RtC: To The Competition!

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 2 days!

Well, today is the opening day of KublaCon, and I'm ready! There were a number of small refinements to the model since my last update over 3 weeks ago. I'll post final pics of this guy later, but here's a quickie one before he heads off to the competition display case.

Overall I'm pretty happy. I'm not really expecting to place well in the masters, but it's a goal I set for myself regardless. I've put a lot of time into this model. I'd conservatively estimate at least 50 hours, and perhaps as many as 75. I'm really ready to be done with him.

One thing to note is that I decided not to seal him like I normally would with other models that I use. I spent an enormous amount of effort on the metallics, and applying a sealing coat could easily throw them off.

While I'm at Kubla I'll be endeavoring to take lots of photos and post them each night, particularly of the Warmachine/Hordes events.

Gun Mages (take 2)

Yikes! To say that I've been in a painting slump would be a gross understatement. I just checked my blog and it's been more than 2 months since I finished a model. So without further ado, here's my second set of Gun Mages, complete with officer.



Ok, so what happened to the SPQR series? Well, a couple things. First is that the posts felt awkward. I do plan to pick up the SPQR posts from time to time, but not quite as the regular installment that I had intended. Instead I'll do them sporadically as tips and techniques come up. Trying to do it with the Gun Mages here felt pretty forced and was holding me back from getting them painted.

Second is that I just needed to get something finished, and these guys were already in progress. I've been working on the War Hog for so long now that I really just wanted to be finishing something. The War Hog is still in progress and will get done this week. However I just needed to feel some sense of accomplishment (however meager) to give me a little juice again.

Anyway, nothing special here. Speed painted and not that great (by my standards), but they are done and just itching to be used in that Ashlynn tier list!

Make Your Opponent's List

Last night I played an amusing game where my opponent (Henry) built a list for me from his model collection, and I built one for him from my collection. We played a 25pt game and (in the spirit of a learning experience) used the following friendly rules:
* Must use every point, included jack/beast points
* Models included must have a legitimate chance of coming into play (no Incubi without any models to pop out of)
* 2 proxies items allowed
* Simple Killbox scenario

Lists:
My list for Henry: High Reclaimer, Templar, Crusader, Vigilant, Reclaimer, 5 Cinerators, Herne & Jonne - Tons of SPD 4 stuff, hardly any warriors to generate soul tokens, and of course a merc unit that is notoriously random for effectiveness. I was quite pleased with this chunk of lousy.

Henry's list for me: Grissel, Slag Troll, Krielstones (6 + UA), Runebearer, Gudrun, Pendrake, Swamp Gobbers, Bone Grinders (6), Bog Trog Ambushers (10) - Wow! Did the Skornegy here! Lots of awesome spells and features that... only affect Faction models. Hahaha! What a lumb of terrible!

Battle Summary:
The quick synopsis is that I started off by surrounding Henry on all sides, with Gudrun sneaking around behind his forces, the Bog Trogs coming in on a side edge, and the bulk of my force approaching from a third angle to trap him in. The first hit on the High Reclaimer (aka "HR") came in the form of a Rift blast from Grissel against the Crusader which just reached the HR too, scoring 5 points. At that point he backed off from that battle line and towards his Cinerators. The next hit on the HR came from the Bog Trogs. They rushed in from behind and despite the Cinerators' best efforts, a couple Bog Trogs slipped around behind them. I used a lot of careful placement by running them instead of charging to keep the Cinerators relatively pinned in. One lone Bog Trog got a charge against the HR in his back when he had no focus on him and scored a whopping 10 damage! My 3-angle attack was working well, but I was taking heavy casualties in the process, losing all the Bog Trogs, half the Krielstones, and half the Bone Grinders. On the other side of the table, only the Crusader and Herne & Jonne were destroyed. I got lucky on two specific things though: First, the Templar ended up about 1/4" outside of the HR's control area at a critical point, which severely handicapped it's ability to cause damage, and second, the Vigilant didn't end up in B2B with the HR. The last 4 points on the HR came from a lucky second Rift blast damage. The HR had put clouds out to block LOS, but the remaining Gobber stood in the cloud just right. Then Grissel dropped a rift on him. Fortunately for me it scattered onto the HR, and the blast damage did plenty to finish him off.

