In-Progress: Joan of Arc - Panoceania

Not much to report towards the end of this week. I've been making steady progress with my Grey Knights and they are now highlighted and ready to be oil-washed.

In the meantime  I began working on Joan of Arc tonight and have tried to dial up the contrast somewhat on the mint scheme. I'm still not quite satisfied with it. I think the brights look better but I feel like their needs to be more shading in the recesses, and it still photographs very poorly. Ah well, onwards and upwards.

Painting Experiment: Orange/Yellow Orc Flesh

So last night I took a little break from my Grey Knights to fool around with paints chemes on a Savage Orc Warboss from Fantasy I have lying around. For my next little 40k project I’m sorely tempted to take up Orks even though they wouldn’t ally very effectively with my Grey Knights. I’ve always loved the miniatures and the inherently casual and fun sensibility that the army brings. You play Orks to have a good time, not to guarantee a win!

However there are two things I dislike about GW orks:

• The green skin. I know it’s a little heretical but I’m just a bit bored of it and want something different!
• You have to paint a lot of them. They are the polar opposite my hyper-minimal Grey Knights.

To that end I wanted to experiment with producing a really quick and efficient way to paint non-green Ork skin to use on the line troops. Even in a 500 point army there will be at least ten boyz I need to paint so I wanted something quick and dirty to use on them.

I decided to base my scheme around the more naturalistic earthy skintones of the World of Warcraft Orcs. I’ve never really played WoW but I love the direction that blizzard has taken the Orc’s appearance in their latest expansions. To this end I was looking for an orangey-brown base being highlighted up into yellow given the palette presented by these images.

Conveniently enough, Element Games acquired the entire Scale 75 range of paints this week, and given the hype surrounding them I really wanted to try them out! To that end I decided to purchase a few bottles and used a lovely Savage Orc Boss I had lying around as a tester model. After some thought and color comparisons online I ended up selecting their “Mars Orange” to use as a base and use their “Tenere Yellow” as a highlight.

Given that I’m looking for something really quick and simple to do on the line troops, I wanted to do everything through either my airbrush or washes, no brushwork allowed! To that end I began with a black spraycan primer, and then did an initial coat of Mars Orange mixed about 70/30 with Army Painter Uniform Grey in order to allow for better coverage over the black. After this I went over everything again with straight Mars Orange. I have to say it is an absolutely gorgeous color that went on like a dream, it gives a really naturalistic earthy tone that looks superb. I was almost tempted to start washing straight away, but after such great results from one pot I just had to see the other.

Unfortunately the Tenere Yellow was a bit of a weird color, the paint had a curious texture that didn’t want to thin nicely in the airbrush. While I love getting unusual colors like this that make an army look really unique sometimes they can be real duds and I was afraid this might be the case. I tried different levels of yellow over the mars orange and it ended up looking alright at points, but I definitely think I went overboard and that it should only really be used for a single minimal zenithal highlight rather than covering the bulk of the skin like I did here.

However the results improved significantly after a wash of orange ink. I made this from a 50/50 mix of scale 75 red and yellow inks kindly borrowed from Byron. The scale 75 inks are incredible but damn are they ever vibrant! It feels like your using ink from a pen they have so many pigments in them. But I’ve never seen a more vibrant orange ink than the mix I got out of these. I did the wash over the entire model but as I went over sections I’d immediately go over them again with straight water in order to push the inks into the recesses. This could have been done better with some Vallejo Glaze medium but i'm out at the moment, so water had to do! A tempting alternative to this would be to glaze it with the mars orange again which might look more cohesive but I'll try that on another miniature.

I decided it still looked a little too bright so I did another wash all over with Army Painter Soft Tone ink, also going over everything with water after I’d put it on. The result darkened things down nicely and made it look a bit more like skin. While I’m far from 100% satisfied with this it gave me a pretty good idea of what to do for a line troop, especially considering there isn’t that much skin showing on the typical 40k boy. I think with a lot less of the yellow involved so more of that lovely orange shows through, and the use of a proper glaze medium with the inks it will be perfect for churning them out en-mass.

