Yearly Archives: 2011

Painting!

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Finally finished that large batch of Plague Monks I’ve been stuck on for a few weeks, now.  Lesson learned (well, confirmed): smaller batches = faster accomplishment = more motivation = more done.

Eleven to go.  They’ll wait a bit for me to knock out some other things.  I need to knock out some smaller, lower-hanging fruit before I get tangled up in these again.
Here’s where I am on my plan:
I’ve started on my turn counter, and am making tracks.  If I have the chance to paint tomorrow (and I should), it’s quite possible that I’ll finish it.  In the mean time, since I’m posting, here are some WIP pictures.

I’ve gotten color scheme info from Mike: I’m taking a few liberties with his process to make them fit with my style, but not many.  I’m really happy with the face of this poor bastard:
Other’n that: 
  • I’m running a tournament at GPC tomorrow (that I should have advertised here, but it filled up so quickly… there was no need).  It’s ostensibly a NoVA Open prep for the handful of us that are going to play Fantasy.  Hope it’ll be fun, but it definitely makes me want to run a looser, goofier tournament some time soon.
  • Storm of Magic came out: I’m super-stoked to play it.  I desperately want this thing to catch on so I can convert up a bunch of silly Skaven crap.  Say one thing about me, say that I like to convert up silly Skaven crap.

Painting Progress 20110708

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Haven’t had much to post about: haven’t actually finished anything in a bit, but I don’t like leaving things quiet for but so long.  So, I’ve got some WIP photos.

For starters, the test model I started for the Vampire Counts / Empire army I was noodling about the other week.

Pooling on the bit beneath that left eye aside (something easily fixed with a bit of matte medium), I freaking love this.  Pale, unhealthy, striking.  This is good stuff!  For the curious, the face is:

– GW Dheneb Stone basecoat
– Heavy GW Ogryn Flesh wash
– GW Dheneb Stone drybrush
– Wash of 3:2:2:1 of water, GW Ogryn Flesh, Matte Medium, GW Asurmen Blue

For the curious, that 3:3:2 ratio of water / wash / matte medium is my new magic freaking bullet.  Any time I want to wash something that isn’t super-powerful, it’s my go-to.  Mixing washes is also a hugely powerful tool.  I really should throw up some comparison photos to prove it, but Ogryn Flesh plus, or Thraka Green plus produces much richer, more interesting colors.

I’ve made a good bit of progress on the rest of the guy.  It’s enough for me to know that I hate everything else.  The bits swapping hasn’t worked out very well, I think.  Worse yet, the colors– the ones I kinda need to use to make this work– are pretty much exactly the same colors I use on my Skaven.  I need to do something different.

So, I don’t think I’ll be going forward with this.  I’m still kinda shining on the Empire, though, so maybe I’ll push forward with a more traditional province.

Still plugging away at ten Plague Monks.  I’m closing in on finishing them, but I’m not quite there.  Poo.

Also, to try to break up things, I’ve started on the turn counter.  It should paint up pretty quickly when I get a solid couple of hours to sit at the desk.

Painting Progress 20110625

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Not much progress over the past week: I’ve been just too dang busy with work and such.

I did manage to put the finishing touches on a batch of 5 Plague Monks: I needed to knock out a Musician and Standard Bearer and, at that point, I might as well do a few more and get 5 done.

I’m still in the mood to paint Plague Monks, though, and it’s been a while since I’ve tried doing things in a large batch… so I hit 10 with an airbrush.

We’ll see how they go.

I also bitz ordered a skeleton and a swordsman to pull together a model to experiment on.

About as soon as it showed up, however, I decided that all of my living dudes would be based on Free Company models, rather than State Troops models.  Still, it’ll be something to play with colors on.  It’s mostly a swordsman with Skeleton equipment and Karl Franz iconography shaved off.  I sculpted a little skull on his chest… it’s not great, though.  Need to practice that sort of thing.

Finally: if you want some Cygnar for Warmachine or Circle Orboros for Hordes, you should buy my stuff!

Auctions wrap up Sunday night!  (Need to pay for Storm of Magic + Sylvanian Levies somehow, right?)

W: Empire Advice

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I’ve got the percolation of an idea for a new army, directly inspired by this guy:

I painted him up a couple of years ago because 1) that’s one badass model and 2) I was working through how to achieve the bloodless skin tone I use on my Daemons.

I’ve got some work to do making the fluff make sense, but the short version is Sylvania-as-Empire / Stirland.  Basically, an Empire army themed to the tone and style of Sylvania.

The idea would be that I could play around with models I really like the look of (Vampire Counts), without having to play Vampire Counts (I don’t want to paint a billion Skeletons).  An upshot would be that I could, if the spirit moved use the same models in a VC army if I decided I want to.  It’d be fun to play around with conversions with Empire, VC, and Mantic parts.

