A Year of Painting

August 06, 2016 by David Springer in Miniatures

I almost didn't do this post.

To do it right potentially requires pulling out the camera and taking quality photos of newly painted figures. Honestly, I don't want to stop painting long enough to do that.

The story goes something like this. While we were in Scotland for my brother's wedding I found Sorastro's Painting Guides for Imperial Assault. I had been fooled into buying the Imperial Assault deal on Massdrop, and it had arrived shortly before we left. There was not much literature about IA, and searching for it instead produced a link to Sorastro's guides.

It only took one watch to know that I wanted to try my hand at painting.

The first Stormtroopers were full of mistakes. You can read about those mistakes here.

The first Imperial Assault Stormtroopers.  You can see the brown wash used instead of black on them.  Having the correct paint helps. — The first Imperial Assault Stormtroopers. You can see the brown wash used instead of black on them. Having the correct paint helps.

The droids that followed weren't much better, but they were easy to do.

These minor improvements continued. Each miniature introduced a new technique to understand and master.

Then Vader was the next figure I wanted to do. That said, I had zero confidence in my own ability to properly highlight a miniature. An alternative was needed. Queue Zombicide!

Zombicide comes with so many miniatures that it was the perfect tool to help get better. Painting half of the zombies and the survivors helped me understand contrast and color theory better.

The Zombicide survivors are under attack...

Then, "real" miniature games started calling. Infinity was the next game painted, and that phase lasted for a good 8 months and will continue once I have wrapped up Zombicide Black Plague (and possibly RelicBlade as well). There are still hundreds of unpainted Infinity minis. That said, many of my favorite paint jobs have been on the Infinity miniatures.

All of the Infinity miniatures completed in 2015.

Painting the Corvus Belli sculpts is quite different from painting the Imperial Assault or Zombicide minis. Infinity generally has detail to the extreme, including what could best be described as greebling. The poses aren't as dynamic as I would like, but they generally gave character and style.

After dabbling in three different factions, the Steel Phalanx of the ALEPH was the force chosen to be focus on.

The first Infinity list, 150 points of Steel Phalanx.

This was my first alternative color scheme, and it didn't really hit its stride until about 15 miniatures in. There are a few good miniatures in there and they have a similar theme, but the identity and cohesion I was hoping for never matured in a way that looked great on the table.

Infinity has officially occupied most of my painting time. I started painting Caledonians in October and continued until June when I took a break for Zombicide: Black Plague. Over 8 months of painting miniatures for the same game.

And now for a sad statistic. In that 8 months, I only completed 56 figures for my collection. That is nearly 255 days at a rate of a miniature every 4.5 days.

Ouch.

Zombicide: Black Plague has been fun even if the miniatures are a lower quality. I learned how to airbrush while painting it, and it was like being back at the beginning all over again.

The airbrushed Abominatroll next to Scowl and Grin from the Zombicide Black Plague kickstarter.

Man, I am bad at airbrushing right now. But with practice, and I have a ton of miniatures to practice on, I think it can be an amazing tool in the arsenal.

So there it is. My year of painting in review. Honestly, it was all possible because of the magical Sorasto. Please check out his guides and consider sponsoring him on Patreon if you fall in love with the hobby as I have.

Finally, here is a small gallery of how my panting has improved over the year. Thanks for reading and- to quote Sorastro- happy painting!

First Stormtrooper and Latest Infinity Trooper

The Stormtrooper was the first model I painted. And here is my last standing next to him, a Chandra Special Ops for the ALEPH faction of Infinity.

Phil from Zombicide and Scowl from Zombicide: Black Plague Kickstarter

Two versions of the law in lands overtaken by zombies. Phil was completed nearly a year prior to Scowl.

Wanda from Zombicide and Nelly from Zombicide: Black Plague

Wanda was the first miniature I painted where I was thrilled with the highlights I had done on my own. Standing next to her is Nelly, one of the first miniatures I tried to shade with something other than a wash (though I did use a wash as well...).

Something Like Painting - Zombicide Black Plague Progress

July 21, 2016 by David Springer in Miniatures

Wow, what a month it's been painting Black Plague.

Because I think stats are fun, here's what I've accomplished in a month:

64 Zombies (fatties, walkers, and runners)
2 Abominations
1 Necromancer
7 Survivors

74 total miniatures, not bad at all for a slow painter like me!

