The Walking Dead WIP & Other Stuff...

Paints... Paaaaaaaaaaaaints...

Howdy folks!

Long time no post, as usual!

So I did quite a bit of hobby stuff recently and thought a good update was in order.

First up: my Novus building that you may recall from waaaay back in the day.

I took entirely too long to actually slap paint on this bad boy

I kept it simple like the other building. I under coated it with blank, then highlighted VGA Cold Grey and VMA Light Grey, then came back over with VMA Scarlet Red, an excellent vibrant red. Lastly I painted the interior walls with VMA Khaki or something. I still have work to do on it, like paint the debris and machines, but I've held myself to my 2018 mantra:

Get your crap at least table ready.

The flood in Houston forced me to consolidate all my hobby stuff and move them around the house, which when all piled together really became overwhelming when seeing all the stuff I have, and how none of it is completely painted.

So I'm going to try to get things at least presentable when I can, meaning actually painting rather than just thinking of painting. An hour here, and hour there, it all adds up and gets crap done.

So when I saw this building again I decided that's what I'll do, starting with this building, and did it.

Which transitioned into the next project:

The Walking Dead: All Out War Miniatures Game

I Kickstarted this game a while back, and even though I was hesitant when it first came out by the end of the campaign I was really excited to back it and get it on the table. When it arrived I played a few solo games but nothing serious, I mostly used the cars for terrain for other games and even the supply token pieces. I never really tried to get it on the table for our regular gaming group, though, as we usually played Malifaux and it just collected dust.

Recently, though, one of our regulars expressed interest in other games as Malifaux is starting to feel tired - this will happen when it's what your main game is (in our group) and it's played multiple times a week since 2013, which is when at least I joined the group so it's even longer for this player. When I thought about my catalog of games that might be interesting to introduce during this opportunity I brushed by my copy of TWD and figured why not.

I got really motivated to get this table ready and started on two of the walkers:

These were my test models for quick-painting concepts. I figured I'd rely heavily on washes and drybrushing (I hardly drybrush ever, so this shows that I really want to get these done lol) and came up with a recipe/paint order that may very well get the job done, and it's similar to how I painted my old horde Vampire army in Warhammer Fantasy.

For the skin, it's 50/50 VMA IDF Green/VGC Dead Flesh airbrushed on, then zenithal with VGC Dead Flesh, then a heavy wash of SWM Stone wash, then a drybrush of VGC Dead Flesh and a bit of white, followed by a spot wash of GW Green for shading and tone. A few dashes of GW Blood stuff adds contrast to the overall green tone.

For any other elements like clothing I just base, wash, drybrush, repeat as needed. As I said, really trying to get this done fast and not get held up on details like I normally do, and I feel like this recipe is a good balance between speed and aesthetics.

While I painted those I got started on the trucks that come with the game (for the KS version). I knew I wanted a red and a blue truck, as my wife used to own a cool red Chevy and when we first met we drove around in her blue Chevy, so I undercoated one with Black/Cold Grey/Light Grey then hit it with Scarlet Red like the Novus building. Then I washed it with GW Agrax Earthshade for quick weathering and did a few other elements like the windows.

Where it's at so far, these walkers are a breeze and fun to paint

The vehicles aren't done fully, as I need to pick out elements like the grill and hubcaps, and weather it even further with stippling and paint chipping, but as I said earlier - just get my crap table ready, so I did.

Speaking of table ready:

I couldn't help myself! I recently bought a Walking Dead mouse pad mat from our FLGS in anticipation of my recent motivation to get TWD table ready. So I plopped on some Battle Systems terrain, a few trees, etc. and before you know it I've got a pretty sweet table ready to rock this game! With its small model count I may actually get a game fully painted and ready for demos!

I have to admit I really like the small table size and model count, but when you have about 10 or so zombies on this set up you can see exactly the claustrophobia that this game meant to induce in players! It's going to be fun and intense.

And as a side project:

I started and almost completed Rosamu from the board game Yashima. I've always liked this game and its miniatures, and thought it could double as a model in A Fistful of Kung Fu. I painted it mostly by brush, so it felt like painting with one hand tied behind me as I've heavily airbrushed for the last few years, but it's nice to get back to your roots - I just shouldn't have done so after picking orange and yellow as my colors, because man I forgot how tedious and painful those colors are when painting by hand! The difficulty and disappointment actually led me to stop painting this guy for now, but - and this is my new mantra - he's table ready!

That's it for now, I'll keep in touch when I can!

Don't Be Fooled...

Hunter and Hunted...

Hello all!

So I've been semi-regularly been featured in a Malifaux Podcast called Flippin' Jokers, featuring a few friends from our area that are really good at the game and are my regular opponents. In one of our last episodes we mentioned wanting to do the Iron Painter competition but not wanting to commit due to flakiness, schedules, new babies, planned crimes, etc. and decided to hold a friendly one among the cast titled The Aluminium Painter. Like the IP we would base our models on themes, basing our paint jobs on these restrictions. A Wyrd Place (I think) had a Google Hangout to decide the theme and came up with "Don't Be Fooled," in honor of the April 1st deadline. The restriction that came up was that the model had to look good and complete from one photographed angle, but from any other angle you can see bare plastic, bad paint, incomplete, etc. as a jab one of the cast members uses about models looking good in the pictures they share but completely different in real life (usually not as impressive in his, and sometimes my, opinion - see previous post regarding photography).