Learnings:
* Even a marginalized model can create a good combo. Pendrake's bola combined with the Slag Troll pretty much wrecked face on the Crusader. It allowed the Slag to reliably hit and use his focus for boosting damage and taking the extra shot.
* Maneuvering can grant a lot of power. Although the Bog Trogs didn't kill any Cinerators (and in all fairness, I didn't want to be handing out soul tokens), they were able to use their reach as an advantage. By positioning them on opposite sides of a Cinerator at their reach range, the Cinerators had movement problems due to potential free strikes.
* When possible, flanking forces your opponent into tough decisions about how to split their defenses. By coming in from 3 angles, the HR had to use Cinerators on one side, Jacks on the other, and then focus for clouds to keep himself safe. It allowed me to pick which engagements happened and when/where they took place.
* This format is awesome! Totally loved it. I'm looking forward to doing this again. It really forced me to hunt for hidden combos in a ragtag set of models, and that I feel translates well when trying to build a competitive list.

Game 2:
Ok, actually, this was a throwback game of Battletech, and I'm throwing this in just for fun. I hadn't played Battletech for ages and Henry was kind enough to offer a game as a refresher course. The game ended up being pretty short. We spent a turn advancing towards each other and then the first volley was exchanged. Henry shot at me and missed. Then I fired back...
Lance (spectating the game): You should shoot everything and try to take out his head.
Me: I shoot all my guns!
Henry: Ok, let's start with the PPC. Roll to hit.
Me: 7! Does that hit?
Henry: Yes, exactly. Roll location.
Me: 12! What's that hit?
Henry: Uh, the head. Roll to see if you get a critical.
Me: 8!
Henry: Oh dear. That's 1 critical. Roll location.
Me: 3! What's that do?
Henry: That's the cockpit. You just killed my pilot.
Me: Neato!
Lance: That's going to make for great salvage! No damage except for killing the pilot.
So, it was an amusing albeit short refresher of Battletech.

RtC: My Time Management Sucks

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 27 days

More pictures than normal for this update of the War Hog! I've made significant progress, despite the fact that I'm doing a terrible job managing my time and staying focused. One of the most important hurdles I overcame this week was to get everything base coated. Well, almost everything. There's one warjack head that isn't completely base coated. However it's 98% base coated at this point, and that's helping my focus an awful lot. Now I can get a better sense of the overall look of the piece. At this point I'm definitely noticing that the head draws the majority of the attention. I'm very curious to get feedback from my readers though about the overall look at this point (including the base).

So what's working well for me so far? Lots!
* Using dry pigments is working out great. I'm still a total amateur with them, but the results are pretty compelling none the less.
* Working a section at a time is very helpful. I'm not completing a section entirely, but I work it to a level of medium satisfaction and then move on to another area for a bit. This is keeping me fresh, but also helping me think about the overall look of the model as I go.
* The new pot of bronze paint I got is really working well. It's actually from the Golden Acrylics line. Golden Acrylics are hit and miss, but when they hit, they sure are good.

My wife was looking at it last night and said "Are you almost done?" I chuckled and said that I was probably about 50% done time-wise, to which she gave me a confused look and wandered off. So what are some of the major things left to do? Here's my list of things that haven't really gotten much work at all: teeth, tongue, eyes, right-hand/axe, rope, right leg, warjack heads, and the boiler. Lots of stuff still needs additional passes to tighten it up, and there's lots of little details (like putting some pink on the flesh where it's stitched together). I'm still debating whether to put a tattoo of some kind on him too. Perhaps something like a serial number or instructions. I'll see where things shake out time wise once I'm closer to done before I start adding more work.