I must admit, I'm using a cheater version of Sorastro's zombie guide. I'm not doing anything after applying the varnish, like giving the face a highlight or eye glow. I do plan on at least adding eye glow at some point, but completing the set is currently more important to me than doing them really well. Peeps be coming to play, yo!

The first six survivors, with poor lighting. Left to right: Redcap Rodney, Nelly, Ann, Lady Grimm, Cadence, and Baldric.

After knocking out Cadence and Lady Grimm, I decided that I would use the Black Plague survivors to practice cranking up the contrast when painting. I like how the extra contrast is turning out, particularly on Baldric and Nelly.

I feel like I didn't quite achieve the same level of contrast with Redcap Rodney's skin. I should have taken the highlights one tone higher, but really just wanted to be done with him.

Ann is one of the first miniatures where I feel like the True Metallic Metal (TMM) turned out great. I love her armor bits. That said, I wish I had cranked up the highlights on her deep blue nun-garb. It would have made for a more dynamic figure.

Also, this is the first survivor miniature that wasn't very high quality. Some of the Zombies had problems with literal gaps in their sides, but Ann's face was nearly impossible to find detail in. This made her face near-impossible to get right, and unfortunately I settled for "good enough."

The gold embellishments are not in her character art, but I think they give a great amount of contrast to the figure, and also help me feel better about the choice of a dark blue habit instead of black/grey.

The Necromancer was a good figure to paint. He has a lot of details, and most have enough depth to make painting them easy.

I decided to be brave and practice shading with paint instead of washes on his cloak. I started with a dark gray and shaded down to a black. I then highlighted up to a medium gray in most areas. Unfortunately, I chose to do a fast job instead of a good job, and that leaves some chalky highlights and visible lines. Considering it is a tabletop piece that is okay. However, I am uncertain if I can do a much better job than this.

I love the blue jewel though. It is a great center piece for the figure.

I posted him to the Zombicide reddit hoping for direction on how to make him better.

Silas is the most recent completed miniature. He had a significant miscast similar to many of the zombies. Basically, he has a 1mm gap in his right leg. In hindsight, I should have filled the gap in with green stuff and sculpted it to blend smoothly. Then again, he's just tabletop quality. The folks I play with likely won't care.

For his color palette on the green cloak, I tried using the Android Paint Palette app. It recommend that I use Reaper HD Stained Olive for shading, but when I tried it on the miniature, the green was a dark brown-green. It looks okay, but if it wasn't an exact tonal match, then I think I would have preferred a cooler dark-green.

His face had similar problems to Ann's. There wasn't clear definition for everything, and that made it difficult to paint. I tried shading under his huge cheekbones with Agrax Earthshade, and I think the effect works.

There it is! A painted, slightly bastardized Zombicide: Black Plague box. The first play will be in a couple weeks, giving me time to finish more of the Kickstarter zombies and a few additional survivors and necromancers for varied game play.

Something Like Painting - Zombicide Black Plague Start

June 28, 2016 by David Springer

Opening the Zombicide: Black Plague kickstarter box was truly magical. My 20 month old daughter was my companion for the opening ceremony. After each item we removed, she would utter "awesome" in her most powerful (for a 20 month old) voice.

The thing is, she wasn't wrong.

It was awe inspiring. Box after box of miniatures and artwork were pulled out. There was an endless supply of miniatures, both hero and vilian, and we had an incredible time looking through all of them.

Since that wonderful evening a week and a half ago, I have tried to focus that excitement into painting as much Black Plague as possible. The zombies are the largest portion of the work, and the least exciting. I started with the first nine of the walkers, runners, and fatties.

The first Zombicide zombies covered in Army Painter Strong Tone Quick Shade

The only problem was that I lacked the quick shade, and my FLGS did not have the Strong Tone Quick Shade that I was looking for.

Instead, I started focusing on the first six survivors I wanted to paint. First up were Cadence and Lady Grimm:

Lady Grimm and Cadence from the Marc Simonetti Guest Box

Lady Grimm was a bit of an experiment, and the first mini I have painted in less than an hour. I used Army Painter Silver to base her armor. The armor was then covered in a blue shade, hoping that it would give good depth and make the armor look more like steel. Unfortunately, it didn't come out like I hoped. She does have a good amount of depth though, and I think she looks good on the table.

