One last touch on the Crusader mini

Warrior 11a

The metallics were just that little bit flat so I decided to ink them.  I hadn't used inks before (mostly I use washes, which are thinned paints) so I was hesitant.  Some help from the Reaper forum got me moving.

Most but not all of the metallics have been inked.  The large smooth surfaces and the top 'skirt' of chain mail didn't get inked.  The large smooth surfaces had nothing that would be enhanced by ink.  The top skirt I wanted to keep lighter than the leg armor so I just didn't darken it.

Overall I'm pleased with the extra depth this added.

I've started painting the bases as well.  A layer of flock and the some static grass will complete that.  I know you can see the slot where the mini was inserted but that will get covered by the flock so I'm not going to waste time filling it in prior to that.

There's two coats of varnish on these so only one left to go.  My varnish mix is mostly Future floor wax so it can take some serious abuse.  Which is what I expect to happen to these figures since they're meant to be used to demo the game.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Demo army first rank painting done

Finished up this first rank.  They still need varnish and basing but the painting itself is done.

Tonight I did the black fabric trim, then the leathers, then the sword and hotspots

Warriors All

Here's all the boys together.  The photos are a bit washed out since I overprocessed them in Photoshop.  Looks like my lights just aren't going to do it for me since I can't get the balance between the color and the brightness.

They'll get varnish then I'll set them aside until I know what I'm doing for basing.  Most likely it will be a grass/rock blend since they're the most generic of factions I have.

Next up is a couple of minis for me and then the next ranks.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

One more step in the minis

Warrior 07a

I only got one step done today on finishing up the minis.  I probably could have gotten more done but the long car trip we took in the morning to take the boat up to be stored for the winter didn't agree with me.  I'm feeling better now, thanks for asking.

I'm going with more vivid colors than anticipated when I started painting.  This is Ultramarine blue.  A nice purple-blue that fits in well with the silver and gold.  The trim will be black, as will the emblem you probably can't see on his chest.

Belt and hilt, trim, boots and gloves, sword.  Then I think I can call this rank done.  I have two each of spearmen and archers yet to paint and while they're not all the same pose I can probably paint them all up at once as well.  They'll go a little faster than these since I know the colors I'm using but since I do plan on doing the step-by-step it does take a little longer than if I were doing a straight paint job and posting pictures at the end.  Not that much, since I would tend to stop at these points anyway.  Just some more time in taking the pictures and posting.

I'm on the fence about primer color as well.  I typically use white so I have the flexibility to use any color and it will show up nicely.  But these guys are all dark colors.  So I could use black and save myself a lot of undercoating with brown.  It's something to ponder while I paint that difficult color - black.

As with the other posts, the collection of photos is below.

Demo - Crusaders

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Demo army progress

I'm moving on quite nicely.  All the armor bits are done on these fellows, except for the final detailing but that doesn't count because it's done at the end.  Trust me, that makes sense in my world.

We got the light box thing sorted out.  Now I'm just learning the best way to use it.  So these are a little more clear.

Chain mail and all armor pieces are done.  It's a little hard to see but there's a faction symbol on the top of his right shoulder that's also done in the silver so it stands out.

I'm reconsidering my color scheme for the fabric parts now that I'm really seeing how the silver and gold look together.  My original plan may be too wishy-washy to really go with the contrast.  I'm going to ponder this for a few days.  Or until I decide to paint them some more.

There's really not that much left to do.  I say that now.  When I actually paint I'll find all kinds of things yet to be done.  Of course.

The full progress of the paint job is in the collection below.

Demo - Crusaders

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Working on a demo army

I want to start running demos, events and just plain games using the Reaper Warlord system.  So I need demo armies to keep the ham-fisted gamers away from my personal armies and to have readily available balanced demo forces.  As an official Reaper demo person I get points for running events.  I can then spend those points to get stuff.  Like figures for demo armies.

I may have already noted this but I'm not known for going back to read old posts.

My demo armies each have two troops - one with a sergeant and troops, one with a monster.  So that's a total of 10 figures to paint for each demo army.  Not too bad, that's doable.

I'm starting with Crusaders since that's not one of my personal armies and I didn't have the color scheme set for the ones I did get.  So, start with the oddballs.

I've been taking pictures of each step of the painting process, mostly to keep me going and also to show off and hopefully inspire others to paint stuff.  It takes more time on my part since I have to stop to take pictures after each step but that's not too bad.

I'm not doing the typical 'base coat, dry brush, call it done' painting.  I've tried it and I just don't like it.  So I'm doing a basic tabletop paint job on them.

Without further ado, the pictures.

Warrior 01b

This dude has the brown paint on his legs.  Everything was painted dark brown.  The chain mail, the leg armor and the boots.

Warrior 02a

It's a little hard to see but his chain mail now has silver on it.  I so need a better light setup for quick pictures.

Warrior 03c

A bit more shiny.  The leg armor has been painted gold.  There will be tiny hotspots of bright silver on that when I'm done with everything else but for now it's good.

Everything left that is chain mail, armor or attached leather (like gloves) is that same dark brown.  I need to buy another bottle of that.  This gives me a nice warm brown undercoat to everything.  That same dark brown base coat sucked all the light out of the picture.  And I'm not savvy enough in Photoshop to make it lighter.  Hopefully by the time I get to the finished figures my new low-class light box will be color corrected out of the yellow band and I can take better, more accurate, pictures.

That's as far as I go right now.   There's four of these types of figures that are all getting painted at once.  I'm trying to find the time to get at least one step done per night if I can.  Hopefully this weekend I'll get them all the way to the fabric parts.