For my painting readers out there, you may want to wander off now because I'm going to insert a gaming rant. I proxy-played a couple of Farrow forces the other night with my gaming buddies who were kind enough to put up with a pile of proxies. I'll skip the normal battle report and jump right to the rant. OH MY GOD DO FARROW SUCK!!! Seriously, I hated playing them. The War Hogs I fielded did almost nothing in both games. Maybe it's just a huge learning curve and they aren't my playing style. I'm willing to chalk it up to that. But here's my gripe: They are SLOW, and they don't have the arm stats to survive the beatings they will receive on the way to the battle. I wanted to like them. I really did. I love the models overall. But it's really hard to get excited to paint something when you realize it isn't fun to play. Ok, rant over. Nevertheless, I'm going to finish this beast for the painting competition and then he can menace my painting shelves.

RtC: Never Satisfied

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 34 days

So I've made some significant progress on the War Hog over the last couple days, but I still have a long ways to go. At this point almost everything is base coated to some degree, with a few small exceptions like the rope, teeth, and any brass metals. This is helping me get a better feel for how the whole model is shaping up tone/contrast wise. I can already tell I may need to make some significant alteration as I go along. The good news is that I'm getting much happier about how the skin is working out.

Over the weekend, while painting, I was thinking about how much I've learned on this specific project by taking a lot longer...

First, thinning paints really does help. I've been forcing myself to thin the paints a little more than I normally do, and I've found it to be really helpful. I'm doing a lot more layering instead of 2BB, but the results are still pretty good. Forcing myself to do this has been challenging, but definitely valuable.

Next is that I've found I really need a completely separate set of brushes and rinses for metalics. I'd moved to a separate rinse for metals a few months ago, but while I was working on this project, I definitely started to notice little bits of metal lingering in the brush despite a thorough rinsing. Being very disciplined about this is actually pretty easy. I marked my metallic brushes with some tape on the handles to make it easier to keep them straight.

Working on just one project drives me crazy. I normally have a primary focus, but I've set aside everything else to focus on just the War Hog for the last 3 weeks now and I'm getting a little frustrated. I'll probably try to wrap up my SPQR Gun Mages this week just to have a sense of accomplishment. I'm also really antsy to get back to painting Legion models.

The last thing is that I'm never satisfied. I'll call a model done, but I'm never 100% satisfied with it. This is sometimes frustrating, but I feel this attribute is what helps drive me to be a better painter.

RtC: Change is Good

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 39 days

My painting process is getting thrown sideways in a number of ways on this project. First it was having to put the model on a base before painting it. Now I've found myself in the position of having to get most of my base coating done before doing highlight and shading work. This is a departure from my normal process where I tend to work a single area to completion and then move on to another area. On the one hand, I feel it's a good thing to change up my process to see if something different works better. On the other hand, I'm worried that changing my process on what is meant to be a competition piece. I guess only time will tell.

This photo shows the current state of the flesh, but I've only done base coating and highlighting. There's a lot of shading to do now and to bring the tone back in line with the rest of the piece. However I'm likely going to start working on another area before doing the shading. I think this will help me with my overall composition which is where my biggest skill growth area is now I feel.

Ugh! 39 days to go! I'll never make it at this rate. I need to sleep less and paint more.

RtC: How many days left?

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 44 days

I really need to get cracking if I'm going to have this thing done in time for the competition. Tonight's progress is small, but important. I did the black base coating for the major sections that will be metal. Also I got the loincloth to a point that is nearly done. It needs a glaze or two to smooth out the colors still, but it's close. It's pretty late though, and I desperately need sleep. Hopefully this weekend will produce some results as well.

RtC: Hog the Base

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 49 days

I'm actually writing this post during the course of mounting the War Hog model to the base I'd prepped. Why? Well, it's a little nerve wracking so writing the post at the same time is both cathartic and gives me time to pause and think through my next step. I apologize in advance for the odd wording/tense of phrases in this post.

The first thing I need to do is drill a first hole. Something to note here is that the two pieces of metal I used on the base were some random scraps of metal I found in a parking lot that I just happened to like the look of. There's one pictured here. They have convenient holes in them so I just need to make sure my pin holes go through there to avoid any really unpleasant drilling. So after using a spare one as a guide, I've picked out a spot for the left foot pin to go through and will drill that hole.

