The Cities of Sigmar Army Set is available to pre-order tomorrow. These detailed new miniatures present a unique set of painting opportunities and challenges, and ’Eavy Metal Lead Max was kind enough to lay down his ensorceled brushes and take leave of the Chromata Obscura to discuss the work that the ’Eavy Metal team put in to bring the Cities to life.
This is the final part of the Cities of Sigmar Round Table series, which covers the work done to design the miniatures, write the lore, develop the iconography, and create the rules.
Max – ’Eavy Metal Lead: Regular mortals and humans had been missing from the Age of Sigmar, so introducing them properly into the setting, and getting them right, was a lot of pressure.
A lot of the work we did was based on the idea of referencing the Mortal Realms from the perspectives of the Cities, rather than looking at outside influences and applying them to the miniatures. We’ve spent a few years in the Age of Sigmar, so we can now more easily put the inhabitants in different situations, and with the dozens of examples of fiction that have helped make this world feel lived in, it's possible to understand how they would interact with these realms and their various environments.
We didn’t want to fall into the very well-trod area of “red equals fire and black equals death” so instead we thought about how the life and outlook of a human would be represented in those realms. The Seeds of Hope actually gave us a good place to start as we had multiple cities from Ghyran which all had to look different from each other.
We then had to consider the core principles of an ’Eavy Metal paint job including showing off all the detail of a miniature clearly while representing the Warhammer setting it's from. We try to render different materials in order to increase a sense of what you might call “believability” on the miniatures. With the Cities of Sigmar, we’ve intentionally tried to apply wear and tear, suggesting they’ve held onto this equipment for a long time, and that it might even be hand-me-down gear. We also had to consider how elemental effects from the realms might impact that equipment.
To look at a different setting, the Death Guard of the Horus Heresy are ceramite white with green shoulders, but it's fair to say that the “Death Guard look” isn't complete without the weathering and elemental effects that are as much of a part of their identity as their base colours. For the Cities that meant we thought about how you can design a colour scheme for a city and then add another layer of visual hooks through effects that tie in with their environment – do they have muddied boots from trudging through the plains of Ghur, or are they covered in verdigris and staining from the endless rains of Ulgu and Shyish? Despite both halves of Hammerhal having the same shield colours, the Ghyran side is instantly set apart by the mossy staining and growths on the wooden parts of the shields.
We couldn’t just rely on these effects to split them apart though, as we had 11 primary cities to work out. To help whittle down colours for the Cities of Sigmar we came up with some short briefs for each city. The whole team then went away and coloured in test images of the outfits and shields so that everyone had a chance to engage with how they thought the humans would see the various realms they lived in. We had over 300 different palettes that we narrowed down to get the main 11.
Caption: Once the iconography for each Free City was finalised these digital shield mock-ups were developed as a proof of concept before the painting began.
As we’ve touched upon, it wasn't always just about the colours. Hammerhal Aqsha features an orange colour palette for the cloth and fabric, while Hammerhal Ghyra features muted greens. The shield is still red for both halves to unify them, but we could make them feel different with the weathering treatment on Ghryan, and through the emblems. On one side the hammer icon is flanked by a blazing comet, and on the other shield it is wreathed in vines.
Even cities in the same realm could portray their relationship to them in different ways. Hallowheart is also in the Realm of Fire, but their primary colour is grey-blue, set off by warm brassy armour and a scorching red emblem. Vindicarum is in Chamon, the Realm of Metal, and so it has different metals across the uniform and shield which reinforces this idea that their experiences mean they know which works best for which situation. The core colour of their uniform is a rich teal, which ties into another respect of these cities, their relationships with their Stormhost.
We didn’t want to directly port the colour scheme of each Stormcast Eternal Stormhost over directly to each city, but they presented another way of further defining each city. How closely related are they to their Stormhost? What history do they have? For Vindicarum, the standing army wears similar colours to its extremely zealous Celestial Vindicators who reside there. The shields of the armies of Excelsis are painted white to tie back to the armour of the Knights Excelsior. Each city still needs its own identity, but linking them to the Stormhosts was important – you don’t want the realms to feel small.
Each shield essentially sums up its home city at a glance, and that ended up being a very important part of the project. There are very few Free Cities, they are the little drops of hope in a sea of darkness. Each shield is essentially a symbol of the city and represents the hope of each city being bought out. It’s a big front-facing element on nearly every single model in the army.
On some shields there are scraps of parchment which serve different purposes. In Lethis, these are warding runes on there to keep its citizens safe from the spirits that they can easily stumble into when you’re marching through Shyish. Elsewhere, that same parchment is used on the shields of Vindicarum but is instead covered in dogmatic scripture.
Excelsis is situated in the Realm of Beasts, so their shields are going to be covered in scratches and bitemarks, while on Misthåvn the shield is split into three different coloured stripes, referencing the fractured nature of the city and how it comes together in times of war.
It also has an inverted colour scheme for the diamond and emblem that aligns it with Ulgu, the Realm of Darkness. On top of that there’s a kill count carved in, because the soldiers of that city are quite mean and cutthroat.
One key part of adding personality to the range was also expanding on the work done to the miniatures to make each soldier feel like an individual. We had spreads and spreads of different heads that we used to explore varieties of skin tones, and we came up with double-figure schemes for different ethnicities.
We spent a lot of time observing and studying real people’s skin, and attempting to capture that in efficient recipes. We had to consider certain principles such as due to how light works, no matter the skin tone there has to be a sense of light capturing the ruddiness of the blood under the surface of the skin.
We used these reference points for approaching the faces on the miniatures. It says a lot about these cities and how big of a draw the safety of their walls is, that people from all over the realms will make a pilgrimage to reach these points of hope – some of them travelling through realmgates from one to another, bringing in a real mix of cultures. That’s part of what defines the Cities of Sigmar, perhaps more than any other range.
A big thanks to everyone who took part in the Cities of Sigmar Round Table. Tomorrow the Army Set is made available to pre-order.
