Chibis - 11/4/15

The Friday before CC15 I was lucky enough to take a Chibi painting class.  It was taught by Droachmega.  I've never painted a Chibi before but it was a blast!

The eyes of a zombie are usually "dead" but he wanted to show us the technique needed for anime-style eyes.  Mine turned out nowhere near the level of the others in the class but I was truly happy with it.  We used Reaper Master Series paints on them which I've never used before so I don't know the specific colors used.  I really like the paints they seemed to be rich in color and I liked the consistency.  I think I'll stick with my Vallejo paints though because of how cheaply I can get them and because they are readily available in my area.

Tom from Impact! gave us (the class members) another Chibi so I'm looking forward to painting that up.  Here's a start:

I "finished" him up.

Here he is with the one from class.

I definitely need work on doing hair and highlighting.  Also making the figures look smoother.  I do feel like I'm getting better at this painting thing but I have a long way to go.  I will get my hands on a few more of these minis.  They are so much fun to paint and I know I can do better.  This mini fell off his holder and into a pile of white paint so I stopped at that point.  He was done enough anyway.

As I said before, I won the Legacy team from CC15.  I would like to add a couple pieces to it so I've been searching the interwebs for the right models.  I'm going to paint them up to match the team.  I need at least a bull centaur and one chaos dwarf.    I haven't played CD's before so I'm looking forward to filling out the team.  Maybe I'll use them at CC16.

Update 11-3-15: Rotters and AoW

I've been working on painting quite a bit lately but I haven't been taking pics and such.  I have blocked in the colors on a few of the AoW minis.  They all have a ways to go but I've been working on new techniques on the side that will, hopefully, allow me to paint faster and better.  The technique is called "loaded brush."  The only place I've seen it is on Painting Buddha.  I'm not trying to do it for showcase level and I don't expect to be anywhere near as good as this guy is, but I think it can speed up my painting.  Here are some of the AoW minis so far.

AoW Progressing

I'll take better and individual pictures later.  The problem is, besides me taking poor pictures, I don't think about pictures until I done for the time.  They're an after thought.  The color scheme is based on Brown and Gold, WMU colors.

While waiting for colors to dry or just to break things up a bit, I've been slopping some paint on the Rotters for our defunct leagues community Nurgle team.  I painted a test model quite some time ago and they are fun!  I've changed up a few ideas from then.  Also these are weapon snips from some old minis (Plaguebearers I think) and the previous paint job didn't do these sculpts justice.  I find new and interesting details every time I pick one of these up.

Rotter Fun

It's hard to tell from the pic but these guys have guts spilling out and other random growths; all kinds of nastiness.

I'm also learning, very slowly, how to do NMM.  I'm not even to the point that I feel comfortable showing my failings, my first try turned out looking green and try two looked like light brown cloth.  Maybe I'll post future tries anyway.

Back in the Saddle

Holy cow.  Since Chaos Cup (which was awesome) I haven't had any hobby time.  Well, I finally got some stuff done.  I used my first chance to hobby to glue, and glue, and glue, and remove mold lines, and glue some more.  I decided it was time to put together my human team from Impact! and a buddy's Apes of Wrath team (also Impact!).  I've only had both teams for about a year now.  Both teams are Trollcast resin so I'm getting use to how light they are and learning to handle them with a bit more care.  I broke the foot off a catcher as I was cleaning a mold lines and I've broke other stuff too.  Luckily nothing of the AoW yet.  I'm doing a substantial amount of filling using green-stuff, I hope it turns out well in the finished product.  Once I get these models all primed up I'll have a ton to paint, about 20 apes and 16 humans.

Here's the AoW test model.

Lists so I remeber

Fur-
Base: VMC Flat Brown
Wash:  Citadel AES
Drybrush: VMC Black/Brown

Skin-
Base:  VMC Flat Brown
Build up:  1:1ish, VMC Flat Brown VMC German Uniform Khaki
Wash: Citadel GS
Highlight: VMC German Uniform Khaki

Teeth-
Base: VMC Off-white
Wash: Citadel AES

Pants-
Base: VMC Flat Brown, then Citadel IDS
Wash: Citadel GS
Build up: Citadel IDS
Highlight:  Citadel IDS with tip of VMC Deep Yellow

Pads-
Base: VMC Black/Brown
Wash: Citadel AES
Highlight:  VMC Flat Brown

Nose, meet Grindstone

I haven’t posted hobby stuff in a long, long time.  That’s not just because I’ve been lazy, I just haven’t had the time.  I’ve had a couple opportunities to play but no one else has been able to play at those times.  I’ve also been sick for some of the time and busy for the rest.  I’ve taken my newly diagnosed diabetic cat to the vet many times and that’s contributed to the lack of free time as well.  My wife and I had a garage sale this past weekend and now I can get some stuff done.

