Monday, May 02, 2011

RtC: My Time Management Sucks

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 27 days

More pictures than normal for this update of the War Hog! I've made significant progress, despite the fact that I'm doing a terrible job managing my time and staying focused. One of the most important hurdles I overcame this week was to get everything base coated. Well, almost everything. There's one warjack head that isn't completely base coated. However it's 98% base coated at this point, and that's helping my focus an awful lot. Now I can get a better sense of the overall look of the piece. At this point I'm definitely noticing that the head draws the majority of the attention. I'm very curious to get feedback from my readers though about the overall look at this point (including the base).

So what's working well for me so far? Lots!
* Using dry pigments is working out great. I'm still a total amateur with them, but the results are pretty compelling none the less.
* Working a section at a time is very helpful. I'm not completing a section entirely, but I work it to a level of medium satisfaction and then move on to another area for a bit. This is keeping me fresh, but also helping me think about the overall look of the model as I go.
* The new pot of bronze paint I got is really working well. It's actually from the Golden Acrylics line. Golden Acrylics are hit and miss, but when they hit, they sure are good.

My wife was looking at it last night and said "Are you almost done?" I chuckled and said that I was probably about 50% done time-wise, to which she gave me a confused look and wandered off. So what are some of the major things left to do? Here's my list of things that haven't really gotten much work at all: teeth, tongue, eyes, right-hand/axe, rope, right leg, warjack heads, and the boiler. Lots of stuff still needs additional passes to tighten it up, and there's lots of little details (like putting some pink on the flesh where it's stitched together). I'm still debating whether to put a tattoo of some kind on him too. Perhaps something like a serial number or instructions. I'll see where things shake out time wise once I'm closer to done before I start adding more work.

For my painting readers out there, you may want to wander off now because I'm going to insert a gaming rant. I proxy-played a couple of Farrow forces the other night with my gaming buddies who were kind enough to put up with a pile of proxies. I'll skip the normal battle report and jump right to the rant. OH MY GOD DO FARROW SUCK!!! Seriously, I hated playing them. The War Hogs I fielded did almost nothing in both games. Maybe it's just a huge learning curve and they aren't my playing style. I'm willing to chalk it up to that. But here's my gripe: They are SLOW, and they don't have the arm stats to survive the beatings they will receive on the way to the battle. I wanted to like them. I really did. I love the models overall. But it's really hard to get excited to paint something when you realize it isn't fun to play. Ok, rant over. Nevertheless, I'm going to finish this beast for the painting competition and then he can menace my painting shelves.

2 comments:

Maxus said...

I believe you mentioned that the first 2 turns were pretty much scripted for you. Maybe Lord Carver would be a better choice than Arcadius?

Scott said...

Carver definitely felt less scripted, and more interesting, but there's still so little alpha-strike potential. Even with mobility, a threat range of 9.5" doesn't go far in MK2.