45 posts tagged “painting”
Really I do. But right now packing up stuff is taking priority over things like having fun.
Luckily my painting supplies are "portable" so I can keep them out while everything else is packed away. This should let me paint up a bunch of the minis that have languished on the shelf for so long. I'm not going to try army painting when I'll have to keep putting the paint supplies away so single figures it is.
I'm giving away all my partially completed buildings and my partial modular dungeon. Two reasons for this.
- I don't want to move them.
- I'm not that interested in building set pieces any more.
I really like the arena style pieces since they're even more modular than my modular dungeon and they can be arranged into anything. I can still make all the accessories I want but I'm not limited to room size or shape.
My FLGS is going to luck out/get dumped on for this and I'll be glad to do it. I know they'll either keep them to use in the store or find a good home.
I still say I have too many hobbies.
I'm currently working on painting the Dragon Turtle and pretty much everything I painted today is going to get repainted. In short I picked the wrong colors and I was trying to do too much.
Longer story.
He's got plating on his arms, legs, neck, tail, etc. I had already painted the skin to match the guy down below and was working on the underside of the shell, the plates under the tail and all those other places I just detailed. And some around the face. All those other places I was going to use the same tans as on the body wrap of the grunt so that the shell would stand out more. And I was trying a new technique that suggested taking the base coat a shade darker to make the effect really pop.
I did all that and it just didn't work. The colors were completely wrong against the bright skin. I should know better than to pick colors when I'm in an unhappy mood.
A friend gave me links to his painted figure. His has the plating the same color as the skin. Only the shell, underneath the shell and the plates under the tail are a different color. That looked much better. So I pulled out the skin colors and painted over all the stuff I did. And yes, it looks much better. I still need to highlight it and I'll probably pull the highlights one shade higher than on the rest of the models just so he pops more.
I also prepped 2 more minis that I need for this demo army. I'll be pulling out the epoxy tomorrow and these guys need to have their arms attached. Since I'll have epoxy mixed I'll use it wisely.
Oh - I put the base coat on some new arena pieces.
I'm doing all this in preparation for doing Warlord demos at Oshcon next month. With the new rules and datacards I need to make sure my armies balance. I did get new models for new armies so I really need to get painting. I need 4 demo armies that balance. I need to check my Crusaders to make sure those are the same and then work up 2 more. I don't think they'll take as long as these since they're not nearly as complicated.
I'm making the assumption that you are.
In a nutshell, I have too many hobbies. I went on a complete sewing binge and that kept me from the paint table. Heck, I even used the chair there as storage. I'm a bad, bad painter.
But now that's over and I'm back to painting. I'm finally making progress on the Reptus demo army. Or as I like to call them 'leezards' after the Taco Bell commercial.
I tried for an enameled look to the armor and I'd say that I pretty much succeeded.
This is just a quick post because I think I finally figured out how to make the seaweed for their bases. Once that's in place I'll have to take all new pictures.
You can see the others in the collection below and once they're really complete I do a full post on them.
The smell of craft paint always reminds me of school. That evocative smell of cheap acrylic paint that we used in so many projects.
And that's what I'm using on the arena I'm painting up. Well, not completely cheap paint but it all kind of has the same smell. I'm painting roof and other large sections so there's a lot of wet paint at once, hence the aroma. In the smaller amounts and in drybrushing you don't get that.
I was able to repair the piece that broke when I dropped it (sorry Froggy - you won't even notice) and a piece that broke when I was painting it (see previous note). I had epoxy out to work on something else so I made it even stronger. I really need to start using more epoxy in my builds where there's going to be butt joins and other weak areas.
So all the last pieces have their stonework painted and I've gotten a good start on the detail work. There's always touchups but those are minor compared to the actual painting.
Whoops. Forgot the final white highlights on the stonework because I don't put them on my own stuff. I'll do that tomorrow before going back to the detail painting.
I'll be happy to finally get these pieces done and off to their rightful owner. I have another 'project for trade' in the wings and that one will be more complicated since I'm still designing as I go. I also think I need to cast a lot more bricks since I need a lot of a particular one that has one per mold. Lovely. I know I should make a mold so I can just cast those but after this project I don't know how much I'll need those in quantity.
Finally Mr. Rastl was very kind and did a project for me. I now have new figure holders for those models that have the slotta base. I was using binder clips but had issues with finding places to put them so the paint didn't touch anything. Now I've got nice stable wood pieces with thick wire holding up alligator clips. They're weighty enough to stand up nicely, the wire is flexible so I can reach everything on the piece, and the alligator clip should hold the figure securely without getting in the way. I only had him make 4 of them because: a) I generally only paint at most 4 models at a time and b) the alligator clips came in packs of 4. We've got enough material to make more if I need them but this should be plenty.
I used my epoxy wisely as I assembled the figure holders, filled in some gaps on the dragon turtle and fixed the terrain pieces.
What I didn't post yesterday because I didn't feel it was worth a post was that I got the heads attached to the Reptus figures. I used CA (superglue) but didn't get as solid of a bond as I would like. I re-glued the offending and now detached heads then used the epoxy from the final dragon turtle assemby to seal the seams. I've done that with other figures and it works quite well. I'll do the same thing when I attach the shields. CA to get them in place, epoxy to make sure they stay there.
You've been patient. I finally have pictures of the complete* Crusader demo army for your review.
Sir Conlan is the sergeant of the troop.
Stabby death at a distance. And they provide some nice support for those poor schmucks above.
Tomorrow I'll post up the other demo army. But I'd like to let these guys shine for a bit.
If you want to see everyone, check out the collection below. There's a lot of not-quite-as-good pictures in there but you still get to see everyone and booty shots.
