Space Hulk: the Downward Spiral

A brown or black wash (or both) will also give you some nice weathering effects.

ubarose wrote:

dragonstout wrote:

Just wanted to say this is my favorite painting thread ever. Thanks to Shellhead for portraying what it's *really* like to paint for the first time!

Too bad he didn't have a video camera running. Spilling all that paint. What a drag.

Ehh, it was a bottle of Citadel paint, so it wasn't that much paint that got spilled. This was one time when GW's legendary stinginess worked in my favor.

Shellhead wrote:

Spray-priming is fun. I had shot of bourbon first, to steady my hands.

This is my favorite part.

ubarose wrote:

Shellhead wrote:

Ehh, it was a bottle of Citadel paint, so it wasn't that much paint that got spilled. This was one time when GW's legendary stinginess worked in my favor.

Yeah, but spilling good paint in like spilling good bourbon. It's painful and tragic. Although, I'm a bit freaky about my art supplies. Emotional baggage from being a starving art student, and having to save up for a month to afford a tube of cerulean blue.

but good bourbon you can always lick up (5 second rule in effect). did you see the space hulk cartoon on bgg? looks like kingput's life.

In all, I think that only 20% of the paint jar was wasted. I primed all of the door stands plus a majority of the other bases by the time that spill congealed beyond usability. I painted a few more bases yesterday, but decided to take the rest of the day off from painting. My right hand was feeling a little cramped from all that dry-brushing on Saturday, and that hand is also my accounting hand, and we're closing the quarter right now.

It's been a hectic week, so I won't get back to painting figures until Sunday. If I get a chance, I will post a picture or two here of my work-in-progress. Those two Gene-Stealers that are bursting out of the floor? With nothing but black primer plus the floor/base painted boltgun silver, they look surprisingly good. The metallic gleams on that sculpt so nicely that it practically looks molten. I suppose that I will need to paint in some highlights where it's naturally gleaming right now, to compensate for the dulling effect of the sealant that will go on at the end.

I only had time to do a little painting this weekend. I did a few more bases, then started to drybrush on that mechrite red foundation paint on the space marine armor. Just now, I was looking at painting guides for the marines again, and I don't think that I like all the detail on them. It's very cluttered looking, with all those insignias, badges, purity seals, etc. The guy with the flamer has parchment attached to his armor for reasons that completely elude me. I think that I am going to skip some of those details. I'm still going to paint the weapons in metallic tones, and do some details here and there, like the gold insignias and the green lens over the eyes. But some of the more useless details, like those purity seals and parchment? Well, sometimes less is more.

I dig those details - the Space Marines are supposed to over the top. I mean, you've got this one dude called the Librarian who's got a big fuckin' book mounted on his shoulders.

I'm enjoying this thread...Keep it up.

Finally got back to the painting table last night. I decided to back off on the Space Marines for now, and focus on the less complicated Genestealers. I dry-brushed midnight blue on the carapaces, taking care to not cover their elbow spikes, which will eventually be purple. It looked too vividly blue at first, but as the paint dried, it darkened nicely. I've got a blue ink that I'm going to apply to those carapaces, then start painting gormenghast purple (or whatever it's called) on the rest of their bodies, except mechrite red on the tongues, and maybe some brown basecoat on the claws.

Do I need to wear a mask at this stage, too? No sinus problems like I had while spraying primer, but I woke up with a bit of a headache today. Normally I don't get headaches unless I am very sick or very hungover.

I'm going to pick up some kind of fleshtone paint tonight. I won't need it anytime soon for Space Hulk, but I'm going to try to do my Fury of Dracula figures by Saturday. I'm hosting a day of horror-themed boardgames on Sunday (with my collection, I could easily host a week like that), and FoD remains popular with my group.

Shellhead wrote:

Do I need to wear a mask at this stage, too? No sinus problems like I had while spraying primer, but I woke up with a bit of a headache today. Normally I don't get headaches unless I am very sick or very hungover.

No need for a mask. The headache might come from your body position (shoulders hunched?) or from concentrating and staring at the little details for a while.

Shellhead wrote:

Do I need to wear a mask at this stage, too? No sinus problems like I had while spraying primer, but I woke up with a bit of a headache today. Normally I don't get headaches unless I am very sick or very hungover.

Personally I never wear a mask and that includes when I spray paint stuff (or cut treated lumber for that matter)...So I may not be the best person to listen to.

I don't think there is anything toxic in GW paints so I don't believe a mask is necessary. Sometimes I get headaches after painting because I've been stairing and trying to focus in on a small space for extended periods.

Thanks for the tips, both of you. Yeah, my posture while painting is terrible. And I will definitely pick up the Elf Flesh paint, that was one that I was looking at last time at the store. If they don't have the Sepia ink, I will just water down one of my browns for a wash.

Last night, I was picking up something at the hardware store anyway, so I thought that I might as well go to the titanic Menard's and also look for ideas for storing my Space Hulk minis. It was weird. I always assumed that a place that size would have almost anything I could imagine, but the only surge protector/power strip they sold was a generic one with a six foot cord. (I needed 12 foot.) And the best I could come up with for Space Hulk storage was rolls of window insulation, and that stuff was too flimsy. I think that I need to look into foamcore.