A note on the gold armor.  The only reason for this is that one of my other demo armies is dudes in plate armor.  So to make sure they stand apart on the table this faction gets gold armor.  That will make it easier to identify who is whom.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Finished a couple of minis

One of the most tedious tasks is painting armies.  There's just so many figures and so many are the same it seems like an impossible task.  So I thought it would be interesting to see if people were interested in trying an exchange.  In this one it would work more like a round-robin so that everyone painted minis for one person, then the next person sent out their minis, and so on.  Eventually you'll end up with about a dozen painted minis, as would everyone in the exchange. (Math = 4 people each sending 4 minis.  While that might look like it adds up to 16 and not 12 remember the recipient isn't counted.  12.  Nyah.)

So the first set goes out and it happens to be minis I can't stand and just can't figure out how to paint.  I finally slogged through them and actually finished up the one different one today.  Considering I also started it today I think that's pretty darn spiffy.

The one on the top is the type of figure that I had a hard time figuring out what was what to paint.

The one on the bottom was quick, easy and fun for some reason.  I can see a couple of tiny touchups needed on him in the pictures but since they're all waiting on varnish that's a quick thing.

The entire collection is down below if you want to browse.  The pictures weren't done with 'good light' so they're a bit dark in places.

Army Exchange - Darkspawn

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Tiny little updates

I haven't accomplished squat this last week or so.

I've been working on the cardstock stuff and wanted to use up some of the incredible amount of foamcore I acquired.  So I decided to work on ground tiles.  Not familiar with ground tiles?  Let me explain.

Ground tiles are tiles of mounted cardstock that simulate the ground terrain of your current setup.  So you have rocky floor for caverns, grass and dirt for villages, etc.  They're not completely necessary if you're using a battle mat underneath them (the grid for movement, you see) but they really do make it look nice.  And yes, one option is to print the ground tiles with a grid.

The company suggests gluing these ground tiles onto a single sheet of foamcore to make a Masterboard.  Well, since I have so freakin' much foamcore I decided to go with tiles instead.  That way I can create my ground terrain however I darn well please.  This is more of an issue with the village stuff than the cavern or water stuff really.

They have a nifty extra step that allows you to use bow tie connectors under the ground tile.  That way the pieces don't slide around but you also don't see the connector.  The newer sets come with the template for this process.

I copied off a bunch of the template and decided to try spray adhesive for this, since I was gluing a large flat area and that's what spray adhesives are good for.

I'm calling that a mixed success.  I might not have sprayed enough on but the adhesion isn't as good as I would have liked.  I'll be doing some cleanup by gluing down corners, etc.  Luckily I had a 40% off coupon at the one store in the area that sells the type of glue I like.  Score!

So I'm slowly cutting these out.  The foamcore is white and while technically I could leave it white I'm going to paint the edges black just so they look better.  Another step in the process.  After these foamcore bases are complete then I can glue on the ground tiles and it will be all good.  Not only will these be more versatile in setup but it's much easier to store 7 inch by 7 inch tiles than a 2 foot by 3 foot sheet of Masterboard.

Otherwise I just need to finish up painting and basing a figure for someone, paint up one more figure for an exchange, and work on a plaster building or three.

Oh, I had the opportunity to score some free plaster but I passed it up.  A couple of reasons:

1. I've got the water:plaster ratio down cold for the type I currently use
2. I can buy fifty pounds of plaster for very little money
3. I'm not casting enough to justify having several hundred pounds of plaster sitting in the basement

OK.  That was three reasons.  I feel they're all valid reasons and I'm happy with the decision.  We're trying to reduce clutter and that wasn't the way to go.

One last thing.  I'm in a wedding in December so I was able to pick up the fabric to make my dress.  The bride is being quite sensible and just telling us a color so we can (technically) have dresses that we can wear again.  The color is 'dark red' and didya know just how many colors kind of but not really fall into that range?  Let me tell you - lots.  But I found a satin that will work.  I'm still not sure if I'm going to make it shiny side out or not.  What?  You didn't know you can use either side of a fabric?  I'm shocked!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

The way it always goes

I joined the demo team for Reaper Miniatures because I love their paints and minis and I've been upgraded to running the paint events at my local store.  Since I'm doing demos and events anyway I might as well earn points for them, right?

They also have a ruleset for a miniatures game that uses their miniature lines.  Not a shabby idea and I've liked the game the few times I've gotten to play it.

I do have figures for armies for myself but I really don't want to subject them to the hamfisted local gamers on a regular basis.  With the points I had banked up and some advice from experienced players/demo team members I settled on the basic composition of a demo army:

Sergeant
4 swordsmen
2 archers
2 spearmen

Monster

I was on the fence about the monster but was persuaded by "They look cool on the table and bring people over to see what's going on."  Good enough for me.

I created my rosters and then placed my order for three demo armies (three different factions).  Which arrived yesterday.  Yay packages!

I started to sort out the minis so I had all the different factions separated and when I sat down to paint I could grab-and-go.  But something was odd about the elf figures and what ones were in the package.  I checked my order and found out that somehow I only ordered archers.  No swordsmen, no spearmen.  Hrm.  That ain't gonna work.

Oh well, I'll fix it with my next order and use the extra archers as giveaway figures to people who show up and play the game.  Not a big deal at all and what the points are there to be used for.

Which leads me to the "The way it always goes" part of this post.

Elves were the only faction with a defined color scheme right now.  I hadn't thought out color schemes for the two other factions, thinking I could do that while I painted up the elves.  (Note - I'm painting the demo armies in the same colors as my personal armies.)  Now all the figures I really can paint and complete are ones where I don't know what colors I want to use.

I went into a couple of online chats about this kind of thing and got ideas.  I looked at what other people used for those factions.  I know I don't want to use the colors that are used in the rule book as everyone seems to use them and it isn't required to use any particular color.  Plus, I don't have a personal army for one of the factions.  So that color scheme has to stand alone and not be similar to any of the other ones.