Ok, with that hole now drilled, I need to do something really terrifying. I decided to leave the round tab on the bottom of the hoof for added stability and drill out a larger space for that tab. So I got out my 1/8" drill bit and *shudder* my power drill. I don't have a smaller drill handy that can hold such a bit so I'll just have to be very careful. I've done similar stuff before, just not on a base that I'd already put multiple hours of work into. Anyway, here goes...

Success! No cracking of the basing material or anything. The weight of the drill did most of the work for me so that I could focus on keeping a steady hand. I did a test fit and it's perfect. Now the next step is tricky, but one I've done a number of times: Drilling the second hole. My process here is pretty straight forward. First I measure out the distance between the pins in the feet (1 3/32"), then measure and mark the second hole on the base. This is a little more complicated since I have to either aim for the hole in the metal piece, or avoid the metal entirely. Ok, I totally got lucky here. It just barely slips into the corner of where that plate was. Time to drill!

Ok, not as smoothly as I was hoping. I had to adjust my drilling angle just a bit, but it got sorted out. After an initial dry fit, I just applied some glue and there it is! Miniature and base are now one. There's some clean up to do once all the glue dries, but now I feel like I can proceed with confidence on painting the hog itself. I'll explain the current state of the hog himself next time, but it's getting late and I'm still recovering from the flu.

Finally, a comment to my readers who posted feedback on the base: Thanks! I got a lot of consistent feedback from here and other sources as well. At this point I definitely think dirtying up the hoses more will be necessary, but I'm going to wait until I get further along in the project before I make those changes.

RtC: Lots of Painting While Sick

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 52 days

Well, being home sick has the advantage that I got some painting done. It's all work on the base, which I'm calling mostly done at this point, although I may go back and make some adjustments after I've started making progress on the War Hog itself.

I should note at this point that I'm inviting critiques from my readers. Obviously constructive criticism is what I'm looking for. Obviously I'm just looking for feedback about the base itself, since the War Hog is still absent.

I used a bunch of different techniques in working on this, most notably though is using dry pigments. I'm still sort of building up my comfort and familiarity with them, but this base was an obvious target for using them. For this work I actually tried out pigments from Vallejo, Secret Weapon, and MIG. For the most part they preformed pretty equivalently, although the Vallejo ones seemed to require less work to break down some of the chunks of pigment.

From the Desk: (De)Motivational Material

Quick update for folks out there. In case you hadn't heard of the Crystal Brush painting competition this year at Adepticon, here's a couple links to check out. Fair warning, the stuff entered here is absolutely amazing. The Crystal Brush is attempting to set itself as the premier painting competition here in the states. Salute being the big one in the UK.

Here's the winners.

And here's a link to all the entrants.

I always enjoy looking at these high-end painting competitions even though I don't have a chance of placing in one of them. Although it's easy to find such amazing works to be de-motivational, I tend to look at them for inspiration and ideas. Anyway, just some eye candy for folks out there that might not have heard of this competition. With a $10,000 grand prize, it's hard to simply gloss over this as "just another painting competition".

RtC: Base Progress

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 56 days

As I should have expected this. My motivation and free time have both dwindled dramatically. Business trips, getting sick, and more house guests have erupted during the last 3 weeks. Nevertheless, I'm trying to make some progress.

So I started doing some work on the base. Pictured here is a bunch of the components for it. The main reason for working on the base this early is (as I mentioned before) the weakness of the legs. This was a significant problem given my normal painting process. I typically attach models to an empty spray can in order to hold them better while painting. However since this guy is so massive and with such a thin right leg, I quickly realized I needed to better secure him somehow. Attaching him to the base is my only logical recourse. Normally I wouldn't do this unless absolutely necessary, but for some specific models (like the Carnivean and his cousins) I've changed this process. When I do, I typically leave long pins sticking out the bottom of the base to attach it to the spray can.