Obviously I will spend a lot more time on the leader figures pushing the contrast more and highlighting up from an orange-brown to almost a pure yellow tone. While this might sound like it will clash with my line-trooper scheme, something I love about the orc fluff is it allows for a range of skintones within the army. Especially given the fact that orks who keep winning fights literally undergo massive physiological changes. It only makes sense to me that the biggest and best orcs would have the most vibrant coloring!

Thanks for looking,

-Tom

Big Update IV: Grey Knights – Fall 2015

My final post to bring my blog up to date is in-progress shots of some Grey Knights I’ve been working on. With fantasy changing so significantly and the new AoS miniatures not really speaking to me I decided to paint up a very small 40k force as a painting project. To emphasize the “very small” aspect of that point I chose Grey Knights and prepared a little 500 point list made of six terminators, a terminator librarian, and a dreadnought.

This project largely came about as the result of probably the most significant hobby purchase I have ever made, both financially and in terms of its impact on said hobby.

Shiny and expensive.

The Grey Knights are my project to accompany this, and I have purposefully chosen a variety of techniques that I have never attempted before in order to really push my limits. These being:

• Airbrush base layers and basic zenithal highlighting
• Sponge weathering
• Oil washes
• Resin bases

So far I’ve only gotten around to two of four, but the terminators are progressing nicely! I chose a color scheme based on pre-heresy Death Guard as I wanted a nice set of colors to showcase the heavy weathering I planned to do. I borrowed extensively from this excellent tutorial on painting Death Guard.  I dislike how perfectly “Mary Sue” the Grey Knights are in the fluff and I loved the idea of really dirtying them up a bunch.

My airbrushing for these guys was fairly straightforward as I didn’t want to get too flashy to start. I used a grey spraycan to prime, then airbrushed layer of doombull brown everywhere as a basecoat. From here I did a very extensive airbrushed zenithal layer of Vallejo Air Aged White, to the point that it *almost* totally eclipsed the doombull, but there was still a hint of depth. Finally I used a more restrained airbrushed zenithal/spot highlight of Vallejo Air Dead White.

From here I did some sponge weathering using Vallejo “Extra Opaque” Heavy Charcoal, which was an absolute blast and my first time using this technique. I know I went rather overboard here but this was always my intention with these particular units, I wanted them to look absolutely covered in chips and battle damage. The last stage of prepping the white before the oil wash was to do some shading using watered down Army Painter Soft Tone ink in the recesses to provide a little extra depth once they get an oil wash.

After painting all the metal components and the gold script on the armor in black my plans for the green were frustrated somewhat. I had intended to use a Tamiya “Black Green” which is a gorgeous shade, but didn’t realize that Tamiya paints were formulated specifically for airbrush use, and it did not want to brush on nicely. The picture above is after two coats and you can see the coverage is terrible. I had to switch and go over this with GW Castellan Green, which came out nicely.

Here we have them as they are presently. The green looks a lot smoother, the metals have been painted, everything is has been washed for a bit of depth. The last thing I need to do before the oil wash is highlight the green and maybe some basic highlights on the metals. Once that’s done I’m gonna varnish everything and prep for my first ever oil wash! Then its just some glowing blue eyes and weapons and they’re good to go!

After the six terminators are finished I’ll be painting up one of the new plastic terminator librarians using the same methods described above. My last bit of Grey Knights will be the dreadnought seen above, which will involve lots of lovely airbrushing and be my first ever painted vehicle!

I will make a second update once my terminators are finished to showcase the final result and let you know how the oil wash and resin bases go. In the meantime i'm already thinking of a different 40k army to do 500 points with, perhaps something to act as the Grey Knight's allies?

Thanks for reading!

-Tom

Thoughts: Tournaments & the Batman Miniatures Game

This is something a little different for my blog as rather than discussing or showcasing my painting I’ll be giving my impressions on tournament miniature gaming in a general. A warning upfront that I’m going to be somewhat critical here, as I admit to being rather disappointed by the Batman tournament I had spent so much time and energy preparing for over summer.

