Holt

Here he is, Holt. He was an odd and somewhat frustrating project. I decided to go with the black coat, but for some reason, that much black just left me feeling like it lacks something. No matter what I had done it would have been alot of one color anyway which probably would have felt the same probably. I wasn't going to use the Cygnar colors in this case. Anyway, it turned out ok, and it was a good experience with painting black again.

11 Weeks To Go!

11 more weeks until Kublacon! I'm counting down mainly because I need to get my act together and have a plan for something to enter in the painting competition. There's basically 6 total categories, made of combinations of fantasy vs sci-fi, and small, large and squad. I've no intention of entering everything of course. I'll be happy to have one or two entries that I really feel happy with. I'll probably keep the whole thing under wraps until after Kubla, but I'll save notes and posts and pics as I go and post them later. In the mean time, I need to start thinking carefully about being ready in 11 weeks. At my current painting pace, this shouldn't be a problem, but I do want to put some extra effort into whatever I'm going to enter.

I've just about got Holt done (just waiting for the basework to dry), and then I can move on to Aiyana. This whole 1-model-per-week thing is making me feel pretty good.

Captain Bartolo Montador, aka Broadsides Bart

Just sealed him this morning. I spent noticably more time on him than all those previous Sea Dogs. I found it ironic that I ended up with a relatively "Menoth" scheme to him. I think it works pretty well though. Somewhat flashy, but not over the top. Places where I spent extra effort:

Whites - I really tried to put extra effort into getting the whites to look good. The new lamp definately helped alot here.

Metals - I applied some of those metalic techniques I talked about in a previous post from Quentin and Sabastian. Mostly I was trying to shade and highlight the metals better. I think partially it worked and partially it didn't, but at least it's not just a flat coat of metal with metal wash thrown on top. Totally worth the effort. I'll never go to NMM.

Face - Admittedly, it could be better, but I tried to put more time on this. I'm still not steady or skilled enough to be painting irises in the eyes and all that, but it's slowly getting better.

Basing - This wasn't extra effort on purpose. The chest where Bart rests his foot is sliced to look like it's partially buried. I wanted to keep my pirate basing theme, so I had to substitute something else to be "burying" the chest, so I figured a small pile of coins would do. The coins were made primarily using a tutorial from the Reaper site.



I actually fielded him last night as well in a 500pt battle against Cryx. The battle was quite amusing, and without going into great detail, my favorite part was an armless Nomad headbutting the DeathJack to the ground and then the Freebooter walking up, trashing the DeathJack, and then chain attack two-handed throwing it back into the Cryx backfield. So pleasing. In the end though I didn't have enough heavy hitting firepower to penetrate Terminus' armor (he was camping focus) and then miscalculated with Alexia and Bart and got whacked. I think Bart would be more fun with a Mariner in tow given his spell options. Still though, a very fun battle.

Painting Techniques Round Up

I follow a particular thread on the Privateer Forums called "Ask the Studio". Recently there were a couple posts that got my attention about "blending" techniques. I'm going to shamelessly quote some of the pieces from those posts here so as to comment on them myself.

"Drybrushing - Yes thats right, drybrushing is infact a blending technique. The biggest advantage of drybrushing is that it is relatively fast and easy to learn and for this reason it is almost always the first technique that miniature painters learn. Smoother transitions can be achieved by applying numerous very light and subtle coats and adding alittle more of your highlight color to your paint mixture with each coat. Expertly drybrushed models can have upwards of 20-30 very light drybrushes although most have far fewer."
-Matt DiPietro

This is a technique that I needed demonstrated for me before I really understood. Once I got it, I used this alot, and I mean alot. I still use drybrushing occasionally, but it's for very specific situations. Typically I like the effect of drybrushing when simulating stone, or working on hair and fur.

