The wood for the trees

I recently bought four sets of the GW tree sets figuring even though I don't play much (or at all) they are pretty much a hobby investment y'know? Like cuff links for a guy or a little black dress for a girl, you are safe in the knowledge they're there to call on in an emergency.

So over the last couple of weeks I've been assembling and I'm currently in the removal of mould lines, only four more trees to go before I can start greenstuffing the cracks. I've found this kit does not fit together amazingly well. Some really large gaps are visible.

Current WiP

I have made a beginning on the first of the trees, starting with a green Basecoat, followed by a cream drybrush and a wash of secret weapon concrete wash. More specific colours will be in the next post.

The base is still to be finished but I'm not doing much more to the tree, it's gaming standard I'm aiming for.

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The two-brush blending technique

Hi guys,

So over the last week I have been attempting to try and learn the two-brush blending technique. I do remember hearing about this techniques at some stage before but it was not something that had registered with me.  But I stumbled on the following video's and thought it might be worth a try.

After a couple of hobby related incidents I had just stripped and cleaned the Colman Stryker mini from the Cynar battlebox from the last post so decided that he'd be a perfect project to try and learn and develop this technique on.

First stop was a white undercoat and then a basecoat of GW Dheneb Stone on his cloak. I then give it a very watered down wash of Asurman Blue.

So I picked out two VGC paints, Khaki and Bonewhite to highlight the cloak with and set out on my first attempt at two-brush blending. After an hour or two of fiddling around, brush licking, head scratching, spit dribbling painting later I achieved this!

 

 

 

Fairly muck in my eyes! Tide marks and streaks all over the place, no solid coverage, just a general mess of a paint job. Here's a cropped photo to highlight the messiness of it all!

 

 

I had a general idea that I was making a couple of mistakes, firstly I didn't think I was leaving enough time for the first layer of paint to be dry before I painted the second layer, secondly I had a vague notion that I was wet blending incorrectly. I was using the blending brush to drag the paint away from the initial application and it dawned on me during the process maybe I should be zig-zaging the brush along the edge of the paint layer.

So to the internet and found these from McVey studio's (awesome painters and company!)  

These video's really helped me an awful lot and while confirming my inital suspicions about the above two mistakes they also seem to have pointed out another large mistake I have been making that I hadn't even thought about. This was the amount of paint I had been applying to the mini initially. I had been applying my paint as I normally would when I use my usual layering technique, in long lines down the raised ridges of the cloak. As I keep my paint thin (like a good boy) this meant that by the time I had gotten to line it had already started to dry and I just ended up pushing half dried paint around the mini.

So my lightbulb moment was less paint is more! If I added a small spot of the paint rather than a big long line like I would edge highlighting, the paint will not dry as quickly and I won't be pushing gunk around the mini.

I did not have a lot of time yesterday evening, but after my guitar class I re-basecoated the cloak/coat/tunic with VGC Khaki and tried to shade using the "spot" two brush blending. While I only spent maybe fifteen minutes, it seemed to work a lot better. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures but I will have some tomorrow.

Until then, keep painting.

I'm Back!

Hello gang!

Yes I'm back, I apologise for the lack of hobby updates for the last three months, but I have a very good reason. I went on a trip. Myself and the girlfriend had just finished college, and we decided to head off for a couple of months. So after a trip through Russia, China, Australia and New Zealand, I'm back looking for a job, and doing hobby related stuff again.

While I was away I did pick up the new edition of WFB, (turns out the rulebook is more expensive in New Zealand than home) and got inspired to get cracking at some of the WFB models I have hanging around here. Maybe it was the long lay off from hobby related stuff but I've been working flat out on mini's for the last two days. 

The first thing I did though was move all my hobby gear out of my tiny bedroom at home and took over a spare room. I figured I might be home for a while so why should I be hunched over a fold up desk in my sleeping cupboard? Why not have a place with plenty of light and space, and somewhere to chill out and read and practice guitar?

