Change in plan...

So Wade has picked up Trolls and would like me to paint them. That means Challenge II will be reshaped and rethought.

I picked up the Bouncer on Thursday; the Drakhun is pissing me off. As long as I still get it done as a going away gift for Graham (who is at basic as we speak) I will be happy. It just doesn't feel like the right model for the contest. The Bouncer has been inked and I have until Tuesday afternoon to make him look all purtee and stuff.

I still have most of Wade's Legion to paint, but the addition of Trolls means I will have some much-needed cash coming in. It also means I need to start writing invoices so I know what I've charged him. He's the best client ever; it's cool to work on retainer.

Anyway, I thought an update was needed since I haven't posted anything in awhile. I think the next pics will be of the Gnarlhorn and Bouncer. Maybe even Ol' Rowdy, but I'm not sure when I'll squeeze in painting for me.

Based

In an amazing act of patience, I threw down basing materials on all of my Trolls -- 11 small bases, 32 medium bases and 2 large bases. Also based the Gnarlhorn and Ol' Rowdy (who is amazing!).

There will be a priming party and then the Trolls will be ready to be painted. I'm not completely sure where they fall into the grand scheme of things; my Cygnar and Protectorate deserve to be fully painted, but Trolls are Teh New Shiny (sic) and bright pink is appealing at the moment.

Then again, I've got the Cryx and Drakhun to paint as part of the next Challenge, which will start at some point.

I may make the next Challenges less rigid than the first one. I'm not sure. It was a lot of painting, and right now, it's nice to have been able to relax the past few evenings. And I've started doing stuff with my Flames of War army -- I've gone from having very few tanks to 8 that need painted. We won't talk about the state of my first rifle company, or the fact I have a second company that needs to be glued and based. Yeah, too much pewter.

In other news, I should have the bits from PP tomorrow (I hope) or Thursday. I can make the Cygnar Bokur and get beer mugs for the Scattergunners. Yeah, I need 4 more of them to fill *that* unit and 2 more Kriel Warriors for a full unit there. The caber for my thrower seems to have gone missing; I blame cats. It is around.

Procrastinating on posting pics from Sunday's tourney. I have been hit with a major attack of the lazys. There's also the fact I have gotten into another fantasy series -- the Pendragon Cycle -- and would rather read instead of playing on the 'puter. 

I plan on focusing on models that will earn me $$$. I think I'll jump on the Gnarlhorn tomorrow after I prime it. I may pack it, and the Drakhun down to work tomorrow night since it's 40k and there is a strong likelihood  I'll be there late.

Readings and sleep call.

Day 13, the conclusion

Madrak is finally done. I think after painting the beasts in the boxed set first, he is the one I'm least pleased with. He is a little rushed but looks OK with the rest of the box.

Anyway, I've got the Madrak progression from today and the pics of the finished box.

Base coated. I really didn't like this.

Wasn't much better from the back, either.

 But then, there was ink!

And we hated it a lot less!

The finished product.

I like using Arcane Blue for glowing runes.

Yeah, this is a lot better.

The battle group. Say cheese.

No, you can't take his chicken.

Purple mohawk needs a name.

It's the axer! With orange mohawk.

This model was a lot of fun to paint.

Hey, he's got a buddy in his bag!

It's Smiley, my favorite.

Smiley likes to kill things.

So the lesson from all of this? I can paint fast when I have to. Inks and washes are your friend. And I need better/brighter lights for the ghetto-ass light box. Or, I need to pick up some light blue poster board and use that for the background. That would be the cheaper answer to buying new lights.

I'm anticipating the painting desk will make my life easier. Things are sort of organized. I've got more room to work, the painting light and access to all my paints and inks.

The frightening thing is seeing how much stuff I need to assemble. I've got tons of Menoth sitting around, Cygnar I stripped and Trolls. And Cryx. Yeah, scary. 