"Layering - The definition of layering is a bit fuzzy but when layering is used in the context of blending it means to use very thin paint applied in numerous layers to build up your highlights or shading. Thin paint is very translucent and the layer underneath is tinted rather than covered. With multiple layers the paint is gradually built up. The translucency of the thin paint is the property that causes the layers to blend together. The more numerous the layers used the smoother the blend but the more numerous you layers are the thinner your paint needs to be. When layering, P3 mixing medium or othe matte mediums can be really useful because paint that is thined down a lot with water will run unless applied in very light coats. By mixing in P3 mixing medium as well as some water you can make your paint more translucent while preventing it from running. There are many styles of layering and most painters use thicker paint and fewer layers just to save time/sanity and although the transition between layers is more noticeable the effect is still quite striking especially on the table top."
-Matt DiPietro

This is, by and large, what I use most of the time now, with a minor variation. I typically will get my color (highlight or shade) on the model, and then "feather" or blend it out a bit using that brush. This is mostly a brute-force kind of blending that I do, which although I have practiced it alot, is currently my main hinderance to better blending.

"Feathering - Feathering is using layers of thin paralelle lines to build up your highlights. Layers of lines are painted one within another to gradually build up highlights. Check out the head of the Legion Raek for an example of Feathered blending. Its a technique you don't see very often but it yields a very unique textured look while still blending your layers together. It is worth noting that there a some other techniques that are also called feathering so check out post #267 in this thread for a desciption of these."
-Matt DiPietro

I've heard this term used in a number of ways. Some definitions are closer to what I described my current technique as just above. All things considered, I'm probably doing some combination of "Layering" and "Feathering".

"Two-brush blending - As the name states you need two brushes to use this technique. One brush applies paint to the the model and the second is used to alter the translucency of the paint while it is still wet. Paint is quickly and messily applied in a line, dot, or glob with the first brush and then pushed or pulled into the desired shape using a second brush dampened with blending medium (blending medium is not the same thing as P3 mixing medium you can find blending medium in many art stores). There exsists a secret blending medium out there which just happens to be the very best but also a little dangerous/gross, yup you guessed it-saliva! If you do decide to brush lick and use saliva as your blending medium be careful that you are using non-toxic paint. P3 is non-toxic, but some other mini paints are. If your bottle doesn't say non-toxic on it chances are at least some paints from that range contain cadmium, cobalt, or other heavy metals that can lead to cancer and other health problems. In any case always avoid getting paint in your mouth. The good news is that slaiva is a natural resister which means that paint doesn't stick to it and you can most times blend away without getting paint on your blending brush. Two-brush blending allows a painter to make big jumps in color and still get the smoothest of blends this means fewer layers which results in a lot of time saved."
-Matt DiPietro

This is what I've been occasionally practicing. The main barrier for me is still just finding the right places to practice it. There's a size limitation of what surfaces this works best on. I suspect that one of the main problems I was having before was my lighting was throwing too much heat and drying my paint before I could blend it properly. Now that I have my new uberlamp, I need to give this more practice. The application I've had of this technique so far has been pretty good, but I need to get a little more practice under my belt still before I feel comfortable with it.

"Wet Blending - One of the toughest techniques to do, wet blending is the mixing of two wet colors directly on the mini. It is easiest to do on large open areas. a blob/line of one color is placed on the model and then the brush is cleaned off and the second color is applied next to the first leaving some room in between then using a second brush is used to pull strands of each color into the space between them and mix them together until the transition is flawless. The end effect is like having a basecoat that changes gradually from one color to another."
-Matt DiPietro

Uhmm, yeah, I simply don't do this. I don't even try. There's a number of reason, not the least of which is I'm just not fast enough with my hands to do this effectively. Plus, until I master the 2-brush technique, I don't even want to fidget with this.


The last part I wanted to reference was a post by Quentin about shading metals. The post is long and detailed, but the quick sum up is that he first uses a base coat of a medium metal color, then uses several shading passes of very thin black paint. The purpose is to use a matte color and wash it in the recesses to remove any shinyness. I used this technique extensively on the Freebooter and was quite pleased. In his post he also references this article by Sabastian Archer on CMON. Sabastian is a top notch painter and this article is pure genius to me.