This seemed like a fun challenge at first, and we made the deadline be a month rather than 2 weeks like the Iron Painter. Once I got going on it, though, it seemed a lot tougher than I anticipated and a lot of ideas changed due to making it not as complicated. In other words, my grand ideas ended with me biting off more than I could chew.

Initial build

So being that we had a month to do this I of course procrastinated and didn't really get started until this Monday. We agreed that since we're making these models half painted that we'd use the Through the Breach multi-part kit to prevent making a game piece useless. When I got the kit in I looked at all the pieces for inspiration on what to build and found the kit sort of lacking, especially when used to Games Workshop's awesome modular kits. Not all the pieces can be used with everything. I did find a kick ass shotgun to use, but it would have been a lot of work considering that it's only held in one hand in a static pose with the wrist. I ended up using the only dynamic legs in the kit with an open and pistol hand, along with a cool head with a handlebar mustache.

I also had some plasticard I ordered previously for other projects and decided to give it a go for this. I never worked with Plasticard before, but man it is handy. I can see tons of utility come from this material. 

Initially I planned on making this a door going out to the street, with lamps and puddles and newspapers with skulls and way too many things. I decided to simplify once I started the planning in my head and went with a simple interior. I cut the wall out, then the door out of that. I Then cut some balsa wood strips and little Popsicle sticks for some paneling.

I hit a conundrum for a doorknob. I researched Victorian doors and found they mostly had knobs in the middle for some reason, and decided in order for it to read correctly I'll keep it to the side. I initially thought of using a round bead as the knob but couldn't find one small enough to fit the scale. My wife and I ran through some ideas, as well as some input from my friend Reuben, but then I came to the realization that I could make one from scratch using plasticard.

I took some plastic tube and strips of styrene and made this:

I was pretty darn proud of this little knob...

Man, plasticard is tons of fun. Scratch building is tedious but well worth it in the end.

What it looked like before paint

I ended up adding one more strip on the right panels to even it out and decided it was ready for paint. I knew this would be tons easier if I painted the three separate pieces apart, although I tend to not like assembling models after they're painted for fear of super glue frosting or not seeing the end result the way I anticipated. But there was no way I was going to try to paint a dude in a doorway and a bug on a wall with a door in the way.

Here you can see the first steps I took on the wall. I used some sand and olive colors airbrushed over black with white mixed in to highlight spots, leaving some black in the shadows. I painted the wood with Vallejo Flat Earth as a basecoat.

Here I skipped through a bunch of steps, but I'll try to list them from what I remember. I took some foam similar to blister foam from packaging and ripped off a piece and dabbed some of the base and highlight colors on the wall and door to create some interesting textures. I airbrushed some black on the wall and door, but I'm not to pleased with how it turned out on the wall. I was trying for some directional lighting in a more rounded shape, instead it turned out V shaped and I went too far in. Oh well, it's not terrible, but certainly wasn't what I was hoping for. I painted the door knob using Vallejo Orange Brown as a basecoat, adding white for highlight and black for shading. I can't exactly remember what I did for the wood, but if you like it you can use the recipe in the Vallejo Wood/Leather set they sell, I just followed the instructions for panel 5. It wasn't what I was picturing, but I knew it would be a weak part of the wall as it was actual wood and it doesn't respond well to painting like plastics or metals do.

For Mr. Skito I mostly airbrushed different grays over black undercoat. For the body I used Vallejo Sombre Grey and Wolf Grey, then used those colors for highlighting/shading with touches of black. For the abdomen (thorax? I don't know) I sprayed Vallejo Scarlet Red over the grey to make a vibrant look, and it seems semi-transparent as it blended into the black areas sharply. I blacklined any sharp gaps on the whole model including the tiny recesses in the wings. Then the wings got a white edge highlight. The eyes are Vallejo Foul Green with white and black for highlights/recesses.

I really just wanted to keep him simple as it's just a bug, but mostly I was on a time constraint. Turns out that restraint is what I like most about him and it kept him looking mostly black. I usually fail at keeping a miniature looking dark and black by putting too many grey highlights in, making it look more naturally grey than black.

A cool little angle

Then I got the victim done, and he was a true test of my patience.

When I was priming him I had to mask his back half to keep as much unpainted surface as possible for the challenge, which was a nightmare in itself. Then I had a ton of trouble with the first item I started painting alone, which were the pants. I ended up repainting over it 2 or 3 times before I figured out this look. I also didn't know how I planned on painting the rest. The miniature itself didn't inspire much desire from me, it seems sort of plain and dis-proportioned to me, like he had a tiny head and extremely long arms and torso. But once I got to spraying his shirt I got a happy accident in how the model got highlighted and decided to try a new technique on him.