I'm hoping to spray some primer on some minis to use as test subjects for the color schemes.  Then I can have the dual satisfaction of seeing how the color scheme works and getting a mini painted.

By the way.  The faction I'm working on first is the Crusaders so it's a lot of guys in armor.  Armor is easy for fast painting.  They have the flowing skirt-things (tabards or some such) to soften them up a bit.  I'm looking at ivory as the main color for those, accented with a light green.  And then the armor being mostly gold/brass/bronze.  My original scheme had a brighter, warm green instead of the light green but when I looked at the figures it would have put the green and gold too close for comfort and made me think of the Green Bay Packers.  Not a totally bad thing but not what I wanted on my gaming table.  Plus the other faction that I did order correctly is Overlords which is more guys in armor.  They're getting silver armor (I have a personal army of those but haven't settled on a color scheme.  I'm thinking orange.  Maybe.) and I needed the other set of armored dudes to contrast on the table.  Otherwise it would have been rather confusing and monotonous.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Back on track!

I'm as healthy as can be expected so now I'm back on track.

I'm doing some more casting as I found out something interesting.  I used to use a dental plaster called Merlin's Magic for my Hirst Arts work.  Great stuff.  But the cost was getting prohibitive and I had to have it shipped.  I've switched over to Hydrostone.  I can get that locally for a fraction of the price.

The interesting thing is that the two plasters don't take paint the same way.  The paint doesn't seem to soak into the Merlin's Magic like it does the Hydrostone.

While normally this wouldn't be an issue all the columns for the inner temple of the display base were made from Merlin's Magic castings.  The roof sections were made from Hydrostone.  Both of them will have the same color of faux marble painted on them.  And while doing the base coats I discovered that they don't look the same.

So now I'm recasting all the column pieces in Hydrostone so the marble will be consistent when I paint it.

At least I have four fully assembled columns for future use.

Also, for a design detail I'm gluing two curved sections together so they make a round opening.  That will make sense when I post pictures.  I'm putting in four sections so I need eight bricks.  Of course I only had seven.  It's going to be a long build.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Inspiration high. Motiviation low.

I've got all my great ideas.  But actually doing something about them is tough.

But I did work on my design for the large display base I'm doing.  It's in two pieces - inner and outer.  I'm starting with the inner since it will have more detailed painting.  Yes, I'm faux painting again.

Since the pieces are assembled pieces there are join lines.  In the past I've just painted over them and lived with the result.  This time around I'm trying an idea of filling them in using caulk. 

I did some pre-assembly last night.  I consider pre-assembly things like making columns to length and working with sub-sections.  Essentially making the pieces that will make the larger pieces.

Tonight I filled the join lines.  One of the sub-sections will become a hemispherical roof and there are join lines all over the place.  I'm hoping the caulk will fill them enough so there are nothing but smooth sections where there should be smooth sections.  Considering I'm going to be faux painting those areas I'd like them to be smooth.

I also got smart enough to make a test piece that will be a small section of the intended whole.  That way I can see if my color ideas will work.  I think they will but without a test I can't be certain.  I caulked that thing too.

Tomorrow I hope to do more assembly.  The columns are at length but still need to be glued together on the long sides.  The roof is down to 8 sections from 16.  Tomorrow there will be 4.  Then I'll fill the join lines on everything again.  I'm working on the join lines as each sub-section is assembled because it's easier to get into all the little nooks and crannies when they're still separate.  It might take longer but I'm hoping the final result will be smoother and nicer.

Right now there's nothing that would warrant pictures.  It's just some partially assembled pieces.  And the caulk filling really doesn't show up well.  I don't expect the pictures to start until the main unit is dry-stacked and the test piece is painted.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Casting is prepped

Well, as much as I can be.

I had a little time so I pre-weighed my plaster.  I prefer to do this so I can cast portably.  But I couldn't do this until I had transferred the plaster from the fifty pound bag into the one gallon jugs.

I did that earlier this week.  Thursday I believe.

The digital scale was being used as a postal scale so it was upstairs.  I took it back to the basement and while I was down there I weighed out lots of little bags.  I weigh out 200g of plaster at a go.

Now, I can take the container with the bags of plaster and my tray with the rest of my casting equipment and cast in a reasonable amount of time.  No weighing, just pour out the water (a coffee scoop is 1/8 cup (30ml) so three of them equal 90g of water.  Handy that), pour in the plaster and mix.

Next week is out for casting but the week after that!  Hrm.  Maybe I'll make a couple of custom molds this week.  I need to remake my gothic dungeon builder with a more durable silicone and I have a couple of other ones I want to make.  My big container of silicone should be used before it starts to age so I need to plan a bunch of molds to use that up.  Once it ages it becomes far less useful.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

I primed

Skeeters tried to eat me and I think one was sizing up the giant eagle for battle over territory but the entire elf army is prepped and primed.

Until I find heinous mold lines and missed primer but that's what brush on primer is for.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Tonight I will prime

Come heck or high water ..  Wait.  High water would mean humidity.  Humidity means no priming.

So, just come heck.

I just want to get those last pieces from my elf army primed so they're all done and I can have them ready for when I can paint.

I have four figures to finish up from an exchange first then I can settle on a color scheme and slap paint.  On my army.  Not just slap the paint.  That serves no purpose.

I painted and inserted the door to the magic shop. Now I just need to decide if I'm going to fix the furnishings in place of have them loose so I can set things up as I please.  I'm not sure.  I need to discuss this with the person who started me on building a village and see what he's doing.

I'm torn.  I would like to have things so they stay where I put them but I would also like to be able to use them in other situations.  I'm probably going to leave them loose.  But don't take that one to the bank.

