What Minis Are You Painting?

Agreed, those look amazing. Michael, have you considered using two horizontal color for the flag? I.e. purple & black or purple & white or purple & green.

Meanwhile, WIP on the stormtalon.

1660 point Skaven army is complete...except for the Stormfiends, which I do not have in hand yet. I was on a wild tear this week- painted the Ratling Gun and Warp Grinder teams, 8 Clanrats (including 2 standard bearers), finished the Warpfire Thrower team and Poison Wind Mortar team, and did the two Rat Ogres this morning. Just totally wildin' out.

The Ratling and Warp Grinder were really fun. They are older pieces so they have the more cartoony gorilla/dog looking rats, and they are metal. Had to do some fussing around with the WG to get to work on a flat round base, but other than that they were a total breeze to paint and I think they look good (pictures when I get home). The metal figures have less detail and are easier in general to paint, but man I hate spray priming now. I literally had both pieces completely basecoated in like an hour. Wash, highlights and base was maybe 45 minutes. I used Citadel gloss washes (Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade) on them, I never really understood what they were for but now I get it- they are slightly thinner and if you apply them on metals you don't get that dulling effect- the metal stays shiny, and you can even put it over highlights. Very pleased with how those paints work and I would regard them as essential if you want bright metals but with deep shade.

The Rat Ogres I didn't mean to paint completely...I dropped the kids off at school this morning and thought "shoot, I'll just basecoat 'em." 90 minutes later they were completely done, and I think they are among the best I've done. They aren't the best figures, but they painted up nicely.

So I'm taking a short break from AOS stuff, I'm going back to do the Custodes from Burning of Prospero. They are about half done already.

Next, it's on to Tzeentch. May start slow with the Horrors, or may just jump right in on the Tzaangors.

Oh, wet pallet...YES. I bought one at Michaels and I have to say, if you aren't using one you are missing a GREAT tool. It's really simple, just a sponge in a tray with some parchment paper on it...but it keeps paints workable for DAYS on it if you keep it covered. The water seeps up through the paper and helps keep 'em thin.

A word on the Citadel gemstone paints- Soulstone Blue, Waystone Green, Soulstone Red.

These are REALLY cool. I'm quite impressed with what these do. So in the past you'd paint a gemstone and sort of futz around with maybe a light base, a glaze, a white line on the top, maybe wash it, 'Ardcoat it or whatever. With these, you put a little gob on a Stormhost Silver base and sort of drag it in the direction you want it to fade to a light reflection. Wash the brush, you're done boss. It gives a really nice looking effect. I'm using it on the Custodes where that little pop of crystal blue looks great against the gold armor and on the Pink Horrors' little green gemstones.

The paint is like a gel consistency, I'm putting it on with a CItadel Glaze brush and that seems to offer the right amount of control.

I really want to experiment with using it for other purposes...it seems like you might be able to get a colored glass effect or maybe even apply them on other colors aside from the proscribed silver.

On the docket for the weekend: Finish Custodes (a little more than I bargained for on these- lots of fine detail that they really need to avoid looking plain), finish Pink Horrors, start/finish Blue Horrors, start/finish Brimstone Horrors, maybe get going on the Baleful Realmgates...

BTW, I also applied to run a GW store opening near my house. I seriously doubt anything will come of it, I am pretty sure I could be in the running since I'm actually experienced in games retail unlike 99% of their applicants will be, but there is virtually no way that they will pay me enough to leave my current job. Just did it for fun, really. Who knows, maybe they will make me an offer I can't refuse.

Have you ever used Tamiya clear paints? That gel texture you described sounds a lot like them. I'm curious if they do something different than I can get from my set.

I remember reading a couple of years ago that GW was not a great place to work retail. However, that was before their current path so maybe they have improved that aspect of their business.

The way they have it set up is that each store has only one employee that acts pretty much as sole proprietor. The approach is that you "own" the shop but not like an actual franchise. They have sales goals connected to performance/salary. It is probably horrenedous, especially when some 18 year old grubby wants to talk with you for 45 minutes about Night Lords lore or how much AOS sucks. Like I said, I threw in really just to say I did after a year of GW mania. It's just a logical culmination.

Yeah, those Tamiya paints might be similar...I saw some of that business at Hobby Lobby the other day and would have tried some, but the marital veto was in effect since my wife was shopping for props.

BTW- thanks for shipping that stuff! I will get some things together for you and send Monday. Must resist an SOD army...all black with silver trim...NO.

A Stormtroopers of Death army would be awesome with all the graffiti everywhere.

I'm been working on my Imperial Assault figures as I've been playing a campaign with some buddies. Been trying to get the base characters I think they may encounter some first (without knowing which side missions they picked).

