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Craig

Work-in-progress

Blood Bowl – MUUMMMMMIEESSSSS

Posted on May 20, 2016

I lost 6 games of Hearthstone in a row, and I destroyed my last drone propeller (more in the mail), so I had some time to spend on these guys. 😛

I went full-on into the Wappel shaded basecoat plan here, and I’m pleased with the results so far. The contrast is weak, but exists. The highlights are pastelly, despite using an off-white to lighten, but the point of the technique is to create to-high highlights so, success there.

I really like the subtle difference between the off-white-yellow wrappings and the off-white-grey skin, and I want to keep that distinction going as I going into glazing.

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Colours are…

  • Skin: Dheneb Stone -> Ulthuan Grey
  • Wraps: Ushapti Bone -> Ulthuan Grey (not all the way)
  • Primary colour: Sotek Green -> Ulthuan Grey…but with some Dheneb Stone mixed in. Not that you can tell, but I used the Skin final to lighten the pants colour.
  • Secondary colour: Vallejo Fluoro Yellow -> Ulthuan Grey
  • Base: Dark Flesh -> Mephiston Red. We’ll see if this was a good idea or not. I want red dirt bases, but the Zombies have simple Dark Flesh -> Sepia -> Sepia, so the addition of the Mepiston could really muck up the cohesion.

It’s nice to feel like I have painter skills again, after the Concord. The last squad didn’t make me feel good about myself.

At the same time, basing these two mummies very quickly this evening showed me that I need new paintbrushes before I go much further. My Series 7 got paint dried in the ferrule and smushed bristles in the move-into-storage that we’re doing this month, and my larger brush has just had enough.

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Blood Bowl – ZOMBIES

Posted on May 12, 2016

I can’t believe I haven’t written about these guys since I primed them. >.< I don’t know if I have a really good idea of what the base layers were, but here’s a guess:

Sotek Green and Florou. Yellow uniforms, Dheneb Stone skin, Mithril Silver metals and I think Dark Flesh on the bases.

From there I put some Drakenhof over the Sotek to try to make the uniforms actually blue. I didn’t want green, but Sotek looked cool. I ended up using Enchanted Blue over the Drakenhof+Sotek as a mid-layer to bring the colour back to blue.

The yellows was that Vallejo yellow I’ve been playing with, with a lot of layers to make it actually yellow. I did Seraphim Sepia over it to give some depth, then back up with P3 Cygnus Yellow.

The skin I think I Sepia’d over the Dheneb, then did some Waywatcher Green in places to make the skin look deader.

The bases after the Dark Flesh were Sepia’d twice, I think, and then drybrushed up with Snakebite Leather and Zamesi Desert, similar to how I based my Antares Concord recently. 😛

The front of the bases is being left black, so I can paint skills onto the area so it’s super easy to tell what skill each model has.

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After that, a bunch of little things. Like highlighting up the pants, then washing them down. Re-silvering the edges of the metal and the face guards. ‘ardcoat on the helmets. Some gloss in the guts.

I also black lined the yellow against the blue uniforms, which I think makes the yellow pop a hell of a lot more. That was the start of me actually liking these paint jobs. >.>

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These guys are all done! Thankfully, as I have a lot more models to paint before July when the next season of CHOP begins.

I picked up the Vortice miniature mummies and wights, because they are awesome. So that’s 4 models. I also need to convert 4 ghouls and 1-2 skeletons to make a total of 15 models. Maybe do 3 skeletons to make it an even 16. I think skeletons have their use in an undead team, although the common wisdom is that their -1 AV isn’t worth their +1 MV as compared to the zombies.

Writing that down, I swear I had a better plan for the ghouls than the GW hunched guys. I think I was thinking of using Wyrd Punk Zombies for them. But…that’s not a great plan. I dunno, the GW hunchies aren’t terrible. Any thoughts?

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Antares – Concord Strike Squads, last for 500 points!

Posted on May 7, 2016

This was…

  • Ulthuan Grey all over
  • Drakenhof Nightshade in recesses
  • Ulthuan Grey highlight up (looks awful)
  • Nuln oil in recesses
  • Ulthuan, with much less water. This is the start of the clean-up pass.
  • White, in 2 layers.

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Still don’t like it as much.

I think I’m better served by being more careful at the washing phase. Just the one Ulthuan Gray layer, then careful application of blue, then black and then cleanup then white.

But that’s 500 points of Concord painted for Beyond the Gates of Antares!

 

 

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Antares – Drones Finished!

Posted on May 3, 2016

Just a quick couple colours after yesterday. I did two layers of white, which were both mixed with more water than I had mixed with the Ulthuan earlier in these guys.

I tried to paint “gems” (lenses) for the first time…I’m going with ever. I didn’t do a very good job of them, but some ‘ardcoat fixed a bunch of problems. 😛

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There are two big visual differences between these guys and the test squad.

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First, the drones look cleaner to my eyes. The whites look cleaner, which can be attributed to having gone less dark in the initial wash. I think for the next squad of 5, I’ll definitely do a coat of Ulthuan, then wash the recesses only with blue, then Ulthuan to clean up, then some spot black in the recesses, then Ulthuan to clean up, then white (and as many whites as necessary). I think it’ll be easier (although it reads more difficult!) and cleaner.

Second, and this is super weird, but the bases are totally different. I used a Vallejo Surface Primer to prime the drone bases because I didn’t want to spray the flying stands, but used GW white primer (which is excellent, by the way) on the models and the squad. The drone bases almost look fluorescent!  They’ve got this odd bright glow to them that isn’t there on the squad bases. I don’t think it’ll be noticeable unless you’re really picky (or you watched the process of trying to dull them…like I did) but it was weird to see the difference between the two “whites”.