I’d also like to be able to run a more varied, flexible army: with real shooting, access to cavalry and monsters (as mounts, I guess) and book lores.

The problem is: I know nothing about how the Empire plays.  I’ve played against them once, and that was editions ago when I was learning Fantasy.  I’m not sure I even begin to understand how to play Fantasy outside of a very specific loathsome, verminous context.

Scanning the internet for “Tournament Empire Lists” isn’t terribly helpful just yet; never mind that they all seem to involve a lot of Priests, which is something I’m not opposed to, but don’t want to use as a foundation for the army (since it’s all Castlevania’d up).  Also, though I’d like to play an effective list, I don’t want to play a dickbag list (we’re not talking High Elves, here! :D ).

So: rap at me.  What do I need to know about what works and doesn’t work with The Empire?  Where’s a good place to get more info about it.  Any thoughts?  Advice?

This might not go anywhere… but if it does, I’d like it to go in an informed, considered fashion.

Unloading Warmachine / Hordes!

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After a fairly prolific couple of weeks, it’s been dead around here.  We’ve had house guests, which has done a solid job of breaking my stride.  Hopefully, I’ll find it again this weekend.

I’m about halfway through painting another 5 Plague Monks, which is significant, because that includes a standard bearer.  At this point, standards are pretty much the only actual new-new painting need to do… and boy, do I hate doing them.  Nothing I ever do with them feels inspired or satisfactory.

More significantly: thanks to help from Casey, I’ve finally begun selling off my Warmachine / Hordes stuff.  I haven’t played the game in years (since 2008), and it’s time to move on.   So, I just (last night) put a bunch of stuff (Cygnar and Circle Orboros; most of it pretty well painted, IMHO) up on eBay.

If that’s something you might be interested in, I (and my next 40K army) would really appreciate it if you took a look at what I’ve got up for auction!

(I’m still a huge n00b to the eBays, so I’m pretty nervous and excited about how all of this is going to work out.)

C’mon, really?

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Called the local GW on the way home from work today to see if they had any square 20mm slottabases in stock: I’m rebasing the Skaven and need some more for the Stormvermin.

The guy said, yeah, they had them in stock.

So, I went out of my way* to stop by to pick them up.

“Oh, we don’t actually have any in stock.  But you can order them right over here…”

I turned around and walked out.

If I wanted to order them (and I’ll have to), I’d have done it my damn self.  I stopped by because I’d been told my immediate need for slottabases could be filled.

I’m trying to decide if this guy was just a complete idiot who wasn’t up to the task of turning around and looking or if this is some equally idiotic plot to get me to put $5 worth of slottabases towards the store’s sales.

I’m also considering calling GW and complaining.  It’s not a big deal, but this guy was either too dumb to answer my question or he flat out lied to me about the answer.  On second thought: he was a black shirt.  I am going to call.

* Not terribly far, but in Northern Virginia traffic, “not terribly far” is still “far enough.”

Finished – Plague Furnace

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After more than two solid weeks of painting, I’ve finished the dang Plague Furnace.  Lesson Learned: do no assemble and play with complicated Skaven models for a year before deciding to paint them.  I mean, it still would have taken me weeks to paint, but it would have been much, much easier.

The Plague Priest came out great looking.

As did the crew.  One thing I need to point out: the Plague Monk closest to the center of the Furnace has an extremely strangely sculpted face.  It’s just weird.  Parts of it are clearly skull, parts of it are clearly not, and the transition between the two is very unclear.  I found the ‘Eavy Metal jobs not very helpful in figuring out what to do with it.

Ultimately, I gave him a face-melty thing.  One side of his face is skull, and the other side looks like his skin’s sloughed off.  Very happy with how it came out, considering what a pain it was.

Some of the non-ratty details.

And the model from each direction.  I’m extremely happy with it; definitely time well-spent.

While the varnish was drying on that, I set into doing of the more tedious, but necessary tasks for the army.  I finally repaired the Doomwheel banner that just barely made it through the Golden Daemons.

Not perfect, but screw it.  There’s about an inch of paperclip pinning this thing.

I also started rebasing some stuff, from a grassy base to my cavern-style bases.  I’ve got 12 Gutter Runners, the Grey Seer, a Mortar and 25 Stormvermin to do.  I’ll also either have to rebase about 25 Plague Monks or repaint them.  Since this is going to be tedious, best to do it in chunks.  So, I did the Seer and the Gutter Runners.

That puts me here, in really great shape!

