51 posts tagged “reaper”
But progress is being made!
I'm too busy painting to take pictures right now but between the stuff I had already done and the new miniatures I have enough for 4 demo armies.
I'm still finishing up the last ones. 5 of them need lining. 4 of them need shields attached. All 5 of them need to be sealed. The last one got a base coat tonight but he should be easy enough to paint. Simple monster.
The 2 new factions aren't based, much to my shame. I'll try but won't kill myself to get it done. They're painted and that's most important to me. The official rules say paint is optional but for demonstrations a painted army is best.
I will have to use some proxy figures but that's OK. I need to remove some abilities since I'm sticking with straight melee. I can still use the same figure, I just put a different data card with it. Technically I'm breaking a rule with one faction by having the same data card and 2 figures but I'll deal with it.
I had to lower my demo armies from 400 to 350 points because of my own mistakes but that's still a nicely sized army for a demo.
The terrain is complete and I need to pull out 2 pieces of felt in 2 foot by 2 foot sizes. That's the game board size.
I forgot that the round counters I wanted to use kind of belong in the gaming group and they are gaming this weekend. So rather than take them out I'm making new ones for myself. The first half of construction is done (drying) and tomorrow morning I should be able to do the final construction. That will let me paint and seal in a timely manner. Even sealing is optional for this time but I'd like to do it if I can.
I'll try to get pics of the demos in action since those are always cool pictures. And I will get pictures of all the things I've painted up recently.
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.
I've just been busy with other projects and the minis have been neglected.
So here's a pic of the mini I entered into an online contest. She's actually a part of my personal dwarf army and was painted for that, not a contest.
Meet Gwyddis.
Well, after all that the undead pirates are going to be taking a bit of a vacation. I did find out after I had them painted that they weren't going to be in the first release of Warlord changes and so I need to set them aside and work on factions that are so I can demo the game properly.
I found this out trying to balance my demo armies using the new datacards. There are no official datacards for this faction so I'm just going to set them aside and wait until they come back. And of course this is one of the only demo armies I have painted.
I think I'll replace them with Nefsokar (Egyptian) after I get the Reptus (leezards, in honor of the classic Taco Bell ad) painted up.
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.
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 craft room is set up for sewing so I really can't do much painting.
Last night I started prepping the Dragon Turtle as the monster for my next demo army. He was surprisingly clean and the parts dry fitted very well.
Tonight I started putting him together with epoxy. This is going to take a few steps and I may also put a couple of pins in him for strength.
My intent was to bring him with next week when I paint with the Illinois crew but now I'm not so sure. I'm going to try to prep some of the regular army models at paint night and see if I could bring those instead. I have a better chance of getting them done.
Now the craft room smells like epoxy.
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.