Well, that's it for now. Time to go put the brush to the model and continue painting like I have a pair!

Wet Palettes

So as a part of my continuing effort to expand and refine my painting skills, I decided to try out a wet palette. I've gotten into the nasty habit of licking my brushes after I dip them in paint (the saliva is a natural blending medium) and it occured to me that a wet palette might accomplish the same goal. So, I built a super cheap one using an old PP blister pack (cut off the back side), some paper towels, and a sheet of wax paper. So far I haven't used it much, but I somewhat like the results so far. I have a feeling that it is going to prove of limited use, mainly because it seems to noticably thin the paint that I put on it, but it definately does keep the paint wet. I'll try it out for the next couple weeks and report back.

To credit the larger community out there, in the construction of my wet palette, I used this tutorial mainly.

Sea Dog Rifleman 3

Whew! Last rifleman done! Again, still out of dullcoat, so I have to seal it, but close enough. This was also the first model painted using my new lamp! This was the lamp I mentioned a few posts ago. This lamp is AWESOME! It's the limousine of lamps. I need to replace the bulbs though since they have a bit of a blue tint to them currently. The lack of heat from this lamp is a noticable change from my previous lamps. I can totally see why ArkenTyre said his painting improved once he started to use this lamp. Like making the move to Series 7's, it was a leap of faith for me, and turned out to be worth every penny.

Freebooter

Finished the Freebooter today, although I ran out of dullcoat, so it's not really "finished". This model's "paint like I have a pair" elements are the dirtying up (after doing all that shading work, and also the metals got some extra love this time. I read a post on the Privateer boards under the "Ask the Studio" thread where Quentin talked about how he works on metals. I took this opportunity to try out the techniques. I'll talk more about it in a future post, but basically it involves using multiple black paint washes to darken and shade the metals.

Sea Dog Rifleman 2

Whew! One more done. I actually have 1 last rifleman left to paint, but I'm itching to get working on the Freebooter, so I demoted him in the queue.

Just a note about this batch of Sea Dogs, as I work on models, I always leave the paint pots out that I've used and then they get returned to my mobile trays once I'm done. For these last 8 models, I just kept leaving them out so that I could try to use as many different colors as possible throughout the entire squad. By the time I finished this one, I was down to about a dozen assorted paints, metalics and inks.

Weekend Roundup

Yesterday I played in the WM tourney at my LGS. I got a Menoth coin by default, being the only Menoth player, but otherwise it was pretty uneventful. I had a by in the last round, so I only played 2 games. The first was against a very standard Cryx Witch Coven assassination list, which, assassinated me (but not before I destroy the Deathjack!) The second game however was against a Madhammer list, and was extremely entertaining.

I've also decided to bite the bullet and upgrade one of my lamps, mostly based on this thread on the Privateer Forums. I hadn't even noticed before how much heat my current lamps throw off. I'm hoping this upgrade will help as much as the Brushthralls claim they do.

Today's a catchup day. Getting lots of misc tasks done, and reorganizing/cleaning my painting desk.

Sea Dog Rifleman 1

First rifleman done. I took the opportunity here to try out painting some pattern on the bandana like the studio painted one. It turned out fairly well I think. Could have been a little more cleanly painted, but these guys are just rank and file. The next one is already about 30% done too. Probably this weekend he'll get finished as well. However today is tournament day, so no painting today!

Ahoy Ye Scabberous Dogs!

I finished up my 6 man Sea Dogs unit this weekend. These guys were a blast to paint. I took a few shortcuts in order to stay under 5 hours for each one. Below is the group shot of all 6 together. I uploaded seperate pics into seperate posts per scabberous dog and postdated the entries to match when I actually finished them. Now, on to the riflemen!

