Painting the most Spectacular minis I've ever seen! (Hieronymous Bosch Beasties)

Hail! Today we are debuting a new series upon the channel in which I will be showcasing fantasy and medieval miniatures. Technically we already did that pretty recently, but I'm going to be christening this the official start. In today's episode I'm going to be showing you the machinations I've been cooking up during my absence. This being a bit of an ambitious tabletop system based upon one of my hyper-specific obsessions. Medieval manuscript and mythology. And of course there's no better place to start than by painting up the minis I'll be using. This of course starting with the beasties themselves, the Hieronymus Bosch sets from Meridian Miniatures. But I'll also be showing off some models of which are the opposing forces to these perfidious creatures. I'd also like to take some time in between models to actually yap about the art in which they're depicted from. But before we get into all that wonderful nonsense, do be sure to leave a like, comment, and subscribe if you find this video fun, hype the video if you're on mobile, and if you really dig it, consider becoming a channel member. You don't have to, but it would mean an awful lot to me. Plus my channel members are the reason that I'm able to do this as a job, so I just want to give a huge thank you to the channel members. You guys are amazing. Also if you want to support me even further, make sure to check out my affiliate links in the description as they're everything I use in these videos. This includes Wargames Atlantic, Gallery, Golden Maple, as well as Strange Plastic. But enough of the promotional stuff, I think it's about time I actually talk what my overall plan is for these models. Now my overall arcing plan for this system of sorts, if I'm even going to call it that, is to essentially recreate my favorite genre of medieval art, conflict between man and beastie. Whether that be hellish abominations, distant cousins of mankind, or just straight up vicious fluffy bunnies, and often snails, or snail men. But for the miniatures in this episode more specifically, each of these models are one-to-one recreations of creatures featured from one of my favorite medieval artists, this of course being Hieronymus Bosch. Each of these little beasties are one-to-one recreations from such works as The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Temptation of St. Anthony, as well as The Last Judgment. Each of the figures are cast in a very highly detailed resin. The ones I'm showing you currently are actually the ones I did not complete, and there are actually more on the website if you want to check that out. However, for today I'm planning on painting my absolute favorites of the bunch. As for the original paintings, or I guess in this case triptychs, and I highly recommend you look these pieces up after the video as they are absolutely captivating, and I have to give all the credit in the world to Mr. Meridian for putting in so much effort to really create these creatures out of just a 2D medium. And though as much as I want to say each of these are loved equally in my eyes, my personal favorite has to be The Garden of Earthly Delights. Each panel is littered with Bosch's unique flair of otherworldly looking beasts, creatures, and demons, all of which are delightfully and frighteningly creative. What fascinates me so greatly about this piece as well as Bosch himself is how little we know about him personally, which to me makes his art of these mysterious and poetically brilliant beasts so much more cryptic and fascinating. Of course, this final piece was done towards the end period of the middle ages, and plenty of the medieval manuscript I'd shown you previously is roughly hundreds of years apart from this actual piece, but again, there's no account of his personal takes or I guess overall feelings on his artwork. Though it does share similar elements to previous works, it is undeniably unique, and it leaves you wondering what was going through his head creating all of these pieces. It's why his art has left such an impact, and has inspired plenty of artists within recent memory, like today's topic. Like I said, I'll be painting my absolute favorites of the bunch, but if you want to see me paint more of these, make sure to tune in to the painting streams I do every Friday. Just a little self-promotion before we get into it. But I've been yapping my head off, let's get to the actual models. The first creature I'll be painting out of this set is the candle lizard depicted in the second panel of The Last Judgment. This scene in particular actually houses one of my other favorite models from the set, this being the Schwampfint thing. I actually ended up painting most of this guy on stream, so all the more incentive to join those. But here's a little taste, and I ended up actually just basing these guys very similarly to their original surroundings. I didn't really want to go too exotic with the overall details. But anyway, to begin painting our little dragon creature, I decided to mix together some Puricryl Green with a little bit of Contrast Color Dark Angel's Green. A little weird mixing a basic acrylic with a contrast color, but I'm only really doing this to kind of tone down the green just a tad. I'm going to be doing two thin coats of this, but we're going to be doing a little bit of blending to get the original look of the actual art. That isn't to say that I'm going to be painting these guys strictly within the confines of their original depiction. I am going to be having a little bit of fun with these. However, once our