Pictures of the magic shop when I have the rest of it done.  I have a scale to make, signage to hang and landscaping to do.  Then the shop is done and I can turn my attention to the mage's workshop above.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

There's always one...

I'm posting the progress of my elf army over on the Reaper Miniatures discussion forum because, well, they're Reaper miniatures, they're for a Reaper game, and it's fun.

I posted a quick update stating that I had used epoxy putty (green stuff) to mount the one-piece figures and since they didn't really look any different they could use their imagination.

And there's always one.

A very jovial post said that my loyal fans demanded pictures of the green stuff.  Never one to disappoint, here's what they got.

Assembled with Greenstuff

Because I was in that mood I added the red arrows showing there really was green stuff used.

But arranging the figures did show that one of the fairies had a wing malfunction.  The giant eagle fell over after I took the original picture and clipped one of the wings.  I can repair it while working on the rest of the figures.  Better now than later!

So all the figures in this picture are ready for primer.  Let's see if the weather cooperates this weekend.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Quick update on the elf army

No, it doesn't have a name yet.  It's going by the clever code name 'elf army',

Here's the combination of primed and unprimed minis.  I didn't get to filling in the gaps last night so that's something to do before moving on.  Some of the unprimed ones are single cast (no assembly needed) so I can prime those whilst working on the others.

Initial Primed

These are the elves that started it all.  Mostly grunts there's a sergeant and a warlord in there somewhere.  And I think a cleric.  They kind of blur together when they're all in one place.

Assembled

And here's the ones I assembled this week.  The giant eagle still needs lots of cleanup at the joints but overall the figures went together well.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Prepping minis. Lots of minis.

One thing I did whilst at ReaperCon was trade in all my blistered (unopened) pewter and my scrap pewter.  They let you do this at ReaperCon.  I had a bunch of blistered stuff that I was never going to use for various reasons and I had a lot of scrap pewter.  Let me explain.

A while ago I purchased a mixed lot of Warlord factions.  Warlord is Reaper's miniature strategy game.  Well, with the release of the annual update I actually sat down to see what I needed to make these mixed lots into playable armies.

Turns out, a lot.

I scrapped three factions completely.  Mostly because I didn't like the sculpts and had no real interest in painting them.  That left me four factions to fill out.

I asked for advice on the Reaper forum for how best to fill them out and got lots of helpful stuff.  So I sat down and made my lists.

Let's just say that I 'spent' more on minis that day than I payed for tuition my first semester of college, not adjusting for inflation.  But since it was all trade-in I really only rearranged the pewter.

Now that I'm settled back at home I wanted to get started on these.  Painting four armies doesn't happen overnight.  I had a plate full of elves that were already prepped and primed so I decided to start with that faction.  As of now I have twenty minis prepped and assembled with one left to do.  But that's a really big one.

Tonight I'll use the epoxy putty (aka greenstuff due to the color) to smooth out any joins and help them adhere to their bases.  That will give it the twenty four hour cure time it likes before I start priming.

Oh.  Priming.  Now that the weather is nice I have to prime outside.  I could get away with priming the occasional single figure in the basement during the winter but that tolerance has ended and Mr. Rastl won't make me a spray booth.  But we've been getting a lot of wet weather so I don't think it will dry out enough by Saturday so I can prime.  I'm holding out hope tho.

Then I'll have all those minis to paint.  The amount of paint love they get is directly proportional to how long I expect them to be upright and fighting for me.  Grunt - not so much love.  Warlord - much love.

I'll post piccies to show progress.  Right now they're just a mix of primed and unprimed minis.  I'll start the photo journal when they're all primed.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

ReaperCon - an overview

Why an overview?  I'll tell you.  Too much to separate out into day-by-day.

I took four classes.  Three were painting, one was sculpting.  From the painting classes I learned

• While I could get the really smooth color transitions I like seeing I don't want to put that much effort into painting them.
• I'm doing pretty much everything right for painting armies.  Adding some colored washes to the armor makes a huge difference for very little effort.
• Demi-metallics are really the way to go (using both pigment paint and metallic paint) in order to get the best of both worlds.
• Sculpting can be fun, if you have someone who can hold your hand.

I did speed painting (lost), Sophie Says (like Simon Says but with paint) and was picking paint off for days, did some color theory tests using the reformulated Reaper Pro Paints, cashed in a lot of pewter in exchange for a lot of pewter, helped a friend get what he wanted from the auction on Sunday, chatted with lots and lots and lots of people, now have the only Urban Legend Starmaine (unicorn) in existence, and all kinds of other stuff.

The after convention convention was a hoot.  I learned that approaching 21 again from the other direction doesn't help you bounce back like you used to.  And that sleep is an overrated commodity when there is so much fun to be had.

I can't wait for the next ReaperCon but have an entire year before it can happen.  I'll have to use that time to apply the classes I took and paint up some of that pewter I brought home.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

ReaperCon - Preconvetion

OK - today was the day before the convention actually starts.  I flew into Dallas this morning.  I remember part of the beverage service and the landing.  I guess I needed sleep.  I purposely took the seat next to the engine so that:

A) The white noise from the engine would be soothing.
B) The noise from the engine would prevent people from talking.

Both worked.  At one point the noise got annoying so I put in my earbuds and listened to music.  I made it half-way through the second song before I was asleep again.  That helped me be slightly more alert.

The directions from Yahoo had me using the toll road when there was a perfectly good non-toll road alternative.   Luckily I knew this from previous trips.  So I made it to the hotel with very little fuss.

My buddy got here Tuesday so we met up at the hot tub for some catch-up and some relaxation.  Make a note of this - pools in Texas generally aren't heated.  This can be quite a surprise after sitting in a hot tub for a while.  We found it easier to use the ladder into the deep end instead of the stairs at the shallow end.  The stairs gave us too much of a chance to chicken out.