I actually used a ton more black in this model than I normally do, keeping certain parts where the light wouldn't hit him in complete flat black. Half his face is black, the majority of his arms are black, and I heavily black lined most of the rest. This created a dynamic lighting look and the contrast just makes it pop. I don't know how it would work for tabletop miniatures, as if you look straight on into the black areas it looks flat, but from a one-angle challenge it worked out perfectly.

The leather and NMM colors are from all my previous recipes I've done before. The pants are Sombre Grey/Wolf Grey with black lined in the recesses. The skin was GW Tallarn Flesh, GW Flesh Wash twice, and then add white for highlights. Knowing that I was making the contrasts a lot more exaggerated than I usually do I also used GW Nuln Oil judiciously to create deeper shadows. Having a second layer of Flesh Wash makes a huge difference in contrast, you should try it out next time.

The finished product

Overall I'm pretty happy with it, it turned out a lot better than I expected it to. It's definitely different from what I had initially planned, as that plan involved making him appear as if he was walking through a "Breach" of color. I planned on adding more to this, like dust using pigments and spider webs, but due to my procrastination I didn't have time and didn't want to do it at 3AM when I called it quits last night. As I type I continually doze off due to 3 hours of sleeppppppppppppppppppppppkkkkkkkkkkkk.........

I left as much untouched as possible

Here's a view from the back, where you can see I left the other half without any paint, including the wall piece, which works out fine as you shouldn't be looking at it anyway ha! The wall does a good job in forcing your perspective when you look at it so that you won't see the unpainted parts. 

True to form I left as much unpainted from any other angle, here you can see behind the door, as well as the part of the wing I kind of used as a testing area for how to spray the wings.

Here you can see exactly how much black I left in the face to help describe what I meant about using black to create dynamic work. Also, for some reason, I love the way this wing turned out.

I also left the top of the Skeeter as unpainted as possible, although I found avoiding primer was too difficult due to the rounded shape

So there you have it, round one of the Aluminum Painter. It was a great exercise for me in attempting more dynamic and directional lighting, as well as utilizing plasticard to create a diorama. Let me know what you think, and if you're a member of A Wyrd Place on Facebook you can check out all the entries soon enough and you can also listen to Flippin' Jokers podcast to hear yours truly!

Alps WIP and other projects...

So last night I got to work on that commission for the Dreamer crew. It turns out I didn't get much done in two hours, mostly just the black cloth and part of the bases done. Time flies when you're painting, and it took me 30 minutes just to get all my stuff set up to paint in the kitchen!

Well the only one I like so far is the right, for some reason these black colors are giving me problems when I've done them a thousand times. Maybe I'll just paint them in a different color to see if it works out better.

In other news I've been more active on a friend's Podcast (called Flippin Jokers) and we've decided to do a small painting competition between the three of us in honor of the Iron Painter. None of us want to commit to that time constraint just to be whipped by the amazing hobbyists that Wyrd attracts.

For our first round our theme is "Don't Be Fooled," where we attempt to make the model look good from only one angle, and the other angles show unpainted plastic! It's going to be quite a challenge for me, but I have an idea I hope works out. 

I got a Through the Breach Male Multi Part Kit to use for this entry, as I don't want any models I may use on the tabletop to be only partially painted.

The "modular" kit

It's an impressive array of options, and I like how they give you enough parts to make 11 different models. The problem is the models will end up static and very much looking the same as the others, with the only notable difference being their equipment. You can use these bits to create all sorts of stuff in the Wyrd scale, but it requires a lot of breaking and sculpting as well as scratch building, but I guess that's not too terrible. Better than nothing, right? Or at least better than kit bashing, which for Malifaux models seem like a nightmare as they're all customized to fit themselves and not be modular. Trust me, I'm planning on doing some Malifaux conversions and they aren't looking to easy, and one is looking to be expensive!

Let's discuss my other projects...

The Crossroads Seven

So with my winnings from the last tournament I purchased the CR7 crew, as I wasn't interested in any other Outcast crew except possibly Jack Daw, but then he's pretty exclusive with his model pool and I'd have to get a whole new crop of dudes like I did with Leve. I figured the CR7 are some awesome models and a self contained crew that can be used with any faction, like my Ten Thunders. Plus each faction's individual CR7 model has possible synergies, and one or two seem good enough to pay the merc tax at times. But mostly the gimmick of playing a rock band in Malifaux seems pretty fun, even if they aren't nearly as competitive as a traditional crew can be and are highly restrictive.

I plan on getting them built soon to at least try them on the table, and I'd need to wait until around April to get the base inserts I plan on using for them. I previously got plank bases for my Puppet Wars models that I may have shown here before. They're really good inserts from Full Borer Miniatures and he's an excellent guy to buy from. I believe he mostly does custom jobs for his projects and occasionally puts them up in his store, but he's mentioned doing a commission sculpt if needed.