original two base coats are dry, I'd begin blending in a little bit more green mixed with a touch of black. I would slowly but surely add this mixture to the tips of the tails by using just a little bit of Glaze Medium to kind of blend the skin tones together. Initially, I wanted to paint this guy similar to King Ghidorah from the Godzilla series, as I just wanted to paint something yellow. But I couldn't help but keep that original Emerald Green color intact. However, as I got closer and closer to the brighter details of the green, mostly on the face, I would use just a little bit of Yellow Green to really add in some nice harsh highlights to the brows, the ears, as well as the lips. In between frames, I would also add a little bit of Necromancer Cloak to the little mantle, stole, whatever you want to refer to it as. I didn't film this portion because I wasn't 100% sure if I liked the color at first, but it grew on me so I just kind of left it as is. As for the rest of the wrap surrounding this creature, I decided to simply just mix a little bit of Black Ink with some Sepia Ink from Vallejo. These two colors together work very nicely if you just want to lazily add in some leather details too. However, I did aim to remove the excess with a dry regular brush. Not a dry brush, a dry brush. You get what I mean. Only downside is you do kind of have to babysit it a little bit so it doesn't pool and look ugly. But I've had pretty good luck with ink colors just working. I also mixed a little bit of Black Ink with some Snakebite Leather to kind of darken the boots. That's another nice thing to use inks for is just changing the tones of your contrast colors. Once I was happy with the cloak, I ended up painting all the studs using some Bright Silver from Vallejo Game Color. And for the candle, I ended up painting the stick using a little bit Dark Ivory from Pro Acryl, washing it down with a little bit of the same Sepia mixture. And I would paint the flame white and just simply add in a little bit of Zealot Yellow from the Army Painter Speedpaints line. Seriously, if you want to paint some quick easy flames, this color is a dream. As for the final details, I simply just added in some white eyes as I thought it would look kind of cool. The original does have pupils, but I kind of liked how the Meridian Miniatures display had it with just the white Ninja Turtle eyes, so I decided to keep that. And with that final detail, I was left with a hideous, creepy little critter. This guy in particular is a big reason why I wanted this set. And I think another thing that I really like about it is just how much more he towers over the regular Baron's War Knights. And I think it just kind of sells the whole Marginalia vs. Knights thing all the more because it's intimidating. These are awful, creepy, but whimsical creatures. Though the more I think about it, the most intimidating part about him is him just simply biting me. He's a little portly, and he's not very well defended. I feel like one good slash to the belly and he's done. That's a little morbid. Let's move on to the next creature. Our next little freak is undoubtedly one of the most iconic designs in Bosh's catalog, this being the Rot Bird from the Garden of Earthly Delights in Hell Panel. This creature is probably something you've seen before if I had to guess. It's definitely made the circles around all sorts of different wargaming groups that I've seen. But I think what makes this creature so undeniably captivating is it's not really anything, it's just kind of a bunch of things thrown together. Something about it, the profile itself, is so captivating to me. Mostly because it just looks like a bunch of evil Monopoly pieces glued together. I'll admit, this one stressed me out because I wanted to do it right. However, the first thing I ended up doing was probably one of the more boring steps of painting. Base coating using some black over the zenithal prime. Sure might be boring, but it's a necessary step, as there's a lot of different areas that really require this to work. The first thing I ended up doing was base coating all of the metallic areas using dark silver from Proracryl. As you might know if you're familiar with my content, this is my absolute favorite metallic color ever. It applies smoothly, and it actually looks pretty perfect in line with the original depiction. The armor is kind of this nicely grayed steel, not a lot of shine to it. After just two thin coats, it's already a pretty perfect application. However, I then needed to switch gears to start painting all the flesh surrounding this little creature. First thing I gotta do is paint those delightfully chubby medieval cherub legs. I ended up base coating both these and the foot using a little bit of dark red from the Ninjon Proracryl set, and I would mix a little bit of black in to create kind of the dirtied up look towards the bottom of the legs. Once those were dry, I'd begin layering over this using a little bit of the dark red mixed with some flesh tones and a little bit of white. Getting that really creamy, fair skin tone that we see in a challenge. But before I get to the more inner details of how I did so, I did need to begin base coating the tail thing. Each of these little doodads are delightfully bosh as they just seem superfluous, but very intricately detailed and they feel really important. It just wouldn't be the same. For the little pear thing in between, I painted this using a dark teal. And for the little metal object in between, I used a little bit of magnesium mixed with bronze from Proracryl. The tail is just simply dark red. Now to get back