First off, I should clarify that I felt the tournament was exceptionally well run. Animosity Wargaming did a superb job of setting things up. The tables looked fantastic and were extremely thematic!

Above is a “Gotham Zoo” table that I had my first game on.

Here is me posing with a magnificent “Ace Chemicals” table that I had my last game on.

On top of this Animosity managed to have the tournament hosted in the house used for the exterior of Bruce Wayne manor in the Christopher Nolan films!

Ball so hard.

The prize support was excellent, as was the general attitude and tone of the judges and everyone involved in the tournament organizations. All of the participants I dealt with were very nice people and my games felt relaxed throughout. I managed to come out firmly in the middle of about two dozen participants, which I’m quite pleased with considering how new I am to the game.

However I did come to the realization that I am just not someone who is hardwired to enjoy large group play like this regardless of the system or setting. This particular tournament was three games of two hours over the course of a nine-hour day, and I admit to feeling exhausted and ready to leave after my first game.

Regardless of how brilliantly a tournament is run or how great the system is, it seems like I always end up too hungry, tired, and uncomfortable to enjoy my time playing after a few hours. When I was at the tournament I recall comparing it to outdoor music festivals. While a great band I love might be playing, when I’m actually there in the moment all I can think about is the excessive crowds and how tired I am.

Osheaga 2013, which I attended.

This is obviously a matter of personal preference, but from now on I’m planning to focus on gaming only in comfortable casual settings. I think this also reflects my concern with narrative gaming, as I get a lot of enjoyment from situating my army and games within larger structures of meaning and fluff. While everyone I played at the tournament was really pleasant and relaxed, in a ranked setting there is always that competitive incentive that looms over everything. This applies to me as well, I get concerned about bringing competitive lists and a competitive attitudes to a tournament, neither of which are a natural focus for me.

So as it stands I see myself taking an extended break from single-day miniatures tournaments. However it has made me realize that ongoing campaigns might be a great fit for me, and I recall enjoying an infinity one that I was part of in 2014 a lot, so I’ll be looking for more of those!

Another point to make about this tournament specifically is that I felt the BMG ruleset did hold things back rather significantly. It is not a particularly intuitive game to play, with both play and setup being rather unwieldy and slow. The phrasing of rules is also very unclear. One big example that stands out to me is that in my first game I realized I’d been playing the rules for the “running” movement incorrectly for the past two months despite reading the rulebook twice that summer. The movement potential of each unit was nowhere near as fast as I’d thought, which was a huge adjustment to make very quickly.

This was due to a lack of clarity within page 28 of the rulebook which states:

• “Roll a die for each movement counter you spend in this way, and then add up the results: this total number (in centimeters) should be added to the character’s basic movement distance for the turn.”
• The rules for running then state: “A character may double their basic movement distance by spending 1 movement counter and 1 special counter”.

Thus I assumed the additional movement was also doubled as its part of the basic movement. But apparently this is not the case and the game designer has confirmed running only doubles your unmodified “basic movement”.

Bane was still pretty fast, but not the absolute hot-rod I thought he was.

This level of vagueness should not be happening with such a basic rules interaction. Things like this came up constantly, and I did not have a single game in which both players did not learn something new about the core ruleset despite the game being out for nearly two years.

I often voice my dislike for the culture of negativity that exists within miniature wargaming, and the entitled nature of some players. We’re all ultimately doing this in order to enjoy ourselves and I hate seeing people get so worked up about something that is ultimately designed to be a casual, fun, and enjoyable hobby. However I cannot help but feel that the BMG ruleset impeded my enjoyment of the tournament. While I absolutely want the game to succeed, and will still recommend it to people, it is a less-than-ideal system.

While BMG has the potential for extremely cinematic in-game moments, the majority of gameplay just feels too clunky to really make things run smoothly. A skirmish game should not be so mechanically bulky. It reminds me of what I’d heard about Malifaux before their updated ruleset, that there were just too many little things to remember that get in the way and slow down the game exponentially.