Anyway, I hope this crew works like I want. As an Outcast crew you can use the Malifaux Child with them in lieu of upgrades, which gives access to another push and a terrible heal on the board. I'm thinking that 6" push in any direction will help more than say, Survivalist and I Pay Better on Wrath. Although on paper I Pay Better looks great as all of them are Mercenaries including their pseudo Master, discarding a card for focus adds up fast. With a crew desperate for their suits and can even use low cards effectively that may be an ability that never gets used. Plus the Child adds an 8th activation, which puts them in a much better position against average crews. That push seems to make them much more efficient, as that's essentially one less AP that particular model uses and moves them further than some of their walk values, It also extends the range that the ability can be used, as it usually only has Wrath as a source, meaning everyone that wants to use it has to be close to Wrath. Now he can be on one end of the board and the Child on the other, pushing everyone in the crew in a wider area. This is all on top of the fact of how effective pushes in general are in terms of schemes.

Zombicide

So yesterday I also got Zombicide in the mail. I can't wait to paint and play this game, it looks like loads of fun. I plan on just painting the zombie models very fast. Maybe use zenithal basecoats and wash painting, it was a lot of fun testing that technique out before. I will also try layering on the washes with different colors to provide more depth without spending a whole bunch of time on it.

Mercs

I really need to get back on this project, I've only partially built my recently acquired Kezai Waza and FCC House 4 models, I didn't even open my KemVar yet, and I've really wanted to buy the Sefadu box for some reason. Only two of my FCC House 9 models are painted, and all I need is a 5 man squad! Not to mention all the terrain I have for MERCs and other modern/sci-fi games.

Terrain

Speaking of terrain, I put together and started painting my Dreadstone Blight kit from GW, but I definitely ran out of steam fast for that one. I only basecoated it. Once I started drybrushing I wanted to gouge my eyes out, it takes forever to do it right. One day I'll randomly want to finish it, until then I will keep it off to the side.

Well, that's enough for now, I've typed far more than I thought I would. Until next time!

Immense WIP Update!

Welcome readers!

So, as the title states, this is an immense update. I've recently been motivated to get a lot of my Malifaux painting done as I've decided to attend a local tournament this Saturday. This will be my first Malifaux tournament ever and I want to make an impression with my models as they will have a Hobby award - which I assume is for painting - and I want a chance to get it. I decided to list all the models I'd need to have completed before this Saturday's tournament and came up with this:

All the grey glory

I decided that I can't get every model I use in game complete, as the summons between Leveticus and the Mechanical Rider will be overwhelming - that's an addition 7 models from what I own.

So I decided to have everything painted from what starts out on the table for two crews, Leveticus and the Viks, as they are my favorite crews so far. I changed a couple things in my lists in the prior week that I've play tested and came up with something I like so far. What I had was a half painted Leveticus, Hodgepodge Effigy, Freikorpsmann, 3 Waifs, Desolation Engine and the Mechanical rider.

I prioritized the models based on shared models between the two crews. The Hodgepodge was in both lists so I wanted him done first. Then I put the Freikorpsmann second in the list as when he got done my entire Vik crew would be painted. The rest would be done after based on assembly line and what I felt like doing, although I definitely wanted to save the Mechanical Rider for last as that was the model I was most excited to paint and the most intimidated by.

Hodgepodge Effigy

So seeing as this little guy is in both crews I decided to paint him up first. I based him with black then used Grey and White to zenithal highlight. I then used Vallejo Game Air (VGA) Electric Blue to spray over this, with the natural highlighting from the grey/white creating different tones to a sharp contrast to black. When you keep the deepest shades completely black it creates a lot of good contrast. I then sprayed the knife and pistol barrel with grey and white to create the NMM effect. I edge highlighted with Electric Blue and added a small amount of white for the brightest highlights. I then took Vallejo Model Air (VMA) Blue, which is a pretty dark blue, and shaded some parts that  wouldn't necessarily be total black, like the dip in the top of the hat or some parts of the pants.

Here I've added some neutral grey to the skin. I eventually added some light grey and white for highlights, intentionally not shading the grey to keep a light tone like an alien.

Here he is complete, I skipped a lot of steps without taking a photo but pics weren't my main concern. The pistol and arm/leg bands were painted black > GW Shadow Grey > GW Space Wolf Grey. The NMM was glazed with turquoise. The eyes were painted red > orange. The leather was painted using the guide from the Wood/Leather Vallejo paint set, which is (all VMC) Woodgrain/Orange Brown > Orange Brown > Dark Sand > Woodgrain Wash > Black lines and wash in deepest recesses. It's a pretty cool recipe and I've been using it a lot, as Brown is one of my weakest colors. This recipe has also allowed me to learn how to make any traditional paint into a successful wash as well (hint: use Vallejo Thinner and a touch of water for best results, approximately 4:1 Thinner to Paint).

I didn't paint the grass on the base but I don't really care to finish that before the tourney, some corners will need to be cut!

Freikorpsmann

I started with a black base coat then did my traditional NMM spray of VGC Stone Grey > White with turquoise glazes in the recesses. This model didn't have too many places I wanted to spray, as I hate masking anything due to laziness and my track record with spraying folded cloth is hit or miss. I decided to do the rest of the model with traditional brush and see where it took me. I basecoated the clothing with GW Shadow Grey (don't remember the new name for it) and the leather with 3:1 VMC Woodgrain/Orange Brown (btw, OB is an awesome color!). This is essentially a breakdown of how I painted the Effigy's leather as well.

