Show piece, center piece and eye catchers.
These will be the key to wining the best painted. They all
differ slightly from each other though
Show Piece
This is usually your leaders and standard bearers. They can
be similar to the eye catchers but they usually stand out more.
This is where alot of you time is spent. You can spend as
much time on one of these as you would a whole unit. The idea here is to show
of any special talents you may have, as in you may make great bases so go nuts
on these guys or your freehand might be good so this is the place to do it.
But don’t despair if you don’t have special talents you can
still make a show piece.
Show piece models should be you army leader and unit leaders
and other character models. I like to put my leaders on larger bases so they
stand out and this is all you really need to do. Make sure your base follows
your theme and build your character accordingly. As you can see below my Spartan
General is leaping into battle. This is in keeping with the Spartan theme and wasn’t
very difficult to do, Just a reposition of the arms and changing the legs and a
wire through the torso to raise him up. No real special skills involved. He
was given a little extra attention paint wise.
With my ogre general he had to be the biggest ogre in the
group. This took a lot of modding I also had his sword and luck knoblars built
onto his base in order to make him stand out more. This took a bit more skill as I also did a bit more on the free hand but overall not too difficult. One
thing to note with Show pieces is that you only need a few maybe one per unit
or even just the main characters, This will also depend on time available to
you.
I made my Spartan general before I did my first troop as a test piece and decided that I wanted one in every unit.
Center Piece.
Every army needs one of these. It needs to be seen from a
few tables away and will probably take the most time to make and paint. With
warhammer at least there is usually a large beast or warmachine that you can use
for the purpose. Warmachine is similar especially with Collosus's. Below you will see my Rhinox riders. I made these big and
bright and built up the bases to make sure they stood out.
In all infantry armies this can be a problem but there are ways around it. For instance in the Spartan army I made a unit filler where 2 Spartans are attacking a Minotaur, you could have 4 troops raising a banner or something similar. The center pice should define your army so give it a bit of thought before jumping in. And once again one center piece is good but you can do more if you have the chance. As Ive said before if you hear someone go to a mate and tell them they have to come look at this then you know you’ve got it right.
I modded this Slann to be a center piece for a lizard army
Orc Center piece he stands over 30cm tall
Eye catchers
Now they can be show pieces or center pieces but really what
they are is subtle things that people discover as they look at your army. The
longer someone looks at your army the more votes so you want to give them stuff
to look at. You don’t have to put allot of time in but they should be in theme
with your army and can be amusing but don’t have to be.
In my ogre army I put a lot of eye catchers. If you look at the knoblar unit you can see
coconut clappers and knoblars riding ponies. These didn’t take long to make in
fact the theme for my army was based on this mini.
in some armies this would be a center piece but in this one its just an eye catcher
In my Spartan army I had the movement trays with piles of
dead bodies on them. In my Chaos army I had different mutations and a unit with
the seven deadly sins. You don’t need a lot of time but they are worth putting
two or three in the army and one in each unit would be good. As Ive said the
longer someone is looking at your army the better and if they come for a second
look and notice something different it will really help out.
My cryx army has alot of detail to the bases. Took a bit of work but once its finished it will be worth the effort
So I hope this has helped out. The main points are in my
opininion
- Limited
pallete
- Bright
paint job.
- Unique
or little used idea
- Show
piece
- Center
piece
- Eye
catchers
- Themed
force
So anyone who can hold a paint brush and use a knife and
glue could do this. It helps if you do a little research before you start your
army but anything can be your inspiration. The further you go from the hobbie to
get your inspiration the more likely you will come up wit something new so don’t
be afraid to read google or phone a friend.
Thanks for watching and leave a comment to let me know what
you think or if you have any questions.
Center piece for my wood elf army. I made a mum and dad treeman as well
Center peice for my merc and Kislev army I also used this as a Bretonnian army and they stood in as Pegusus's
Eye catcher in my Kislev army
More from my Ogre army
This guy I made for Golden Deamon but it didnt make the cut. It makes a great center peice though