into the actual flesh tone, the first thing I ended up really doing was layering on a little bit of black towards the bottom of the feet, while also shading the majority of the leg using some Carebird Crimson. This is thinned down significantly. This is only really to give the slight little adherence of blood underneath the flesh. Once it was dry, I ended up mixing so many different gray colors, it's not even funny. I ended up using some ghost gray mixed with a little bit of Payne's Gray for some bluish tones, and I would add in just a touch of the red gray from the Ninjon set to kind of balance out the skin tone. This leaves us with that delicate pale cherub flesh tone. I really should try this tone on actual cherubs from 40k. I still have yet to paint one of those for my Devastator squads. I was pretty happy with how the flesh tone looked, but I also decided to glaze a little bit more of red near the arrow wound on the right leg. There's a little bit of visible blood leaking from the wound in the original depiction, so I wanted to add a little bit of irritation to kind of sell the look a little bit further. This also dries a lot more subtly than you might think. After I was happy with that, I began shading the armor as well as the tail, and basically everything that wasn't the flesh tone, using some dark Oblivion Blackwash from Tooth and Coats. I'll admit I went a little too heavy with this. Honestly, I think this would have been better suited for more of a recessed shade. The original metallic is that nice grayed metallic, and I think I might have gone a little too far as you'll see later on, but I still like how he looks. As for the red tail, I decided to brighten things up using a little bit of Bold Pyrrole Red from Proacryl, leaving it to be kind of faded and kind of going for a little bit of a Twizzler look. It's definitely a little bit more subtle than the original depiction, but I kind of wanted an excuse to have a little bit of brightness to this model. In between shots, I ended up drybrushing over the metallic using some metallic silver from Vallejo Game Color. This added so much roughness to the metal that I'm not even really happy with how it turned out. It looks way too rough, but I still left it as is because I kind of like it in some ways, more so for my own taste rather than actual lore accuracy. And since I already was going very bold with the colors by adding in some orange red to the tail to brighten it up even further, I figured it would be fine to add in my own little elements. But with that, I'm left with a fantastical little creature. And yeah, I did end up actually painting in the eyes off screen. At first, I simply just left the beak and the inner portions of the helmet blank, mostly because they're not painted in the Meridian Miniatures display, but I thought it would be kind of cute and charming to add in those little whites of the eyes, even though this thing is absolutely evil. I also added in a little bit of subtle highlighting to kind of create the texture of some feathers within the helmet. It's a little subtle, but I think it's a nice little detail. But with this beastie out of the way, I think it's about time we move on to the most intimidating of the bunch. Our next entry is that of this thing. I know for a fact you've seen this creature before. Even if you're not aware of the origins, if you clicked on this, you probably know something about medieval marginalia. But I'm positive you've seen this guy before. I love this guy. And I think he deserves a very simple paint job, as there's not really much to do here. So to get right into it, I ended up base coating this guy using some dark teal and a little bit of Payne's Gray from Proacryl, but I would begin sponging on a brighter teal color to establish a little bit of a gradient. I guess kind of wet blending this guy felt a little tedious for something so small, and for the sake of my own sanity, I felt like I would probably fuss over every minute detail, so using a sponge was actually the right call. I ended up using a little bit of dark ivory to mix with the initial mixture of the dark teal and the Payne's Gray, just to really brighten up his lips, as it is the most prominent aspect of the character and the model. Over time, I would also glaze on a little bit more of this dark teal towards the bottom mixed with some black to create the said gradient. I did want to add in a little bit of effort, but I also mixed in a little bit of the teal to glaze over the lips to kind of tie everything together. This is a very simple model, and I don't even really think doing a very unique paint job would do it justice. I think it looks great on its own, so I didn't really want to fuss. As for his eyes, I'm simply painting them a nice dark black, giving those nice vacant eyes a wonderful soulless look, up until we add in that nice little touch of white for a little bit of glimmer. I don't know what else to tell you, I love this little thing. He's fun, he's cute, and honestly, like with our next entry that we'll be talking about shortly, I don't even know if the knights would fight these guys in particular. In fact, I could see these guys actually being a little bit of help. Maybe? I don't know. Not sure exactly where to draw the line on what are evil and what are good in terms of the animals that are just little critters. Bunnies and snails are by far the most scary, dogs seem to be kind of this weird mid-ground and the cenocephaly are kind of their own thing, but frogs, I'm not entirely sure. Let me know in the comments, this has actually been wracking my brain for days now. But with this little