Here I highlighted the cloth with GW Shadow Grey mixed with GW Space Wolf Grey until it was pure SWG.

Here I highlighted the leather with VMC Orange Brown and VMC Dark Sand. Notice that it's super bright and can easily pass as a 90's era GW model now... talk about extreme highlights...

This step is where the magic happens. I made a wash with 4:1 Vallejo Thinner Medium and Woodgrain with a drop or two of water - don't add much as this disperses the pigments too much. This unifies the color and brings it back to that red brown color. These photos make it look lighter than it really is I think, but it's a darn cool color recipe that makes your browns rich and vibrant with a warm tone. When making a worn look you want to add some stippling and random patterns with your progression, which is evident with the Effigy's backpack and straps.

Just a few finishing touches like the base and half fingered gloves and he's done!

Viktoria Crew Complete!

Considering that my new year's resolution in 2014 was to have a completely painted crew this was long overdue, but better late than never! I'm pretty proud of these guys, and although list building in Malifaux is a bit more fluid I think I'll be sticking to this particular crew's build until I have more models painted. It's seemed to have worked well enough so far.

Hollow Waifs

So now I'm working on Leve's crew, and decided to assembly line the three waifs as they'll have similar paint progressions even if they have different colors for their dresses. I based all three with black (funny how I used to base only in black, then only in white, now I'm back to black!). I did a zenithal spray but instead of neutral grey I used VGA Sombre Grey and VGA Wolf Grey, just to give it a blue tint. I wanted their skin to look monochrome as they are empty husks of horcrux for Leve so I'm largely leaving their skin how it is. 

Once the basecoats are done I masked parts of the model with silly putty. I used Badger Minitaire Ghost Tints to spray a candy coat over the basecoat. This makes difficult colors like yellow a breeze, but the most useful reason to me is that it helps create really good contrast and shadows for these difficult colors. I've painted yellows easily enough before, but they don't quite capture the spotlight effect like this. Notice that these paints dry with a very glossy finish, which can be knocked down with washes but most effectively matte varnish. The finish helps with washes however as it creates less surface tension and allows the wash to move much more freely.

Here I heavily washed the yellow with GW Seraphim Sepia (which is vastly inferior to the previous GW Gryphonne Sepia... ugh I hate the new one) followed by a heavy wash of GW Cassandora Yellow, which is more like an orange really but light enough for yellows. With the zenithal/candy coat the washes do not compromise the black shades but tints and glazes the yellow, knocking back the cartoony brightness and overall grey look to the color. I also took GW Sunburst Yellow and did some highlights to the folds. With the frilly edges I painted VGC Heavy Brown highlighted with VMC Dark Sand.

I didn't do much after this besides finish the base and base the stocking/boots/hair black, I'm running out of time and figured this was well enough.

I really love how this turned out, man is it a creepy shade! Although it was minimal effort on my part and really I was just experimenting with this recipe it created a look that I've never seen with a yellow. I think it's very dynamic.

This waif I thought would be the easiest and it turned out to be the most disappointing. I used Minitaire Plasma Fluid on this one and it looks really bland, although I'm sure it will look better once I work on it more. One of the reasons why I hate masking is evident at the waist. The silly putty hung over the stomach more than I though and masked part of the dress I wanted blue. Luckily this is fixable and I've just painted it a different color, but I need to try using liquid mask for this type of stuff. 

Here I used the Minitaire Green tint. I have used this before and prefer to airbrush the usual way for this color as you have more control over the look. I plan on brushing on the highlights then knocking it back with some green wash. This is my least favorite sculpt of the three so I'm not too concerned.

None of these are complete, but I finished their bases and they look well enough for the tournament.

Desolation Engine

Over a black base coat I sprayed an olive green (can't remember the name from VMA) and added VMC for highlights. I should have went for one more highlight as it's really dark, at least too dark for what I prefer. The pictures make it slightly brighter than it looks with natural light I think. But a simple remedy can be done later with a few glazes of a highlight color to make that contrast pop. For now I'll settle for the ninja turtle look...

I also basecoated the metal bits with VMC Woodgrain (I'm loving that color...) and the bandages with GW Khemri brown and VMC Dark Sand highlights.

Here you can see more progression. I painted the gums and tongue with VMA Electric Blue, added in white for highlights, and heavily washed it with GW Leviathan Purple. I painted the teeth with Dark Sand and heavily washed the bandages with GW Devlan Mud - also known as Brown Crutch. I stippled on VMC Orange Brown (such a versatile color!) on the metal bits to start the rust effect.

Here's where he's at as of now and how he'll look this weekend. Although he isn't done he's tabletop ready and I can move on to the rest of the crew. I highlighted the bandages with Dark Sand again and white, then glazed over the white with Dark Sand to knock it back a bit. I finished the rust by stippling on GW Blazing Orange and finished the base. Eventually I'm going to highlight the skin and put some metal chips on the rust bits, but for now he's fine.