Work-in-progress

Antares – Drones!

Posted on May 2, 2016

They aren’t done yet — need some white, and some gloss on the lenses, and highlights on the ground, but it’s been a solid night of Hearthstone and painting. 😛

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For these guys I went with the Drakenhof Nightshade (blue) Shade from GW, instead of the Asurmen, Asurmen+Nuln Oil combo of the last guys. This has proven efficient, since I skipped a layer of wash, and also a layer of highlighting back up, because I was able to put the Ulthuan directly over the Nightshade.

Sort of. It took 3 medium layers of Ulthuan to cover properly. I did 2 layers, then took the Nuln Oil and went into the recesses and underside, then cleaned it up again with one more layer of Ulthuan.

I’m wondering for the next set, if I do primer then Ulthuan, then wash the recesses with blue, then Ulthuan then black in fewer places, THEN white, if I’ll be able to get a cleaned coverage. Only trying will tell!

Work-in-progress

Antares – 500 point Concord “Scout Force”

Posted on April 28, 2016

After being happy (enough) with my first painted models, I decided to focus on building an army rather than painting each unit as I built it. So I quickly assembled and based 2 more Strike Squads, 2 Light Drones and 3 Spotter Drones.

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  • C3 Strike Squad (4 Troopers, Leader, Plasma Lance, Spotter Drone) 125 points
  • C3 Strike Squad, (4 Troopers, Leader, Plasma Lance, Spotter Drone) 125 points
  • C3 Strike Squad, (4 Troopers, Leader, Plasma Lance, Spotter Drone) 125 points
  • 2x C3D1 Light Support Drone 59 points

You’re only allowed 1 Support choice in 500 points, otherwise I’d probably split those Light Drones up for MOAR DICE. But it’s a pretty compact little force!

Looking forward to painting these guys…so I can branch out into more esoteric things like Medi Drones and Nuhu Mandarins and C3D4 Medium Support Drones!

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Antares – Strike Squad Final

Posted on April 27, 2016

This unit reminds me of why “we” don’t highlight up anymore. Hard chalky edges, and patchy solid colours.

I need some time to reflect, but I think I’m into it. There’s a couple problems preventing me from coming at this with a more painterly mindset.

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(1) This is a “massed battle” game, where my first 1000 points will have about 30 models in it. So if each individual model looks less awesome, but the army looks great, that’s a win. This is how my Night Goblins got so much attention back in the day — bright purple lines make make come to you. In this case, starkly contrasting white/orange is my game plan.

(2) White. I’m not certain at all how to paint white, like white white, in a manner of “highlight up, wash down”, because wash down by necessity turns the white into a grey. I’m sure it’s something like “highlight up, wash down, then go back with white”, but I’m pretty certain that I would not get what I wanted out of that, which is big panels of all white. And besides, that’s almost what I did with these guys since they started at primer white.

 

I think for the next squad, my starting steps should be a lot lighter. I did these guys with a mix of Nuln Oil and Asurmen Blue, which started them out really dark, but after my highlighting I still needed to hit the recesses with a dark wash because I wasn’t as precise with the highlighting as was necessary. I think that if I just did the Asurmen Blue, then started the highlighting, then went back with the Nuln to increase recessed contrast, that my highlighting could end up a lot more smooth. As it was, I needed a mid-layer of Ulthuan+Asurmen between the base and the Ulthuan to prevent it from being super chalky.

I also ended up drybrushing Blazing Orange at the tips of the rocks. My game plan is white/orange contrast, so anything I can do to pop those rocks even more is a good plan!

 

Work-in-progress

Beyond the Gates of Antares – Concord Strike Squad

Posted on April 23, 2016

Because I definitely  need a new game right now, I bought some excellently priced Concord troops for a brand new game from Warlord Games. I looked into Bolt Action a while ago, but couldn’t stand by the WWII theme. But space ships and laser guns!? Sign me up!

I found this blogger that I wanted to use as a template to work from. His painting was clean, simple and looked relatively quick.

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These are the only paints that I think I’m going to need for this army. Some of them may not even be used.

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First I did a wash of this ancient Asurmen Blue. I mixed it a bit with water because I didn’t trust that it wasn’t going to be really really dark. This ended up really patchy and annoying instead.

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The next coat I mised Nuln Oil with the Asurmen Blue and it worked out a lot better. I may just try the Drakenhof Nightshade instead next time.

I went to bed at this point. But since tomorrow is a busy day and potentially stressful day, and since I seem to have acquired the habit of being unable to sleep the night before anything stressful (which really helps the stress, let me tell you), I got up to do some more painting. Unfortunately, my only camera devices are in the bedroom and I don’t want to go back in there unless I’m sleeping. So I’ll say what I did, and uhh…maybe you’ll get a photo in the morning. Sunday morning, I mean.

I bought a new pot of Ulthuan Grey for this project, which I thought would be a nice mid-step. But after the dark Nuln Blue combo, it was really patchy as well. I mixed it a bit with the Asurmen Blue (thus ensuring that this out-of-print colour was thoroughly ensconced in my process) and it was a lot better. Then a layer of the Ulthuan, then White Scar. I went back with the Nuln Oil to catch some recesses that didn’t have enough contrast on them.

A quick dump of Snakebite Leather over the base to get started. I’ll probably put the Seraphim Sepia onto that (it should’ve been in the above photo…I use that paint everywhere…) and then dry brush with the Snakebite and Zamesi Desert.

I did a quick wash of Nuln Oil over his gun. I’m thinking I’ll do a blue in the “energy” parts, but haven’t had that much success with such things recently.

And if I can stop myself, I’ll call that done. He looks pretty good. Good enough to paint an army in these colours, I think.