Basic Painting Questions

So there's been an eager new troll player that's just starting to paint, and he/she has been asking me questions through PMs on Dakka. I figure I might as well post up my answers here in case anyone is wondering about the same questions as well. Plus I think one of my answers will be pretty long...

Q: How do you do the skin on your trolls?
A: Here's an old post where I talk about painting the skin:
http://datrollcave.blogspot.com/2007/02/painting-maulerbegin.html

I've since sped up the process though to cut out the regal blue and electric blue steps. I now base with GW electric blue (also available as the same color in Vallejo) and mix in more and more space wolf grey as I highlight/blend up.

Usually around 3 steps for infantry, and probably about 6 steps for beasts. I'll then sometimes do a very very watery wash of electric blue again in the crevices only (i.e. use your fine detail brush and get a very watered down electric blue droplet).

Q: How do you do the leather?
A: This one is a little tougher to answer for me as I don't have a very standard process. I'll break it down into the various types of leather I've done:

Cowhide/White Leather: This was done on the impaler and you can read about it here.

Yellow/Brown Dirty Leather: Can also be found on the impaler post above.

Red/Brown Leather: This is (surprise) also on the impaler, but I use it on the Axer, and Grim Angus as well (Better pics of leather here). The painting process I used is found here.

Champions Leather Bits/Kilt: For these guys, I used a similar technique, but with more steps. I based in good ol' Scorched Brown (GW), lay down a layer of Bloodtracker Brown (P3), and then Highlight with Beast Hide (P3). Then I washed with brown ink and re-highlighted with beast hide. This was really fast and easy and for a unit of them, I didn't want to spend a ton of time on them.

For the unit leader's eye-patch I spent a little more time on it and highlighted with Bleached Bone (GW) also.

Q: What's your definition of a wash?
A: For me, a wash usually consists of a drop of paint on my brush and then dipping my brush in a clean cup of water (very rapidly). One dip for a dark wash (i.e. if I want some heavy shading in the crevices), two or three dips for a very watery wash. It's not a very scientific method, but it works for me. The first time doing this during a paint session, I'll usually test it on a piece of paper to make sure the consistency is right before applying it to the model.

Q: How do you mix paint and water without wasting a lot of paint? (you dont really know how much you need when you pour some out do you?)
A: I kind of don't have this problem due to the weird way I paint.

I don't really use a mixing pallette (tiles or those plastic paint trays). I've found that the paint dries quickly on those anyway and I actually end up wasting more paint than if I just do things my own way.

What way is that? Well I get some standard computer paper, and basically use that as my pallette. Le gasp! I know tons of people swear by tiles, or pallettes, but they just don't work for me. I've found that while using paper does make paint dry quickly, it's not much more quickly than if I were to use a painting pallette. This is mostly because I'm very very slow at painting, so regardless of what I use, my paints dry out by the time I go back to the pallette.

The other benefit of using computer paper (aside from being cheap, plentiful, and requiring no cleanup), is that as I do a lot of watery painting, I find that it has just the right absorbancy for my tastes. I don't want it to suck up too much water when I dab my brush on it to get rid of excess water. Brown paper, newspaper, paper towels, tissues, and the like all suck up too much water. Whereas tiles, palletes, and print magazines all wick away too little water if I have too much. Computer paper works great for this purpose.

So if my paint is always drying out on the paper pallette, how do I avoid wasting paint? Well, I basically only put as much paint as I need for one application at a time. So basically dip brush in paint, dip brush in water, wick away excess water on pallete (and check color at the same time) and then apply to model. Then I wash brush quickly, and repeat. For blending two colors, I add the first color to the paper, and immediately after, I dip the brush in the other color and add it to the paper. Then I use the brush to mix to my desired color, add some water if needed, and apply to model.

Keep in mind when I say I dip my brush in the paint, I'm talking about a drop of paint. Not a huge glob. So I end up using/wasting little paint. Just as a point, in painting all my trolls so far, I have yet to use up more than half of a GW pot of electric blue! While BrokenZealot kindly bequeathed to me his in case I ever run out (it's a discontinued color now) I've yet to pop it open except to move it to a new container.