Originally I bought this model as a backup in case I ever got the legendary 4 Abominations to Voltron into this monstrosity. I never thought I'd be using stones to bring him in as he's super expensive. But I recently realized he'd be a good replacement for Rusty Alyce for the time being, ultimately until I get Ashes and Dust, a model I loathe using as everyone and their uncle uses him with Leveticus. Alyce hasn't been proving her worth lately, and with the upgrade to summon A-bombs pushing her into super expensive territory she has been even more disappointing. Sure, she has a good damage track for shooting, but there are plenty of other cheap shooters with comparable damage. Her main ability is preventing charges within 3", but I've only seen that work out once for me and I feel I need a sturdier anchor for the crew. Also, her summon needs a 10 or higher card to go off, cards that the rest of my crew are starved for. That same card can go to Leve who summons when he kills, which is much more efficient. Another thing, having another Henchman makes Leve and Hannah fight for the same resources.

The Engine has Hard to Wound and a plethora of abilities for one more SS than what I'm paying for Alyce and her upgrade. When he dies he pops out two Abominations, making him SS efficient. He heals and causes disruption at the end of his activation. He's pretty good on paper as opposed to Rusty, who I've always thought of replacing even before I used her. We'll see how it goes, hey it's always smart to make major changes without testing before a tournament, right? Just like getting a new hairstyle a week before your wedding...

Mechanical Rider

And now, my favorite piece of all..

So this one I've thought about for a long time. I didn't want to paint her horse silver, as it's been done to death and I also have Hannah, who is also a model predominately NMM silver. I wanted to do brass or gold, but have never done it through airbrush before, or of this scale either. The NMM Gold I've done so far using the set from Vallejo has a very good effect but is super yellow-gold, but I've always thought it's because they don't show you nearly as much contrast as it requires, giving you only Sepia Ink to provide contrast. I decided to tackle this by adding more black into the equation for shading and less white for the highlights, taking it down a step from the royal gold look I've done before.

So in this first pic I mostly did airbrushing. I basecoated black. I airbrushed VMC Heavy Brown, leaving plenty of black in the shading. Then I highlighted using VMC Heavy Goldbrown which adds in some yellow tones. I then added white to the mix, but this proved too yellow for my tastes so I knocked it back to the VMC Heavy Goldbrown, luckily it's only in a small area so it's not noticeable. I did no masking to achieve the gold highlights, it's all in the angle of how you spray really. That confidence only comes with experience and experimentation. I then masked the horse so I could airbrush the NMM Silver for the rider and did the usual Black > Stone Grey > White I always do.

Masking Hate Rant: I still didn't cover everything for the horse and some of it got on the gold... doh!

I also did the base. In case you were wondering how I did it, I usually take 4 or 5 shades of grey in both neutral and blue variety and put them on the palette. I then messily paint them on the sand and cork very fast and mix them on the base to create a random pattern. Make sure to get in the nooks and crannies as well as to vary between light and dark often. Honestly it's not a very good effect and by the end you wouldn't be able to tell, but it's a very subtle effect and I think it's better than only using one base color.

Now we're cooking with gas!

Here's my favorite and painstakingly crazy part! With a few simple lines you transform that airbrush mess of gold into a coherent and impressive look! At this point I've only added blacklining and edge highlights, but it makes a drastic difference. For the gold I used Sepia Ink to carefully paint the recesses in the armor. Then I used 1:1 Heavy Goldbrown/White to carefully edge highlight every raised edge. It took a few hours as this model has a lot of edges, not to mention difficult rounded ones that are close to other surfaces. Luckily I have a band aid technique that's no real secret to most. If I ever get paint where I don't want it I just paint over it with a tiny slash using the highlight color, or with black or brown for a deep slash and then highlight. If you use this sparingly and add more to other areas of the armor you can create battle scratches. This hides mistakes as well as adds more character to your little horsie. Those deep scratches were already molded on the model, so it only helps to add to the illusion. Be careful with these scratches and don't go overboard, I messed up in plenty of places but I don't think it's too noticeable. I also used it to help draw your eye away from problem areas, such as an overly thick line of highlight or two (I don't want to tell you where because you'll be looking for it!). This step takes a looooong time, but by far the coolest one.

I also painted the skin's basecoat using GW Tallarn Flesh, just to block in the color and help separate the plates. Please ignore the terrible sculpt job on her right elbow, I never claimed to be good at sculpting, which is why there are a lot of gaps visible on my models. I only use it in unavoidable situations or easy sculpts like fur or mutations.

Here's the other side

On the base I add a heavy wash of GW Nuln Oil, otherwise known as Black Crutch. If you want more variance then alternate areas with GW Agrax Earthshade/Devlan Mud, or even Blue Wash. I'm lazy, so I didn't do that here. I then drybrush GW Ushabti Bone over the whole thing then drybrush white at the edges of the cork. For a more subtle look you can use a neutral grey first then bone sporadically and white at the edges. It's going to look very grey at this point, which I usually break up with some greens using flock and grass tufts. I'm not the best at basing as it's my least favorite part of a model, and some people just go way overboard with it. 

