So it has been several weeks since I last posted up here you can thank work for that, but that is just the way she goes. This beautiful girl to the left has been my morale support through it all. With that being said I have had good run on all my goals hobby as well as non hobby related, and I am quite excited about the upcoming 1k monthly tournament at XRG next Saturday. Lets get started.
Hobby progress! One of my first posts this year showed some skaven character on a pretty neat built up base. I had thought at the time I would be really really excited to paint him. Well turns out I wasn’t. I spent many hours trying to get stuff to look right on and on fiddling with one thing then another. I am not sure how many programmers we have out there reading but this probably translates over to any job of tedium. Sometimes ya know you just need some momentum. This jack ass of a model had been bogging me down for too long, so I decided last Sunday I was going to do an exercise. I was curious what would happen if I sat down with a stop watch and had only 2 hours to paint the model. At 2 hours no matter what point I was at I would stop. This would ensure something got done. Any way here it is.
Certainly not my best work but for only 2 hours heck yeah I will take it. I still have to hit him with a matte varnish but I am waiting until I have several other things to hit all at once as cleaning the airbrush up after that isn’t much fun. I finished with 5 minutes to spare I would have loved to do more to the base but at that point there were so many washed pooled on top of each other that I had to let them dry. Anyway it was a really fun experiment if you have models you dont like I highly recommend it, I am going to try to make this a common thing when I hit that kind of snag.
On a more 40k related front I have my deathwatch counts as sternguard all built and I am working on constructing their drop pod. I have a small amount of green stuff work to do still but I can get to that right before painting. My 10 man scout squad is well underway paint wise, the scout squad happens to be my FEB commitment to the IC hobby progress challenge. Thor did an excellent article on finding your style and if I had the inclination I would link to it here because google likes that sort of thing, but after my day/night of work yesterday it ain’t gonna happen. (but i bet thor will as he cusses me for not putting this in the right category and labels etc. he really is a cool guy *linked that for you ya lazy git*) Anyway back on topic I feel like I have gone around in circles trying to mimic other peoples styles quite unsuccessfully while what I love to do has been staring me in the face. Heavy realistic weathering is one of my favorite things to try to pull off on models, I have really only done this to vehicles, but I am going to try to bring that to my scouts and all the models I paint this year. We will see how it goes. I plan to have the scouts completed this weekend. Here is there current progress, probably right around half way there.
On to more yearly goal related progress. I finally was able to sell my khorne army. They made it all the way to France! So I hope their new home proves to be cultured and bloody. The second lot of chaos space marines is on their 3rd relist, but I have sweetened the pot and lowered the price, because honestly I just want them out of here. I think they will sell at this point. I haven’t purchased any new models so far this year, however it doesn’t mean I haven’t received any. Like any good gamer you have to focus on your Rules as written. And by RAW I wasn’t to “buy” any new models this year, however I did win second place in a work sponsored coding competition which netted me a sweet amazon gift card or as I like to call it a drop pod, and at the last montly I got lucky and won the raffle so was able to pick up some neat Ork storm boys which I think will make a great entry into the FS painting competition.
Rambling on I have made some good progress on the oil painting front too. Here are the ones worth looking at since last post. Don’t worry I am not trying to go all modern art on the picture of color, I was just trying to figure out what I could do with a palette knife and it turned out neat looking and the wife liked it so it stayed. At this point I have 7 of my 26 oil paintings complete for the year, so I am well on my way getting all 26 painted.
Well that’s plenty for today I think. I will get a post up early next week about the list I try to run and the conversion I want to enter in the upcoming monthly tournament.
Happy Friday!
- How to Create Simple Earth Basing for Miniatures (Tutorial) - February 8, 2015
- Standish Standoff Painting Entries Completed (Showcase) - November 8, 2014
- How to Easily Magnetize a Display Board for Your Miniatures - November 3, 2014
Great idea on the timed painting and for two hours of work I’d say you did well. The model looks good and your basing is always awesome.
I really like that mountain scene you did. It’s hard to believe that your new to the whole canvas painting scene.
Now to go properly edit this article… :P
Thanks! (for the compliments as well as editing the article)
Skaven looks good enough for government work! Hell, it’s painted, and that’s more than you can say for 99.99% of WHFB army models people play with! I don’t think I could even get a good basecoat done in two hours, lol.
Scouts look great as well. I can’t remember, do you freehand the shoulders or use decals?
I used the gw metal shoulder pads for my marines, but with the next batch I will switch over to decals. Using microset and microsol along with a matte finish you can make them look painted on pretty easily. As far as the scouts go from the fluff they don’t get the full chapter symbol until they are full fledged marines, they only have the red lightening bolt, so I will be free handing that.
Well done on all accounts! I like the idea of a set time to finish the model. I may have to try that some time. I often find I hit a point where I’m just dragging out the model without significantly improving it. Setting a hard end-point could be helpful. It’s also a good way to help speed up the process a bit as you get used to not allowing yourself to sit and stare at it for too long.
I’ve often considered giving canvas painting a try. You’re success has me thinking about it again. Maybe some day I’ll give it a try. Yours are improving very quickly! I agree with Thor that the mountain scene is particularly good!
There are times at work often when we are researching what a project is going to take that we just time box things. I was curious to apply it to miniatures. It is actually quite liberating to know you have no time to fret over this and that as you are against the clock. It really takes all the hemming and hawing out of the process and forces you to get the brush moving.
Though I would not recommend it for any showcase model you still in general get what you pay for and the rat is far from my best work.
As far as the oils go go for it. You can get a 50% coupon off at acmore i;m sure hobby lobby has the same and pick up a bob ross master set for like 50 bucks. Ocean state job lots sells 18×24 canvases for 2.50 a piece. They aren’t as nice as the 20 dollar canvases at hobby stores but hell I am not good enough for that 20 bucks to make a difference at this point.
What I am saying is if you are at all interested give it a shot you can get seriously going for under 100 bucks. I only mention the bob ross set because you get a good deal on the brushes. Outside of a kit like that you will pay 20 bucks or so a brush. So with the coupon you basically get the paints and the palette knife for free.