Guild Ball Kick Off! Project: The Masons
Wow, I did it. I painted two teams for Guild Ball in just under three months. Things were a bit hairy near the end. I switched two painting two figures at a time and tried to squeeze in some miniatures for Bolt Action. By the end I was thoroughly exhausted but now that I’ve had some time to recoup and relax I am very proud of what I accomplished.
The Masons Guild is an easier guild to paint than the Brewers. Not only is there no tartan their outfits are much simpler. Skin, black cloth, blue cloth, brown leather straps and armour. Easy, right? Of course I decided that I was going to not use metallic paint for all the armour. Painting NMM is sometimes seen as an advanced technique but I wanted to show that it doesn’t require perfectly painted reflections of imaginary scenery to make normal paint look metallic.
Guild Ball Masons team by Steamforged Games.
Metal isn’t an impossible surface to paint, nor does it need a special set of rules to do so. Cloth is all diffused highlights and metal is all specular. The light hits the same spots but then reflects into our eyes differently. Generally this means that the contrast between light and shadow is stronger but also areas which would be lit by diffused highlights on a piece of fabric are deeply shadowed on metal.
Now that this project is finished I am free to pursue other projects. I had originally planned on painting the Fishermen Guild immediately following these two guilds but as I said in the last project update this is something I am putting aside for now. I need a break.
Unlike last time I have seen an upswing in activity within my local community. Our Vassal League has moved from the group stage to the playoffs and we had a local tournament where I won best painted army and, more shockingly, a game of Guild Ball. I still really enjoy this game and am considering my next steps. I still want to play the Fishermen Guild but maybe I should expand both the Mason and Brewers guilds into 9 player teams. In a tournament you are supposed to bring 9 players and draft the 6 you want to field during a specific game.
Whatever choice I make it will be a new project. This one, I am very pleased to report, is complete.
First and foremost – great job! Not to criticize your NMM, but I assumed their armor was made of stone (with them being Masons and all). Personally I like this better than metal armor as there are a million fantasy humans that wear metal armor but not many that wear stone armor.
If you were going for NMM I might consider drastically increasing the contrast on the metal bits or painting on some “reflections” to emphasize that it’s metal and not stone. Honestly I think NMM silver is extremely difficult to pull off, hence why most people prefer NMM gold.
Thanks for the feedback. I do see where the way I painted the metal could look like stone, especially on Brick’s block and Mallet’s hammer. Or rather, I should have painted the block and hammer to be stone. Since they are more likely to be stone than armour if your brain sees them as stone they’re going to make everything else look more like stone since the colours are similar.