Also, while this might seem slower, I've gotten quite fast at doing things like this, especially the skin. I can crank out a champion's skin now in about 15-20 min (that's fast for me ok! :P)

For non-watery coats, or non-blended painting (i.e. basecoats), I just paint directly from the paint pot, onto the model.

Whew that was a long and complicated answer! I'm not sure it will be helpful to anyone, as it's a pretty weird way of doing things, but it works for me, so I'm not about to change heh.

If anyone has any other questions about how I do things, feel free to drop a comment and I'll try to answer best I can.

New puppy

A bit of non-Troll related news, but my wife and I are finally getting a dog. Yay! She's watched me work on this blog over the years and thought it'd be fun if she gave it a go. So we've decided to blog about our puppy as we raise him. If any are interested it can be found here:

Our new puppy blog

In other news, skin on my Fell Caller is done. I'll hopefully finish him off during the work week this week. I'm still debating whether to attempt NMM again or just do regular metallics.

Champions Fully Painted!

Yay all finished! Here they are in a lineup. They still need to have grass added to their bases (and some rocks painted grey), but overall they're pretty much done.

For those wondering, yes, that one on the left in the group photo is in fact "flying" through the air. There were a number of times that I've thrown my surefooted champs as missiles so I thought it was appropriate. Plus, when I made him, the movie 300 had just been released, so it was a fun re-pose based on the guy that flies through the air in the movie to hack off the Persian emissary's arm.

Here is a closeup of the Kithkar:

It took me a while to get used to painting their skin again, but I think I've got it down again.

I was debating between doing the little bumps on his chin in a darker color as in the Metamorphosis art (Dark Blue) but I couldn't make up my mind so just left them light blue for now. It will be an easy change if I do decide to do that though.

Also, I decided against doing a tartan design for now, though I could add one in the future as the brown cloth is pretty neutral and could easily be converted into a tartan.

I just noticed when I posted this pic that I've forgotten to paint the wooden handle on the Kithkar's axe. Oops. I'll fix that later tonight. Not sure how I missed it, but staring at the same models for hours tends to have that effect on me...where I selectively ignore things about the model while working on other parts, then forget to come back to it.

Also, I'm not a huge fan of how the axes came out for the Kithkar, whereas I'm fairly happy with the weapons for the other members of the unit. I don't like how the axe highlights came out on the Kithkar's axe, and the bronze bolt-on part didn't come out with enough contrast. This is where I suppose NMM techniques would have made a big difference, as it's easier to make gold/bronze metals "pop" like I did with Grim's weapons.

If you look closely, I added a bit of rust/dirt to their armor with a brown ink wash, but it didn't come out quite as well as I had hoped. Still for a quick application, I suppose it gets the job done without me spending a lot of time on it. The other added benefit is that it gives a slight brown tint to the armor, so it doesn't look as "shiny" and looks more weather worn to me.

The second thing to go is your memory...

So I forgot how to paint gems...had to look this up on the web again. I'm going to post this here for my own future reference. Heh.

Finished the Champions

Finished, minus basing and four gems. Yay!

I'm going to try and finish the gems tomorrow, get some pics, and maybe start on either the Krielstone bearer or the Fell Caller.

"Sandy" Primer

Well crap. So I took a closer look at the guys I primed a few days ago and apparently they all have this "sandy" feeling quality to them. I'm not sure why this is...maybe the primer is no good anymore? Maybe it was too hot when it was drying? Whatever the reason, it's left a very rough primer coat on them. The primer also seems to flake off the models fairly easily if I run my finger over it...

I'm not really sure what I should do now...I'm worried that if I paint over it, it may not look as nice...and it might flake off. But then again, maybe if I paint over it, the acrylic paints will "fill in" and smooth out the sandy texture...then I could just seal it as normal...

Darn Arizona heat (if that's the culprit)!

EDIT:

So it seems that fortunately the mauler extreme and the Long Riders mostly escaped the "powdery" fate. Thank goodness for that. The Pygs seemed to have gotten the worst of it...and I can live with that. Borka and Keggy were mostly ok too...just some bad spots which I'll just hand prime over I suppose.

