November Happiness

It occurred to me this afternoon while painting that my "challenge" for October was totally blown out of the sky. I had intended to just finish Kraye, the Vassal and the Redeemer. In addition to those 3, I also painted 10 Bane Thralls and Deneghra! Somehow I got my groove back and hadn't noticed. Granted, many of those were "speed painted", but I did get a lot of models painted, and to my own tabletop standards.

So, November brings with it the promise of time to paint (as work will be hopefully calming down soon), and the threat of holiday activities. In light of that, I'm going to set a new challenge for myself. My goal is to paint Grim, Midwinter, Dougal, and one other as yet unspecified model. I'm going to aim for quality over quantity in this batch. Hopefully I'll get more painted than just 4 models, but this is my goal.

On a side note, I did some swapping with Lance to get his Legion box set models along with Thagrosh. I've been fancying some of the Legion models for a while so this felt like a first step towards that doom. Legion will likely end up being similar to Cryx for me in that I'll select models I like and aim for a balance of quality and speed.

October Woes

Well, as October begins, I realize I should set forth another challenge for myself. However, this week started off with an avalanche of challenges at work and home, and left me pretty much a drooling vegetable. I'm not expecting things to get much better, so this month will see a break from the Mercs to get caught up on other things that I've wanted to get done. This month I plan to finish Kraye for Jeff, and get the Vassal and Redeemer painted for my Menoth force. I'm worried that even that is ambitious, but hopefully October will level back out for me.

On a side note, I got some new brushes (more Series 7s). I picked up a couple new #2s since my usual one had gotten a fair amount of paint in the ferrule and it has lost a number of hairs making it's precision a problem. Now I can use a fresh #2 and not worry. If it wasn't for the amazing prices from Dick Blick, I'd never be able to paint so freely with the Series 7s. I also picked up a 2/0 brush to try out for super detailed work. I don't expect to use it often though, as even the 1/0 I have now is pretty specialized.

Stannis

This was my first model that included a mounted rider. I really enjoyed it, although overall the sculpt had some odd things that I had to work around. Still, of all the Privateer mounted sculpts, this is one of my favorites so far. It also made a good warm up for painting Kraye for Jeff. This also rounds out my showdown challenge for myself for mercs. I haven't really worked out my upscale to 750pts yet either, so getting done for Sept early is an extra bonus. Anyway, no time for extended chatter... here's the pics!

Mariner

Mariner: done! I'm well ahead of schedule to make my showdown challenge for this month. Although now I probably jinxed myself. Anywho, here's the big guy, all ready to go. I painted him in a similar scheme to the Freebooter, but replaced the green with red to give some variety. Overall I'm very happy, especially with how the blending worked out on the large surfaces. Of course, it wasn't until I was done sealing it that I realized I hadn't fully finished the chest on the back. I spent a bunch of time experimenting with algae simulation and the battle damage. Some of it worked out well, and some not so great.

Cylena Raefyll and Nyss Hunters

Well, I cheated on my challenge. I did the final pinning this morning because the snow was still drying last night when I got too tired to keep going. So this morning consisted of an hour or so of pinning, sealing, and attaching magnets. I think the snow turned out pretty good. The bases in general follow the Brushthralls Tutorial on making cork and snow bases. However for the snow, after trying a few things, I finally settled on making a runny paste of white glue, water and baking soda, which I then slathered randomly on the bases and then sprinkle more baking soda on top. I was terrified that sealing them would ruin the effect, and that the baking soda would just come off, but so far, both fears appear unjustified.

Showdown Status: Just Nyss'd the Deadline

Ha ha... sorry, couldn't help it. I'm very nearly done with the Nyss hunters, but I probably won't have them sealed tonight. I lost a lot of time working on snow bases for them. My first experiments were pitiful and I had to scrap my prototype base entirely. However, they are all fully painted, and all that remains is to put the snow on the bases (which are otherwise done) and pin the Nyss to the bases and seal them. I'll be working on for another hour or so, but I'm gonna have to post pics tomorrow after I seal them.

Showdown: Shifting Gears

Well, due to my abysmal failure in the previous showdown challenge I set for myself, I've decided to take on something a little more reasonable. I'm not giving up on Cryx, just setting it aside for the time being. Instead, I'm going to focus on my mercs for the next 4 months. Now, obviously there's some serious cheating in this showdown challenge as I already have a fair amount of painted mercs. My goal here is to bring my Highborn contract of mercs up to a legitimate 1000 point fighting force, rather than the ragtag collection I have currently. This will both give me a solid merc army, and provide enough extra bandwidth to finish up some other projects I've been wanting to do.