Sea Dog 5

Sea Dog 4

Sea Dog 3

Sea Dog 2

Sea Dog 1

First of the Sea Dogs (after the mate). The pics are kinda washed out on this one since he's so much whiter than most things I photograph in the lighbox with this background. Overall the Sea Dogs are a blast to paint. Just the right level of sculpted detail to allow them to be quick and yet have plenty of character. I'm getting braver about painting stripes now too.

Freebooter Sorceress

In contrast to pretty much everything else I've shown here, this is not a Privateer model. This Freebooter model is something my wife asked me to paint for her, so I put it into the queue and finished it just the other day. I spent alot of time on it and am relatively pleased, although this model felt cursed. She kept losing her arms, and at one point I dropped her off my painting desk (which is 4' high) and onto the hardwood floor. Miraculously she merely fell apart, and no paint chipping or damage was incurred.

Parallel Projects

Lots of stuff going on lately, and unfortunately painting time is at a premium. However I'm getting lots of projects moving and/or completed lately. Here's an update on painting/miniatures projects:

Display Case Enhancements: A couple years ago I bought one of the Ikea Detof display cases, which I have to say, for the cost, has been a wonderful investment. It's provided a great way to store and display my miniatures... until recently. I've got enough paintined stuff now that it has nearly run out of space. So, my wife made a quite clever and remarkably obvious comment of "Why not add more shelves?" So, this weekend I got some additional glass shelves cut (because Ikea doesn't sell the shelves individually), and some metal rods. Using some florist wire to suspend the rods in place, and then some 2-part epoxy glue, I secured the rods in place. Then a few rubber washers around the rods and BAM, 2 more shelves added securely and easily. The project probably took me about 2 hours once I had all the materials.

Troop Transport Options: I've been having a little frustration with laying out trays for my Army Transport case. I've got the small one that only holds 8" of trays, which I very much like, but it does create some challenges around planning trays flexibly. I saw a post on the Privateer Forums by bugbait_nz where he shows some custom trays he made. This gave me an idea to make some of my own trays. So after some hunting, I found a nearby store that sells foam (interestingly named House Of Foam). My plan is to create some half-sized trays similar to bugbait's so that I can have more flexible configuration options. The foam is ordered and should arrive next week.

Painting: I did actually get some painting done. I'll post those pics next as seperate posts though. I'm slowly working through my Sea Dogs, and hopefully will have them done by next weekend. This weekend though is full of entertainment (Cirque du Soleil and a Superbowl party).

Sea Dog Mate

Well here's the Sea Dog Mate, leader of the squad. These Sea Dog models are very fun. I especially liked this model because it has just the right level of detail to make him both fun and fast to paint. Now to get the rest of the squad painted!

The Crushing of a Lifetime

Played a 500pt game against Eric tonight and I gotta say, I got crushed. I mean really smoted.

My List: Kreoss, a Reckoner, a Castigator, a Crusader, a full chior, 2 paladins, Vilmon, and 2 wracks.

My Enemy: Grim, an Impaler, a Blitzer, a Fell Caller, Alten, 3 Long Riders, and 6 Pyg Burrowers.

My Casualties: Everything except the Crusader basically. I got Kreoss into melee with Grim, but just couldn't land enough hits to put him down.

My Tactical Error: I switched the chior to Infuse from Safe Passage, opening the door for a bunch of shooting, from a primarily shooting army.

My Regrets: None. I drove my army straight at the enemy, spending half the game with most of my models on the other side of the board. I charged Kreoss into melee and played balls out. It was my intent from the beginning of the game. I could have played a brick and slowly marched across the table, but this was definately more fun.

