I'm almost done with trimming all the figures and gluing them to their bases. Thought I was finished, but I remembered a couple more figures that I want to paint at the same time, using the same approach. I'll probably get those finished tonight, but will probably be pretty tired. I'm taking the day off to take the kiddles to the county fair today. A long day of noise, chaos and sun probably means a short night on the couch followed by a dead sleep in bed.
Anyway, it's progress. More updates and the progress continues.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
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:
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:
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:
- Get all the figures trimmed and glued to their bases.
- Glue down odd bits and sand to bases.
- Spray prime all the figures white
- Base coat all skin in grey
- Two shading washes, in medium and dark grey
- Final toning wash, applied in specific areas (so this takes longer)
- Apply bruises and wounds with washes of red and purple
- Highlight skin. Base coat all metallics with steel.
- Wash metals with shading wash of brown ink.
- Wash metals with shading wash of Smoke.
- Glowing eyes.
- Touch up and details (e.g. belts)
- Paint bases
- 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.
Three birds, one (necrotic) stone
I've decided to depart a little from the game plan. Warmachine is FUN! And I'm really enjoying playing games with my friend Charlie again. And some time ago I posted about speed painting. And I'm really interested in the Horror genre right now.
How to handle all this at once? I'm going to attempt to speedpaint a viable 350 point Cryx army, in "natural" colors that will work well in my horror/sci-fi/superhero game setting too. See my earlier post for more about that setting.
I spent the last few nights testing out color schemes and speedpainting techniques for this project. I'll get some pics up in the next couple of days. None were very satisfying, until the last test. I painted up three Heroscape zombies in one evening, with a color scheme I like (grey flesh with purplish bruises and wounds, and decaying rusted metallics). Fast, and effective.
I trimmed and based up the Cryxian horde, plus a few more models that don't fit in 350 points but share the same paint scheme, and will get the primer on tonight or tomorrow.
If I finish this, I'll actually have a complete army. And, with the addition of a few intrepid heroes, I'll have enough figures to get a skirmish campaign rolling in my newly adopted gaming genre. Coolness!
How to handle all this at once? I'm going to attempt to speedpaint a viable 350 point Cryx army, in "natural" colors that will work well in my horror/sci-fi/superhero game setting too. See my earlier post for more about that setting.
I spent the last few nights testing out color schemes and speedpainting techniques for this project. I'll get some pics up in the next couple of days. None were very satisfying, until the last test. I painted up three Heroscape zombies in one evening, with a color scheme I like (grey flesh with purplish bruises and wounds, and decaying rusted metallics). Fast, and effective.
I trimmed and based up the Cryxian horde, plus a few more models that don't fit in 350 points but share the same paint scheme, and will get the primer on tonight or tomorrow.
If I finish this, I'll actually have a complete army. And, with the addition of a few intrepid heroes, I'll have enough figures to get a skirmish campaign rolling in my newly adopted gaming genre. Coolness!
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Man-O-War Madness
Wow.
Those Khador Man-o-war troopers are TOUGH. Heavy armor, decent DEF, a shooty gun and reach. At 60-ish points for three or them, no less. Ouch.
My friend took four of these guys, Sorscha, four Widowmakers and a Destroyer. That's a sweet list. He picked me apart from a distance, used Sorscha's Feat at just the right moment to knock me to pieces with another volley, and stood with me toe-to-toe in Close Combat once I got close.
Those Widowmakers are DANGEROUS, too. I exposed Kreoss to their lovin' attention and before I could blink he was down to four boxes left on his track. Yowza.
Well played, Charlie. And thanks for the game. I've got a brand new respect for Khador, and need to think hard about what to paint up next to defend the Protectorate.
Those Khador Man-o-war troopers are TOUGH. Heavy armor, decent DEF, a shooty gun and reach. At 60-ish points for three or them, no less. Ouch.
My friend took four of these guys, Sorscha, four Widowmakers and a Destroyer. That's a sweet list. He picked me apart from a distance, used Sorscha's Feat at just the right moment to knock me to pieces with another volley, and stood with me toe-to-toe in Close Combat once I got close.
Those Widowmakers are DANGEROUS, too. I exposed Kreoss to their lovin' attention and before I could blink he was down to four boxes left on his track. Yowza.
Well played, Charlie. And thanks for the game. I've got a brand new respect for Khador, and need to think hard about what to paint up next to defend the Protectorate.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Mass Mechanical Mayhem tomorrow
I'll be stepping back into the Warmachine arena tomorrow at lunch time. A friend and I will be playing again, after a break of several months. I spent the evening reviewing the rules, and creating a Mind Map for them.