It started to rain a bit while we were in the pool but no storm so we just waited it out.  It worked.  A couple of rounds of hot tub - pool really relaxed the muscles kinked up from days of prep, hauling around heavy luggage and sleeping in an airplane.

Reaper is nice enough to do a "meet and greet" with food for all the early arrivals.  They also gave us our convention packets so we don't have to clog up the official registration tomorrow.  There were some really fun things in the packets this year.  Two of the reformulated Pro Paints, some CAV cards, some other surprises.  The new Casketworks is not in color which seems like a throwback to the early days but it makes sense.  Only a few pages were in color.  Most of the catalog was black and white anyway.  Doesn't help the color swatches they used to have tho.

Most everyone had left by around 10:00 or so.  Getting back to the hotel I changed into my comfy clothes, poured a margarita (darn these small hotel cups) and set about fixing the pieces that broke off the Hirst Arts piece I brought as a gift.  ReaperClark kindly provided me a tube of two part epoxy so I didn't have to hunt around for a store this late at night.  Unfortunately as I fixed it all back up I noticed a missing brick at the join of one of the sections.  A completely missing brick.  Argh.  I'll have to give it to the person this way and send them the missing brick and that annoys me.  But it should also teach me to leave things until last minute.

I stopped at the package store to get my contribution to ShinerCon later this weekend.  For those not informed a 'package store' is a liquor store and ShinerCon is one night when we all meet in someone's hotel room and indulge in Shiner beer.  Shiner is a local brand of beer.  There's a secret handshake and some of us attach Shiner bottle caps to our badges the next day.  It's all part of ReaperCon.

The convention officially opens at noon on Thursday.  That lets me sleep in a little and hopefully hit that hot tub again.  I won't have time after that because I'm going to be at Reaper from 9:00am until around 11:00pm if last year is any indication.  And Sunday I'll be going directly from Reaper to visit my dad.  And don't think I won't be hitting the hot tub once I get to that hotel.  But I get ahead of myself.

Tomorrow I have one class on painting army highlights.  The rest of the day is mine.  There's games to play, people to chat with, painting to do, shopping to do, and otherwise just hang out.

I'll report back on Official Day One tomorrow.  I would add pictures but I can't get them from the camera to the computer I'm using here.  I could probably have used one of the adapters from home but the one that would have been easiest is USB 2.0 and this is an older computer that doesn't support it.  Ditto on the media player - I can charge it using the computer but not transfer files.

Margarita number three is almost gone so it's time to toddle off to sleep.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Anyone got time they can give me? Not help, time.

Too much to do and not enough time!  How many times (hah!) have you heard that?

I leave for ReaperCon next week and pretty much immediately after I return we go on our first camping trip of the season.  We haven't really dredged out the camper for this year, I only have half the linens washed, the icebox needs to be scrubbed, etc.  We don't have a way to hook up power to the camper where it is so I can only work during daylight hours.  And there's no way I'm getting the last two curtains made before the first trip but that's less of an issue since they're replacement curtains.

Our weekend is half-booked so I'm really hoping I can use the other half.  Reeeeally hoping.

I need to finish painting and landscaping a piece I'm bringing to ReaperCon as a gift so that's also going to have to get done this weekend so it has time to dry before being packed.

So, if anyone can toss a day my way it would be greatly appreciated.

PS - the dandylions have won this round.  I will resort to chemicals to win the battle.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

The Shelf of Shame got a little lighter

No, I didn't complete anything.  That would be silly.

Instead what I did was thin it out.  There's a whole lotta stuff there that somehow ended up on the Shelf and isn't really anything I want to paint.

Anyhoo.  I'm heading down to ReaperCon in a few weeks.  That's the one time of the year when you can cash your pewter in ounce for ounce.  So my poor unwanted minis are going back into the melt pot and I'll come home with happy new minis.  That will once again take up residence on the Shelf of Shame.

And I also got around to looking at all the various Warlord factions sitting around.  Using the new data cards I sat down and pointed out my armies.  I dropped three factions completely because I had so few figures that it didn't make sense to keep them.  Or I would have had to invest in a complete command structure.  Or because I just didn't like them.

That leaves me with five factions.  They all need figures to complete them but not nearly as many as the others.  Plus with all the scrap pewter I should make up the difference easily enough.  I also have a bunch of minis still in their blister packs that can be traded at face value so I have no doubt I can get all the minis I have listed along with parts from the boneyard I have on my want list.

And that's one reason why I'm bringing two suitcases on my trip.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Exchange mini/diorama is done!

I am so late on this but my partner was understanding.

I believe I have explained how a mini exchange works previously but I'll summarize here.  You sign up, you get a name, you paint a mini, you send it off.  Someone else paints a mini and sends it to you.  Fun all around.

I like to research what the person receiving my mini prefers.  I do this by searching the forum for things they've posted or commented upon.  Normally they give some guidance when they sign up (elves, females, etc.) but I like to do my own research too.

This time around I was paired with someone who only likes display minis.  This means they're part of a diorama of some kind and not meant for game play.  Hmmm....

I picked up a couple of the cheap wooden bases at the hobby store and started stacking blocks.  I came up with a spiral staircase on a round base.  The mini is a wizard walking down stairs.  Of course, the stairs weren't the same height as the ones I made but that can be worked around.  I mangled my first attempt at getting him off his integral base and my friend Erin took pity on me and sent me one already de-based.

Exchange Wizard

So he's walking down the stairs on one side of the diorama.  I needed something to fill the space on the other side.  Meet Mr. Rat.

Rat with Sack

He's quite happily nibbling away at whatever is in the sack.  From what I painted, I think it is dried berries.  You can see other sacks piled behind him under the stairs and the wooden support for the stairs themselves.  They just didn't look right without some kind of support.  So I made one.