Cadence is my favorite survivor sculpt out of the many (30+) that came in the Kickstarter. She's dynamic, interesting, and just damn cool.

Looking at her now, my only regret is that I didn't put more contrast into her face. The Reaper fair skin triad does not produce enough contrast, and I need to start shading down further.

I then moved on to Baldric and Nelly.

Nelly and Baldric from the Zombicide: Black Plague core set

I worked on Baldric first, and tried to crank up the contrast by using an excess of wash. It worked really well. I love how his hair and the inner brown robe turned out. The hair is Celestra Grey, blue shader, and then highlights with Celestra Grey and Reaper Ghost White (a white with a hint of blue). The robe is the Reaper Ivory triad with a heavy wash of Army Painter Strong Tone, a brown wash equivalent to Agrax Earthshade. His outer robe is Reaper HD Armor Grey Shaded with Nuln Oil, and highlighted up. The skin is Reaper's Tanned Skin triad.

Honestly, Baldric is an exceptionally easy figure to paint. He looks fine without eyes. His robes have deep grooves to help give him character, and all of the cloth is easy and obvious to highlight.

Nelly on the other hand is not. Her arm blocks access to her face. Her sword is flimsy and- even after straightening multiple times using hot water- bent back awkwardly. Her apron, which is whitewhite in the character art, is angled oddly which makes it difficult to highlight.

I tried a few different things with her. Perhaps the most radical was mixing a dark base skin tone. I combined Rakarth Flesh and Mournfang Brown to create a dark rosy skin tone, and base coated the skin (that I could reach) with it. I then created harsh highlights using the Rosy Skin Shadow, and highlighted up appropriately from there.

Her eyes were also nearly impossible to get right. I intentionally left them large and thoroughly surrounded by eye liner and mascara. The addition of a white dot on the pupil provides the simulated glint of crazy eyes. I feel this makes her look a little more like the barmaid who has lost everything and finally snapped.

Her hair is the standard Reaper red hair triad. The apron and blouse (that's what a frilly shirt is called, right?) are Celestra Grey, washed with Nuln Oil and highlighted up to white. It has nice depth, especially in hand.

The weakest point of both figures is unquestionably the sword. I don't really know how to pull off True Metalic Metal well. They lack the depth and interest of the other parts of the model. For that reason, I may switch to NMM... But it's so slow, and more work than I want to do on these figures.

It is worth noting that Sorastro's approach to painting on bases is quite incredible. It doesn't take much work, but turns into a lovely painted road pattern. Bigger stones and smaller lines look better, but it is kinda hard to mess up (I would have messed it up otherwise...) because each "mistake" simply gives it more character.

Something Like Painting: The Infinity Challenge

December 07, 2015 by David Springer in Miniatures

Quite possibly the best feature of X-Wing: The Miniatures Game is that the models come painted. You can walk into a game store, drop $15 on a ship in a cool toy-like package, pop it open, and be using it in a game within 5 minutes. It's amazing.

Since my last blog, I've started playing two games that are not like that at all: Malifaux and Infinity. While both of the games immediately captured me with their rules and their fluff, I have found myself far more devoted to Infinity than Malifaux (even after spending $150 on two Malifaux crews). Unfortunately for Malifaux, I rarely have Tuesday nights free to play at my FLGS.

However, both of these games come with figures that are unassembled and unpainted. You cannot pop them out of the package and get to playing within minutes, or even days.

Malifaux can be particularly nasty to assemble. The models are done in a type of plastic (I won't pretend to know enough to say which type) and require tweezing, scraping, holding, and praying to get assembled. Some of the Malifaux models are unbelievably complex and tiny at the same time. I'm looking at you, Mr Unassembled Electrical Creation.

Infinity is usually much easier to assemble, but all of the models are made out of a 2%-5% led compound. Not exactly the best for having around kiddos, especially when they're unpainted and unvarnished. Most models come in 3-5 pieces, and some have tiny antennae that will get lost, bent, or broken.