So anyway, here's the base at about 75% assembled. I wanted to create a sort of mechanical laboratory feel to the base. The biggest chunk of work here was in casting out the metal plating. I searched high and low for textured plasticard that matched what I was looking for but found nothing. However while scouring my LGS, I came across a very large base (70mm) that had the right pattern and some InstantMold product. That evening I cast out the mold which was a piece of cake. Then I pressed in a bunch of black Milliput and I had exactly the patterned steel plating I wanted. Then it was just an arduous task of shaping it to a circle and carving out a square space in the middle. Once that was done I added the metal grill and additional metal pieces.

Here's the fully assembled base. It's now sitting in my garage as the primer dries. Today I'm hoping to get started painting it and drill out the necessary pin holes to mount the War Hog to it. With only 8 weeks left, I'm starting to feel the pressure to really get rolling on this project. Time to carve out some serious time and really paint like I have a pair!

RtC: It Never Fails...

No matter how much time I spend looking for mold lines, I always miss one or two. No exception with the War Hog project. I found a couple places that needed clean up. I knifed/filed them down and then used some of the brush-on primer to clean up the spots. Totally worth the extra mile on this project.

I also discovered a bit of a problem. The right leg (the mechanical one) isn't very strong and started to bend while I was moving him around by the pins sticking out of his feet. Normally I'd paint him completely separate from the base, but I think in this case I'm going to need to get him on the base so that I can better secure him.

Speaking of basing, I've started putting together my idea. I got some great inspiration from David's comment (link) and I'm doing my own adaption of this to match my goal for the War Hog. I'm not going to share too much more yet, but this picture shows my collection of bits I plan to use.

Well, it's late, and I'm still recovering from my work travel this last week so I'm going to cut this post short so that I can get some sleep and get an early start on this basing project tomorrow.

Feralgeist

Super quick post. Here's the finished Feralgeist that I painted the other day. Nothing amazing really. I decided to keep it in the pink theme. I sorely debated whether to try and make it lighter in the center and darker near the high points. I sort of wish I had, but it's done now. If I end up painting a second one for whatever reason, I'll do the reverse of this one.

RtC: Underpainting Trial

If you picked up No Quarter #34 and read Matt DiPietro's article about underpainting, you may have found yourself curious just as I did. Well, I decided to try this technique out. Now I need to at a disclaimer here: This is the very first time I've tried this specific technique, so my execution was less than optimal. In the past I used to prime models black and then drybrush white to get an idea of surfaces. This process was new for me. With that caveat out of the way, let's see my results.

	First, I started with my freshly primed Feralgeist. I chose this model due to it being a good candidate for multiple wash layers. I followed the article as closely as made sense. The grey coat covered probably 80% of the surface, and the white coat covered probably 30%. My first note here is that doing light shots of primer like this left some graininess that I'm not used to having when I do solid coats. No matter, it seemed to have little effect on the final product.
	First, I did a wash of P3 Carnal Pink, probably about 1:3. It was thick enough to give a strong tint of the pink to the entire surface. At this point I definitely noticed that the underpainted coat has a noticeable effect on the pink wash layer.
	Next, a thinner wash of half P3 Carnal Pink and half VMC Pink. This was probably at about 1:4, with a drop of flow aid thrown in for good measure. At this point, the underpainted coat is becoming less obvious.
	Now a wash of just VMC Pink, at roughly 1:5 with a couple drops of flow aid in there. Again, even less obvious of the underpainting.
	Now a wash of half VMC Pink and half P3 Beaten Purple. About 1:5 with definite flow aid added.
	Ok, I have no idea what happened with my camera here. This step was where I went back and re-higlighted some areas with slightly thinned (1:1) P3 Carnal Pink to bring some surface back to a brighter shade.
	Next, I did a very controlled wash of P3 Beaten Purple and some VGC Violet ink. This was something like 2 parts paint, 1 part ink, 3 parts water, 2 parts flow aid. By controlled wash I mean that rather than washing the entire surface, I just washed the recessed areas that I wanted to darken. It is at this point that my step-by-step comes to an end because...