Skaven Display Board Planning

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I’ve decided not to do Armies on Parade with my Daemons.  It’d be nice to do, and I think they’d do well… but I can’t bring myself to build a second display board for them.  I mean, blah.

While waiting on some wash on the Furnace to dry, I broke out the graph paper and started sketching out the plan for the Skaven board that I do need to build.

That’s the penciled, rough layout.  The board’s 2’x2′ (maybe if this stuff is done time for Armies on Parade, I’ll enter my Skaven). 

I’ll be planning to mount this to the same breakfast tray I use with my Daemon board, which means I need to account for where I’m going to bolt the board to the tray.  That’s what those nipple-looking things are: where I’ll drill through the board and then disguise it somehow.

Planning to have a tiered hill fill the back left quarter or so.  I’ll try to make it look natural, while making sure I’ve got 5″-6″ on each tier (so I can fit a ranked unit on it).  The back right will have a few stalagmites and a river will run down the right side.  Characters (who aren’t surfing on a Plague Furnace) will be gathered around a block of warpstone or a well (like this) or something.  Alternatively, I could scoot everything forward and build a neat looking, rickety bell tower I’ve been noodling over (using the Warp-Lightning Cannon frame and a left over Screaming Bell bell) in the middle.

Here’s the plan, with details inked in.  The shape of the tray’s in red.

Thoughts?

Painting Progress – 20110531

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This was a solid, busy, productive weekend.  Not entirely as productive as I’d have liked, but I’ve no complaints.

Made a great deal of progress on the Plague Furnace.  I’m now profoundly angry at myself for gluing this f’ing thing together.  UGH.  This thing would be a pain in ass to paint even in subsections.

I’m fairly close to being done with all of the non-metallic stuff: need to finish the ropes, do some cloth and then finish basecoating where I’ll be painting gold.

While working on the Furnace, I realized that while I have a Plague Monk Standard Bearer, he doesn’t fit with any of my other standard bearers.  So, I threw a new one together:

I also got an early start on errands and chores Monday morning, and swung by Home Depot while doing it to pick up what I need for some display boards.

I’ll be putting my Daemons into the Armies on Parade next month, and there’s an annoying requirement that the display board be 2’x2′.  My display board is more than 2′ by less than 2′; so I’ve got to make another.  Very annoying.

Also, I’ve got to build one for my Skaven.  Might as well kill two birds with one stone, right?

The first one of these guys came together with a few false starts, but the second one didn’t take me any time at all.  I think they look really sharp: I’m looking forward to moving forward with them.

Rushputin vs. Finecast

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On Saturday, I popped in to GW Fair Oaks to check out this “Finecast” thing that might have been mentioned on the internet a few times.

As expected, the doom-and-gloom hasn’t really born out.  It’s not death-resin, for which I’m thankful, and the kits seem decent enough.  I’ve read about some serious casting issues, but nestled in the concern-trolling in that thread, there seem to be about as many okay experiences as bad ones.

I know a lot of people read Kirby’s early review of “they’re just as meh as expected,” as “this stuff’s terrible.”  That’s not how I read it, or how my experience has been; it’s meh, not because it’s bad but because it’s meh.  Neither terrible, nor great.  I imagine that could be read as a failure, I guess.

I’ve got to admit to being extremely annoyed by people bitching about Finecast in terms of their Forgeworld experiences well before actually seeing any of it.  I’m all for complaining about legitimate stuff but, when you don’t know actually what you’re talking about… you don’t know what you’re talking about.  (Never mind that that’s what the internet’s for.)

Anyway, I picked up Queek.

As you can see, there’s a ton of flash.  Soo much flash.  There were also a few bubbles; some immediately apparent, some revealed themselves as I trimmed away flash.

It felt like there was a considerably more work to be done in prepping this mini than there would be if it were metal… but that all of that work was much, much easier.

All of that flash came up very, very easily.  All but one set of bubbles filled in with super glue without any hassle.  There’s a bit of spine on the trophy rack that really just needed some green stuff, but it’s still less green stuff than I normally need to use on a metal mini.

I’d say that, in terms of assembly, it’s roughly break-even between Finecast and metal.  More to do, less trouble doing it.  I hate working with metal, though, and the lack of a need to pin makes me feel like I’m coming out ahead.

Those Canis defects do look pretty horrible, though; it’s definitely worth checking out the casting before buying any Finecast.  On the bright side, GW’s always had great customer service: I’m sure they’ll take care of shitty Finecast minis the same way they’ve taken care of mispacks and warped sprues.

I’m definitely going to have to go back and pick up a Finecast Skulltaker: the immense weight of that bastard has been a big obstacle in my making progress on the Skulltaker Chariot.  This stuff’s really light; a Finecast Skulltaker won’t weigh anything.