For August, I'm aiming to paint up 10 Nyss Hunters, to give me the this starting 350 point force:

• Fiona the Black
  
• Gudrun the Wanderer
  
• Aiyana and Holt
  
• Rupert Carvolo
  
• 6 Sea Dog Cultists
  
• 10 Nyss Hunters
  

If I get really ambitious, I might pick up 6 extra Sea Dogs and paint them up specifically as themed cultists for Fiona, but that's optional. As of right now, the Nyss are sitting on my desk, still in the blister packs. They are quite configurable little models which is both exciting and terrifying at the same time.

Showdown Update: Taking a Break

Life has really hit me like an avalanche lately. I was clearly unable to keep up with my Showdown challenge, plus I'm experiencing a bit of burnout now. So, I've decided to at least take July off from the challenge. I may take next month off as well, and resume in September. For this month, my goal is to get the Gnarlhorn painted for my friend Sean, and do some maintenance stuff on the blog. Specifically I need up refine my photo setup, switch to using Google's Picasa, and create a handful of reference pages on this blog. I've also been backfilling posts that were overdue, namely the Harrower and the Pistol Wraith. Speaking of pictures, here's a (not so great) group shot of the Cryx models for the first month's challenge.

Pistol Wraith

I was working on this one in parallel with the Harrower and managed to finish him up a day later. I got some good inspiration on him from the PP forums. The glow effect worked out pretty well I think. I liked the overall effect, and this model is really a majestic one to paint.

Harrower

Wrapped this bad boy up finally. Behind schedule, and the last item to fill out the 350 point Cryx challenge. All the practice with washes really helped accelerate getting this one done. It took alot less time that heavy jacks normally take me. It's not a great paint job, but I'm happy with its table presence. Something to note though, this one was a real pain to assemble.

Witch Coven of Garlghast

It's amazing how some things seem to just linger and not get finished in a timely manner. I just finally wrapped this group up. The witches have been done for probably 3 weeks now, but it took me a while to get them based and then the Egregore was a whole mis-adventure. I had a grand scheme of using magnets to make the Egregore float, but that didn't pan out. It was just too much weight and required too many magnets to make it feasible. In the end I had to strip all the magnets back out of the core and then start over. I probably wasted 10+ hours messing around with it but I'm glad I did. I'd have been kicking myself later if I hadn't at least tried.

The bases added a fair amount of work as well. Huge thanks go out to BobbyBrady from the PPS forums for the help and advice on how to make this style of bases. I spent a fair amount of time experimenting to find a good reproducable method of making these without spending too much time. In the end I'm very happy with how they are turning out.

These models are a huge departure for me in my normal style. I did alot of "NMM" type of work here, some of which is arguably metalic looking. Great learning experience, even if it didn't end up looking very metalic. The blades at least look metal. All around, I had a good time painting these models, and feel like they are up to the quality I'm trying to reach in my showdown painting push.

Group shot:


Egregore:


Witch 1:


Witch 2:


Witch 3:

Skarlock

Terrible pictures. Just terrible. It's a shame too, cause the model really is decent. I'm thinking that in the near future I'm going to have to completely alter my photo setup to a more static location instead of just setting it up as needed on my desk. I'll probably convert to using picasa at the same time. Anywho...

This model was very fun to paint. I did alot of washes (per my Cryx theme) which made it go fast. I even included a little OSL work around the swirling soul trail which worked out better than I expected. The basing was a new project for me, making lava bases. Again, too bad the pics are so terrible. I should really get around to dealing with that soon.

Showdown Failure

Well, my painting showdown for June has ended in a partial failure. I got 10 of the 13 models finished, but ran out of time. I'm hopeful that I'll be close to finished by the end of the week. However, not to be disenchanted with the showdown concept, I'm going to press ahead and begin my July target anyway and try to get caught up. In addition to finishing up my June work, I'm going to add the following models for July:

Terminus

Cephalyx Slavers (Slaver + 9 Drudges)

Pistol Wraith

Revenant Pirates (4 more to round out the squad)

This actually puts me above 500pts by giving me 3 extra pirates for when Rengrave presses dudes into service.

Captain Rengrave

My final push to meet 350pts in a month isn't going so great. Here's Rengrave, finishing out the pirate half of the points. Overall a pretty mediocre paintjob, but I wasn't going for my best. After finishing it, I have mixed feelings about this model. It has marvelous details (coat, tears, barnacles, sword details, 4 pistols, etc), but the pose of the model is obnoxious. I would have preferred something a little more upright and menacing. Here he just looks like a sneaky pirate thief. In the 3 games I've played with him so far, he's always out in front, kicking ass and taking names. He deserves a pose that says to his opponent "Go ahead! I dare you! Shoot me!" Anyway, that aside, this model was more practice in using washes for me.

Showdown Painting Research

I've been cruising the Privateer forums lately looking for ideas on how to paint the Cryx models I'll be working on eventually. This post is a bunch of links of things I found interesting...

The glowing effect on this Pistol Wraith is very cool.

I love the runes on the tabbard of this Denegra.