So, with Challenge I complete, here are the models on deck:

Challenge II

• Vayl
  
• Striders
  
• 2 Bonejacks
  
• Helldiver
  
• Kraye
  
• eMadrak
  
• Pureblood Warpwolf
  
• Drakhun (for painting contest)
  
• Gnarlhorn Satyr
  

Some of these have paint on them already. I started Kraye, then got distracted by something or another. He's got a decent base coat. I was going to paint my 3 Grundback Blasters, but would rather get more of Haley's beasts painted for her since she's in the league. Striders and Gnarlhorn have top priority right now. I have a few paid gigs that may come in, but I'll deal with those as I get the models on one of them, and the money on the other.

Battlebox Beatdown is tomorrow morning. After that, it's time to start planning for October's Cheesemachine Tournament -- the cheesiest 350 you can field.

/end Challenge I

Day 10 pics, Day 11

Big push with Trolls was successful. Gained much ground with them Wednesday. Also started throwing paint on some of the Cryx models I have (do not ask why I have acquired the Cryxes).

In any event, here are the pics from Day 10 so I can move forward. I failed to document my Day 11 paintings. There wasn't much.

Yup. Chickens and a Helldiver. Because they remind me of crustaceans.

Hey look, metallics. Very *blah* metallics.

But wait, there's ink! And we don't hate them as much.

And the ink wash works well on leathers! Yay!

The ink wash was an experiment with the P3 mixing medium, which we fully support and endorse at this point. It was 2 drops P3 brown ink, 1 drop armor wash, 2-3 drops of mixing medium. Not the same consistency as FFW; a little thicker and more viscous. Easier to control and the result was very favorable. I will try the same ink combo with FFW to determine which I like more.

The other thing I tried out was highlighting pinks with the wet palette. It works pretty well for mixing and blending; I guess I'm more comfortable painting with a wet brush than trying to blend with 2.

In other news, a Stalker has joined the Cryx. Again, I want to paint them to look like lobsters and crabs. I have no idea if I'll actually collect enough to make an army out of.

Day 12

OK...

Impalers and axer are done. Finished highlights, painted faces and based yesterday. I will take pics after they've been sealed.

Also assembled Gnarlhorn. Yay!

Day 10

Today is the day I need to make a big push with the Trolls. Everyone except Madrak is where they need to be; still not positive how I want him to look, but I'm thinking that once I plug in the iPod, I'll get a pretty good idea. At least that's the hope. :P

Day 9 pics

Here they be:

Kitteh

Gorten

Caution from behind

Showing off model numbers

Showing off their names

Facing front

Family portrait

Names painted on the back

Day 9

Finished the Gorten box and based Shredders and finished Lylyth. Just need to get pics up when I get home.

The big push will be with the Troll box. For whatever reason, I'm not as excited to paint those as I thought I'd be. The pink looks good, I'm just dreading doing the leather and other bits. Not a clue how I want to do Madrak; I guess I'll save him for last. I think the Impalers will go fast and the Axer is pretty cool looking.

Anyway, will try to get pics up tonight. The Gorten shots are in the camera, just need to get 'em in the computer.

Day 8

A fairly slow day.

Put basing materials on the Gorten set, painted and dried the bases. Next stop is to paint names on the bases and add static grass.

Started on the leather on Trolls. Also grabbed Wade's Legion stuff to finish the Lylyths and shredders. Then that should leave me with Trolls, unless I come up with something else to paint. And painting is what I'm off to do now. :P

Day 7

Didn't do too much today... Hyde Park Street Fair and Sunday Night Football.

Did names and model numbers on gun bunnies and Kitteh. Will post more pics of that battlebox when I get them based.

Tonight, the trolls got their pink skin. And I tried out the wet palette. Used VMC florescent magenta as the base, then mixed VMC pink with it for the highlight. Then I think it was straight VMC pink for the top highlight. Didn't do a tremendous amount of blending, but didn't really need to work at it because of the palette. It definitely works better for the dropper bottle paints; still need to try it with P3s and the mixing medium.

Anyway, here are the boys.

Madrak will be a lighter shade of pink.

They're really, really bright.

Highlighting on muscles was quick and dirty.

Day 5 pics, Day 6

Here's the Warp Wolf. I'm pretty happy with him. He helped me get a rifle company for my Flames of War army, which will be making an appearance in this space at some point.

I think this is Warpy's best side. Love the eye and teeth.

Yeah, it's still a goofy frickin' pose.

I expected more from this shot, but was in a hurry.

The biggest problem with Warpy is that he took me longer than I wanted. But I'm pretty excited I was able to finish a warbeast in a day. I think it would've gone faster if I hadn't failed with my ink wash, but live & learn.

The head-on view isn't as cool in the photo; in person it looks pretty neat. One of the things I tried with him was to cheat and pick a portion of the model to do better detail on. He's not sloppy by any means, but he doesn't have as many layers as I could have done. And I wanted to see if it would be acceptable with fewer layers. I think it worked. I chose to focus on the wolf's face -- bright blue eyes and sparkling teeth -- so that's the first part you look at on the model. I'll slowly incorporate the speed painting tricks from Brushthralls.com as I remember them. Now if only I was done with that Gorten set.

Day 6

I'll still call it Day 6 even though the painting was done between 2 a.m. and the writing of this blog. Just did some finer detail on Gorten and the jacks. They're to the stage where I can freehand the names in runes and the model numbers. But given the lack of sleep, I'd rather wait until I'm rested instead of having the whole endeavor fubar'd and wasting a week's work. 

Anyway, here be photos.

Look ma, no primer! Finally painted the trim.

Fired up and ready to be named and numbered.

Kitteh... now with rivets!

Quick and dirty fire effect. Needs work but passable.

Yeah. Gorten gets gray hair. And cool goggles.

Gorten will have to be finished on Day 7. I have too much to do with Trolls for this not to happen. I still need to base Wade's Legion box. If we have an odd number for the tournament, I'll end up playing that army since Wade will be using the frat boy pink Trolls. Should be entertaining; we've got 16 signed up in 6 days. I'm pretty excited about the turnout.

Sleep needs to happen. Hyde Park Street Fair tomorrow!

Day 5

So for Day 5....

Primed and painted Haley's Warpwolf and finished in the wee hours of... today. Basecoated and inked Friday afternoon. Went to AAG and worked on the Gorten box. Tried to make the Heartfire show through a little less and did some extreme highlighting on the gun bunny heads.

Managed to get Pig Iron on the trolls, need to decide what color for the leather. I also get to basecoat the skin, as the ink wash didn't do what I needed it to. I guess if everything went according to plan, this blog would be more boring than it is. :P

Started working on Warpy again around midnight. Finished a little after 2:30 a.m. and did a coat of GW matte varnish. Dullcote this morning. Pics will be posted later today.

Not going to get any painting done until late tonight/early Sunday morning since I'm working and the 'Ard Boyz tourney is going on in the next room. At least I was able to grab a few minutes to post here!

Day 4

Trying to get caught up with this thing here and the painting.

Day 4 was highlighting Shredders and the Harrier and both incarnations of Lylyth. I'd have updated pics, but the army is at AAG since Wade & Haley want to get some practice games in.

Managed to play Protectorate vs. Scott's PoM army and sucked mightily at it. I forgot how annoying zealots are and I'm not really very good using TFG, although mine looked pretty good (yay painted unit!). Will have to post pics of painted Protectorate. Anyway, we had to end the game because it was time for me to work, he won on VPs. Maybe I should stick to Cygnar.

Anyway, last night I started to add detail to the Gorten box and threw magenta ink on Trolls. Not sure how much work it saved me, but we'll see.

Trolls inked with GW magenta & Future Floor Wax. Shiny.

Kitteh gets his stripes.

Gato, Neko & Cait get their stripes. And glowing blue eyes.

Stripes for the boss man too.

Haley's Warpwolf, ready for paint.

And now we're onto Day 5 for painting... coming up, one angry puppy.

Day 3 pics

OK, here are the pics I promised from the other night. The shot of the inked dwarves got corrupted or something and is unavailable.

Guide coat for the Trolls. Trying to see if it speeds up the process.

Close up of the coat.

Lylyth and her evil twin.

Things that go chomp in the night.

Day 3

Today consisted of painting Lylylth and her evil epic self. Very easy colors -- thamar black, frostbite and radiant platinum. Made up a wash consisting of armor wash, water and Future Floor Wax... did a fantastic job on Lylyth's armor -- it was so good on the normal model that I threw paint on the epic because I didn't want to waste the ink.

