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"An Automaton in Autumnal Colours" - Colonel Steel and Tokens

1889. The mechanical and magical empire
of Queen Victoria rules the world.

The World of Smog: On Her Majesty’s Service


And welcome back to The Art of Caesura!

I hope everyone has had a fulfilling week and that you’re warm inside and not being buffeted by the hurricanes that continue to hit us on Ireland’s West Coast!

As I have mentioned previously, I am endeavouring to paint one miniature per week and I’m thrilled to unveil the model that I have been working on this week. He belongs to a great Kickstarted Victorian steampunk board game called The World of Smog: On HerMajesty’s Service. It is a fun, atmospheric game with beautiful tokens and minis. Last week, I started by painting the coin tokens:

These were quick: a bit of Hashut Copper, a bit of Runefang Steel and a torrential dose of Nuln Oil over an undercoat of black spray. They were super-easy, and I think look pretty effective.

I then went on to paint the various essence tokens (Blood, Titanium, Mana, and Ectoplasm):
steampunk

steampunk

steampunk

Over the undercoat of black spray, I painted them all Hashut Copper, washed them with Gryphonne Sepia and then created the Verdigris with a mix of Altdorf Guard Blue, Warboss Green, lightened up with Skull White and a healthy helping of Lahmian Medium ;-) Very Bioshock.


Now, onto the meat (or mettle) of the post, the mini I painted this week:

World of Smog

“The Clockwork Guard guarding Buckingham Palace was designed for only one thing: blindly obeying orders. And to be sure that these orders didn’t come from a flawed human being, the automata were made to obey only their chief: The one the engineer named ‘Colonel Steel’, his ultimate soldier. Colonel Steel had a number of priority directions engraved on a cylinder in perpetual motion in his abdomen...”

                The World of Smog: On Her Majesty’s Service

Victorian steampunk world of smog

Colonel Steel is one of the “Gentlemen” in The World of Smog – one of the protagonists and a potential player-character. I absolutely love the sculpt: a mechanical Beefeater with a clockwork handle sticking out of his back, what’s not to love!?
world of smog Victorian steampunk automaton

world of smog Victorian steampunk automaton


I should mention right away that these World of Smog minis are in a much larger scale than anything I have ever painted before. This made layering and blending a bit more exciting (read: involved) than usual. I’m happy with how he turned out.
world of smog Victorian steampunk automaton

A brief recipe-guide:

Red coat: Doombull Brown blended up to Evil Sunz Scarlet (and a bit beyond with a bit of Yriel Yellow and Ushabti Bone added.
Eyes and hat pin: Doombull Brown wet-blended with Yriel Yellow and skull white
Belts: the darker belt works up from Doombull with a Nuln Oil wash, while the lighter one started life as Steel Legion Drab.

world of smog Victorian steampunk automaton

On planning out this World of Smog project I’ve decided to paint the “mechanical gear” base of the Gentlemen copper, while the bases of the Agents of the Shadow Master will be silver (to make them look a little colder in contrast). I was concerned that the large areas of copper and silver on this model would clash, but after being dulled down with washes and re-highlighted I think they work okay. I like the warm autumnal tones of the copper, red coat and yellow spot colour. Eventually I might paint the handle of the gear on the base to look like mahogany, but I am, as of yet, undecided on this. Comments, as always, are much appreciated.

Thanks one and all for sticking around. I have enjoyed bringing you the first “content” post of The Art of Caesura.





Next week:
One of the Shadow Master’s most maniacal Agents…



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