On a side note, the weather hear has been crazy. Today it rained...yep, rain, in the middle of the desert, while it was 87F outside. Go figure...

Did some painting and priming today

So I got up early this morning (on a vacation day no less :/) to prime a bunch of my trolls. It's been incredibly hot lately and I knew I'd have to do it early before it got too hot. Even at 7 in the morning it was already 85F out. Yikes. I had a lot of trouble with my old GW Black Primer...which seemed to have gotten clogged over the year or so since I last used it. After a lot of cleaning I finally got it working though. So the things I got primed were:

Borka and Keggy
Long Riders
Pyg Burrowers
and last but not least, the Mauler Extreme...oh yea!

I also did some more painting on my champions. I've just got one guy left to do now, and some final details on the others. The last guy should be fast though since he has very little skin and is mostly just armor.

It's about 105F right now...so I think I'm going to like down in a corner of my tile floor and try not to melt...

Retribution Cover Fully Revealed

So Privateer finally revealed the rest of the cover for the new Iosan faction. At first I really didn't like the look of them. The high-tech rifles bothered me, and they still do. I think the Myrmidon (jack) on the right is pretty cool, but what's with the one on the left? Can we say pinhead? Hah!

After looking at them all again though, they're not too bad, definitely have a different/original feel to them, especially the warcaster. Grittier, angrier elves I suppose. He almost looks like a Nick Fury, but elven. The lightning fists look kinda funky in the picture as well, but is a neat idea. Will be interesting to see the rules for them.

The more I look at them, the more they tend to grow on me. Of course it's still no contest with the Trolls, but really, what could be? :)

Well here's hoping the models turn out well!

PS. Went on to the DakkaDakka forums, and surprisingly most of the people there (mostly 40k players) seem to like it a lot and are talking about picking up the faction as their WM army. So even if they turn out not to be my cup of tea, it's nice that others seem to like them.

Edit: PP removed the pic from their site, so no pretty picture to link to anymore. :(

Retribution of Scyrah

So it looks like Privateer is releasing the Retribution...and I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed at the moment. They look very "Eldar" to me...I would have thought they'd come with something more original. I was definitely hoping for something a little more unique, and a little more gritty to fit the Iron Kingdoms.

However, it's hard to tell exactly how they all fit together since there's still a lot of the picture obscured...but my current feeling is still "meh." On the other hand, I suppose going with this look could be a play to try and grab some more 40k players.

Here's hoping the models are cooler than my impressions of the art.

Worked on my champions a bit

I spent about an hour or two working on my champions today. I started base coating the skin on the other three. Two of them are pretty much done now except for some fine details and their tartans. I still am not sure how to do these, so I may just experiment randomly tomorrow. I'm thinking about going with an orange/brown base, with blue, white and red smaller lines. We'll see how it goes...probably poorly hah!

As a side note, I also had to re-learn how to do armor properly. I completely forgot that I need to wash the silver armor with a black ink/watery base before highlighting. The rediscovery today was funny, but also sad. I wonder what else I've forgotten in the last year!

In other news...I'm really tempted to start up a Cygnar army...I'm not really sure why though...might be all the Mk II talk on the forums. That and I've always thought it'd be nice to have a Warmachine army too.

Mk II Warmachine Thoughts

So, while I haven't really be able to play any games in forever, I have been keeping up with the changes to Mk II Warmachine and overall I think the changes are really nice. Things I particularly like:

* I love that warjacks are actually good and cool again. That was primarily the reason I first got interested in the game way back before Prime and where there were only the Battleboxes.

*Warjacks getting +1 MAT/RAT. Nice! One can only hope that warbeasts get this too when they get around to redoing Hordes. I always hated how my beasts had such a tough time hitting things...I basically always had to boost to hit.

* Less special rules and exceptions to rules overall for units across the board. This was a huge turnoff for me (and it's a problem in some ways with Hordes too). There were so many special exceptions to rules, and unique abilities per unit that it was getting impossible to remember everything. Even in games with Scott, as a "new" player, it was really really hard for me to remember all the things his units did. It also slowed down my decision making a lot with my own units, let alone trying to remember what everything else on the other side of the table did. It would be nigh impossible for someone new to wargaming to pick up the game in the state it was in.