For the full effect, have a look at the 360 degree 'movie' I made.

Display Base 02

I really hope she likes it and I really hope my next exchange partner isn't into display bases.  But it's been fun.

Oh - the lantern is from an adventuring accessories pack and the hanger was made by my friends Abaroth and KeeblerOrc with their fun laser cutter.  That's actually a candle holder but I didn't put that part on it.  I needed a lantern hook.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Little founts are finally done

I've been working on these off and on for a while.  I wanted some decorative little founts to toss around the dungeon (not literally toss but scatter decoratively) and I had some casts from the oh-so-wonderful Hirst Arts Cavern Accessories Mold so I decided to have a little fun.  Of course, this was after I decided on my 'no new projects' way of doing things.  Like anyone thought that was going to happen.

Alabaster Fount 02

This shows the fountain and the 'water' I used.  I tried something different this time.  Instead of using resin I tinted gloss varnish and used that to put in a layer of water.  As you can see, all the varnish went to the edges of the piece.  Not quite what I had in mind.  I still used 5 minute epoxy for the water from the spout but didn't really do a froth where it hit.

Alabaster Fount 01

This was my first attempt at alabaster.  I think it is decent enough for a first time.  The next time I do this I need to stipple the base coat so it isn't such a flat ivory.  So I'll probably stipple with something at least two shades darker and then work on the striations.

Backstory.  I have time to think whilst making and painting these things.  And that was a lot of marble to paint.  I actually made four of these founts so it was a lot of assembly line work.  Rastl doesn't like assembly line work.

I wasn't being particularly careful on painting the marble so it isn't the best quality.  And the lion heads all have some air bubbles.  Without the stippling the alabaster is certainly second rate.  So here's my explanation for all that.

The contractors building the dungeon must get pieces in the job lots that just aren't up to the standards needed in the BBEG's lair.  But they already paid for it and had it hauled down to the job site.  So rather than waste it they make up things that will be useful in various 'staff' areas of the dungeon and not really seen all the time by the guy who pays the bills.  Now, you would think that the contractors would be doing their very best not to cheese off the BBEG but there's a pretty strong dungeon builder's contractor's union and there are very steep penalties for turning the contractors into undead (sub-contractors need to work out their own arrangements) so it's just easier all around for the less-than-perfect pieces to go into the less visible areas of the dungeon.

And if you're wondering, acrylic paint really doesn't have fumes so I don't have that excuse for what I just wrote.

Note - BBEG is the abbreviation for Big Bad Evil Guy.  Essentially the reason for most quests and the fella you find in the center of the dungeon doing bad guy things.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Army Exchange Work in Progress Shots - Continued Some More

Got the reds pretty much done and started on the metallics.  At least, figured out what will be silver and what will be gold and got the silver started.

WIP - Isiri 05

I feel the red/orange went on a little chalky and I need to deepen the shadows just a tad but overall I think it will work.  This shot is a little dark so I hope to have a better one up in a day or so.

Metals will be a combination of silver and gold.  Technically both are neutrals so I'm good with having them both on there.  Then it's just cleanup and I can call them done.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Army Exchange Work in Progress Shots - Continued

Still working on these little guys.  I did get an idea on how to paint what from someone else who suffered through painting them so I'm well on my way to being done.

WIP - Isiri 02

For those who don't paint minis, red is one of the more difficult colors to paint.  It just doesn't cover and then you have to be careful highlighting it so it doesn't go all pink on you.  I stopped tonight after getting everything red I wanted red.  Trying to do more would have been .. bad.  As it is I have a little cleanup to do where red went places I didn't want red.

I'm saying 'red' a lot but that's because it was what I painted tonight.

Here's a better shot of the violet skin and stuff.

WIP - Isiri 03

For those who want to know, you get a good deep red by painting it another color first.  Red by itself doesn't cover very well so you end up with splotchy coverage.  I painted all the red areas a rust brown that has fantastic coverage.  Then the red only had to darken that.  It's what we call "a trick of the trade".

The person who sent these want them done in what is called the Fire Triad.  It goes through oranges and yellow.  So I'll start bringing the highlights up to that yellow, probably starting tomorrow.  Then it's just the metallics and some detailing, like the horns on some of them, buckles, etc.

The end is in sight.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Random musings

Some thoughts from the last few days.

• Epoxy is great but it stinks
• 5 minute epoxy is great but don't decide to try to make changes while you have it mixed
• Dixie cups are multi-use.  Rip them short to use the bottom as a palette and then use the sides (ripped in pieces) to mix epoxy.
• Separate epoxy components are still sticky
• Acetone cleans sticky
• Make sure your superglue is set (dry) before trying to paint over it
• Paper sucks up paint.  Plan accordingly
• Paper gets pliable when wet, such as from painting.  Plan accordingly.
• Straight pins are difficult to cut and the cut ends go 'ping' all over the room.  Stick the pin in a piece of foam and then cut.
• No matter how careful you are, you'll forget and try to use beads directly out of the open container.  Beads hurt when you step on them.
• When you put something "where it will be safe" you'll never find it again. I guess that's one definition of safe.
• Completely prepping for a 'make and take' will ensure no one shows up.  Forgetting half your stuff will ensure a ton of people show up.
• Always look where you have your puddle of epoxy.  Don't put it where you normally put your elbow, brushes, tools, bits, cats, media player, your other elbow, the phone, the cell phone, another finished mini, etc.  Not that I've done any of those things.  Nope.  Not me.
• Research other paint jobs before slapping paint on an unfamiliar type of mini.  Or terrain.  Or cat.
• Don't paint the cat.
• When your spouse is on a roll of "Honey!  Come look at this!" feel free to ignore them after the first three if they're all about things that aren't going to happen, don't concern you, don't interest you, or aren't going to suddenly show up on the porch.

