushes are in : ).

There's an online store out there called MeepleMart. It's a brick & mortar store out of Toronto that does wargaming. He sells Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes online for less than $10 a piece. The crappy brushes I got last year cost between $6 and $10 a piece anyways. It's too late for this year's crop, but next year, I can afford to equip my potential wargamers/hobbyists with the best brushes!

OK, rant's done!

 

[TRM]

Looks great ND!! Looking forward to seeing the class's work too!!! It what its about....learning something new and having fun!!!!