On the terrain tip I realized I need to finish up what I have instead of starting anything new.  I used some brown and black spray paint I had laying around the garage to give a base color to some ruins, fencing and wood stuff.

Spray pained base color/primer.

I found a tutorial for using thick cardboard to make up a flagstone look.  I’ve started to make some risers take on that look.  I also added some height to the edges of one elevation change.

My first attempt at a flagstone pattern.

Wood glue for adhesion and water to aid with curling.

I decided one of the elevation changes should have some walls built up.  I'll add some ropes to it to use as rope and hooks.  I like the options it will give.

Built-up about 1/2 inch with some scrap foam blocks.

I will finish up these buildings first then the flagstone.  After this I’ll finish work on the water tower, town walls and watch towers.  This should catch me up on what I’ve started and then I’ll do more.  My goal is to have this stuff finished up by August 1.

Now onto some miniatures.  I need to finish up the witch hunters that are almost done.  After that I will finish up the skaven warband my friend is using.  After that I’m going to show some love to some Blood Bowl teams for a bit.  The next tournament that I’ll be attending is Chaos Cup 2015 in early September.  I think I’ll be playing a different team than I’ve played in the past so I need to get that going.  Also I am painting up a hobgoblin for the CC legacy team, so I need to get going on that.  My goal is to have these things done by September 1.  The Blood Bowl team and player must be done by September 1.

In order to keep up with my non-specific posting goals, I should be posting quite a bit.  I hope to get in plenty of play too.  A friend wants to show me the Star Wars game also so hopefully I can learn that soon too.

This all sounds like a lot to do this summer but I think it’s doable.

Update 5/21/15: Mordheim

It seems like forever since I've done any painting and it has been quite a long time.  I got a whopping 15 minutes set aside to paint yesterday and I used it to get one coat of paint on two rats skin.  This should've probably taken about two minutes but I forgot something as simple as how much water to add to my paint.  My first efforts were way too watery and then too thick.  I finally got the consistency I wanted about one minute before my wife called down to me to let me know my timer was going off.  I quick snapped a photo.  I figured it would be a reminder of how much I need to keep painting to even stay okay at it.

It's like riding a bike... the falling off part.

Update 11/25/14 - Mordheim

Its been an incredibly long time since I have posted anything.  That could mean a few different things.  In some cases it would mean I haven't done anything, but I actually have... well, some.  Whatever time I've actually had was used mostly for assembly.  I've assembled and cleaned about 30 miniature that I'll paint someday.  Assembly is not my favorite thing to do.

I did break out my new Games & Gears brushes for some painting.  I've never used nice brushes before so I didn't want to wreck them.  I used them for a very small job and so far I like them.

As for the Mordheim work, I added some highlights to some pieces.  Its not much.  I may have found a new player though and soon I may be adding more to my assembly and painting workload.

Start of giving the Capes texture and color

 I've also done more on the gaming table front and I will start photographing some of the progress on that front shortly.

Update 11/3/14 - Mordheim and Nurgle

This is what has been done over the weekend.  I did minimal work on the Nurgle team and my Mordheim warband.

Purple wash over a beige flesh

From the back

Red wash, green wash, and bone on the horns

Some Mordheim stuff.  I almost finished the Warrior Priest and one of the Witch Hunters.

I doubt it but I would like finish my warband this week.

Update 10/23/14: Nurgle

I am having an absolute blast doing my test models for a Nurgle Blood Bowl team.  I finished blocking in the base colors on the pestigor and warrior last night.  I decided I would make some colored metallic colors to use on the armor.  I did this by mixing the base (either green or black) into some Citadel Chain-mail at a ratio of 2:1.

Washes will "dirty" these guys up.

Still need to block in the pestigor flesh and fur.

I have a few ideas in my mind of making these guys look gross.  I'm looking forward to finishing these guys up.