... Where'd the underpainting go? Ok, perhaps my wash technique was not entirely the best option here. The article really only does 1 or 2 washes on top of the underpainting, and they tend to be darker colors. So I'll admit, my test is probably not entirely reflective of the way the technique should be employed. In any case, here are my takeaways:

1) Underpainting via 3 primer coats (and necessary black painting the recesses) takes time.
2) The technique definitely works better with just a couple washes.
3) Taking the time to underpaint definitely gives a much better sense of where to highlight, particularly if you follow the zenithal highlighting methodology.
4) This is not particularly compatible with my own painting style.
5) I'm glad I took the time to try it out, and hey, my Feralgeist went from blister pack to done in 2 days, which is a record for me! (I'll post the final model tomorrow)

So, will I use this for my War Hog? Probably not.
Will I use it for select future projects? Very likely yes.
Do I recommend other people try it out? Absolutely! See if it works for you! Trying out new techniques is what it takes to step up your painting.

Until next time, paint like you have a pair!

Spell Martyrs

Adding another 1pt option to my army building is nice. I can't imagine that I'd ever field 3 of these, but in a large game at least I've got the option. On the actual gaming side of things, I've been wanting to round out all my 1pt options for list building, so adding these gets me nearly complete. All that's left is the Feralgeist, which is currently in progress.

All things considered, these were pretty quick to paint. Everything on the model is easily accessible to the brush. I didn't want to spend a ton of time on them, but I could easily see myself getting one more just to do a premium paint job on it just for kicks.

What went well:
* Athanc stone glow - I think this worked out pretty well. I didn't go all-out trying to OSL their chins and such, but it works.
* Overall composition - I tried to keep the rest of the model darker for the most part so that the glow would stand out better, which I feel that I accomplished.
* Black armor plates - I reproduced the same scheme from Anyssa for the black armor and it worked out pretty well. I really should have made notes this time.

What could have been better:
* Metals - The little dots and edges of Legion armor continue to drive me nuts. Those parts could have been cleaner.
* Blending on Skin - There's some splotchy places, particularly with the sanguine wash. I didn't notice it until after I'd already sealed it unfortunately.

SPQR: Adding That One More Step

Philosophy
Regardless of what your goals are, an essential quality of speed painting is about efficient use of time. I would imagine that most people out there are already working on multiple hobby projects at once. I find generally that gamers tend to have some level of awareness at how to optimize things. However there's some value in exploring the topic in case there are little nuggets of wisdom out there. In terms of efficiency, there are two primary areas that I focus on: workspace and multitasking.

Having a dedicated workspace for hobby projects can make an enormous difference in terms of efficiency. My workspace has evolved over the years that I've been painting. It started as a box of paints and brushes accompanied by whatever mug I grabbed from the shelf. Later it turned into a large portable serving tray. Today I have a dedicate desk, shelf space, paint racks and lamp. There are many articles out there about workspaces, and I've included a couple in the list of references at the end of this article. Focusing specifically on efficiency, it's important to organize your workspace so that the most commonly used items are within arm's reach, and you know exactly where to find them. Having plenty of area also helps so that you aren't shuffling things around frequently to accommodate whatever you shift to work on. The key here is to evaluate your space every so often to ensure you are getting the most of out it.

As a visual aid to my philosophy on multitasking, I've included a photo of my desk. Since I wasn't able to put labels on the items, consider this a bit of a scavenger hunt. I've got a can of primer because I'm waiting for a model I just primed to dry. I'm working on basing the Spell Martyrs. My Gun Mages patiently await their next SPQR step. My War Hog relaxes on the styrofoam where he awaits the next step in his progress. And on my tool rack, a piece of clay experiment is drying (more on that another time). As you can see, I've got 5 different things going on at once. The value in doing this is that while one thing dries or cures, I can be working on another thing. In some cases, I'm waiting for inspiration to strike and having them within visual range helps. This is more ambitious that my typical, but the point still applies. If you're able to keep juggling back and forth between assembly and painting, you'll make good use of time when something needs to sit and dry/cure.

