From the Desk: Parallel Projects

The poor Blackfrost Shard have been sitting on my desk, primed, for months. Two days ago however, I finally started putting paint to them. These models are quite detailed, and thus make them both interesting and a bit daunting at the same time. I don't think I've had so much motivation to paint something for a long time. First, they are quite nice models. Second, they are badass on the table. And third, completing them brings me back down to a single unpainted squad. These guys will probably take me a while though. I'm still kicking around whether to introduce some red into the color scheme or not.

On an "SPQR" note, I also finished trimming my 3 Nephilim. I like to be getting my next model all trimmed, assembled and primed before I finish my current painting project. It's more than just the smooth transition from one painting project to another. There's time lost waiting for putty and primer to dry and if I'm burning that time in parallel with painting, I'm getting good use from my time. Getting these Nephilim done will bring me down to a single unpainted beast, plus it will give me a whole batch of new options on the battlefield which I'm really looking forward to.

Anastasia di Bray

It feels great to be back into a relatively normal painting swing. Knocking out Anastasia here was quick and delightful. It's not the most interesting sculpt for sure, but I can honestly say it was pretty fun to paint. Perhaps because of my recent efforts on the War Hog. In any case, it was a big morale boost for my inner muse.

What went well:
* Small - Yep, painting a small single model was great. I felt like I could spend quality time on it and still make quick progress.
* Retries - I think I painted they eyes 3 times before I called them good enough. Each time they got better, despite her eyes being tiny. It's hard to see in the photo unfortunately (more on that below).
* Pants - Of all the parts of this model, I think the pants came out the best of all.

What could have been better:
* Photos - ARGH! These pics are terrible! I'm not entirely sure why. It's probably a lighting problem, but I'll need to experiment more. It seems that every time I have to tear down my photo set up (due to visitors) that I have trouble getting it tweaked back to normal.
* Face and eyes - After Derek's class and seeing his models up close, I'm inspired to step up my game on the face area of models. However I'm realistic about just making progress through practice and not trying to jump straight to amazing.

From the Desk: New Paint Goal

Anastasia is really coming along well. Not much left to do at this point other than some tweaks and some additional work on the face. Ironic given that the face was where I started.

In order to keep myself from buying more models than my painting pace can keep up with, I'm always trying to keep myself aware of what's unpainted. In the past I just had a general count but units tend to make those look weird at times. So I've come up with a new scheme: 1-1-1-1. Just like the Highlander format, I'm going to aim at reaching only 1 unpainted warcaster/warlock, warjack/warbeast, unit, and solo.

Note that this will be across my active factions of Legion, Protectorate and the Ashlynn theme force. I have several models that will fall out of this tracking, specifically McBain, Cryx stuff, and Minion stuff. Why? Well, honestly, I never really play Cryx, I'm not interested in playing Minions, and McBain, well, I'll probably paint him eventually but I'm not itching to get him on the table.

So where am I at now?

Warcasters/Warlocks:	Rhyas, Bethayne
Warjacks/Warbeasts:	Nephilim Protector, Nephilim Soldier, Nephilim Bolt Thrower, Belphagore
Units:	Blackfrost Shard, Hex Hunters (with UA)
Solos:	Anistasia Di Bray, Gun Mage Captain Adept

So not that far. 2-4-2-2 is pretty reasonable. I'm hoping to close in on 1-1-1-1 by mid July at the latest. The shocking thing to me is that so far this year I've only painted 18 models, and it's nearly halfway through the year. I have a sinking feeling that this is going to be a slow year for painting unless I can "pair up".

From the Desk: Recap, Notes and Progress

In an effort to stay blogging, I'm going to aim to do more of my "From the Desk" posts with random tidbits of information. We'll see how long this new resolution lasts.

Poor Anastasia here as been sitting on my desk, primed, awaiting paint, for a couple months. After coming off of the big competition effort, I wanted to do something relatively fast, but still feel like I could pour quality effort into it, so this was a nice coincidence. This model is quite small and fairly simple. After seeing Derek spend an hour and a half on a face, I'm a bit more inspired to be practicing painting faces and eyes in more detail. I've definitely learned in the past that painting more (and spending just above average effort each time) goes a long ways towards improving my skills in particular areas. To that end, I've decided to focus on more models with clear faces and eyes, and also to find small opportunities to practice freehand work as well.

In other news, the classes at KublaCon left me with a list of things to follow up on. Here's the summary:
* Try out Reaper liner paints - Derek recommended these. I picked up the triad and tried out the brown liner. It's definitely interesting stuff. Pre-thinned for quick use. I see myself using these more and more.
* Paint freehand using the "constellation" method - Basically sketch a design, pick out points, transfer the points to the model, then fill in the design. More on that in future posts.
* Airbrush - Yeah, I totally bought an airbrush already after seeing Justin use it and answer a bunch of questions. Lots lots more on that in the future.
* Fine mist spray nozzles for primer - Justin recommended GW Skull White because the new primer cans have "fine mist" nozzles. I've got one reserved at my LGS to try out and see if I notice a difference.
* Krylon Satin Finish sealer - Another Justin recommendation. Gotta see if it's very different from my current 2-coats method. This would be nice not only because it would be a single coat to seal, but also because the local store that I got Testors supplies from closed recently.
* Weathering techniques - More on this later, but I want to try out Justin's techniques: hairspray/salt, dry pigments, and dot oil filter.

