Despite my better judgement, I decided to go ahead and start painting the figs for Battles of Westeros. Knowing the way I am, I chose to start with just the leaders and work from there. I've painted all the leaders from the base game now and they are ready for their dip/ink-wash. I didn't go overboard with the detailing, though some part of me rebelled and at least a couple have more detail than was necessary. I really like the way the Lannisters came out. Kevan was pretty un-interesting, but I spent a bit of time on his shield and the lions I added look really good (though you can't even see his shield in these pictures). These paint choices were mostly inspired by Giles Dorrington's paints. As I just finished re-reading A Game of Thrones, the one thing I wanted to do was make sure of a couple things. First Tywin Lannister had to be more "gilded". Giles kept to the Crimson, but there wasn't enough gold. I gave Tywin a golden cape and most of the horse's armor is gold as well. The second was Marbrand's house coat of arms. Theirs is a burning tree, orange on smoke. The other was Rickard Karstark's which is a white startburst on black. Those needed to be right. George R.R. Martin spent a lot of time detailing out the various coat of arms and house colors in his books. It seemed silly to ignore that for these. The Stark leaders were less interesting to paint even though Robb has his direwolf. I'll probably go back and dry brush a little more of Grey Wind after they are dipped.Next up will be the armies (assuming I get there). I hope to keep the painting there as simple as possible. These figures are so small, that a splash of color should be more than enough. If I try and "detail" them (I say that because I didn't really detail these) like the leaders, it'll take forever to get through the base armies. I'm looking at the Stark foot soldiers (the guys with the axes) for the first round, but it depends on how the leaders end up looking in the end. If I'm not super happy with the results, I may just leave the leaders as the only painted guys in the set.