Epic Feora 2, Skorne 0

Battled Lance last night and pulled out another victory! This time it was 750pts of eFeora goodness against Zaal and his Skorne cohort. I've been very happy with eFeora now that I've sort of "got the hang of her". I've found that a balanced force really helps alot. Last nights army consisted of eFeora, a Crusader, a Repenter, a Redeemer, 2 Seneschals, Vilmon, a Paladin, Knights Exemplar, Daughters, Cleansers, a Chior, Grogspar, Rupert, Gorman and 3 wracks. The battle was, for the most part, a really good scrum around the middle of the table, but in the end I wore down the Skorne force. Here's some highlights:

• Skorne Immortals with Zaal's "double STR" spell are crazy dangerous. They whacked Vilmon easily.
• The Skorne Cannoneer is bad business, laying out template blasts and boosting damage against poor Gorman. I had alot of problems with putting my stealth models near non-stealth targets.
• The Crusader was a rockstar, taking down a Titan Gladiator in one round while benefiting from the Chior's Infuse and 3 focus. I think both Lance and I were suprised actually.
• The bonded Redeemer was quite amusing for handing out fire. Even though I never used eFeora's feat, the fire was quite effective at causing some general concern.
• eFeora's Escort spell is just plain boss. The +2" of movement really makes the SPD 4 jacks a viable choice, and jacks like the Redeemer and Repenter can really benefit from being able to move 7" and then take their attack.

All in all, a very fun game, and further confirmation that eFeora is a good caster for my play style. A nice balance between troop and jack support makes her a real favorite for me.

Paladin of Menoth (Alt Sculpt)

Wrapped up the Paladin today. This was the alternate sculpt version. I definately like this pose better. I opted for a green scheme instead of red for this one to make it easier to distinguish them when playing. He's one of a few green schemed models I have for Menoth now. The green probably could have been a little deeper in color, but I like the tone better than what I've done before. Definately not a primo job, but I'm happy. It felt good to get back in the saddle after almost a month and a half of no painting.

I picked up a box of Sea Dogs as well as the magnificent Aiyana and Holt models, so although this model marks the "fully painted" mark for my Menoth force currently, I've now got about 200pts of unpainted mercs to get working on.

Victory for Ashlynn

Played a very entertaining game against Eric on Wednesday night (geez I'm behind on blogging). It was a 500pt Mercs vs Trolls rumble. My rather unconventional list consisted of: Ashlynn, a Nomad, a Freebooter, Gorman, Herne and Johne, Hawk, Grogspar, Doc, 2 Bokurs, and Alten. Yes I realized later that I broke the Highborn contract later by including Grogspar. In all honesty though, for the first time he was inconsequential to the game. Eric had Grim, an Impaler, an Axer, a Mauler , Champs and Gobbers. I think there was something else, but it slips my mind now.

The first couple rounds were mostly just advancing and a couple minor exchanges. The Gobbers did a superb job of protecting the beasts and Grim from any potential reprisal. The third round started off as a disaster for me. The Axer charged in and took off both arms from the Nomad, and then the Champs charged in, and the champ leader (with the Mauler's Rage on him) single handedly cut the Freebooter to pieces, much to my sadness. Then Grim feated and it looked like I was gonna get pinned down. Fortunately, Grim used the last of his fury to cast Return Fire on himself. My only option was to go for the throat. Ashlynn walked out of melee, and exacted revenge on the Champ leader, but more importantly, opened up a lane of movement. Then she popped her feat, catching my entire force. Next, Gorman moved through the open lane and tossed Black Oil and Grim. Unfortunately he missed. I had counted on the penalty to def to help, but in the end it didn't matter. Grim's feat was positioned between himself and my main line of solos, which I then used to my advantage. I moved Hawk forward a bit, and then her Bokur charged Grim. Despite standing in the Gobber's cloud, Ashlynn's feat gave the Bokur enough bonus to land his first 2 strikes and cut Grim to ribbons. Definately a win from some lucky positioning and rolls. I can't complain too much about my dice. There were a couple snakeyes rolls, but the Bokur's rolling made up for it in the end. Hats off to Eric though for putting me in a really tight spot. He'd have been hard pressed to kill me in the next round with Ashlynn's feat still active against him, but he'd definately have put me away in a couple more rounds I suspect.