The lava bases for these Witches are superboss. I'm totally going to try to make lava bases like these. Here's a link to a post where he explains how he made them (post #7).

The Brushthralls Ironthrall challenge for Revenant Crew conversions is excellent and gives me ideas of what to do for adding more Revenants to my unit.

First Showdown Battle

Lance and I had our first Showdown battle of our 350pt lists!

Me: Witches, Skarlock, Rengrave, Revenants(7), Harrower
Lance: Old Witch, Berserker, Doomreavers, Manhunter, Yuri

Let me first say that when 8 weaponmaster advance deploy on you in a 350pt game, it's rather intimidating. However, my cantankerous band of Cryxians was up to the chore. The Revenants did alot of shooting, and then alot of dying, and then alot of coming back to (un)life, but overall did a good job of blocking and clearing out the doomreavers. Then they got a charge on the Berserker and their deathstrokes took it out. The Harrower took out the Manhunter and Yuri (with some assistance from the Witch's Imprison to space them out), which gave it soul tokens to experiment with it's gun later on. The Witches were excellent support in this game, but Rengrave stole the show, pressing 3 Doomreavers into the service of his Revenant Crew. In the end, the Old Witch got unlucky with an attempt to assassinate one of the Witches, and then that Witch turned around and stabbed the old bag. I have to say, being on the delivery end of Cryx was very entertaining.

One thing is for sure, with Rengrave on the table, I need to make up some more Revenant models to have on hand for when he presses dudes into service.

From the Painting Desk: Showdown Update on Witches

Just a quick update while I have a few minutes. The Witches are almost done now (except for Egregore which is not even assembled). I decided to go fully NMM with them, and so far the results are not terrible. Actually, I'm quite happy with the look myself. They aren't top notch quality for me, but overall this whole experimenting with washes thing is going great. A major departure here for me was using white primer for them to make the armor washing easier to get rolling.

As for the Painting Showdown status, model-wise I'm doing pretty well, but work-wise, I still feel behind. Even if I finish painting the witches tonight, I'll still have a ways to go. I added a Showdown Status listing to this page to keep track of where I'm at easier. It's going to be pretty rough getting the remaining 4 models all done in 12 more days. Not to mention that I've got a 1000pt game on Monday that I need to prep for still. I will say though, the showdown is keeping me very focused on painting and getting stuff done. Even though I'm doing alot of experimenting, it's more focused on speed painting techniques, so I'm still cranking through pretty fast.

Revenant Crew

And now... undead pirates! I finished these guys yesterday morning, but with Father's day going on, I didn't get a chance to post sooner. These were a blast to paint. They represent a significant departure from my standard painting techniques. I used alot of washes, and some pseudo-NMM techniques. These were relatively speed painted. I've found that using washes is not only a very quick technique, but coupled with 2-brush-blending can produce pretty decent results with alot less effort. I'm dedicated to continuing to use these techniques for the rest of the Cryx models that I plan on painting.

Showdown Woes

Well, I didn't finish the Revenant Crew on the weekend. I still have 2 left. I'll definately finish them before this coming weekend, but I still feel behind schedule. It's going to be rough getting 350pts fully painted within a month. I'm not giving up though. If I can finish the Revenants and Rengrave by the end of the weekend then I'll be about halfway done (model-wise) and will feel more on track. Here's some planning updates in the meantime:

I've primed the Witches in white! *GASP* I labored over this for the last few days and finally decided to just try it out. I'm heavily experimenting anyway with these Cryx models so why not do a little more experimentation. The white base will make painting healthy looking skintones easier probably. All things considered, they should go pretty fast. I haven't used white primer in a while, so this will be a good re-learning experience.

I started assembling the Harrower. This thing is crazy. 13 pieces, and with it's big long spidery legs, it's going to be a real challenge to get on a base. I need to just keep tinkering with it over the next week. I'll inevitably end up painting it in pieces.

The Egregore is going to be a serious experiment for me. I'm going to the game store today to pick up some rare earth magnets and I'm going to make an honest attempt at making it float. I'll post more about that later once I get a prototype put together.

Well, that's it for this morning. Hopefully this will be a productive week for painting and I can get back to something that feels "on schedule" for being done by the end of the month. The great thing is, I'm already thinking about the next round of painting and what sort of models I want.

From the Painting Desk: Showdown Update on Pirates

Well, I'm over halfway through the Revenant Crew now. 3 are complete and the other three have metals and flesh all done. Below is a terrible pic, but it gives a rough idea. The painting style on these is a noticable departure from my normal style. I'm experimenting alot more with washes and alternate color schemes when blending. I've also tried to use inks a bit more here as well.

I'm hoping that if I can get the Revenants done tomorrow, I'll be on a good pace to finish all 350 points of models before the end of the month without too much trouble. I even squeezed in a game last night against Lance!