Ok, last note for today. While painting last night I watched a delightful film titled Perfume. Great movie! Loved it! Absolutely nothing to do with painting, but totally interesting concept and well executed. I love it when I find movies that are interesting but don't require me to pay complete visual attention to them (thus allowing me to paint while watching).

War Hog

Apologies in advance, this post is going to be like 3 posts in 1, and longer than a normal gallery entry. I'll start with the normal gallery entry stuff and then move on to the Road-to-Competition stuff.

So here's my competition War Hog, in all his final glory! I have no idea how many hours I spent on this guy. Overall this model was pretty cool. Organic parts, mechanical parts, and just generally pretty interesting. He was pretty big and complex though, which made painting him pretty challenging. I should note that I didn't seal him since he is unlikely to be used on the table, and also sealing him would have affected the effects on the metals that I spent a lot of time on. So he's likely to just sit on the top shelf of my models cabinet where all the other best stuff sits. Perhaps sad, but honestly I'm not really very interested in playing Farrow at present, and regardless of whether I did play them or not, I had intended to paint this model.

What went well:
* Metals - I seriously feel like the metals worked out really well on this model. I spent a lot of time on them, both in terms of weathering and shading. I'm one of those people that like the look of metallic metal paints rather than NMM.
* Flesh - I spent a lot of time here too. It's not perfect, but I feel like the extra effort really paid off.
* Overall composition - Much of my time near the end was making little tweaks here and there to bring the overall composition together. I gathered a lot of feedback from people/places I trust on this. That leads me to...
* Getting feedback - Definitely very helpful. Not just friends getting in person viewings, but I also posted on the BrushThralls forum for feedback and got some really helpful critique. I'll definitely be doing that again for future competitions.

What could have been better:
* Not getting exhausted - Ugh! By the end, after having been working on it off and on for almost 2 months (just painting), I was ready to be done. I was pretty sick of looking at it in fact. I need a better way to tackle such large projects if I'm going to do them this seriously.
* Pigments - In all fairness, this was the first time I used dry pigments, so I'm still getting the hang of them. They were too thick in some places. I definitely like them though, and I'm looking forward to using them more in the future.
* Some details get lost - The model is huge and complex with a lot of details. I feel like some of the detailing work I did wound up lost in the overall complexity of the model.

Ok, so all that aside, time to talk about the competition itself. This year I entered the "masters" level which is still an "open judging" system, but did not place at all. According to the competition organizer, I was super close to getting a bronze. I was in good company actually, as there were other masters entries that didn't place, much to my surprise actually. There was a 40K Tyrant that was pretty impressive I though, but didn't get anything either. I can honestly say I'm not terribly disappointed. Why? Well...

After the awards ceremony I got a chance to sit down with Derek Schubert and he spent probably 20 minutes giving me an in-depth critique of my model. It was very education, and I am very grateful to him for his time. I've included notes about his feedback below, but before that I'll close with some things that I'm taking away to keep in mind for next year:
* Smaller model - Yeah, this one was too big. It's impressive, but smaller is better for the competition I think.
* Avoid metals - I think my love of metallics and trying to refine that style doesn't mesh well with the judges' perspectives. I'm probably better off avoiding them next year.
* Forced lighting perspective - This is something I'm still not comfortable with, but I think it's something I need to keep in mind.
* Telling a story - The model needs to tell a story much better. Overall composition is one thing, but if the model is able to convey a story then I'll have succeeded much better. It's not enough for the War Hog to be angry. There needs to be more of a sense of what's going on. I think my model selection for last year needs to take that into account.

	The blending/shading on the muzzle needed to be tightened up considerably. Totally agree with this. I just sort of lost my steam in this area.
	There should be reflections of light on the red of the gauntlet. Totally disagree with this one. I get where Derek's coming from, but this is a style thing that I just don't buy into. Forced light perspectives are a mixed bag. When you force the lighting perspective in a particular way, you must look at that model from that perspective to make sense of it. Just not my style, but it was interesting feedback.
	The shading/transition of the hoof didn't work. Totally agree here. I blew this. It probably looks ok in the photo, but honestly the angling on it was wrong.
	The plating "bumps" needed stronger contrast to stand out. Yeah, I mostly agree with this. They just didn't work out as good as I wanted. They needed more raise to their surface and just didn't have it to work with.
	The blue hose stood out too much, and the busted pipe was somewhat unnecessary. This was something I hadn't even considered. The blue hose definitely stood out too much, and there wasn't any other blue on the model from that angle to balance with it. In comparison, the red hose worked well because there was plenty of red to balance with. The pipe, well, I'm torn on that. I like having it there, but it does make the whole thing a bit more busy. Point taken.
	Mohawk needed more shading/highlighting to make it pop. Well, I'm torn on this. To some degree I wish I had done more on this. But on the flipside, I didn't want to be highlighting all the strands and making it look too gaudy. I've seen that too much already, and I got some very good advice from EricJ on the Wyrd forums about hair that I still very much subscribe to. I'll have to mull this over a lot more before I can decide whether I should have taken this advice.
	Brighter highlights for the metals. Yeah, I mostly agree here. Overall there were plenty of opportunities to push the metal highlights farther. Derek picked out this section as an example where I could have put highlights on the lower half of the holes to emphasize reflections. Definitely a good point here. Overall there were other comments about metals not being smooth enough, and I sort of get that as well. Still more to learn with metallics.