  My new hobby desk/table with plenty of storage and display shelves

 Chill out/reading area

 A clean hobby table!

So the first thing I set eyes on yesterday when I sat at my new hobby table was the Lizardmen Battalion I had bought a couple of years ago but had done nothing with. So I broke out the clippers, superglue and hobby knife and got gluing.

 A couple of hours later........a full lizardman battalion + lord choice.

This morning I got up and spent an hour or two basing them in a nice little conveyor belt system I set up.

 The silver pot contains 50:50 mixture of PVA and water, which is brushed onto the base, then the model dunked into the sand, the lose sand removed and left to dry on the tissue. Once the whole battalion was based I went back and gave them all another coat of PVA to seal the deal so to speak.

I have a colour scheme worked out, which you can see in the second to last picture. Tomorrow I hope to get started on the painting.

Until the next update, stay painting,

Vinny

Army Painter and Skaven Gutter Runners

So I caved in today and bought my first ever box of Skaven. I picked up a box of Gutter Runners from my FLGS. (Gamersworld in Dublin). I am fairly sure these guys are not being changed or replaced in anyway in the new army book. (fingers crossed!)

 

I had a quick look at the sprue, and they seem like nice models. A box of twenty for €25 is fairly good in my book. Good knows for a skaven army I get the impression that I need a lot more than twenty!

And speaking of lots of models, I have been looking at some way to paint all these rats up in a quick and simple way. I know of the army painter range of products just by seeing them in my FLGS but have not talked to or read of anyone who has used them. So I took it on myself to have an experiment.

So today I also picked up two Army Painter Colour Primers and the Army Painter Matt Varnish.

I picked up the primer matt black as a general basecoat spray, which can also be used as an actual black colour. As I was going with the ratmen, I did pick up a brown colour too, ideally I would have liked a darker brown, but this colour might not be too bad with the shade. The matt varnish is vital for the Army Painter process, to remove the glossiness of the shade. I hope to also use it to finish off all my other painted projects.

The most important step in all of this of course the Army Painter Shade.

I bought the standard middle of the road shade, (Strong Tone). This smells and looks exactly like furniture varnish, but at first look it seems slightly more "runny".

I think it will be interesting to see how quickly I can get these twenty ratmen painted up using the Army Painting method.

Painting with Mates

Hi all,

I spent a very enjoyable evening yesterday doing some painting at a friends house. After doing nothing much hobby wise for the last week, it was great to get at least a little bit done. In saying that I managed to completely destroy the broodlord by not obeying the first rule off painting mini's! I used a thick layer of ink, and as such caused weird pooling effects, as well as darkening the mini too much. Nothing for it but to repaint the basecoat and start again.

The major point I wanted to make was how nice it was to have someone to paint with. I had not painted with anyone for about six or seven years, since my brothers lost interest in the hobby. So for me painting has been a solitary hobby for a long time.

So as you can see in a quick snap I took, we had paint, mini's, beer and music. We sat around had a good chat and painted some mini's. The evening flew, and four hours passed really quickly. My mate, was painting GW's witch hunter Inquistor. I got stuck into the Hockland Elector count for the first time in about a month and a half, painted up an eldar guardian in a colour scheme I am thinking about. (I should post this in the future and see what people think!) and of course got through basecoating about seven Space Hulk nids. It really is a great way to paint, and I could not reccommend it highly enough.

In my last post I talked about Skaven, and how the DoomWheel was the first mini, I ever saw. The more of the mini's from the new range I have seen, the more I am thinking of starting a small skaven army! Their weirdness and the quality of the models really appeal to me. Incase you have not seen the made DoomWheel and the charater models, here they are. Taken from other blogs that I follow mind!

 

 

 

Look at them! Amazing stuff GW. After only average stuff for Space Wolves (IMO) they really have hit some major highs. I haven't been this impressed with a new range of models since the Vampire Counts were released.

So expect some new Skaven from me in the future, I fear.