* Warjack points for warcasters. Initially I thought that the warjack points could be used to get whole warjacks. E.g. Haley with WJ Pts. +5 could get five additional jacks. That would have been sweet. Sadly, not the case, but still good as it gives most casters a free light, or half a heavy, which is better than nothing.

* Warjacks getting tougher. I always thought that warjacks were pretty fragile when compared to beasts in Hordes. Now they don't die completely until you've marked off every box, which makes them a whole lot tougher.

All in all, there's a lot of positive changes to the game that I like. Things I don't like are the new LOS rules. These just seem obtuse to me...and the old LOS rules never really seemed to be a problem point for me, so I'm not sure why they changed these.

Also, there's a huge amount of whining and crying on the official forums. It's really kind of pathetic and ridiculous. You'd think that Privateer had cut off some players' fingers or something. A lot of the whining seems to be coming from the Cryx players in particular, who got "hit" the hardest by the removal of all the special rules and exceptions.

I for one am glad a lot of the special rules and exceptions were removed. Good riddance.

Anyway, I'm sure once the frothing dies down, people will once again return to sanity on those forums and realize that it's not the end of the world. Looking at all the Cryx units with relatively "fresh" eyes (i.e. I have not followed any rules for anything Cryx since original Prime) a lot of the stuff doesn't seem as bad as people on the forums make them out to be.

Champions...some progress

So I didn't quite make my painting goal, but I managed to squeeze in a couple hours of painting today. This weekend was pretty jam packed as I have a presentation on Wednesday, and was working on a procurement model for a simulation I'm doing. My entire Saturday disappeared into the depths of an excel spreadsheet.

Anyway, I did get the armor for one done, and the armor for the other basecoated. I also finished up their eyes and mouths. I tried to do a rusty armor wash for the one on the left, but it didn't come out quite right. I'll probably have to revisit him with a once over again later. But since I'm just shooting for tabletop quality with these, I'm not too worried.

I've definitely taken a step backward in painting ability...hopefully it will come back quickly, but it's why I wanted to start with some troopers I guess....to work all the bugs and rediscovery process out of my system.

As a side note, I still hate GW screw cap paint pots. A bunch of my paints completely dried out. Blargh! I'm going to need to buy some new paints when time permits.

On another side note, my wife did some mini painting with me today too. That was fun and nice. She started painting up an old cryx bonejack a college buddy bequeathed to me a long time ago (when the Warmachine battlebox first came out). If you're reading this, it's not too late to pick up Hordes/WM! You know who you are! ;)

Champions starting point...

So, as promised here is the starting point of the two champions I'll be working on. As you can see, the skin isn't that great, but it should be good for tabletop quality. Also, I'm planning on doing the armor with metallics since I don't want to attempt NMM at this point, especially not for the entire unit.

More later this week I hope. I've got a busy schedule this week, but I'm determined to finish at least one.

P.S. Changed the blog format template to a new one. How does it look? Or should I go back to the original template? The other one I liked is the one Brokenzealot uses, but I didn't want to completely rip him off. :D

The fixed width definitely seems to make the posts easier to set up with pictures!

Back to the Trolls

So after that brief stint (brief being about 3 months...hah) of building 40k Orks, I've now got that out of my system and am again excited about working on my Trolls and with Warmachine/Hordes. I've also been listening to Fell Calls podcast again during my drive to and from school (about an hour drive both ways, so just about a full episode!).

I think for me the most truly difficult part is just getting started. I've been trying to get started again for the last week or so, but something always seems to come up. A group project, yard work, the need for sleep, job interviews, taxes (ugh! still not done yet....) etc. etc. I just need to get off my arse and get something painted. It's just tough when you don't get to play any games...that was always a good motivator for me to paint.

Even so, I'm going to paint one champion this week. He's had his skin done for a year or so now, but never got a good coat of armor and is still sitting in his black primer. Well no more! I'll aim to have him done by this Saturday (I hope). No doubt my painting skills have greatly deteriorated so I'm just going to shoot for tabletop quality and take it from there.

I'll post up a pic of how he looks currently tomorrow night.