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