I used some VMC Bronze to accent a little but I don't know if I like it.  We'll see when the models are further along.  I've seen alot of purplish pestigors, blue ones, and brown ones; I'm not sure what colors I am going to use yet but I'll probably paint up all different colors.  There are four on the team so I can mix and match them.

Update 10/22/14: Mordheim

I got a package in the mail that I've been waiting on for what seems like forever.  I backed the Games and Gears, Ichiban Studios brushes.  I haven't used them yet but I will shortly!

I'm almost done with the basecoats on the Witch Hunters.  I used all sorts of mixtures of browns, greens, and reds to get the step done.  I  still need to basecoat some parts and then it's on to shading and highlights.

Close, so close

Update 10/20/14: Nurgle

I didn't post much last week so I'm making up for it now.  Randroid suggested some reds or pinks for my rotter flesh so I thought I'd try it.  I think I may have gone overboard with it so I added back some purple also,

Red and Purple to the Front

Red and Purple to the Back

After that I wanted to put a bit more green back on him and I got some Citadel Athonian Camo Shade.  Mixing up my own was using too much of my materials.  I like the color very much and will probably use it way too often now.  I don't have any photos of this step but you can tell going forward.

I was happy with the flesh now but wanted to make it grosser?, more gross? I don't know.  Anyhow I decided to make his bumps look puss filled. I used very thinned down bleached bone.  I think I may have gone overboard with this too.

Eww

Basecoated the horny things too

He still has some way to go but I can see the end and I think I like it.  Details, horns, and base and I think he'll be done.

I had some extra paint on the palette so I added some color to my other Nurgle stuff.

What color is pestigor flesh?

Dirty warrior

Armor ideas?

Update 10/20/14 - Mordheim

I intended to post something last week but the pictures didn't really show much.  I based the cloaks and hats as seen below.

VMC German Camo Black/Brown

Well you can sort of tell there is a color on the cloaks that's not black but I don't think that warrants a post (even though the posting is intended to motivate me).  I decided I needed to get all of the base-coating done before I could post it.

I want all the cloaks to be the same color to give the Order uniforms of sorts.  Each set of clothes will be different though and all will be dirty and dingy.  I don't want these guys to have bright colors at all.

I've done a bit more work on the Witch Hunters giving them some more color for their clothes and such.  I've only used green and browns currently but I intended to have a better variety of shades as I go.

I don't know why this is going so slow but I'm having trouble with the motivation to paint these guys when the Nurgle rotters are staring at me.  I think I need to play something.  All my "play" time has been playing Dominion, which is fun, but it doesn't get the painting juices flowing.

Update 10/9/14 - Mordheim

I got a little bit more time to paint some on my Mordheim crew.  I used a palette containing Citadel Ratskin Flesh, VMC German Black/Brown, VMC Flat Brown, and VMC German WWII Beige.  I mixed these colors into five different shades to base coat the flesh for the five heroes.  I dropped more Flat Brown than I needed so I started to base one character's boots.

Heroes (yes, I broke my captains hammer)

This whole painting for 15 minutes doesn't allow me to get much done.  I spend five minutes on setup and clean up is another 3 minutes, that leaves a whopping seven minutes of paint time.  I may need to change how I do somethings.

Update 10/8/14 - Mordheim

I haven't been able to do much work on my Witch Hunter warband.  I did get them primed earlier and now I'm on to painting them.  The next time I play I would like to have them all painted.  I can only find about 15 minutes a day to paint/hobby so one color at a time might be the best I can do for awhile.   I applied a layer of VMC Gunmetal Grey to all of the metal bits.  Here are some pics of the warrior priest because he has the most metal areas.

Body Armor

Tattered Sheild and Chaos Hammer

 I hope to get more paint on these guys shortly.  I decided to give myself multiple projects so as not to get burnt out on any one project.  But so far I am excited most about my warband and getting that Nurgle team done. I'll get there.

Update 10/6/14 - Nurgle

My ever slowing progress on my rotter flesh has lead me to a few new steps.  I had already based his skin beige and given him a sepia wash as noted previously.  Now to make him look diseased and decayed.

My first step was to dry brush it with the beige color and then with it lightened by some off white.  I them added some green and blue blotches by thinning the colors down with medium.  The blue areas really stood out.

Dry brushed and blotches

My next step was to mix up a purplish wash.  It was made with beige, green, blue, red, and some flesh wash until I got a dark purple color and then I added medium and water until it was wash consistency.