Accordingly I still feel Infinity is the gold standard for skirmish rulesets, being extremely quick, cinematic, and realistic while still allowing for a lot of nuance as you introduce more equipment and tech. The fact that my friend and I have had zero desire to play any BMG since the tournament last September is pretty compelling evidence that there are better systems out there.

Rant over! Thanks for reading and letting me get that off my chest.

-Tom

Big Update III: Bane Crew from Batman Miniatures Game - Summer 2015

Perhaps my biggest miniatures-based endeavor this past year was getting into the Batman Miniatures game produced by Knight Models. A close friend of mine who runs the excellent Painter’s Surgery Blog proposed a deal wherein we would both assemble, paint, and learn to play a BMG crew in time for the first world tournament taking place in Nottingham. To that end from June until the tournament in September I was perhaps more focused than I’ve ever been on both the hobby and tabletop aspect of miniature wargaming in tandem, as I gradually assembled and painted a small crew while playing games frequently to get a grip on the system.

Arkham City Bane was the first miniature I built and painted, and it was a somewhat herculean task but I’m extremely pleased with the end result.

I wanted to get a unique look with his skin, going from purple to a pallid fleshtone. Byron gave me a crash course on a very simple way to do wet blending with lots of heavily thinned layers of paint. Consequently Bane’s skin is my first proper attempt at a blend effect and I’m very pleased with the results. I’m looking forward to getting more comfortable with the technique and reproducing it on a larger scale!

Given a busy non-hobby schedule during the summer, the remainder of the crew had to be painted fairly quickly and with a little less tender loving care. This is the venom soldier and TnT from the crew. TnT (bloke with the gun) was my first attempt at speed-painting and ended up only taking me three hours, which was a lot of fun. Although he’s also unquestionably the most poorly painted member of the crew I’m glad I gave it a shot. It was a lot of fun to have a firm deadline to work towards with my painting, very incentivizing!

Deadshot was an exception to the more hurried painting of the other henchmen. I quite liked his model and his behavior ingame, and he’s a named character as well, so I thought it would be fitting to spend a bit more time on him. I’m quite pleased with how he turned out and while the blends are quite as good as what’s on Bane I think he’s a nice looking piece.

Henchman Mezz was the last model in the crew. Again a rather rushed paintjob. I messed up the blending on him due to my impatience, as I failed to build up the layers properly. Still, he will do for tabletop.

Here is the whole crew together! Considering how busy I was this summer I don’t think they’re a bad result for a few months work.

Thanks for looking!

-Tom

Big Update II: PanOceania Infinity & Water Bases

For the second half of my updates on the past year I give you the continued meanderings of my Panoceania army. I’m relatively pleased with how they’ve turned out so far, although I admit that in light of my progress as a painter I now find both the mint green and red seriously lacking in contrast. I might go back and sort this out down the line, depending on how often they get used. Here is the current army

One thing I’m particularly pleased with are the water bases on these guys, and I like the way it offsets their light coloring. It took a bit of experimentation to get it right. I built up the layers of sand on the bases several times using Vallejo Sand Texture in order to provide some depth for the water. Originally I was going to use a sort of resin casting following this guide. However I found the resin too difficult to manage on such a small scale so I had to look for alternatives. What I ended up doing was using VallejoTransparent Water gel to build a “ring” around the edge of the base with water so that between the gel and the sand layers there was a pool in which to use a standard liquid water effect. I then used Woodland Scenics Realistic Water to fill it, which was excellent and had minimal shrinkage. It took a lot of time and patience to build up the layers of both the gel and then the realistic water but I’m pleased with the result, and will be sure to take step-by-step pictures for the next base I do.

Something to note about the realistic water (and other “pooling” liquid-based water effects) is that if your using tufts within the water in order make the fauna look submerged then the water tends to get pulled up into the tuft like a sponge. It can really mess up your base so be careful!