Warpwolf Extreme

Here's the final pics for the Warpwolf Extreme. Basically the only stuff done since the last post was flocking the base and sealing it. I added a couple size comparison pics that I took from earlier on in the project.

WWX: Leathers

Worked over the leathers. It took longer than I expected, mostly just cause of basecoating them. Here's the rundown how how I did them:

* Base coat: Rucksack Tan
* Wash: Skorne Red + Brown Ink + Battlefield Brown
* Wash (thin): Bloodstone + Thamar Black
* Minor black touchups
* Highlight: Rucksack Tan + touch of Skorne Red

I also did the eyes and the metal strap hooks. Those were pretty straight forward, although I don't think the eyes turned out so great. I might redo them later.

WWX: Pokey Bits

All the teeth, spines and claws are done now (mostly). There's some blacklining left to do, and some minor touch-ups, but those parts are pretty much done. This is something I went a little overboard on. I started with Thamar Black, then worked through Battlefield Brown, Rucksack Tan, Jack Bone, Menoth White Base, Menoth White Highlight, and finally pure Morrow White. It takes a long time, but I've been pretty happy with the results.

WWX: Getting Better

I've finished the bulk of the skin work now. There's a few cleanup spots, but in general it's done. The steps I added after finishing the fur were mostly to add some highlighting with Coal Black through Ironhull Grey. Then I added a couple very very thin washes of Coal Black through Thamar Black over the whole thing to bury the highlights a bit. This was a technique I learned from practicing wood grain and bone texture and I think it works well here as well.

The model still looks kinda dumb to me at this point, but hopefully once I start filling out the rest of details it will look better. I'll probably keep working tonight, but this was a good point to stop and take a picture and chronicle the effort.

Victory Against Skorne!

Just a quick report. Played against Lance last night. He had a Hexeris list and I had a Testament list. It was the first time I played the Testament. He was recently painted so I figured I'd give him a try. Overall he was ok, but his feat round was pretty ridiculous. In the end I had lost have my knights and a couple chior, but had taken out 4 Ferox, a Bronzeback, Paingivers, a Gator, and most of the Bonegrinders. Admittedly, Hexeris did some of that work for me with a Deathbringer that caught some other stuff. Here's the highlights:

• Grogspar continues to be awesome. His slowburn screws up alot of plans.
• The Testament's feat was crazy good.
• Hallowed Avenger was very handy. I used it to get the Guardian further up the middle and block off some charge options for the Titans.
• Seneschals are just crazy ridiculous. Nothing like getting a chain attack slam on a Bronzeback and knocking it back into a Titan Gladiator to screw up a whole mess of stuff.
• The Guardian continues to be one of my favorite jacks.
• The Agonizer is frustratingly good at removing options.
• The Titan Gladiator's animus is also frustratingly good at removing options.
• Daughters continue to be a favorite unit for me. I especially loved having a little flanking unit of Vilmon and his harem full of Daughters and Hawk.
• Ferox are not fearless, and failing a cmd check can make or break a game. Putting terror on my knights was an amusing way to add more danger to the Ferox charging them.

Well, I'm hoping to get at least one more game in before I leave on my long vacation to Canada. In the mean time, I need to get refocused on painting again. I'm so close to fully painted!

WWX: The Line Between Fur and Skin

I've started working the furs now. This is the point where the model is in an in-between state and I get frustrated cause it looks sucky. I'm basically hitting the fur areas with a base coat of Trollblood Highlight, and then catching the sculpted fur bits with highlights of Frostbite and then Morrow White. I've also used some Ironhull Grey and Coal Black to blend and smooth the transitions between the fur base coat and the skin. I'm about 30% done at this point and need to take a break to go out, but figured I'd snap a pic anyway. I'll probably get back to it more tonight. I'm thinking that I'll need to do a couple very thing washes of Coal Black of even just straight black to bury the fur highlights a bit and tone it down.