The playtest beta I did on Friday turned out really well. At least I thought so. Once we got in the swing of the ruleset things moved along quickly so there was a sense of action happening.
By the time we had played 2 full games the 40K players were on their second turn. 'Nuff said.
However this means I really need to get 2 more armies ready. I can pull one out of my personal dwarf army but no matter what I need another demo army painted up.
I decided on another 'cool' army and pulled out the Reptus so I could start prepping them. Unfortunately it means pinning some of the bits so they stay attached and I've gotten rather lazy about pinning. I'll get back into the swing of it soon enough.
There was a brief debate about color since I didn't want to use the standard green or orange people tend to use. Mr. Rastl looked over the color chart and said he liked the red violet colors. I agree, they're quite different. So those are the colors. The absolute complimentary set to that color has been discontinued and I'm debating about whether I should just use it since this is a demo army or if I should go with colors that are still current. I won't know that one until I start slapping paint.
I'm finally making plans to paint with the Illinois crew (IMMPS) so I do need something to paint. It's either going to be the monster from this army or a set of army figures. If I'm looking for something that can be mostly and/or completely painted in an evening I'll have to lean towards the army figures. After I get a certain amount of paint on a figure I don't like transporting it since I always tend to rub off paint when I do that. Hence my preference for doing 'real' painting at home.
And on one final note. I was hoping to take a bunch of pics today using the new light tent Mr. Rastl got me for my birthday but time got away from me and there was so little left that I spent the time taking mold lines off the Reptus monster and dry fitting him to get an idea of the work involved. He's all cleaned up and goes together surprisingly well. I don't think I'll need to fill any gaps. Very good quality there.
I wasn't expecting to get back to painting in the very near future. That's why I felt safe in using the area on, around and by the paint table as temporary storage.
But things changed and now I guess I'm running a demo of the game of Warlord on Friday. And one of my demo armies doesn't have painted bases.
Yes. I can use them without painted bases. But they're just not as cool!
So I dug out the paint table and drenched the bases in the shadow color. Once that dries it will be a quick matter to drybrush up the rest of the colors. I do want to put seaweed on them (undead pirates, etc.) but that's not 100% necessary and I'd rather get them painted and sealed for play.
I'm also playing with the idea of adding a highlight to the base edges in the army color. Nothing too fancy, just another way to easily identify the pieces on the table. Of course one of my far more detailed painter friends took that to mean that I was going to gem the bases.
For those not in the know, to 'gem' something is to paint in the manner of a gemstone. Reflecting light and all that.
I wasn't planning on going that far for demo army bases but I will try one with the highlight edges and see what that looks like.
Base coat is on and drying. I touched up the spot on the crab where primer got on the underside of the claw. So they're set for the evening.
First of all, the stores here aren't the same. You would think that going into a Wal*****'s would result in the same products I have at home. Heck no. Which leads me into my rant.
Why can't I find unsweetened teas? I know several companies that make them. The stores carry the sweetened versions of them but I'll be darned if I can find one without HFCS or artificial sweeteners. I don't want sweetened tea! I want iced tea. Plain, regular iced tea. Is that so hard? Down here, I guess it is.
I won't even get into the lack of brand of candy I wanted since that isn't nearly as annoying as the lack of a type of beverage. I don't want to go to the grocery store and buy a multipack since I'm not at any one place long enough and at ReaperCon they have Sonic in and they will have unsweetened iced tea. And with any luck they'll give us the same "pay once, drink all day" deal since this is stuff they just dump at the end of the day. That's a nice deal.
On the mini scene I did get all the bases painted and the first coat of varnish on. I'll put the second coat on tomorrow (today?) morning so they have all day to dry before I pack them back up. One of the larger figures needs to be put back differently since her sword extends higher than the foam and it was slightly bent when I pulled her out. That's not acceptable so I'll probably have to turn her on her side.
I did get craft paint to edge the bases and it took 3 coats before I was happy with the depth of color. I grumbled a bit but realized I use at least 2 coats of the mini paint to do it so another coat of cheap craft paint isn't that bad.
The real problem is that I didn't think ahead about the availability of the color of static grass I wanted. For whatever reason I thought I could find something close enough and dry brush the ends once I got to Reaper. Yeah, silly me. I ended up sending an urgent pleading e-mail to Skullcrafts asking for a small bag of the flame static grass so I can add it to the bases. He'll have to send it to my next hotel so I get it. I'd really like something less vibrant but Skully stopped doing the larger variety of colors so I'll take what he's willing to send me.
This army does look darn cool. I'll try to get some pictures while they're in play so people can see just how cool they look.
I'm built for cold and while the weather is warming up nicely at home I'm not really happy with the big jump in temperature and humidity down here in Texas. And the hotel pool is closed.
I've been having a nice visit with my dad and will spend some time visiting the neighbors tomorrow. I probably won't spend as much time at my dad's place as I did today since we tend to run out of topics for conversation.
Tonight I was able to paint up the bases of the bulk of the dwarf army. I forgot to toss black paint in the bag so I'll get a bottle of craft paint while I'm out. It's just to edge the bases so it doesn't really need to match anything.
I thought I had some orange static grass but I was mistaken. I did bring some orange lichen but I'm going to hit the local hobby store and see if they have the static grass. I can't drybrush it to my color idea but that's OK as long as I can get it attached. I don't have the orange paint with me anyway. I was planning on doing that finishing touch at Reaper anyway. I'd just prefer static grass to lichen.
Not too much else to report. Travel (with a bonus flight delay!), catching up with dad, discovering the hotel doesn't have much to do and a very odd breakfast buffet.