The Infinity miniatures have been a joy to paint. The metal sculpts have plenty of detail, and you can probably get away with a simple base coat plus washes to turn out great figures. To keep my motivation up, I started a personal blog of my painting progress and goals. There were some incredible deals over Black Friday, and suddenly I'm looking at only having about 20% of the models I own painted. This isn't good enough. My personal challenge is to flop that to 80% of my Infinity painted. That is going to take a few months, but it is the end goal. The painting journal and goals helps to keep me on track.

Here are a few of my favorite Infinity figures:

This is Keith Young, the baby of the 3 Young brothers in my Caledonian Volunteers. He's carrying a Chain Rifle and is the cheapest of the Caledonian troops at 6 points. He also has 1 kill to his name so far, the game winning kill when my brother was playing the forces of PanOceania. This was the second batch of tartans I had painted, and turned out okay. I could clean the tartans up more, but I left them where they are in the interest of time.

Munro McGill is the first of the Highlander Grey Rifles that I painted. I did a standard Black Watch tartan on him, and tried NMM on his chest plate, which looks better in this picture than it actually does. His skin is okay, but as the picture shows, his chrome dome isn't as blended as it should be. I should probably also add a spot highlight on the top of his head for the reflection off of the skin.

Abigail Thompson is one of the 3 PanOceania Fusiliersfrom Operation: Icestorm that I painted. I tried applying a blush with a very thin wash, but it didn't turn out as well as I was hoping. Otherwise I'm quite pleased with how she turned out.

Eva Nogales is Abigail's counterpart on the Nomad side. A standard, Combi Rifle Alguacile. I love how her hair turned out, though it's actually bad. It looks incredibly fake and that's not such a bad thing.

Mateus Garcia is a Mobile Brigada from the Corregidor Nomad's ship. I really didn't give his tactical rock as much attention as it needed, but otherwise I'm pleased with how he turned out. There is some detailing on the gun that is obvious when you're holding him, but this picture doesn't capture as well. I still need to add a few extra touches to him.

Derek Ortmann, a Knight Hospitaller of PanOceania, is my favorite miniature I have done to date. Not only do I love how dynamic he looks, but I'm really pleased with the paint job for getting him done in only 4 nights. The picture unfortunately adds a little highlighting that isn't there, but otherwise captures the paint job perfectly. The free-hand work on his paudrons and robe are my favorite part, and the rest of the figure is shaded well enough to help him pop.

Infinity is immensely fun to paint, and also incredibly fun on the table. I will hopefully start doing a weekly summary blog to go along with my personal painting journal.

Figures coming up are: Nisse (for Gamers Haven painting competition), Cameronian, William Wallace, Reverend Healer, Spektr, and an Akali Sikh.

Reaching for the Moon

September 29, 2015 by David Springer

Yeah, another post about the moon from Sunday night.

After watching the Broncos successfully demolish the Lions on Sunday night, it was time to get the minion into bed. As we crossed the street, we turned back to see the fully eclipsed super moon.

It was gorgeous. A massive world of red hovered over our neighbor's house.

The minion's response was immediate and demanding.

"Oh! Daddy, can we grab it?"

I'll stop here for a moment to say that the moon is a big deal to our big-little human. He has a moon, complete with phase changes, hanging on his wall that operates as a night light. Goodnight Moon has been read so many times that we both can recite it from memory. The closing line of another of his favorite books is "I love you right up to the moon and back." It's a frequent stall tactic of the blond-haired-ball-of-mischief to point out the moon as we go to bed.

The eclipse was going to be a big deal for him. Anyway, back to the moment.

Startled, I decided reaching for the moon was worth a shot, and lifted him as high as I could.

He couldn't quite reach it, so I set him down and tried to explain that the moon was a long way away. This wasn't good enough for the minion.

"Dah, I gunna go git the wadder! Come on, Dah!"

We tried to reach the moon multiple times from that point, but could not quite get there. There were two things about that moment that I want to remember forever.

First was his imagination. It amazed me how creative he was in trying to solve his simple goal, reaching the moon. He asked me to lift him as high as I could. We jumped off of the curb, then off of taller structures in an attempt to reach it.

Second was his persistence. That low hanging moon was his, and he knew it. He just needed to keep trying ideas until he could finally grab it. The only way I could convince him to go inside was to attempt to grab the moon from the window in his room.

I'll leave you with this picture of the little dude from my brother's wedding. Keep coming up with ideas kiddo. When those fail, think of more.