Practice
So back to my Gun Mages. As a part of my goal of speed painting in order to get better, I'm taking one more step on the coats. I'm going to two brush blend (2BB) to deepen the shading.

For reference, here's the UA model from the unit as of the end of the previous post.

And here he is after 2BB some P3 Coal Black into the deeper areas. As you can see, this definitely deepens the shading as the recesses have much more coverage at this point. The 2BB technique can yield pretty good results in a short amount of time once you get good at it, but it takes a fair amount of practice. I forced myself to practice it on models that I was speed painting in order to get that practice in. Combining washes and 2BB techniques like this can work well to step a model above just basic tabletop quality.

Total painting time: 30 minutes. This time it literally is 30 minutes to paint this step for all 7 in the unit. Although the 2BB technique is relatively fast for the results, it isn't as fast as wash techniques.

References:
* Matt DiPietro's PP painting desk
* CMON Article about basic tools, including workspace
* YouTube video of Ron Kruzie using the 2BB technique at Gencon (terrible video quality, but you can get the general idea)

RtC: Assembly Finished

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 78 days

Assembly is finished for the War Hog! The last of the work was just getting the tusks and right hand attached, and then doing a bunch of gap filling around some of the major joints. The places where his skin is stitched together required some particular attention. Normally I might have just skipped that gap filling and used dark washes to disguise the joins. For competition purposes though, I felt it was really important to fill those gaps properly. It stretched my green stuff skills a bit since those stitch joints were somewhat fiddly to fill in. However, that work is now done, so it's time to move on to priming next.

Speaking of priming, I read the recent NQ article about "underpainting" and it got me thinking as to whether that might be a good technique for this. However, never having used the technique before, I honestly have no idea. I'm planning to do a test model using that technique but I'd love to hear from other folks out there about it. Post your comments!

Ok, and now for something more life-related. Part of my lack of progress on painting the last month was due to this project. My father-in-law and I spent a bunch of time working on my back yard area. The pavers and deck are all new, and it was a ton of work. But the end result has transformed the space into something much more functional and tranquil. Anyway, now that this project is complete, I should be getting more painting progress done.

Now it's time to start working out color schemes for this beastie and get on task.

SPQR: Speed Painting and Quality Results

Goal #3 for 2011: Do a series of posts on "speed painting".

It's high time I got started on this goal! This is the kick-off post for the SPQR series I'll be doing on an ongoing basis to tackle the large topic of speed painting. My goal is to give a balance between the "philosophy" of speed painting, and concrete examples of speed painting in practice.

Philosophy
The term "speed painting" has a pretty wide spectrum of definition for time, technique and quality. Those definitions vary primarily due to different goals, which each painter needs to define for themselves. Are you looking to get a painted army on the table? Are you looking to improve your brush handling techniques? Is your available painting time limited and you're looking to balance quality and completion? The goal is what will drive what type speed painting you undertake.

In my case, I have 2 goals. The secondary goal is to get stuff painted for playing with. But my primary goal is really to improve my skills. My underlying theory is that I can always buy another copy of a model rather than strip and start over if it isn't perfect. I've been doing this sort of balance between speed and quality for the last couple years and I've seen a noticeable improvement in both brush accuracy and blending quality. One key factor to this improvement is that I always take time after I seal a model to review what I liked and what I didn't like, even if I don't blog about it. Occasionally I will set aside the speed painting mentality and go all-out on a model just to test where my upper limit is, but I can honestly say that taking this specific speed painting philosophy has indeed improved my skills.

Ok, enough of the philosophy, let's start a real example...

Practice

For the practice portion of these posts, I'm going to start with this unit of Gun Mages. They've been sitting in my paint queue for quite a while now, and although I don't expect to be playing them in the very near future I do want to get them painted. I should note that this is my second unit of Gun Mages to have painted (the first unit being here), so I've got the upper hand on these so to speak.

