But what about the hair curlers?

Well frankly, they're going to have to wait. I know some of you have been checking here for progress on that project, but I'm going to have to follow my muse here. Those of you who've read this blog know that this is my curse.

I'm HOPING and planning to get this Cryx army done quickly, and then return immediately to the hair curler ACW armies.

Here's the road map. There are about forty figures in this batch of Cryxians.

I get to paint maybe 2-3 nights each week, for maybe 1-3 hours each night (depending on when the kiddles get to bed). The steps for this army, for each painting night, look like this:

1. Get all the figures trimmed and glued to their bases.
2. Glue down odd bits and sand to bases.
3. Spray prime all the figures white
4. Base coat all skin in grey
5. Two shading washes, in medium and dark grey
6. Final toning wash, applied in specific areas (so this takes longer)
7. Apply bruises and wounds with washes of red and purple
8. Highlight skin. Base coat all metallics with steel.
9. Wash metals with shading wash of brown ink.
10. Wash metals with shading wash of Smoke.
11. Glowing eyes.
12. Touch up and details (e.g. belts)
13. Paint bases
14. Matte spray finish

Done.

So, at 2-3 painting nights a week, and assuming I've paced that right, it looks like we're talking about...urk...5-7 weeks. Yipes. That's a REALLY long time. The Distraction Daemon is almost sure to visit again in that length of time.

How to cut this short...

Ideas include:

• Abbreviate the skin steps by applying the base coat with much-thinned paint, to get the first layer of shading in a single pass.
• Leave off the final highlights of the skin for later.
• Stick to the brown ink for the metals. The Smoke wash can wait for later maybe.
• Simplify my approach on the glowing eyes, leaving off the Source Lighting glows around the sockets and sticking to green eyeballs for now.
• Pray that things don't take as long as I think they will.

We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck, and let me know if you see any other ways to make this go faster.