Ok, I can't really handle posting anything more about this model. I'm done, and well past ready to be done. Time to move on to something faster and crank out some army stuff. I'll start thinking about the next competition in a couple months. In hindsight, I may not have even gotten a bronze, but I definitely feel like I painted like I had a pair!

KublaCon 2011 Summary

So KublaCon has come to a close once again, and as before I had a very good time. What follows is a whole slew of photos and some notes about my experience of the con. Many of these photos are of, shall we say, sub-par quality. Hopefully Santa will bring me a better camera this Christmas. On Friday evening there was a 15pt WM/H tournament that had a 1 unit and 1 solo max limitation. The Sacramento PG Jimmy ran the event and I had quite a lot of fun, despite getting my butt kicked in 4 out of 5 of the games. However I did receive one of the 2 sportsmanship awards which was a poster of the new Wrath book cover! Overall, great event. I think there were 24 people there in total, with a great representation of factions. I think I saw everything except Skorne and perhaps Minions. Next day I dropped in to attend a class by Derek Schubert on sculpting. Although I floated in and out, the class was quite good. I learned a bunch of random little tricks and techniques to assist with the sculpting process. Being a novice in the realm of sculpting, it wasn't hard to learn a lot. Some of the tips were simple things like having a small sponge and water on hand to moisten tools with, putting the mixed green stuff on your off-handed thumb as a temporary working area, and how to create basic frames for sculpting on to. For those of you unfamiliar with Derek Schubert, he's done freelance sculpting and painting for Reaper for several years. His class was interesting in that not only did he give a lot of helpful tips for basic sculpting, he also talked about materials and the overall casting process along with considerations to keep in mind about that process. Overall, delightful class.

At the same time as the class, there was a 50pt WM/H Steamroller tournament going on. There were 19 or so people for this event, again with most factions represented. Given that I didn't participate in the tournament I can't really comment on the event, but it definitely seemed like a huge battleground.

My day was rounded by participating in one of the speed painting competitions. The rules were pretty straight forward. They provide a brush (terrible synthetic with curved bristles), paints (also pretty terrible craft paints), and a primed model. Everything was the same for each participant. We got 45 minutes to paint as good as possible. Amazingly, having never done something like this before, I got 1st place in this group, which qualified me for the masters speed painting. Here you can see my poor little samurai warrior.

The next day was all classes for me pretty much. First up was another class with Derek where he basically spent about 90 minutes painting a face on a model and sharing a wide variety of pieces of information. I really enjoyed this time because it afforded the opportunity to just ask Derek a lot of questions about his process and techniques. Pictured here are a couple of his models that he passed around for close examination.

During the same time slots as most of these classes I was taking, there was a 35pt tier 2 WM/H tournament going on. Again, not having participated in it, all I can say is that at this point I think the WM/H players were starting to wane in strength as this was the 4th event.

The next two classes were with Justin McCoy of Secret Weapon Miniatures. He was teaching about weathering using a few different techniques. These classes were outstanding. Now to be fair, all of the techniques Justin demonstrated were completely different from anything I do. I'd read bits and pieces about them, but never seen them properly demonstrated. These classes were one of those "Ah ha!" type moments. Justin demoed the salt and hairspray technique, chipping, using pigments, and oils, all for weathering a vehicle. I also particularly enjoyed that he brought an airbrush and demonstrated using it as a part of the process. He had a number of good tips, and as a result I went out and bought an airbrush starter kit myself. It certainly helped that by his recommendation, I was able to get a basic double action airbrush and compressor for a mere $90. I'm very much looking forward to practicing some of those techniques in the future.

Ok, I'm just throwing this in for commentary. Seriously people! Just because it's a convention and everyone is indulging in a weekend of geekly decadence, but honestly! And take a shower while you're dropping that fistful of cheese balls!!

Before rounding out my day, I was in the masters speed painting competition. Same as before, however we got 2 terrible brushes. My lowly model is here, which came in 4th out of the group of 9. In all fairness, Derek was in the masters here as well. I have to say, it was a very amusing challenge and I'm looking forward to doing it again next year.

What follows are pictures of models submitted to the painting competition. My own entry did not place in the masters, but I'll go over that in more detail in another post tomorrow.