	Here's my starting point... a white primed model. I'm actually painting the whole unit at once, but I'm only going to show one model for the purposes of demonstrating the progress. I'm using a "wash over white" technique to help speed up the process of the major areas. The idea is that the washes over white do a lot of the hard work in terms of highlighting and shading. It's certainly not competition quality, but for tabletop standards it gets good results. Note that I'm not going to discuss other primer color options here. This technique is specifically for white primer.
	First painting step, base wash with Trollblood Highlight 1:1 (paint:water ratio). You'll notice that the coverage here is pretty good. Some white shows through, but not a whole lot. I'm starting with a more gray base before going to blues just to give it a more military feel.
	Step 2, wash with Cygnar Blue Base 1:2:1 (paint:water:matte medium). The coverage here is significantly less, but it does create a translucent glaze over the entire thing. The reason reason I include matte medium rather than glaze medium is that it 1) helps glaze even the top surfaces, and 2) helps reduce reflectivity in the recesses.
	Step 3, wash with VMC Dark Sea Blue 1:3:1 (paint:water:matte medium). Similar goal as the previous step, just darkening things. Now normally there's a lot of advice about painting the recessed areas first, and moving to the higher areas to avoid making mistakes on completed areas. The reason I'm doing the washes first is simply that washes tend to be messy, especially when working fast. Doing the washes first means I won't slop on other areas later and cause more damage.

And there you go, about 1/3 of the model's entire surface has already been covered using this technique. It's not outstanding, but it gets the job done.

Total painting time: 30 minutes. Ok, let me add a caveat there. I did paint 7 of these guys at the same time ("assembly line" style), but it was about 30 minutes of actual time spent mixing paint and applying it. There was drying time in between, but I'm not going to count that. The reason being that I spent drying time working on other projects at the same time.


Feedback!

If you've made it this far, thanks! I'm planning to keep these relatively short and work my way through my backlog of unpainted models, so expect more in the near future. This being the first post in what I hope will be a continuing series, I'd love to get feedback on what would be useful in future posts.

Anyssa Ryvaal

I feel compelled to point out something amusing about the Anyssa Ryvaal model: She's got a sword on her back. Now normally this wouldn't be so interesting, and when put along with the other Raptor models since they all have swords. However Anyssa's stat card has no melee weapon listed at all. Not even the blades on her bow. She only has the bow on her stat card. Again, not necessarily odd except that the PP conversion rules are pretty clear about having to preserve the weapons of the model per the stat card. Ok, now that I've gotten that out of my system...

It's always a little challenging to get back to painting after an extended break of multiple weeks. This model was definitely no exception. Trying to pick out all the details on a larger complex model was really testing my patience. It didn't help that I ended up taking her to a tournament before she was completely finished and having some paint get rubbed/chipped off. However she's done now, and I'm moving on to some other speed painting projects to have more of a sense of accomplishment.

From the Desk: A Complete Lack of Progress

There are balances in my life. Work vs personal. Family vs hobby. Speed vs quality. Sometimes they swing towards more hobby time and this blog gets a lot of updates. Sometimes they swing the other way. Right now I'm getting very little hobby time. Anyssa is sitting on my desk, waiting to be spray sealed, and I don't have her to show yet. So instead, I have these two pictures.

The last couple days I was on a business trip. I had high hopes of getting some model trimming and assembly work done. However working dinners and wine and 1:00 am emergency calls got in the way of any hobby progress. However the trip was very fruitful. These pictures are from my hotel room. This whole month is pretty busy with business trips. And when I'm not on a trip, I'm going to be finishing the landscaping work in my back yard. So the hobby is taking a bit of a hit right now.

This is usually when I would post some philosophical exposition about the hobby and all this thinking I've been doing, but not today. Instead, just pictures, and a couple updates on projects:

Anyssa is nearly done. I'll have pictures posted of her this weekend.

I've started painting my second unit of Gun Mages. I've got an initial post ready about "Speed Painting with Quality Results" that I'm going to turn into a series. Hopefully I'll be able to start that soon.

Speed painting is about all I'm going to have time for during the month of March, so it's a good time to step back and acknowledge the "reality" of my situation. Ok, that started to get dangerously philosophical. Enjoy the pictures!