I’ve not painted much GW for a while but the Sylvaneth Grove Guardian took my fancy. There’s just so much going on with this mini: roots, buds, flowers, creatures, a growing spirit-elf-guy. Since I like to learn or practice something in each project, I picked out the bugs and basing on this one.

Bugs

I’ve used the Vallejo colour shifting paints before, but don’t think I’d really scratched the surface of their capabilities. As before, I painted them over black (note: they can also give a cool, subtle sheen over silver on swords and things), but this time pushed the shading with black, and the sharp edge highlight with some Vallejo Silver. This combo worked pretty well and really made the bugs’ carapaces pop. It’s worth noting that spraying the colour shifters with matt varnish will stop the colour shifting. When I came to varnish this mini, I stuck some blu-tack over the bugs to keep the varnish off them.

Basing

I’ve never been quite happy with my basing so I watched some videos and picked up the Enchanted Forest Basing Kit from Gamers Grass. It’s not cheap, but it goes a long way. I barely scratched the surface of what you get with the Grove Guardian, which has a big base, and I was not sparing with the tufts and mushrooms. Most of the contents of the kit are available separately, if you don’t want the whole thing or want to mix and match with other tufts/flowers/plants.

The laser cut plants were a doddle. I put these on last so I could choose the best places. I bent and shaped them around a paintbrush handle until I was happy, then stuck them in place with a little super glue. The ferns are particularly cool and give a bit of height to the basing. The mixture of different colours, heights and textures make so much difference and give some extra points of interest on the base.

Here’s a closer, top-down look at the basing.

As for the whole thing, I probably should have pushed the contrast more on the green hand weapon and perhaps improved the textures on the tree itself, but I’m happy with it on the whole.

That’s the lot for this one. Do drop me a comment if I can explain anything further or if you have some recommendations!

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