I'm getting the Blood Bowl base game teams ready to paint. I'm also building up the Ogre and Troll. These minis have a very large amount of pieces (the troll has 19!) and have poorer quality instructions/diagrams compared to most GW figures.
I knocked over my jar of plastic cement onto my Ogre while it was drying. I don't think I did too much damage to the mini, but I might have washed out some of the teeth detail. The rest of it looks fairly clean even though it panicked me for a bit.
Ha ha, spills...I have spilt no less than 3 bottles of Nuln Oil, one bottle of Reikland Fleshshade Gloss, and one bottle of Agrax Earthshade. Have done the glue yet!
I started painting Tau Pathfinders...I used some extra pieces to experiment since I want to do that white color scheme. I tried different primers and approaches to doing the white, including the Celestra Gray/Ulthuan Gray/White Scar you see a lot. But you know what worked the best?
Ceramite White.
I thinned it down a bit and did multiple layers, but DAMN this stuff COVERS. I was kind of shocked, it's like kids poster paint or something.
So I am priming white, pre-washing Nuln Oil, and then layering on the Ceramite white followed by touch ups around the grooves. The official GW guide in the box calls for Afrax shade which looks weird to me and finished with a layer of Gorthor Brown...somewhere,
I can't see where they are doing that.
They are using the Gorthor Brown as damage/chipping. I have the full painting guide (Armies of Expansion) if you want the entire scheme.
Awesome that you are getting good results with Ceramite White, because that has never worked for me. Other than as a wash or light area highlight when heavily thinned.
How are they doing that? Stippling along the armor seams? I can barely see it now on the box pictures.
I did a little more Tau work, I think I do actually like pin-shading with Agrax...the Nuln Oil made it look too cold, if that makes any sense...very unnatural with it being harsh white and black. You'd think that would look cool, but it just kind of doesn't. The Agrax warms it up a little.
I can't decide if they are hard to paint or easy. It only took about 30 minutes to get one Pathfinder looking table-ready. There is still some work to do on it, lots of cleanup, but getting it to that stage was pretty simple. There's not a lot of colors on them- the white, Eshin Gray/Dawnstone/Administratum on their MC Hammer pants, a little Fang/Russ Grey on their cute little elephant feet, spot of red and spot of Retributor Armor on the gun. I really like a couple of things about these models. One, NO FUCKING BELTS OR STRAPS. Halla-fuckin'-looyah. Two, there is no metal, which is a nice change of pace. And three, all of the detail is very clear- none of the usual "I'm not really sure if this is a bull scrotum, a pouch, or a grenade". It's also just such a different painting process and I'm enjoying the change.
They are using a sponge or stippling for the larger blotches and fine brushwork for the small scratches. It's an extremely subtle effect. I think in the painting notes in the guide they explained that it made the white look more realistic than an ultra-clean look.
I've never painted Tau, but the basic idea of them looks straightforward as you describe. A local guy has a very clean looking force that he used a Micron pen to blackline the plating, which made them "pop" from a distance.
Sponge stippling is awesome. Everyone's got to try it.
White is a tricky color because it's so translucent. The multiple layer does work, as long as you let it dry properly. Often times people don't wait, so the next layer messes up the first one. Worse, if due to impatience, a painter uses a thick paint, which takes considerably longer to dry, and gave no drying time... it'll never work (and lumpy). Especially when the surface is larger than the thumbnail of my pinky.
I finished with the skaven army this week, and started working on the imperial guard squad this week-end.
I'm amazed at how much I've learnt from doing the skaven (and how easy it was to organize a work on 8-10 models after building a 50+ models army).
So I've decided to give a lot more attention to detail than usual, which basically implies working on faces. So far, I've done about 5 heads and having a blast with it, maybe because it is so different from rats.
I have the cadian shock troopers kit and a command squad kit; the latter is a very good complement to the former in terms of body parts and equipment.
My white Tau look terrible...I thought they wouldn't be hard based on a test model...but yeah, doing that white scheme is tough. The body armor and helmet are easy. It's the fucking guns and antenna that are the problem. Lots of super shallow grooves. I did find out that Agrax sort of gives a similar look to that Gorthor stippling...I just can't get a smooth look overall. The white is fine, it's just the edges are crap. And they look overpainted, which I hate!
I think the problem is the white spray primer. Every time I use it I think never again but I try it again and get a bad finish.
I may just scrap them and try another set n the classic tan colors. White is just MERCILESS.
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