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Painting the Trinavarta for Conquest

The Sorcerer Kings’ army update introduces Earth and Water elements alongside a split in the Air element’s Trinavarta. The review discusses painting techniques for wings, skin, robes, and bronze, highlighting the use of specific paint brands like Pro Acryl and Ammo for smooth finishes and color blending. Basing was completed with Geek Gaming Scenics.

Bernard Jackson
3–5 minutes
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So, the Sorcerer Kings have received new toys. The latest army update for the faction added two new elements (Earth and Water); complete with spells and new units. There was also a big change for the Air element…the Trinavarta has been split into two profiles!

Para Bellum was kind enough to send out a copy of the kit for me to review and paint…but there was a problem. The kit was too large for me to actually be able to record any footage! So, in lieu of my usual painting video I am going to talk through my painting process here on the blog.

The Wings:

You see that sweet super smooth fade from blue to violet? Actually not that hard to achieve!

  1. Base coat wings in Pro Acryl Payne’s Grey
  2. Progressive drybrush Blue, Grey Blue, White Blue, and Bright Pale Yellow (all from Pro Acryl)
    • Lighter colors are focused toward the end of the feathers
    • This will bring out all of the detail of the wings.
  3. The secret sauce…AK Wargame Violet and Deep Blue wash

So these two washes are enamel products. They are translucent, but highly saturated. Now, because the finish of the Pro Acryl paints is matte, they will stain the surface as the wash will settle into the microscopic pot marked surface of the underlying paint. Due to the extended working time of the products, you can wet blend the two colors together right on the miniature, which gives you the easiest color transition you have ever painted.

The Skin:

What if I told you there was zero glazing involved in painting that skin? But, how is it so smooth you ask? If you haven’t used Ammo’s Ionic paint range…you should. I won’t detail everything that is amazing about these paints here as that could be a whole extra article. I will say that these paints are great for achieving smooth blends with acrylics without a lot of the traditional hassle that comes with that medium. So, for the skin, I used:

  • Base: Ionic Lightning Blue
  • Highlight: Ionic Light Blue
  • 2nd Highlight: Ionic Light Blue + Ionic Ice Blue

Ionic paints have extended drying times compared to other hobby acrylics, and when used in conjunction with a wet palette, stay hydrated for a very long time before the paint starts to cure. This gives you a roughly 3-5 minute window where the paint will behave like an oil paint on your miniature. Taking advantage of this, I was able to stipple my highlights on top of my wet base layer, and simply feather the edges to blend. Easy-peasy!

The Robes:

If you struggle with painting yellow, hopefully this will help you out! Ammo has an Ionic yellow paint set, and that is exclusively what I used here.

  1. Base: Ionic Yellow Shadow
  2. Wet Blend Highlight: Ionic Ochre
  3. Let previous layers fully dry
  4. Drybrush Highlight: Ionic Golden Yellow
  5. Final Drybrush Highlight: Ionic Yellow

Making use of the properties of the paint mentioned above makes wet blending your base layer a breeze. This lets you just establish your shadow and highlight areas with smooth transitions in a matter of minutes. From there, you can build up your yellow highlights via drybrushing. It doesn’t get any easier.

Now, I was going for a desert yellow look, but the Ionic Yellows set will allow you to achieve multiple different types of yellow. I highly recommend checking it out!

The Bronze:

This bit was pretty simple; I stuck with the Pro Acryl bronze triad (Dark Bronze, Bronze, and Light Bronze). The difference between the various areas was in how they were shaded and highlighted.

Deep shadow areas based in Dark Bronze, drybrushed in Bronze, washed in AK Purple Invocation Deep Shade, and then re-drybrushed in Bronze.

The mid-tone bronze had no wash, but I added in Light Bronze highlights to create the contrast.

The back banner crest was highlighted all the way up to Light Bronze, was washed in AK Wargame Violet, and then heavily overbrushed in Light Bronze again.

Ready for Battle!

And that was pretty much 95% of all of the work to get this painted! The blades can be painted in the silver paint of your choice (I used Pro Acryl), and there are just a few minor details like the beak, one leather strap, and three tassels.

Basing, as always, was Geek Gaming Scenics Base Ready (the Mediterranean mix). And now my birdy is ready for battle!

I also made this cheeky short video for fun (turn on the sound):

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