A Mind Map is basically a way of organizing concepts, using software like FreeMind(my favorite). Like it was in my college days, the act of writing down my notes helps me recall them later. And, Mind Maps let me organize the concepts according to the way I think about them. That's often pretty different from the way the rules author thinks of them.
Anyway, we'll see if it works tomorrow. I'll let you know.
Can't wait to get my steam-powered brutes back on the table. Warmachine is such a cool game :-)
A Mind Map is basically a way of organizing concepts, using software like FreeMind(my favorite). Like it was in my college days, the act of writing down my notes helps me recall them later. And, Mind Maps let me organize the concepts according to the way I think about them. That's often pretty different from the way the rules author thinks of them.
Anyway, we'll see if it works tomorrow. I'll let you know.
Can't wait to get my steam-powered brutes back on the table. Warmachine is such a cool game :-)
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Having a Tidy
I spent most of today cleaning up our office / guest bedroom / hobby room in preparation for the imminent arrival of my father-in-law. While it's not exactly painting miniatures, the process of re-organizing my projects and restoring the hobby room to some semblance of order is very therapeutic. And, if I'm not painting, I'm at least handling the little critters and thinking through the projects they go to.
But the real victory today is that, despite going through piles of old projects (Cryx Warmachine, 15mm sci-fi for Alien Squad Leader, Beastmen and Empire/Estalians for Warhammer, 25mm ECW skirmish, 54mm ACW skirmish and a half dozen terrain projects, to name a bunch), the Distraction Daemon didn't come knocking. OK, for a moment I was tempted to put the hair brush figures and horror project aside to paint some lovely Pirate of the Spanish Main prize busts. But that passed. The hair brush armies and horror figures are still front and center.
Then again...I did just hear from my long-lost Warmachine opponent. He and I are going to play next week. My Menites could really use that Zealot unit I started a few months ago...
Help me. Please. Somebody...
But the real victory today is that, despite going through piles of old projects (Cryx Warmachine, 15mm sci-fi for Alien Squad Leader, Beastmen and Empire/Estalians for Warhammer, 25mm ECW skirmish, 54mm ACW skirmish and a half dozen terrain projects, to name a bunch), the Distraction Daemon didn't come knocking. OK, for a moment I was tempted to put the hair brush figures and horror project aside to paint some lovely Pirate of the Spanish Main prize busts. But that passed. The hair brush armies and horror figures are still front and center.
Then again...I did just hear from my long-lost Warmachine opponent. He and I are going to play next week. My Menites could really use that Zealot unit I started a few months ago...
Help me. Please. Somebody...
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Painted ACW test strip
Here's the test strip of hairbrush 6mm "figures" I painted up for my budding ACW armies. The pic really shows off the blemishes! You've got to remember that these fellow are only about 6mm tall. To the naked eye, they look more like the thumbnail you'll see in this blog entry than the monsters you'll find if you click on said thumbnail.
Anyway, hopefully you'll agree that you can get a decent representation of a man in uniform with a few strokes of paint. When ranked up and in their hundreds, these little fellows should really give that "mass of humanity" effect I prefer for large scale wargames.
Not as nice as purpose-made 6mm figures, certainly, but the price is right and I think they'll be a lot faster for me to paint. That, hopefully, will be the difference between yet another abandoned pile of lead (er...plastic) and a finished pair of armies I can have some fun with on the tabletop.
If you closely at the full sized pic, you might be able to make out the muskets and bayonets I painted onto the left side of each figure. If you look at the thumbnail...you won't. Given that, I'll almost certainly omit this detail on all the following strips. It's just extra work, with little/no benefit to the overall look of the army.
I'm getting ahead of myself, but if this works out, Napoleonics will be the next project to get the hair brush treatment. Peninsular War British/Portuguese and French, in case you're wondering.
Anyway, hopefully you'll agree that you can get a decent representation of a man in uniform with a few strokes of paint. When ranked up and in their hundreds, these little fellows should really give that "mass of humanity" effect I prefer for large scale wargames.
Not as nice as purpose-made 6mm figures, certainly, but the price is right and I think they'll be a lot faster for me to paint. That, hopefully, will be the difference between yet another abandoned pile of lead (er...plastic) and a finished pair of armies I can have some fun with on the tabletop.
If you closely at the full sized pic, you might be able to make out the muskets and bayonets I painted onto the left side of each figure. If you look at the thumbnail...you won't. Given that, I'll almost certainly omit this detail on all the following strips. It's just extra work, with little/no benefit to the overall look of the army.
I'm getting ahead of myself, but if this works out, Napoleonics will be the next project to get the hair brush treatment. Peninsular War British/Portuguese and French, in case you're wondering.
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