One last touch on the Crusader mini

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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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!

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