Purple-ish

The final step was meant to give the rotter a green tint.  I added yellow and blue until I had the green I wanted and then it needs to be thinned down some more.

Greenish

He has since dried and has a disgusting skin tone to work from.  I'm happy with how the skin looks, now to add some detail to it.

I also finally got my Witch Hunters primed and can start getting color on them too.

Some local gamers are in the process of starting up a local game club mostly featuring WHFB which I have never played but am interested in.  I enjoy painting so the thought of painting up a ton of minis is exciting but spend money on all the models I need isn't in the cards right now but we'll get there.

Update 9/30/14 - Nurgle

Well I finally took some time to paint.  Did I paint my witch hunters?  Nah.  Touch-up the DoA?  Nope.  I decided to put one color on some Nurgle BBers.  I have been interested in techniques for rotting flesh.  I had some extra color on the palette so I painted a couple areas on a Nurgle warrior and a Pestigor as well.

The one I wanted to try was the flesh on the rotter.  I put down layers of VMC Germ. WWII Beige and followed it up with a sepia wash.  It will be dry by tonight so I should get to do more tonight.

Rotter

Pesty

Nurgle Warrior

These pictures are more to refresh my memory as to what I'm doing.

Get to Work!

Oh time, time where did you go?  September has gotten away from me on the hobby front.  I did take part in the US Blood Bowl major, Chaos Cup.  It had record breaking attendance and I wish I could say record breaking play from me.  But, oh well, 2-2-2 is okay I suppose.

Before that some storms decided to roll through the neighbor leaving us without power for three days and then giving me three more days of glorious yard work to complete.  Now things are back to normal so I’ll be able to start more painting.  I also really need to get to build my table, too.

I played my first game of Mordheim with my Witch Hunters against my friend Randroid and his Undead.  We tied in objectives but he knocked all of my Flagellants and one hero out of the game.  So he did much more damage to me.  I haven’t finished painting up the warband so that will be the first painting task.

Here is my To-Do-List (This should last me at least until the end of the year):

• Finish my warband
• Build 4’x 4’ table
• Touch up my DoA
• Build my human team
• Fix a friend’s Undead/Necro team
• Re-paint a Nurgle team that was painted by someone else
• Misc (just on here to justify wasting time on unimportant stuff)

That is more than enough to last me.

Mordheim Update 8/1/14 - More Zealot Work

When I picked out the fluff for this warband I decided to make a Ukraine theme.  Their warband name is Ukrainian for The Order of the Hammer.  Their names are Ukrainian words using letters from our alphabet to represent sounds.  The yellow and blue you are seeing together is from their flag.  This isn't going to be the scheme for the entire warband just for their unis from a past life.  Warbands are made up of all sorts of people/things, there will be no scheme.

I decided that I wanted to keep better track of the colors I'm using for this project and therefore will be taking and posting pictures of the palettes used on this project.  This palette is especially messy and contains 9 colors. 

I started with spots of a black, a bluish green, dark blue, and off-white.  I mixed these color around to make up the base for the blue areas of the clothing.  When that was to my liking I moved on to the yellows.  For this I had a beige, brownish yellow, an orange, and a deep yellow.  I mixed in some of the off-white as well.  Then I painted the spears in a mix of black/brown and the bluish green.

After I did all this I noticed I had some of the colors I would need for sky/earth so I put them on the armor areas.  I had some slow-dry and also used some thinning medium.

Another mess

I've finished up a lot of the basecoat on these guys.  I intend on finishing the basecoats completely this weekend.

Uniforms taking shape

This is likely the most vibrant they will look.  They're in a ruined city after all and will be quite grungy and dingy when they are done.  Maybe by Monday they'll be done.  But maybe I'll jump around to another part of this project... or another project altogether... I don't know.

Mordheim Update 7/31/14 - Zealots

I figured I'd better get in one more post on my most prolific month of blogging.  I only had about 15 minutes to paint, but I figured that was enough time to start painting the flesh on my zealots.  I haven't put paint to a miniature since finishing the DoA earlier this month.  It felt good to paint again.

Flesh is obviously not uniform and I decided to paint all the fleshes with different hues this time.  I'm also going to try a different style on these miniatures so these colors are for the basecoat.  I put out multiple colors on the palette.  The darkest brown was VMC Ger. Camo Black/Brown.  Then I put out a couple Citadel flesh tones; Ratskin Flesh and Elf Flesh.  I finished up the colors with some Bleached Bone.  I put one drop of thinning medium into each color and used a wet palette to keep them workable.  I also put some Reikland Flesh Shade on the pallet too.  I wanted to add a very slight reddish hue to one of the miniatures.

