Alternate Realities

I've usually been a narrow-minded purist in my gaming. Wizards can't use swords; animal companions have to be wolves, large cats, or birds of prey; stealth games must be played with stealth; and themes must be adhered to at all cost. When I started painting miniatures I always appreciated looking at alternate paint schemes where someone would use main colors not seen in the miniature's normal photo. However, I knew I could never paint my own models in an alternate paint scheme.

I've done alternate schemes for others with no problem, but I never truly thought I'd be interested in a non-studio paint scheme despite the fact that I'm so tired of painting my own guys red. I had a Khador project that included 15 Man-O-Wars, 5 warjacks, and a Drakhun. Most things were painted in the standard scheme, but 5 Man-O-Wars and the Drakhun deviated from the norm.

The Drakhun was painted white to match a Berserker I'd done for him before, while the Man-O-Wars were done to match the green of his two Kodiaks. After talking to him about how exactly he wanted his MoW, he made the Page 5 decision to leave it up to me and what I thought looked right. Madness I saw, but I set to work trying to get the colors to flow together. The Kodiak is basically green with red, black, and metals thrown in to break up the monotony, so it's not like I had a completely blank page to work from.

I had the alt-MoWs sitting there watching me as I painted their brethren red, wondering how well they'd turn out when I got to them. When they finally got some brush love, I decided to act like a sculptor and just start hacking away until I found out what the model should look like.

I started with the black trim to see how much was "too much," since their armor details differ from the Kodiak's. I got them all set and realized that all that black was super boring, so I broke it up with some iron wherever it fit (basically the spikes on their shoulders).

As I looked at it, I realize that the Khador symbol needed some love. I figured metal would be overkill, but what else to use? "Oh look, the captain's face needs to be done!" I'm smooth with using diversionary tactics against myself, so off I want to continue the art of "Don't make eyes look stupid."

Back to the symbol, and I was still stuck. I tried my two different metals but it looked so unremarkable on the green shoulders. "Oh man, I can't leave those weapons undone!"

Out of excuses, I looked at the studio Kodiaks I'd painted and realized that they had a splash of red, and it looked really good. So I added the red to the shoulders, sat back and realized just how much I wanted to do this scheme on my own Man-O-Wars!



Now I realize it's nothing special, but that little bit of red sold me on alternate paint schemes. I realized it's not just an amalgamation of whatever colors look good together, or donning some hipster shades and feeling a sense of pleasure in going against the normal colors. It's about painting models in a new way that still ties it to the original army (usually) while allowing the painter to exercise some creativity instead of the usual paint-by-number feeling I get from doing a studio scheme.

The only question is which paint scheme will I do? Studio paint schemes remove a lot of choice because, as I said, it's paint-by-number. Now I actually have to think and plan and be artistic with my painting. Oh the humanity!


See you tomorrow!

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