I also was having a tough time deciding what the mane and tail was going to be colored. I was thinking of using my usual light blue/turquoise color Plasma Fluid as it was a color I was familiar with. But seeing as the original art used that color and a lot of other people used that same color I kind of wanted to do something different. I then looked at my multitudes of paints on the rack and saw VGC Foul Green, a color I bought over a year and a half ago simply because I thought it looked awesome. Having been looking for an excuse to use it for a long time now I've finally found it was perfect for this.

The color contrasts very well against the gold. I've only done a solid basecoat for now to see how it looks I plan on painting it like flames (as per its art) and think this can be very interesting. For now I'll leave it how it is for the tournament.

Finally, this is how she stands as of today. I painted the base ring with GW Gretchin Green to match the rest of my models and basecoated the chains and spear handle with 1:1 Black/Stone Grey. I also added edge highlights of white to the spear as I forgot to do that earlier. I based the cloak 1:1 Black/Stone Grey as well and the hair Black/Shadow Grey. Not pictured here, I've also painted the fur/hair on her knee pads and spear head brown and bone colored, but it's not a huge change from this picture overall.

So that's all the work I've done over the last 6 days, not too shabby at all as compared to my usual sluggish pace. Tournaments are a great motivator, even though there isn't a requirement in this case to be painted I held myself to that standard and am pretty proud with the results thus far. I've only got to add to Leveticus to make him tabletop ready and will probably work a bit more on the Waifs if time permits. The craziest part of this is that in the last week I've done more work than I have in the last year for Malifaux!

Let me know what you think, or if there are any recipes or tips you'd like to ask about. 

Challenge Accepted!

It's been another long break since an update, but work has been busy and life pulls no punches. It's 3 in the morning and I just finished painting a jack. I planned on putting it up on this blog but this laptop needs to reformat the darn SD card which would erase all the pictures I have on it, so I'll put it up later when I back the files up.

I've been busy on the hobby front. I've been introducing Puppet Wars to several people and it's always with positive reviews. It truly is an amazing game, and is extremely well balanced. The models are superb and the wife and I plan on painting them soon.

Speaking of painting my friend Reuben and I have begun an interesting development. We were texting each other about painting backlogs and how we want to minimize them. I then said we should challenge each other weekly about our hobby list. We'd pick out an item to finish and give each other a week to finish them. The first thing we started on was simple enough: paint a Warmachine Solo. He painted a wicked looking Manhunter for his Khador force and I painted my Gorman Di Wulfe model. I hated the paintjob I gave him, especially when compared to his superb job. Still, I stuck to the challenge and finished him off. I later intend on stripping the model bare and starting over, but only after my army is fully painted (in short, never lol).

Week 2 I issued the challenge of painting a warjack. He painted a great looking Buccaneer. I decided to paint one of my two mules.

In keeping with my theme of making a ragtag looking crew for my mercenaries I decided to use a color I was not familiar with: yellow. Lately I've been trying out colors that instill the fear of God in me. For Gorman it was brown. That experiment proved unsuccessful, as brown is a color that always eludes me. I must have tried at least 20 different recipes for brown in my painting life, and only one was ever successful in my eyes and for the life of me and I cannot remember the recipe! It was on my first ever troll model, the Troll Impaler. I accidentally stumbled upon it by mixing old colors that are currently out of production (although I stilll have them) but there was a third color I threw in that I can't remember. Long story short I've never been able to recreate it, though I've tried several times. My troll army was an exercise in browns and blues, two colors I've never tried before them, and the blues were extremely successful. The browns - well, let's just say that every troll in that army has a different version of brown that I tried.

Bright colors have always been my forte. They are easy to contrast, and black is always great as an accent color to them. I have two different recipes for black that are extremely easy to apply. My metal turns out dark and compliments the brights. Red is always striking, blue is always a good midway point between light and dark, green makes interesting schemes, purple makes a good combination with several colors, I've even painted a whole army pink with my Slaanesh army which won several awards. But earth tones aren't nearly as easy to deal with.

First off earth tones don't have as easily an attainable striking quality - at least in my eyes. It's hard to have that wow factor with a brown or olive, as they don't quite separate themselves from the table as easily as Red or Blue. Most earth tones don't lend well with bright highlights - you have to use a muted version of its highlight equivalent such as bone rather than white. Their shades are also elusive, using dark tones of brown and red or even black to make the earth tone stand out.

Even neutral colors lend themselves easier to work with, as grays can be done in so many ways such as having your base be a light grey and contrast the shading with dark gray or black and highlight in white. Making that wow factor on the table with olive or brown is extremely difficult.

With that said I painted olive for my warcaster Gorten a while back, and although he's not done I am impressed with him. Still, I notice he doesn't quite get the attention that my trolls do from a passerby on the table. The tricks I pulled on him to make him stand out are much more subtle than my usual paint jobs and thus take a close look to see what I've done.