Messy palette

I used the other space on my palette to mix the colors into all different shades.  Both miniatures started with a base of GCB/B  that is where the similarities end.  Each subsequent layer was different for each miniature.  In the end they came out looking very similar but, oh well, I'm learning.  The guy on the left has the slightly reddish hue.

Zealots

The plan for these miniatures is to make them look extremely dirty and grungy.  Their back-story will explain their formal-ish attire (it isn't written all the way yet).  I plan to shade and highlight the skin after I finish all of the basecoats.

The month of August will bring with it a new project.  I decided I am going to build a multi-purpose gaming tabletop.  I'll be posting on its progress as well as continuing my warband project.  I need to touch up the DoA too as Zlurpee Bowl games brought of some "injuries" to the enthusiast.

Liebster

Thank you Randroid!  Drinkin' and Modelin' is awesome.  I apologize, I don't know of many blogs or read many for that matter.  I am using the Liebster as a motivation. Because of it, I'll read more and hopefully get some more ideas about how to improve in the hobby and blogging.

I do find the responses to the questions interesting, so I'll give my answers to them.

Q&A here goes.

1. Why did you start blogging? - The intention for this blog was to give myself a reference for my painting and motivation to stay on task.  I intend to post pictures and words about what/how I'm doing something and through that I can look back to what I've done for future reference.  Now I'm very new to painting and have limited to no artistic ability so any method I've tried comes from the advise of painters, reading, or watching videos.  I am constantly at Randroid's ear to pick his brain about how to do something.
2. If you could change one thing about the wargaming hobby, what would it be? - Right now I play Blood Bowl.   When I was in my teens I tried Dungeons and Dragons but didn't take to it.  I have decided to give WHFB a go and will hopefully be doing that soon.  All that is to say that I don't know much about it, so I don't know what I'd change.
3. What is best in life? - This may sound incredibly lame to some out there but this is my honest answer, love.  Family, friends, people, that's what makes the world go around.
4. Do you want to live forever? - Here? No.
5. Fame or fortune? - Definitely fortune.  I don't need people to know what I'm doing, but I want the ability to give freely.  There are so so many good people and good causes that could be advanced in life.  I don't want a mansion (I'll take my little house thank you), I don't need fancy cars, I don't want material things; I want to be a blessing.
   
6. What miniature are you most proud of having painted?  I'm learning so much all the time that it's always the next one.
7. How do you deal with burn out?  I just stop.  The itch will come back in the form of some sort of inspiration.
8. Why is a raven like a writing desk? - Huh?
9. Star Wars or Star Trek? - Meh.  Not much for Sci-Fi.
10. If you could only buy from one miniature company from now on, which one would it be? - Are there any companies who sell minis from all manufactures?  No?  Still that one.
    
11. What is your favorite take out?  Fat kids like food, I'm "not slim."
    

I realize I'm not fulfilling my obligation to "pass it on" but I'll be checking out other blogs and list and hopefully I'll find more.  From what I've seen, this community is awesome, I'm glad to be a part of it.

Paint Log - Like Liquid White from Fallen Glass

Nothing to cry over.

As I stated before, I am trying to paint the model that will become Bobby Elvis in a white jumpsuit.  I have read and been told a million times white is an extremely difficult color to paint.  So here is my try.

I started all my DoA characters with an undercoat of black primer.  I decided to add some green stuff to the bottom of Bobby’s leg before priming to look like bellbottoms (learning process).  I decided before painting to go with a warm white, brown versus blue, but not too brown.  The first layer of paint was a 1:1 mix of VOW and VBG.  The next layer I added a drop of VOW.  For the third layer I added another drop.  Each layer was thinner than the last.  When I finished this I used a wash of CAE thinned down 5:1 with water.  After this dried I did another later of VOW with VBG at a 5:1 ratio.  At this point I decided to finish up the rest of the base coats before moving on.

 

Putting these pictures on here helps with seeing what is working and what's not.

 

White pants and sleeves coming along.

White probably can use another coat.  But I want to finish basing the remainder of the model first.  Just to see how it looks.

 

At this point the miniature looks quite messy but as detail and more highlighting/shading happen it should clean up.  Any comments and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks