Play it Painted: March Results

As reported earlier, I finished my March goal well ahead of schedule. The caveat to that is that since 16th I haven't picked up a brush at all. I've been traveling for work and that put a huge crimp in my painting progress. But I'm back and super excited to set a goal for April. However before I do that (tomorrow), I wanted to recap my results and share some other notes.

March Accomplishments:

• Painted 5 Warmongers
• Painted 5 Warspears
• Painted Warspear Chieftain
• Finished painting Judicator
• Assembled and primed Pendrake
• Finished assembling and primed Extreme Carnivean

And how about my compatriots? Well Mike encountered a catastrophe when the dog ate one of his Warspear models. Lance shifted gears and did painting on Slaughterhausers and assembly on more trollkin stuff. And Henry, well, I actually played a game against his Skorne last night (and I lost I might add), but I got to witness firsthand his painted Paingivers and also a remarkably well painted banner on his Titan Gladiator.

Ok, so now that I'm back from travel, I'm planning to get back to the desk and get more work done. I'll post tomorrow about my April goal.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #27

MMmmMmMMmmmMmMMMmmm... new Hordes book.

Very short weekend post. Nothing really to show. I've already wrapped up my March painting goal so I'm now working on getting models assembled for my April painting goal. Right now I'm aiming at painting Pendrake, 2 Afflictors, and the full 6 Bone Grinders. I also want to at least get started on the Extreme Carnivean at the same time. Pendrake and the Carnivean are already primed and ready to go, but the rest of it needs trimming, assembling and priming.

Another note is that while I'm in-between painting projects, I'm doing a little experimentation with other techniques I've never used before, and mixing various mediums and paints to see what kinds of effects I get. All part of my goal to find new techniques to advance my painting with. If you have random crazy ideas, but don't have the resources/time/nerve to try them, leave a comment and I'll do my best to investigate and attempt.

Some other random notes:
* I dug out some old Noise Marines that happened to be primed, not for play purposes, but for being test models since my current test model has about 10 layers of paint on him now and is starting to be useless.
* I've been working on some small terrain pieces, but nothing really valuable to show at this point.
* My pre-ordered Archangel will arrive near the end of this month and that should also slow down my painting while I attempt to get it assembled and ready for my May painting goal prior to Lock and Load.
* Oh, and speaking of Lock and Load, I'm all registered up for a pile of classes and then leaving all the rest of my time open for Iron Arena. Now my buddies and I just need to get identifying shirts made!

Warspear Chieftan

And this wraps up my March painting goal! Very early, but by design since I'm going to be traveling for work off and on for the next couple weeks so I needed to get these done early. I painted this guy at the same time as 5 Warspears and 5 Warmongers. Painting 11 medium based models all at once would normally feel soul crushing, but in this case I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. Perhaps it was because I've been painting singles and huge based models most recently. In any case, it feels great to have all these guys done, not just for the ability to put them on the table but for the huge dent it puts into my unpainted model list. I also have to admit, my meager and crowded desk was pretty much at capacity having 11 medium based models in progress at once. Anyway time to do some reflection on the project.

What went well:
* Having a goal and driving towards it made a big difference. Just like when I painted the second Gatorman Posse and Ironback Spitter for the Gold Rush Rampage, using the Play-It-Painted-2k13 justification helped to get me excited and keep me focused. I've played pretty much zero games on my computer and painted nearly every night.
* Speed painting but allowing myself to spend time on certain details was a nice approach. I'm happy with the results given the time spent.
* Painting all 11 as a group definitely helped since I could use assembly-line techniques. However doing a mix of Warmongers and Warspears kept things mixed up so it wasn't too monotonous. I might do something similar if I decide to eventually paint Archers and Swordsmen.

What could have been better:
* The usual: More time, more details, etc. Honestly, I'm pretty happy about these guys overall so I'm just going to nitpick a couple things that I cut corners on due to speed.
* Warspear beards could have been more interesting. I just sort of "did something" and moved on.
* More highlighting on some key areas, particularly metals, would have helped with pop.

Ok, enough reflection. I need to start figuring out an April goal and begin assembling.

Blighted Ogrun Warspears

Warspears done for my March painting goal! Thoughts to follow with the Warspear Chieftan.

Blighted Ogrun Warmongers

Warmongers done for my March painting goal! No in-depth analysis here. I'll talk more about it in the Warspear Chieftan post.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #26

I hate the whole daylight savings time change thing. Spring forward? More like sleep thief.

First is my progress on my March painting goal, the Blighted Ogryn. Things have moved forward a lot. I got the armor mostly done, the loincloths, the spears, and generally a bunch of stuff. I'm mostly down to cleanups, highlights, and details. Of course I expect that all the detail work will take a fair amount of time. In any case, I'm happy with how quickly these are moving.

Next I have a quick glimpse into one of my painting tips that has served me well for a long time now. I use post-its on my desk and make notes on the remaining things that need to be done on my current projects. This helps me to make sure I don't accidentally miss anything. I keep adding to it as I spot things and scratch them off as I complete them. This has been a valuable tool for me, particularly on squads and on competition projects.

Next, but without pictures, are the assembly work I did on Pendrake. He's all assembled and attached to a base. Just need to prime him and I can get started on him, but that's pending my March goal.

Also, as mentioned earlier this week, I finished the Judicator. It was a huge relief to have that done and not looming over me as an unfinished project.

And then there was, oh, wait, this isn't painting related. It's my margarita in the foreground while my steaks were cooking! And with that I'll sign off for the evening.

Judicator

Last night I did something that pained me, but was necessary: I called it quits on the Judicator and sealed it. It pains me because I really prefer to spend a proper amount of time on a model before finishing it and moving on. The Judicator however had turned into something more like dread than joy. It also didn't help that I've been proxying my Vessel of Judgement for it multiple times and I really wanted to be able to put it on the table instead. So last night I finally decided to call it quits, seal it, and move on. Oh, and my photo setup continues to be too small for huge based model. Need to work on that. Time to do the reflection...

What went well:
* Calling it quits when I did. I could have easily left this model on the shelf longer and kept fiddling with it. But then the feeling of drudgery and incompleteness would have just continued to hang over me. Finishing it now was definitely the right call.
* Painting in pieces. It was simply too big to paint as one big part. Plus this model nicely breaks up into discrete pieces to paint unlike most Hordes models.
* Using the airbrush was a huge time saver, and particularly good practice as well. I got a lot of practice with it and it really has improved my confidence and desire to keep using the airbrush. I can honestly say I am much less afraid of using the airbrush on even much smaller models now.

What could have been better:
* Obviously spending far more time would have been great. There was far more I could have done. Particularly...
* More battle damage. As it stands right now, it looks like it's been assaulted by dwarves with dirty towels rather than repeatedly blasted with explosives all over.
* Better attention to zenithal highlighting, and this is a side effect of painting in pieces.
* More cleaning up of mistakes. This is something I could have easily spent many hours on. However my friend Lance pointed out that the size and scale of a colossal makes the mistakes seem less obvious. This definitely folds back into the whole calling it quits vs spending more time.

I'm honestly very happy to be done with this model, and am happy with the results. It could definitely have been far better, but I've counted this as a huge (dare I say colossal) learning experience. It will also be quite gratifying to have this model on the table as well.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #25

Super fast cause I'm exhausted from a busy weekend.

Here's a shot of 3 of my Blighted Ogrun that are in progress for my March painting goal. I'm not bothering to show them all because all 11 are in the same state. Skin is mostly done. Fur is base coated and washed. My next big step will be to tackle the metals which will be a soul crushing task. Fortunately all the models have very accessible poses so it isn't a nightmare to paint any of them in particular.

Some other things I did during this week:

• Finished Rask
• Started painting some terrain bits (damaged barriers from Secret Weapon)
• Ton of sorting and organizing of my painting desk... not sexy, but helpful
• Prototyped a new color scheme for a painting project I'm thinking of starting

No progress on the Judicator, but every time I proxy it I get more and more anxious to finish it.

From the Desk: Play it Painted

If you're a part of the online Warmachine/Hordes community, you'd practically have to be living under a virtual rock to not have heard of Muse On Minis' "Play it painted 2013". As a guy who has long preferred to play with painted model, and often self-imposed playing with only painted models, it's exciting to see all the people getting involved. Whenever I go to events I try to make a point of going around and giving encouraging comments to those people who have at least made an effort to paint their armies. Regardless of skill level, I can always find something positive to point out to people about their painting to help motivate them.

Speaking of motivation, I wanted to keep my own motivation to paint fueled so I pinged my close 3 friends about painting goals for March. We're trading emails to help keep each other excited about moving forward. So what were the goals?

Mike: "5 Warspears, Warspear UA, Swamp Gobbers, Shepherd, Angelius, Naga, pThags." - I have no clue how he's going to get all that done, but Mike has been a painting machine lately so I wouldn't put it past him.
Henry: "Paingivers + Krea." - Henry's new slide into Skorne is exciting. He's got a bunch of other things in progress so I wouldn't be surprised if he does more than that.
Lance: "Finish Calandra and the War Wagon. Paint Bomber #2." - Painting huge-based models is a monster task. If Lance pulls this off I will be giving him a serious high-5. I'm also very eager to see his magma-troll themed War Wagon.

Any here's my painting goal: 5 Warmongers, 5 Warspears, and the Warspear UA. 11 medium based models. As of last night they are all primed and ready to go. Doing this will not only make a huge dent in my overall unpainted queue, but it will clear my desk nicely for the Archangel that I've already pre-ordered and expect to arrive at the end of this month. The nice thing about painting all 11 of these at once is that it will help them be fairly consistent looking. I also have my existing War Chief as a guide so I already have a blueprint for the paint scheme ready to go.

So that's our goals for March! I'll do my best to post pics as we go. And to all of you out there looking for motivation, I highly recommend checking out that MoM thread linked above. It is incredibly inspiring to see so many people posting pictures of progress.