Jabba's Realm Heroes and Luke:

Jabba's Realm Rancor and Guards:

In addition, I've also been modding my WWE Superstar Showdown game. I've never cared for the new wrestlers (haven't watched in like 10 years). Some people have started making decks of wrestlers not in the game. I've printed out their decks and found a set of cheap "army men style" figures for a few dollars. So now I have:

WWE (Kurt Angle, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Undertaker):

WWE (Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Kane):

Finally done with the Stormtalon. Cleaned up things and added minor chipped effect.

I finished the Doom marines. Not an amazing job, but at least it will be easy to tell them apart on the board. Yellow did come out pretty well, I think.

Ha ha, that yellow dude is a bloody mess, isn't he? Those are fun.

I've been on painting tilt for the past couple of days- NOTHING coming out right. I think I broke it today though. Tried to do Pink Horrors and thought I would be OK priming black, but they looked too dark and chalky. Just not the look I wanted at all. I tried to work on the Tzaangor Shaman over the weekend but now he is in the stripper vat. I stupidly primed him black as well and these guys are bright colors and it just didn't look great. Custodes are kind of eh, but I'm not that crazy about those models anyway. Right now they are "tabletop quality" and I'm almost at the "let 'em be done" stage. Overdid it with the new gloss shades on them...shiny pools in a couple of areas, you have to babysit that stuff more than the regular shades.

So lots of failure...then I got into this crazy quest to get the pale blue Tzaangor skin like you see on the box...there are NO painting tutorials out there that get THAT shade. Duncan's gives you a really dark blue. I got pretty close with Celestra/Guilliman/Uluthuan but wasn't 100% satistified, so I did almost the whole figure from there, the disc turned out pretty good but the magic swirl underneath was too murky looking. I did a purple/blue fade cloth. But then I completely botched the feather headdress so I broke off his arm and threw him in the Simple Green. I may actually just rebuy that miniature- I love it, and I hate that I did such a shitty job with it.

So using extra Tzaangor body parts I set to working out my formula to get that skin color. Tried various primers and settled on mixing Vallejo white and black primers 2:1 for an even gray. You lose the spotty coverage of white on its own but gain the black's "covers anything" quality. I think this may become my preferred priming formula.

I finally settled on gray prime with a Fenrisian Gray basecoat. It's a layer paint so it needs a couple of thin coats to saturate over that gray. It has a blueish cast but not like bright blue. Drakenhof Nightshade washes it and deepens the blue. 1 layer of Fenrisian gray over that to bring it back up and then a highlight of Blue Horror. A touch of Guilliman Blue on the extremities to give it more dimension. Looks close enough to what I want and it's an easy enough technique.

Those models are pretty tough in general- lots of really fine detail. The horrors are easy (when you prime light and take the time to layer correctly), but the Tzaangors and Kairic Acolytes require more attention.

I've hit a little bit of a painting funk as well, though mine is more motivation. I have my Ruststalkers and Infiltrators (Skitarii) primed and have the base metallic coat down and... then no desire to go further. It won't even take very long to finish up the metallic components, I just do not feet like doing it. Part of it might be that after the fun Kill Team tourneys, I just do not really want to play mass battle at 28mm scale any more. If I am wanting to primarily play skirmish, why not focus on something that does skirmish better than Kill Team?

So I have been spending my hobby time prepping the Infinity minis from Red Veil (one more mini to drill out and then I can move to the cleaning regimen) and eyeing MDF buildings. I'm not planning on getting rid of my Mechanicus, I've just hit a lull.

Well, if it ain't fun...don't do it! I moved all of my Bloodbound to the me of the line because I got tired of painting red.

I have SO much to paint...and I am very motivated to do it. I think the problem is that I went from doing mostly 10-15 year old Skaven models to a 2017 Tzaangor Shaman and you really see a transition there. Let alone that with Skaven you can be a little messy and it's OK and also that the darker, earthy tones are generally easier to shade and highlight than bright ass turquoise and jewel tones.

I'm pretty fired up on the Tzaangors today after good tests though...

Assembled Atorg Bloodbringer for Gorechosen. This is the dude who carries a HUGE symbol of Khorne. And therein lies the problem. Astoundingly, the only attach point for this giant staff is the wrist of the guy's arm, and the two pieces don't even interlock. I HATE when parts attach on a simple smooth surface. I am having a hell of a time getting the staff to stay put.

Protip- make sure he goes on a 32mm base or he will fall constantly. Experience.

The secret is to either glue the tip of the pole to the base or make a little green stuff rock to anchor it in on the base.

I beat my painting funk and the factory is open again. Blue and Pink Horrors on the line right now but I am dying to get the Stormfiends painted...I like the models so much I bought a second kit so I can do all of the weapons.

I think I might grab a cheap Bolt Action vehicle to get a quick painting win to break my funk. They are simple construction and can be almost entirely done with the airbrush.