The big addition to the PanO troops is a Cutter, which I am actually profoundly disappointed with. I had no concrete plans with the highlighting on him and kept flip-flopping between doing zenithal-esque lighting highlights or straightforward line work. I painted him largely while watching a television series and I think my displeasure and lack of focus with him is largely a result of trying to split my attention between two things. I’ve reached the conclusion that watching shows or films while painting really compromises your ability to both process the show and paint your figure, and it easily doubled the time that I spent on the Cutter. It is podcasts and music only from now on!

I did try something new with his base though, which is the streams of water pouring out of his knee-joint. I made this strips of Vallejo Transparent Water that had dried separately and could be peeled off and attached to the model. It’s a really cool effect that looks quite good, although I didn’t do it in a very realistic way at all here, as its absolutely pouring off of this one point and nowhere else. I do really enjoy using the Vallejo Water & Stone products in general, they avoid the hassle of gluing and sealing sand and there are some superb textures to work with!

I still have a limited edition Joan of Arc to paint which I will be pulling out all the stops for. It’s a gorgeous model and I want to try painting my PanO mint/red scheme in a way that reflects how far I've come since painting the original Kamau troops. I plan to up the contrast heavily, use proper wet blends, and maybe introducing a bit of weathering a well! I will post pictures once I start working on her.

Unfortunately I no longer play Infinity often as the group at my local store petered out a bit and I’ve yet to catch up with the N3 rulebook. It’s such a great game though that I just know I’ll be coming back to it at some point, so I’m looking forward to fielding my PanO when I do!

Thanks for looking!

-Tom

Big Update I: Empire Army - Spring 2015

So after a fourteen month hiatus I am making a triumphant return to the blogosphere. A lot has happened with my hobby since August 2014 and I will aim to update you as I showcase some of the painting I’ve done since then.

I have sold off both the Orcs and Tau figures I discussed in my previous post in order to cut back on the amount of stuff to paint and make things more manageable in my head. Instead I focused on painting an empire army over the fall of 2014 and spring of 2015. This was helped significantly by me moving in with a gentleman named Byron, a good friend, an exceptional painter, and the co-owner of Element Games.

Byron on the left in front of his store.

We are living in central Manchester and its been a real pleasure so far. Byron is an endless font of brilliant painting tips and has helped me constantly improve and challenge myself when it comes to my technique. This empire force represents the initial months of me berating him with endless questions. I encourage everyone to check out his excellent blog in the sidebar or by clicking here.

My initial job was this unit of mounted knights. It was my first time painting cavalry and was a rather tedious process, one I wouldn’t care to repeat again. However Byron was kind enough to give me access to his airbrush which helped me put down the basecoats and washes for the metal/horseflesh extremely effectively. 

I then treated myself to a Warpriest model produced by Avatars of War. It was a great figure and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. Up until this point this was by far my best highlighting yet, although it was only the result of me layering a lot with no proper blending anywhere.

A cannon came next, I love these little leaves produced by Secret Weapon found here. A superb way to add some real character to a base!

At this point I started working through twenty state troopers in batches of five. Midway through I took a break to paint this wizard. He’s a little sloppily done as I was still not doing proper blends at this point, but he’s sufficient for the tabletop and I was pleased with the illuminated manuscript on his spellbook!

And here is the finished unit of state troopers with the two heroes in there as well. Apologies I don’t have individual pictures but I’ll put some up soon. Suffice to say these guys are much better painted than the initial tester models I showed over a year ago.

Finally here is the army as a whole! Unfortunately I reached this stage at the end of June 2015, just as Age of Sigmar came into existence and rendered 8^th edition kaput. I’m hardly bitter about it, as the fantasy system was showing its age, but I was disappointed that the Old World fluff disappeared and since I’m not currently interested in Age of Sigmar this will remain a display army for now. Aside from the cannon crew I have lots of great little painting projects to add to it when I feel like it:

• Carriage with a nobleman (unit filler for the state troops)
• Luminark of Hysh
• Plastic Empire Captain

But for now I was sick of purple and yellow and wanted to move on. Part two to follow!
-Tom