doodad finished, let's just get right into the second one. We're gonna talk about the frog, we gotta talk about the dog. The two-legged dog is from the first panel of the Garden of Earthly Delights. This guy's utterly delightful because haha funny dog, of course he is, but a big reason why I love this little guy is he reminds me so much of early Matt Groening drawings. Still probably the worst of the three shows, but I like Disenchanted. As for this silly little guy in terms of painting, I went really simple with this. Because I was just kind of reminded how well ink washes work, especially from Vallejo, I just decided to mix the sepia with just a touch of black to create this nice almost leathery color for kind of establishing where the colors will fall once we use the full-blown acrylics. Honestly, we could call it a day if you just did two thin coats of this after letting the first coat dry. It's really simple and I think it's quite effective. But I did want to add in a little bit more detail. After the second coat dried, I decided to paint in the eyes using a little bit of black. Those big saucer-like eyeballs are just to die for. You know what, I like this guy an awful lot more than the redichungus dogs we get in every ******* Kill Team box nowadays. Anyway, getting back on track, I began mixing a little bit of dark green-brown and a little bit of ivory from the Procro line just to add in some very subtle highlights. I mostly wanted to focus this on the ears and a little bit on the legs. I'm being rather subtle with this because I think it already looks really good, but I do want the facial features to stand out more and I think adding in a little bit of texture could work very well for this little guy. There's not really much else to do for him. He's kind of just there and I think that's what I like about this model. I don't have to really stress over much and the only other thing I have to do is paint the nose black and add in a couple of white dots on the eyeballs to add that little bit of shine. And with that, this two-legged pooch is finished. As irony-poisoned as I am on the whole Warhammer dogs thing, I really do have a soft spot for this guy. He's so genuine. Only thing that I think he's really missing is like a fez or something. It's so dumb, but I genuinely am actually considering making a green stuff fez. That might be a little too much, but I like how he turned out. He's simple and he's just a nice little presence on the field. Definitely not the best painted model I've ever done, but I don't know, simplicity sometimes really works, and especially for models like this. As much as I think we should strive to paint our models to the best of our ability, sometimes it simply is just a matter of a cool model being cool on its own, and having a decent paint job is enough. But I think we've covered enough for this little guy. I think it's about time we move on to probably the most interesting figure in this set. I think this guy honestly rivals Thimblebird over just about every other beast within the Bosh catalog, this being Letterbird from The Temptation of St. Anthony. This creature is by far one of the more popular designs within Bosh's catalog for good reason. The creature is actually holding the letter to St. Anthony. Which, disclosure, I actually lost the piece for the letter. I don't know where it is. I'll have to find it eventually, but I painted the rest of the model, so we'll get to that when we get to it. As for the beast itself, it's really silly looking, but it is genuinely off-putting to me. While it's easy to just say that all of Bosh's designs are insane and crazy, there's something about this one that just feels all the more sinister. It's the scowling face that it has on top of the intersecting beak. Also, it has ice skates for some reason. Actually, there's a lot of Bosh creatures that have ice skates, I think he just liked ice skating. But more on the topic, let's actually start painting this guy. Undeniably, one of the most iconic parts of this character is the red cloak. After zenithalling the model, I decided to layer over the cloak using Bloodmoon Red from the John Blanche set. May he rest in peace. However, I did discover that this color was a little bit… too dark for my taste. It didn't turn out bad by any means, it just dried a little uneven in some areas. So, it could work if you wanted to go for this darker red tone, but I ultimately decided to paint over this using the original outline as a means of applying my other colors. I ended up just using a little bit of Burnt Red from Proracryl for the base tone, and I would add in subsequent highlights and some other colors. However, I did want to keep this a rather flat color, but we'll get to that once we get to the red. As for the ear flap things, I decided to paint these using some Petroleum Brown from the Proracryl line. I'm pretty sure this is almost an effect color now that I think about it. It's definitely made for actual slick designs similar to AK colors, but it is the perfect shade so I ended up using it. It's very glossy, but I'll be using varnishes later on to make sure that this doesn't look nasty in the end. As for the beak, I also began base coating this using some Dark Green Brown, and I would mix in a little bit of the Petroleum Brown towards the end of the to create that nice gradient depicted in the original painting. As for the red cloak, after the base coat of the Burnt Red, I would layer over this using Bold Pyrrole Red from Proracryl as well. This is almost stunningly perfect. It really doesn't even need to be highlighted in my opinion, and I think I kinda left it as is. I liked the flat look enough that I thought it kinda spoke for itself, and though highlights would have been nice, I do think there's something eerie about it just being this flat, bright cloak. It's somewhat tantalizing, I don't know what else to say. After I was happy with the nice bright red that I went for on the cloak, I decided to glaze on even more Petroleum Brown over the beak. Again, this is really ugly looking because this color is just so glossy. I think if you went for the entire model looking glossy, that actually could be interesting considering this is a beak. It probably should be a little glossy, but I decided that the best option was to completely varnish the model using matte varnish. Usually my go-to is satin because I think it's a nice middle ground, but I sometimes find that satin varnish doesn't do a great job of un-glossifying glossy effects, so matte varnish was the go-to. As for the ears, I began painting on the side using some Moonbeam Yellow from the John Blanche set, mixing it just slightly with the Petroleum Brown. However, it would have been better to just simply highlight over similarly to old Alpha Legion colors. Instead of blending the colors, I should have just used the color as is for the highlight, which I ultimately did after fixing it up. This was not fun to fix up, by the way. The color itself works really well, but actually painting with it is not very fun. Also, you notice in shots I ended up painting the little funnel using some Dark Silver. I'd also wash this using some Drakenhof Nightshade mixed with some Nuln Oil, and I would just highlight it using some Metallic Silver. It's just a simple little tinge, but the blued metal look with the red cloak is a really nice contrast, and the yellow on the ears really ties this guy together. As for the ice skates, I just painted this using Dark Green Brown, and the legs were also just a nice little warm black color. I then add in a very lazy shade on the ice skates using a little bit of Oblivion Black Wash and some Battle Mud Wash, and I would call this good. I'm still missing the paper, but I think altogether this is probably one of my favorites of the set. This is also one of those models that I just needed to have. There is nothing really like this one in particular, too. There's all sorts of little bird creatures, but this one stands out. I couldn't quite tell you what it is that makes this one so eerie to me. I've really thought about this, and I can't even really fully describe what it is that makes him so creepy, but I like it for that, and I'm just glad to have this model in general. Off-camera, I also did a little bit of freehand for the pendant, trying to go one-to-one with the original design, but I'll just have to find that letter. I don't know where I put it. Sometimes people depict it without the letter, but I kind of like how it looks. I think that makes him look scarier, but I could yap on and on about what makes this guy freaky. I think it's about time we move on to the final model of the creatures. The last creature we'll be covering is that of the unicorn creature featured in The Temptation of St. Anthony as well. This guy, along with a lot of the little critters in this bunch, are actually a major portion of the Hieronymus Bosch set from Meridian Miniatures. I wanted to cover this one specifically because it is such an evil-looking creature, and I wanted to actually paint some weird flesh tones for these creatures. However, this one I actually went a little rogue on the original color scheme. The original, as you can see, is very pale and has some nice contrast leading up to the wings. Mine, however, turned out a little bit similar to regular flesh tones. However, I think this works quite well for the model, and I think you could honestly get away with this one looking different from the rest, as it's really more the profile that is more interesting to me than the paint scheme. When I began painting this guy initially, I did a very fine zenithal priming over the model, and I attempted to use some washes from the John Blanche set, this being some of the moody vines and a little bit of dark tone. This, however, did not work out very well, as for whatever reason my prime did not officially dry, and unfortunately the wash ended up actually kind of pulling out some of the initial priming, leaving this really gritty and nasty texture. So, I decided to just go full scale and redo the entire thing by first painting the undertone using a dark magenta, and then layering on some dark warm flesh and just a little bit of Payne's Gray to almost kind of emulate swine flesh. Feels fitting for a nasty creepy little demon thing, but I really like how this turned out, and it's kind of a fun color to paint to begin with. And if I'm being totally real with you, I wanted to paint something similar to this because I was more comfortable doing it, and I knew I would get this done faster rather than trying to emulate the original color scheme, because I wasn't 100% sure it would turn out good. If you're familiar with my content, I'm no stranger to making mistakes in my painting videos, but this time, however, I didn't really want to take any chances. I mostly just kind of wanted to go with what felt good. Now for painting the tongue, I decided to go kind of with the original by giving him a nice Ed, Edd n Eddy style green tongue. What I initially did was base coat this using a little bit of the dark jade colors from the Proacra line, but I also ended up kind of brightening it up using one of the other John Blanche colors, this being Dewpath. Really like this color. It's also been really nice using the John Blanche colors because I do like Army Painter, however, I've had some very middling results with their colors. However, this set in particular seems to work really well with these guys. The original tongue almost looks akin to like weird felt. The top portion definitely looks more serpent-like, but it almost has this weird fluff look to it at the bottom. Again, it's why I kind of felt fine going a little rogue with this one in particular. Also, as I began highlighting up the flesh tones, I began kind of glazing into the folds of the wings using a little bit of plum and some magenta. On his right side, I think I got it around perfect and almost looks like an infected ear, but on the other side it kind of faded away and I tried to fix it, but it didn't really look too good, so most of the pictures you'll see in the lightbox are definitely favoring an angle. Plus, it's the same angle with the cool arrow on his side. I then decided to fill in the eyes using a little bit of dark ivory from Proacryl. I initially wanted to give him the ninja turtle eyes similar to the green dragon, so I decided to do that instead. I prefer that look anyway. Also, to give a little bit more color depth, I decided to fill in the eyes and the eye sockets using some caribou crimson. This is watered down just slightly, mostly so it pools into the recesses and kind of colors the sclera of the eye. I also pooled this into the wound of the arrow in the side just to show a little bit more irritation, and I would paint in the pupils using a little bit of dryad bark. I think it's better to use a kind of off-tone rather than just straight black, as I find that gives a little bit of a better effect to an eyeball, but I would also paint off-screen a slight dot for a little bit of shine. And with that, this monstrous pig-like unicorn thing beast is finished, and I'm really happy with how he turned out. Despite taking my own personal detour for him, I think it turned out pretty good in the end. At first, I felt a little bit guilty because, again, I wanted to make these guys look like the original designs because I just love Bosh's art that much, but I think I kept it in the spirit and on top of it, it doesn't look that different from the original. Though, I almost kind of want more of this one in particular, maybe like an STL of smaller versions so this could be like the pack leader. For some reason, when I look at this model in particular, I get weird serious Sam villain vibes. You know what I mean? I don't know, maybe that's just me. But with that little guy done, my monsters are complete. But stick around for more, we got some more kitbashing and painting in store for ya. We still gotta paint the dudes. But before we do so, a little word from our sponsor, Tabletop Stronghold. Like I said at the beginning, I use everything that I'm sponsored by if it comes to hobby tools, and Tabletop Stronghold is no different as I've magnetized every single item in this video, which actually led me to believe that I was having a stroke or having a psychotic episode because when I tried posing these in the little light box for the pictures, I thought my hand-eye coordination was getting drastically worse. But as you can see, with how many little toys I fit on one tray alone and there's still room to spare, you're getting your money's worth when it comes to the mag case. And if that's not enough for ya, the 4th of July sale is up from the 12th all the way to the 5th of July. So if you need a carrying case for all your precious little toys, I guarantee ya that Tabletop Stronghold is the way to go. But let's get back to the main topic, and thank you to Tabletop Stronghold for sponsoring this video. Now this part might not be as interesting to you as the rest of the beasties, which is why I'm probably just gonna keep this a smaller section compared to the actual creatures, and likely I'll revisit these guys in a future video. In fact, I know I'm going to. But I figure I give you a nice little showcase of the guys that I want to have fight the main monsters. See, the Baron's War set is actually something I've been sitting on for quite some time. I actually got this box from Mr. Quor at LVL last year, and I've had a lot of fun building these guys, but I haven't really had something that I wanted to do with these guys for a video. But now that I'm trying this little system, my main goal with these knights is to combine the Baron's War sets with the War Games Atlantic Fantasy kits to make a nice amalgamation of historical, lore accuracy, and kinda similar to the actual art style of the time. Now if we're gonna get technical, I'm gonna get technical. Hieronymus Bosch's paintings, for the most part, were during the later end of the 14th century, so the Baron's War knights are not really fitting. Most of the Baron's War sets, if not all of them if I believe, depict soldiers and knights from around the 1100s to the middle of the 1300s. So we're almost at a 200 year difference, but I'm just now realizing I don't even know why I brought that up. Sometimes I just like hearing myself talk. Regardless, the main thing that I wanted to do with these knights is to kinda give them somewhat of a lore accurate design. However, my main goal is to just make these guys look really cool, and there's no shortage of over-the-top designs you can give your knights. Really, what I wanted to do is paint a handful of these guys that all contrast really nicely with one another. And one of the best parts about these figures in particular is that they're very similar to old school 28mm designs. There's not a ton of detail