writes:I don't know a lot about BeestWars, which is a ruleset and a setting from Gary Hunt Miniatures, but I do know that it's highly original and the sculpts are top grade, so I wanted to get into it. Fortunately, the manufacturer sent me a few figures to start a Geladan warband with.
These are wonderful figures and I worried that they were beyond my painting level, so I arranged for a professional painter to work on these for TMP… but that deal fell through, so I thought: maybe I can paint these myself, with basic wargaming techniques. (You be the judge!)
What I realized, after studying a number of gallery pictures, is that the Geladan baboon-men are essentially monochromatic: lots of shades of brown! So my approach was to prime brown, drybrush with medium brown and light brown, apply accent shades of brown or color as needed, then apply Coat d'arms Dk. Brown Super Shader as a wash.
I started with the two Geladan archer figures which I had, nearly identical figures except that one is standing on the ground and one is posing in mid-air.
I chose to do most of the assembly up front: body, head, hand-with-arrow, shield, tail, etc. I only left the knife separate at this point. I upgraded the larger figure to a larger base for stability; the smaller figure would have been better on a larger base too, as it's easy to knock over. The only hitch during assembly was attaching the hand-with-arrow piece, as I had to slightly 'bend' the shaft to get the arrow to end up on the bow.
I used Textured Stucco Crack Repair to texture the top of the base, adding to the figures' cast-on terrain. I also filled the bottoms of the slottabases, to make it easier to eventually add LITKO FlexSteel for storage purposes.
Unfortunately, my can of spray primer died on me as I was priming these figures, leaving them with a gritty surface in places. I cleaned them up a bit, but you'll notice it in the close-ups below.
Another mishap during painting was that one of the spearheads was knocked off; it has a slender connection to the shaft. I did not see a way to easily fix that, and decided that turning the spear into a pole worked well enough.
So here they are!
Aari Keeneye
He's a 'named' figure and an obvious 'bad ass'. I'm guessing the spears are supposed to be embedded in the ground and he's balancing on them. Clearly, he'll stand out on the tabletop.
The rocks on the base are cast as part of the figure.
I chose to go with standard 'green' flock, as most of my fantasy armies battle on grasslands! The Geladan are said to emerge from their jungles for war.
This close-up shows some of the grittiness from the bad primer, and also how I bent the arrow so it would intersect with the bow.
Another view of the bent arrow. The bent arrow is not something that anyone will see at tabletop distances, so it's not a big deal.
Above, between the arrow case and the spearheads, you can see the other spear that broke and became a pole. The Geladan are described as Stone Age. I painted the arrow tip as stone, but the spearheads as metal because they didn't look stone-like to me.
I used a lot of browns to give some variety to the figure while keeping a primitive feel.
Geladan w. Bow (standing)
This figure seems intended as the standard Geladan infantry archer.
This one wears pantaloons.
While the figure looks good mounted at one side of the slottabase, the weight is unbalanced. If I do more of these, I'll either center them on the base or use a larger base.
I painted the knife scabbard blue-gray, and the necklace amulet jade.
Compare my results with standard wargaming painting techniques against the gallery pictures, and see what you think. I'm looking forward to getting this force battle-ready!