Tonight is going to be a little bit of a bunch of stuff. First up, my current painting project. I'm very keen to start thinning down my unpainted factions so I'm working down my Protectorate stuff currently. Here you can see Thyra in progress. I'm just doing metals at this point and about halfway done. I'm really speed painting her, so she probably won't turn out real great. You'll notice in this picture that I've got a few paints already lined up. Sometimes for my painting process I'll line up the next few paints I plan to use. This is helpful for me when speed painting through stuff because it keeps me focused and moving forward. In this case I'm aiming to wrap up the metal work and then do the base coating for the reds.
You can also see my two brush trays that I made. In case I hadn't described them before, I basically made a couple simple wooden trays with felt wrapped around them. The felt keeps them from sliding around and the trays keep them fairly secure and safe from accidental mashings of the bristles. I have two because I keep my brushes used for metalics separate from those used for non-metalic. Metalics tend to really destroy natural hair bristles much more quickly (due to the mica flakes damaging the hairs), so I've found I get way more mileage out of my good brushes this way.
Oh, and just past the paint brush trays you can see my iMac keyboard which has been an unfortunate casualty of paint splatters and spills repeatedly. Poor keyboard!
Next is Nicea, who is nearly done. I'm working up a base for her right now actually. Something a little extra spiffy for this lady of pain. This is a very nice model to paint overall. Everything is accessible. It has a nice mixture of surface types to it (cloth, metal, leathers, skin). The pose is very dramatic and full of action. My only complaint (and this holds for a lot of PP models) is the eyes are just so darn small. This was something that I learned from Derek's sculpting class that I thought was really interesting. He purposefully sculpts the eyes a little larger than they should be to allow for better detail work since eyes are so expressive. Now admittedly my ability to paint eyes sucks pretty badly, and I need a lot more practice at it. Still though, I would like a little bit more space to work with.
Ok, let's switch gears. I've thrown a 'life' tag on this post and here's where that personal life part comes in. My career took a bit of switch recently and I've found myself traveling a lot more for this new position. The job is great, but it is causing chaos for my hobby time. Tomorrow I leave for a 4 day trip, but fortunately it's driving distance. So since I don't have to deal with airport security for this trip, I decided to pack a modeling kit. My buddy Lance does this very often as well so I took some tips from him on a portable kit. In addition to a bunch of freshly unblistered model parts, I have the following tools and materials:
- Hobby knives and micro files
- Greenstuff and a generic sculpting tool
- Glue
- Drills and brass rods
- Basing sand (for the Nicea base)
Now hopefully I'm able to get some time away from the work events to work on this!
And finally we have my poor Bull Snapper. Painting is done and it's time to base him. I just haven't built up the steam to work on the base yet. There's probably some mental block that says once I finish this one I should really be cranking on the rest of the gators. Stupid subconscious!
Ok that's it. Time to finish packing, get in a little more painting on Thyra, and ideally get a proper night's sleep before the 3 hour drive tomorrow morning.
Tonight is going to be a little bit of a bunch of stuff. First up, my current painting project. I'm very keen to start thinning down my unpainted factions so I'm working down my Protectorate stuff currently. Here you can see Thyra in progress. I'm just doing metals at this point and about halfway done. I'm really speed painting her, so she probably won't turn out real great. You'll notice in this picture that I've got a few paints already lined up. Sometimes for my painting process I'll line up the next few paints I plan to use. This is helpful for me when speed painting through stuff because it keeps me focused and moving forward. In this case I'm aiming to wrap up the metal work and then do the base coating for the reds.
You can also see my two brush trays that I made. In case I hadn't described them before, I basically made a couple simple wooden trays with felt wrapped around them. The felt keeps them from sliding around and the trays keep them fairly secure and safe from accidental mashings of the bristles. I have two because I keep my brushes used for metalics separate from those used for non-metalic. Metalics tend to really destroy natural hair bristles much more quickly (due to the mica flakes damaging the hairs), so I've found I get way more mileage out of my good brushes this way.
Oh, and just past the paint brush trays you can see my iMac keyboard which has been an unfortunate casualty of paint splatters and spills repeatedly. Poor keyboard!
Next is Nicea, who is nearly done. I'm working up a base for her right now actually. Something a little extra spiffy for this lady of pain. This is a very nice model to paint overall. Everything is accessible. It has a nice mixture of surface types to it (cloth, metal, leathers, skin). The pose is very dramatic and full of action. My only complaint (and this holds for a lot of PP models) is the eyes are just so darn small. This was something that I learned from Derek's sculpting class that I thought was really interesting. He purposefully sculpts the eyes a little larger than they should be to allow for better detail work since eyes are so expressive. Now admittedly my ability to paint eyes sucks pretty badly, and I need a lot more practice at it. Still though, I would like a little bit more space to work with.
Ok, let's switch gears. I've thrown a 'life' tag on this post and here's where that personal life part comes in. My career took a bit of switch recently and I've found myself traveling a lot more for this new position. The job is great, but it is causing chaos for my hobby time. Tomorrow I leave for a 4 day trip, but fortunately it's driving distance. So since I don't have to deal with airport security for this trip, I decided to pack a modeling kit. My buddy Lance does this very often as well so I took some tips from him on a portable kit. In addition to a bunch of freshly unblistered model parts, I have the following tools and materials:
And finally we have my poor Bull Snapper. Painting is done and it's time to base him. I just haven't built up the steam to work on the base yet. There's probably some mental block that says once I finish this one I should really be cranking on the rest of the gators. Stupid subconscious!
Ok that's it. Time to finish packing, get in a little more painting on Thyra, and ideally get a proper night's sleep before the 3 hour drive tomorrow morning.
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