on them, but there's enough where your brushwork can really make the difference. You don't have to do much either. Really what I've been doing is just selecting a handful of colors, and doing some pretty simple designs, and actually a lot of split heraldry because why not, you gotta make your knights look cool, and just washing the main colors using some of the washes from the Tooth and Coats line. I find these in particular are perfect for really adding a lot of depth and detail, and on top of it, especially if you're using battle mud wash, it can really add a nice little layer of dirt and grime to the overall design that will give your figures a really simple yet effective weathered look. However, I will admit, some of them I definitely went a little bit harder in terms of detail, just because I found these figures in particular so much fun to paint. Now one thing I will say about the fantasy guard kit in particular, is it's definitely more on the side of, well, fantasy. However, some of the parts in the set are really good for mixing and matching with the baron's war kit to give yourself some pretty designs in terms of your overall characters. And honestly, it wouldn't be that hard to shave off some of the details from the more fantastical figures, just to give them a little bit more of a realistic design, in line with what was actually present during that time. However, I found this body in particular from the fantasy guards kit to be kind of a perfect match, especially giving me a little bit more of a broad stance to paint some freehand on. And really, I think these guys are a great way of practicing color schemes, like most new painters, you're probably going to be starting with painting space marines if you're just getting into the hobby of miniature painting. And well, they're knights. So I think these models in particular are actually a really good teaching tool, not only because they're fun to paint and they look cool, but I've really tried to get creative with my color schemes to make each one stand out. This one in particular, I just really was in the mood to paint some yellow and red. However, I wanted to do something a little bit more decorative with his shield. So I decided to paint a nice lime green color, just to make him kind of work more with the citrusy colors I had going on. And I decided to actually do a little bit of freehand. And mind you, this is not my best work. I did this in like maybe 15 minutes, but I wanted to go for kind of a generic lion motif, similar to the era. Usually these look a lot better and there actually are decals on the Wargames Atlantic site, but I think like what a lot of people have told me in my comments for my decal videos, practicing freehand has done them some pretty good in the long run over just using decals. And while I might be a decal enthusiast, I couldn't agree more. Doing more freehand is definitely a bit time consuming, but at the same time, even if it isn't perfect, it still looks pretty cool in the end. And unless you're a total curmudgeon, some silly and albeit a little ugly looking freehand is very charming. Hell, that's what most of medieval marginalia is to begin with. But even though I definitely kind of phoned it in towards the end, I still like how it looks and you know what? Even if I decided to do something as simple as adding in some decals, I don't think it quite has the same charm in some ways. But really the biggest part that I find to be the most satisfying element of all these little guys is just getting a nice big group of them. Even if it is just 5 or so, I think it looks really nice and especially when they all have really bombastic color schemes, they really stand out on their own. And not to mention, not only do I have the main knights, I also have a bunch of foot sergeants and peasants, so I could really get a nice little posse going, especially if I just wanted to play base baron's war, which seems like a really fun system. But to keep in line with my goal for this video, I just wanted a handful of these guys so I could pose them with the creatures in the light box and man, all together, they just work. It's exactly what I was looking for with this system, and as you'll see further down the line, there's even more that I want to get done and I just know it's gonna look spectacular. Also, if you guys remember my little swamp guys video, this is exactly what I was building this system for. Regular heroic dudes in armor fighting hellish horrifying creatures with just a nice little tinge of whimsy to it. I am so very excited to show you guys what I have in store for the rest of this little project of mine. There are so many different minis and kitbashes that I really want to accomplish within the next summer, and depending on how things go and how I feel about making videos, I really do kind of want to do a little bit of a summer of Wargames Atlantic and independent systems. There's definitely going to be a little bit of Warhammer thrown in, I'm not done with my Sons of Medusa nor my Void Phantoms, but there is some truly wacky stuff I have in the pipeline. But again, if you like this kind of content, do those simple little clicks that make these videos happen. Likes, comments, sharing the video, it does so much more than you can ever imagine. Every little incentive you can give me to keep doing videos like this not only will make you happy, but it'll also make me really happy. I love this crazy crap. But I think I've definitely been flapping my beak enough for one video, so like always, remember to mishmash, kitbash, and paint some fantastic miniatures. You're gonna. I promise. See ya.