Not sure what I'll get painted tonight. I have the headache from hell and won't get off work until about midnight (it's 40k night). I've assembled Graham's Drago and will build Fire of Salvation because I have an eKreoss list I want to try against Scott. I brought the Gorten set and was going to try and highlight those models.

Scott found a Cat with a drill attachment, so Kitteh will get a new model number: 216B2



Anyway, I'll post pics of whatever I have finished before I got to bed.

Day 1 & 2

The first day of painting was delayed by watching the Monday Night Football doubleheader at Graham's. I had hoped he had a can of gray primer so I could prime trolls, but he didn't. Upon further review, aside from being able to watch the game with friends, I would've been better off painting instead of watching the Broncos embarrass the Raiders. But oh well.

To recap the plan here, I'm trying to finish Wade's Legion box plus four additional Shredders, two Harriers and Epic Lylyth. I'm going to paint my Gorten box and my Troll starter box. All by the 20th. An ambitious plan? Yeah. Realistic? That's the test.

So I got home and grabbed the models I was going to paint.

Yeah, that's a lot of dust.

And it's another angle of more dust.

The Gorten battlebox has been sitting on my entertainment center since I got it. It was primed when I bought it. The only paint I had thrown on it was some Brass Balls on the Driller for last year's P3 painting challenge. I never finished it and never bothered to dip it. But there was an amazing amount of dust on everything.

I almost bought another Driller because I didn't think I'd be able to paint over what I had painted metallic, but in the interest of saving money to buy Fire of Salvation on Wednesday, I opted for the more common sense, economical choice.

Mmmmm, bare metal. Bleh.

I bought my Troll Warpack from a friend and assembled them a month or two ago. They're quite shiny.

A long time ago, I decided I wanted my Rhulics to be painted Cat yellow (you know, like the big earth movers). The idea of painting yellow over black primer didn't excite me, but I've got some of the Citadel foundation paints and thought I'd be OK. Iyanden Darksun hasn't failed me when using it as a base for Cygnar Yellow, so I should be good to go with Heartfire. Right?

We made sure the Brass Balls disappeared.


And then there were more metallics.

Well, I'm used to using the foundation in a smaller area; I've never tried to cover a whole model with it. It did a decent enough job, at least I thought it did. Then I starting slinging Heartfire. The coverage was not what I expected.

This particular pot of Hearfire seems to be a little thin, so I don't think it would've matter what I used to base coat. I did the best I could. I figured maybe I could just ink it and call it good. I decided to think on it. I got the metallics done on the Driller, then it was time for bed.

The Driller knew I was displeased with the Heartfire.

Day 2

The first order of business for painting on Tuesday was to get the Gorten set base coated. I was not encouraged with my adventures with Heartfire the night before, but pressed on. More Pig Iron and some Brass Balls and the crew was good to go.

Scott helped me come up with names for the gun bunnies and the Driller. Since they're "Cats" we've got: Gato, Neko, Cait and Kitteh. Their names will appear in runes with some of the other ricockulous freehand I'm planning -- caution stripes, that sorta thing. But while he was at work, Scott came up with the idea of numbering the jacks with actual Cat model numbers (gotta love a construction site, right?).

We checked out the Cat web site and got models and numbers. The bunnies will be compact loaders:

• 279C ~ Gato
• 289C ~ Neko 
• 299C ~ Cait

Kitteh the Driller will be a Harvester, 501HD. Yeah, we need a hobby. Oh wait...

After the excitement of base coating died down, I primed trolls.

The pink shows up much better over gray. Yes, I said pink.

At about 2:45, I realized I needed to finish a mini for Lance. Well, finish, or start a new one. I've got two in progress, I don't like what I done with either of them. And I've got two that I haven't touched. So I grabbed one of those. And after about an hour and 10 minutes, I came up with this:

Not too horrible for just a bit over an hour.

I think the D&D mini was a good test. I've gotten better with what I can do in an hour. I'm hoping that translates well with my challenge.

Now off to paint. Dog knows I've spent way too much time working on this blog tonight...