So I decided to use yellow on my first complete jack for the army. One: yellow can be an earth tone with brown shading. This will help me tackle my difficulty with earth tones by learning a new recipe and a new way to look at yellow. When I painted my Bad Moon Orks it taught me a speed painting recipe for yellow but didn't teach me anything new, since I always treated yellow as a bright color and used my usual techniques on them. When I painted my Hsieng for my Yu Jin Infinity models (which can be viewed in my earlier posts - much earlier) I learned a new way to paint bright yellow by using orange as the shade. But I've never used yellow in the context of an earth tone, mostly because I'd be using brown to shade it and brown terrifies me.

By tackling this color I felt I could add another tool to the box and finally not have brown elude me.

Although I won't have the pictures up until later, I am pleased to say that I have succeeded! Brown isn't so scary in the context of yellow now that I understand a good progression of color for it. I started with a basecoat of golden brown then a golden brown and bright yellow mix. This created a sandy yellow, much like Iyanden Darksun from the GW line (out of production). I debated starting out with a sand brown, but that it was much too neutral to be successful. If you're ever in doubt about a color progression mixing is a great way to mitigate that. You will always have a smooth transition of color because essentially all your colors are involved in all the steps.

After basecoating the whole model with these two layers I gently sprayed a highlight coat of the bright yellow, keeping in mind not to entirely coat it and lose the earthy tone of yellow below. I then did something I usually don't do, and honestly used to think was a waste of time and ineffective. I shaded after I did my highlighting.

When I first became a serious painter I used to exclusively use the layering technique, which involves basecoating your model entirely with your shade. I thought this was the only logical way, as your basecoat is in the recesses and makes a more manageable way of applying shade. I never liked the way blacklining looked, and applying your shade after your base/main color looked odd to me as you could tell that the shading didn't look natural. Although I found that it made the shade smoother since you were applying it onto your base therefor letting the bottom layer slightly show through I never liked the "controlled" shading look.

With airbrushing, however, it looks much more natural and much more gradual. By only having the idea of putting your shade on first I never understood why my shades were so starkly contrasted by my highlights. It's because when you put your shade on first - for this example, Burnt Umber, or a very dark brown - you only get pure brown, or dark brown. Then you spray or paint on your base and highlights, all making a base of dark brown rather than the base you're wanting, in this case brown-yellow. The darkest shade is therefor made pure dark brown, rather than looking like the model is yellow and the shade is a darker yellow with a hint of brown, if that makes sense.

Before my airbrush I used to alleviate this by putting mixing medium in my paints and making them translucent, showing the base color through the shade.

With an airbrush, however, this process is extremely simple and successful. By carefully - and lightly, I might add - applying the shade to the recesses you don't lose your base color. For the heavier shading you can keep applying it to get it however dark you want it, up to the point you get pure shade (dark brown in this case). This was quite a revelation to me, and I plan on applying this knowledge as another tool in the box.

This resulted in the forthcoming paintjob I will be posting, and it's close to one of my favorite paint jobs to date. The result was a subtle blend of browns and yellows, where my shade was not the dominant force of the model but rather the base color is - which was always one of my weaknesses in previous paintjobs.

I always love when I learn a new technique in painting. It makes me smile thinking to myself, "Man, if I could just show this work to myself ten years ago and say 'Yeah, you'll get this good eventually!' "

I mean, isn't that what it's all about? I remember thinking to myself when I'd see incredible paintjobs in White Dwarf or at a tournament that I wish I could paint that way, or wonder how they did it, and now knowing that I've figured it out. It's not as elusive as I once thought, attaining a higher level is only a model away. I can't wait until ten years from now I will say to myself, "If only I could show this work to myself ten years ago..."

We can all be like that if you only have the drive. I constantly hear people say that they'll never be able to paint like how I do, and I always say the same thing. I tell them that they can, all it takes is practice. I tell them my first model was hideous. It was a Space Marine Captain that couldn't pick a color he liked. The face was burnt to hell, the gold was atrocious, the silver was caked, the robe was bland. I only started painting when I was a kid and only had 8 colors to choose from. I thought I could never understand how people do it so well, like it was some sort of holy grail that only the elite could achieve. I remember being told the first day I painted in a GW Store to use Chestnut Ink, then feeling silly asking what ink does and being told that it adds definition - nodding my head like I understood and having no idea what that meant.

Everyone can paint. Everyone can learn how to be better at it. All it takes is time and practice, with a few good tips from other people's work. We live in an age where the most advanced techniques and tutorials are available at any moment and your pool of knowledge is worldwide. When I began painting all I could do was experiment and wait for the next White Dwarf magazine to come in or get a tip from a stranger.

I remember the first time my eyes opened about painting. My friend Derrick and I were painting together. He was painting his Sisters of Battle army and I noticed his red looked great. He told me about layering maroon with bright red then highlighting it with orange and it blew my mind. Orange on red! It was so simple! I painted a lot of red that summer...

Well, I went on a tirade about painting. But the point is this: if you want to get better at painting, then paint. You'll only know how much you can do when you do it. And don't get frustrated too much. Lately I've been struggling with this with browns. But do what my wife tells me to do - walk away from it and take a break. Read up on how others paint that color. Then go back to it later.

Feel free to ask me any questions on my recipes. I will gladly give away my secrets to anyone who wants it!

I... love... painting!