Yep.  That's about it for tonight.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Army Exchange Work in Progress Shots

I did more than just these tonight but I didn't get pictures of one thing and the other isn't quite all together yet.  So you're stuck with my WIP shots.

I coordinated an army round-robin kind of thing.  For those who signed up, here's how it is going.  The first person sends out four minis to each person in the round along with a color scheme.  Each person has two months to paint them and send them back.  Then the next person does the same thing and so on.  This one takes more of a time commitment than a simple single miniature to be done in two months. *

WIP - Isiri 01

These are from a Reaper Warlord Darkspawn army.  I'm not familiar with this army so I was at a loss as to how to paint them correctly.  I got some great advice from my buddy Shakandra so I have a much better idea of how to make these look right.

The fluff said they had either violet or purple skin.  I can't remember right now.  But the color scheme for this army is flame red so I needed to make the skin not clash.  That's why the subtle.

The skin color uses undercoating.  That means I put a coat of purple down and the brought the skin tones up on top of it.  That tints the skin colors without having to mix the purple into every layer.  I like this.  It's my newest favorite technique.

The hair isn't finished.  That's just the base coat.  I'm going to take it up to a very light cream white so that vivid marigold is only in the deep shadows.  That's another technique I'm liking but still practicing.

Once skin and hair are complete it's on to armor.  Armor will be a neutral because of all the colors on there already.  And I'm tempted to use my 'bad guy' leather colors.  I found that using the tanned skin colors really creep me out when used for anything but skin.  However using them for leather on the bad guy figures just makes them that much badder, in my opinion.

* For those not familiar, a miniature exchange is generally a double blind.  You send your name to the coordinator, sometimes with a preference as to what you want.  The coordinator matches up people.  So the person you're painting for is not the person painting for you.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Added a few photos

I suddenly realized that I could put more pictures on here.  So I put up some pictures of the current incarnation of my modular dungeon in a sample layout.  They're older so none of the coolness like the fountain have been incorporated yet.
They're down and to the right.
Down and to the right.
Down and to the right.
Sorry, channeling Oliver Stone there for a moment.


Edit - Look for Collections.  Those are where the pictures are.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Colored bottles, an exercise in varnish

A fella on the Hirst Arts forum was showing off his latest projects and he had these wonderful bottles on the crates.  So I pestered the heck out of him until he gave me all the details.

In a nutshell:

1. Glue beads onto a straight pin
2. Base with white acrylic
3. Paint with ink
4. Varnish

Well, I've got beads.  The trick is finding the correct size and shape to look like bottles.  Luckily I had been working on trying to make bottles much earlier in the project and had a bunch of beads from the local dollar store.

For whatever reason superglue isn't liking me these days.  I just can't get it to work.  I think the house is too dry for it to adhere so I may have to experiment with that but not right now.  So I used regular tacky glue.  While this fills in the gaps between the beads so they look more cohesive it takes longer to dry and I seem to end up with crooked bottles.  Those are going in the back.

Two coats of white craft paint make the proto-bottles a nice smooth white.  It also reinforces the glue bond and fills in the spaces even more.  Since I'm trying to look like they're one unit this is a good thing.

On to the ink.  I do have Reaper inks and haven't really had a chance to use them much.  This was a great opportunity.  It took two coats to get it looking smooth.  I probably could have done a third coat but didn't for two reasons.

1. I didn't want the color to look too opaque
2. I'm lazy

I let those dry really well.  Because I had other things to do.

On to the last step - varnish.  The originator used three coats of Future Floor Wax.  If you haven't used this stuff in your terrain and other miniature making adventures you're really missing out.  Great gloss finish and tough as nails.  Downside is that it is really thin so if you're looking for something to stick on the surface you're going to have some issues.

So begins the Great Varnish Experiment.  The idea is to give the bottles a decently thick layer of clear so the eye is fooled into thinking the bottle itself is clear.  I decided to try out the layers of Future vs. straight acrylic craft varnish (gloss).  The craft varnish is much, much thicker so it sticks to the surface and leaves a thicker result.  At least, that's my hypotheses.

Without further ado, here's the current state of the experiment:

Colored Bottles Varnish Test

Let's go left to right.

That bottle is actually painted with two coats of Reaper Clear Plum.  The Clears are pigment in a clear base.  So I thought I would give it a try.  That's with one coat of the acrylic varnish.

The odd blue-green bottle is two coats of Reaper Clear Viridian and again, one coat of acrylic varnish.

The deeper green bottle is two coats of Reaper Green Ink and one coat of acrylic varnish.

The lighter purple bottle to the right is two coats of Reaper Purple Ink and two coats of Future.

Personally I like the hard gloss of the Future.  But the acrylic varnish gives a thicker clear coat.  So I think I'm going to combine the best of both worlds and do two coats in the future:  one of the acrylic and one of Future.

I was wondering how the Reaper Clear colors would turn out.  They're much more opaque than the inks but have a richness that will work for more pottery-like bottles.  They still have enough of a clear feel that they might work nicely.

So tonight I'll hit everything on the board with one last coat of Future.  Then I get to start painting caps and such.

The glossy surface is also just crying out for me to try out decals as well.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

I'm working on it, honestly

I was finally able to get back into the swing of painting last night.

My exchange mini is pretty much done except for the darklining and some cleanup work.

The floor tiles for my colored fieldstone tutorial are ready for their last bit of paint.  Then I can take the larger one and figure out how to paint an oil spill, which was my original intention for painting up a few extra tiles after I decided to have a lantern with spilled oil.

I made a few bottles for the magic shop and they're all base coated.  I put the first coat of ink on some of them last night.  I'm going to work on those as time permits.

