Plenty of painting been happening lately – note-taking via blogging is kind of like keeping a journal that the public internet can, in theory, find and comment on, but considering the extreme niche of this particular blog, I doubt this is for anyone other than the people I’ve linked it to. This self-referential introduction is my way of saying that after nearly a month of daily posting, I have a better understanding of the appeal of the format.

Moving on from my sheepish attempt to write something before introducing today’s painted model, I’m appreciating how Shadows let me play with techniques I wouldn’t expect to use when working on my other miniatures for this game, so it’s definitely worth it to feel like a more well-rounded painter. Plus, they’re striking on the game board, and that’s the kind of thing that helps make demos interesting.

Dark Drifter

So, the Dark Drifter is a Unique Deckhand for Shadows, and painting this model ended up being a much longer process than I anticipated, given the relative simplicity of the color choices and the amount of details on the sculpt. I really want to emphasize how many layered glazes and attempts to rework this model I went through before settling on the final appearance, but that’s just the nature of painting.

Everything started with a zenithal prime, using a base of black primer followed by white ink through the airbrush on the areas that I thought needed illumination. This was around the point where I realized my airbrush was running into issues – I think I needed to thin my ink more to ensure that it flowed out smoothly, and I was constantly battling dry tip on the brush itself, as well as some fluctuating pressure problems. I mostly use my airbrush for priming and varnishing, so it wasn’t too much of an issue overall, but I feel like I might need to upgrade at some point – I’ve been using the same Badger Patriot 105 for about ten years on and off, and it is definitely showing its age. I’ve only used Badger brushes up until this point, so I’m wondering if it might be good to try something like a H&S or an Iwata.

All that aside, I then started by painting all of the energy and fog bits on the bottom with a dark warm gray, followed by highlighting with VMC Light Green to create a somewhat glow-y effect. At this point, I also decided to do some recess glazing with a deep purple ink from Warcolours, which established the world’s most “1994 radical school binder cover” color scheme known to humanity. This, predictably, really didn’t look great, so I decided to try something else.

I then painted the body with a very dark, somewhat saturated purple before starting to highlight up to a warm-ish gray. There was a lot of edge highlights, painted textures, and surface noise as I did so, where I could see the beginnings of a good paint scheme.

At this point, I set the model down, took a break, and then came back. I looked at what I’d done with a critical eye, set it down to some of my other miniatures for FF, and realized that it was horrible and not in the way you’d want. I looked up the studio scheme, reviewed what I’d done, and then immediately painted all of the wisps/energy coming from the model’s head with a really deep greenish-black (P3 Coal Black, for those interested) and called it a day.

Returning with fresh eyes the next day, I started by painting all of the fog on the base with a pale, cool gray. I used some of the same pale gray to remove some of the more riotous colors from the vortex bits of the Dark Drifter before deciding to shift my focus to the skin and arms.

Skin was highlighted up using Scale 75’s Hellbound Flesh – it’s a really pale green/gray that ended up being incredible for what I wanted it to do. My final highlights for the skin was a pale white-blue to add a bit of otherworldly luminosity, with glazes of Hellbound Flesh to tie it all together. Then, to re-establish the purple tones, I glazed in some dark violet ink to get everything looking good and purplish before fixing some of the skin highlights and folds here and there.

I then started painting the head wisps – the origin point got Hellbound Flesh, followed by a cooler gray, finally fading into black. This was then smoothed with glazes to ensure that everything looked sufficiently flowy and aetheric. The same process was repeated with the fog on the bottom of the base, with a bit of added light green here and there. I also glazed more Hellbound Flesh into the highlights of the twisty vortex bits to bring the glow more towards the skin color, which really sold everything.

This was a weird process – I somewhat know what I want to do going forward, but I was flailing for much of this. Discovering the Hellbound Flesh in my paint stash reminded me why I love having a bunch of random paints purchased from people who were divesting themselves from a paint range they didn’t want, as it turns out to have been the perfect color for the effect I wanted. This was a good growth opportunity, but I’ll have to see if I can have these lessons stick.

What’s A Unique Deckhand?

Okay, so this is going to take a bit of explanation – Unique Deckhands are a relatively new addition to the game, made due to some rule changes over the years and created due to needing a step between Deckhand and Specialist to allow for more options. The requirement for hiring Deckhands in order to add Specialists is a great way to balance crews – you can’t just take the ‘best’ models and it’s narratively satisfying to have some chumps around. In the first edition of the rules, you were required to hire at least one other type of Deckhand before hiring another of the first one you hire. The change was a welcome one for themed crews – I’ve already talked about Honour Guard in a few posts, so you can see why having those changes is beneficial for your crew-building freedom.

Unique Deckhands, on the other hand, solve the issue of having a model that’s not quite in the design space for a Specialist, but which would be too expensive or powerful if crews could hire multiples of them. It also lets them do more interesting design decisions – the Themed Crew boxes all come with Unique Deckhands who don’t necessarily need to be played with the rest of those models.

The Dark Drifter is definitely an incredible model. It is an incredible utility piece for the Shadows – Fog Stalker lets it skip around the battlefield by swapping with any Wisp, it’s got a respectable amount of V for a Shadow model, and Regeneration (3) is a huge boost to its survivability. What really seals the deal is the Merging ability – it can act as a Wisp for the purposes of a Merge action, and it can pay 2 Shadow Force to let the model it’s merged into be Snappy, to allow for chained activations. This is incredibly powerful and gives the Shadows some serious utility and staying power. I almost consider it an auto-include, especially considering it costs the same as a Crawler.

hobby Progress

I’ve done a lot of painting, obviously, but there’s also been some sculpting going on lately. Admittedly, it’s not quite for Freebooter’s Fate – the first item in the queue is a commission piece – but it’s good practice for more FF stuff. Digital sculpting is definitely not my preferred medium, but it’s a lot easier to reproduce and distribute, so needs must.