I prepped and primed the four figures I'm painting as part of an army painting 'round robin'.  So those are just waiting for paint.  And I slipped a troll into the bunch to be primed because I could.

And lastly I did get the parts from Reaper to start making the display base.  I need to make some templates to get started but I have the initial measurements and will be refining them as I work on the design.

Somewhere in there I get to go to work.  I wonder when...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Magic Shop Cabinets Are Done!

Finally I sat down and finished these things.  I know I could have used colored paper and not painted the drawers in place but I like how the base coat of paint unifies things.  Otherwise it would have really looked like pieces of card stuck to a piece of wood.

Magic Shop with Cabinet Labels

I have a 'price chart' for the things in the cabinet where each color is a different price.  That will go up when the whole shop is assembled.

Now I need to make a balance scale for the counter, since I have things that need to be weighed out.

And I'm making bottles.  Every mage needs empty potion bottles!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Not going to cross post this time

Howdy!  I haven't introduced myself yet because I haven't had anything to show.

I just posted a big ol' post on my blog about my latest project.  It has pictures and everything.

Here's a teaser:

Exchange Mini Display Base WIP - With Mini

To give you an idea of scale.  The stone piece is a 3 inch diameter circle.  The figure is in what they call '28mm scale' which means it is supposed to be 28mm from feet to eyes.  A quarter will come to about the middle of his chest, if that.  So it is kind of 1:60 scale.

I do like working in 1:12 and 1:6 but right now I'm doing a lot in the 1:60 size.  Pretty much all of my current projects are on my blog but I hope to get back to the larger stuff in the near future so I can share it here.

FYI - the stonework is from molds by a company called Hirst Arts (and/or Castlemolds).  They're like Lego for castles.  Way addicting.  And the miniatures (both wizard and Mr. Rat) are from Reaper Miniatures.  Wonderful products and the best bunch of people you could hope to meet.

So I hope I've introduced myself properly and showed off the latest projects.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Another quick update

No pictures - the camera isn't here right now.  Yes I know.  Lame excuse.

My painting has been put off to the side due to some vision problems.  Some very, very annoying vision problems.  But they seem to be clearing up so that's good.

I did take the time to put the drawer fronts and knobs on the cabinet units that are going behind the counter in my magic shop.  Three units, 15 drawers each.  I'm still not quite sure how the final painting is going to go but I did the cabinet base color as 'goose feather'.  It's a kind of tan.  Everything goes with tan.

I just picked up a media player last week or so and have been trying to see if I can use it to watch/listen to movies while working on my craft table.  Overall it seems possible but I have to find a way to keep the player at the right angle so I can actually see the movies when I look up.  Probably another Hirst Arts build in my near future.

My buddy James over at Skullcrafts sent me a box of basing goodness that showed up at my door this week.  I took the 'Mystery Box' with me to paint night (it was delivered that day) and we all got to dig through the packing peanuts to see what was inside.  There was quite an interesting selection of supplies.  My mind is churning through how I'm going to use them for my next project.  Well, and for any of my projects.

I didn't want to sit idle because I couldn't paint minis so I finally started painting a Hirst Arts gothic arena that I'm sending off to a friend.  I have about 2/3 of the thing built but none of it painted.  So I put the base coat on about 10 pieces.  The base coat always takes the longest since I keep finding white spots that need paint.  Eventually I just give up and try not to see them any more.  I'm at that stage now.

I'm making the decorative arena pieces for him.  He already has the basic arena so these will add to his set.  That means painting in the same colors as his first set.  I'm using craft paints instead of my normal latex but it isn't turning out too badly for me.  I actually like the base color he has (pewter grey - kind of a greenish-grey) and may have a quart mixed up using color matching.  I used that on a small fieldstone piece and really liked the effect.

Ooo!  I can show you something!

I'm part of a miniature exchange on the Reaper forums.  An exchange works like this:

1. Someone decides to coordinate an exchange.
2. People sign up to paint a mini for someone else.
3. Coordinator sends out assignments.
4. Paint the mini, send it to your victim partner.

You don't know who is painting for you since it isn't the same person you're painting for.  Very fun stuff.

Well, these darn vision problems have kept me from finishing the mini for my partner.  I messaged her and she's good with holding off until I can finish it decently.  She only really has display minis (I like to check out what my partner posts on the forums so I can decide what mini to paint) so I decided to make a display base for her mini.  That's beyond the requirement but I thought it would be cool.

She took me up on the offer to see the work in progress shots I have.  Currently I've shown them off to a few people but haven't posted them for general consumption.   Now I can post them here.

Exchange Mini Display Base WIP - Side

You can see under the winding stairway to the sacks and Mr. Rat having a snack here.  Stair support is just scribed balsa stained with Reaper Pro Paint Wood Shading Ink.  Very handy stuff.

Exchange Mini Display Base WIP - Front

You can see the stairway here with the view of Mr. Rat.

Exchange Mini Display Base WIP - With Mini

And finally here's the mini temporarily tacked into place just so I could take a picture.  This mini has been nothing but a pain in my, err, side.  I needed to remove him from his base so he would fit on the stairs.  He lost a foot in the first attempt.  A friend of mine took pity and sent me one with the base removed.  And then his staff broke just in front of his hand while I was painting.  I wasn't even being particularly mean to him!  Got that fixed then my eyes went.

What's not showing here is a lantern on the floor in a puddle of oil.  And a lantern hanger on the center column.  Kind of setting the scene.  My feeling is that Mr. Rat is going to get zotted in very short order.

That's the fieldstone I painted in that pewter grey.  Then I did more to it so I could get the colored fieldstone.  I'm 2/3 done with a tutorial for that.

Overall I'm pleased with the composition of the mini.  I think it tells a story when you look at it as a whole.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend