What Minis Are You Painting?

Sooooo....swinging back more toward AOS, I decided to actually put my Blightwar stuff together and that led to me wanting to do a Stormcast Vanguard sub-army. I already have a shitload of Stormcast, but I didn't have any of the newer (and really better) stuff. So with the 2017 Battleforce box added to the Blightwar selection, I figured that I ought to get one of those $28 cans of Retributor Armor spray.

I sprayed Neave Blackthorn and a couple of Raptors. NEAT! Once again the Citadel Spray impresses, and proves that it may actually be worth the money, but I'm not quite sure why Retributor Armor is like $10 more than the other colors. One good round of spray and these 4 models were primed and based perfectly. So I thought, "cool, I'll just do the whole army in one go here. So I went back inside, carrying the paint. I sat it down on my table and started getting other models together to spray. Turned around, and knocked the can off the table. It landed square on the nozzle, which broke and stuck down. It started spraying paint all over my wall and floor. I panicked and grabbed the can, which totally blasted me. I get outside with it, watching my $28 evaporate in a golden cloud. I try to fix the nozzle, but then it breaks off. Paint is just shooting up out of the can at this point like a fucking smoke grenade or something. So I say "fuck this shit" and just throw the damn thing over the fence and down the hill, gold spray going all over the grass and leaves. I sat there and watched that expensive ass can of paint just spray itself to death.

And then I went back out to buy another one.

It is amazing how much time color priming saves on things like this...I've been painting this army for less than 24 hours and I already have the armor 100% complete from shading to two drybrush highlights. I've almost finished the Kantor Blue basecoating on the pauldrons and straps. And this is on something like 25 models. Even at $28 (well, $56 now) it is WELL worth it, but I would also say that ONLY Citadel color primer is worth doing. The Army Painter ones suck, across the board. NONE of them go on as smoothly and cleanly as Citadel. They have some kind of magic nozzle (that is apparently very fragile) that is just right for miniature painting.

I'm so tempted to get into painting, I was talking to my partner about this since she's way into a bunch of solo hand busying hobbies. I need some sort of mind quieting hobby, it's just that my hands are so fucking shaky. I've thought about buying something I like that's reasonably easy to paint like Tau or something but I should probably just buy some ugly trash and fuck that up first. It's just demotivating not to work on something that I actually like.

Tau are NOT easy to paint. I've tried to get into them twice. Once was stupidly going for that fucking white sept color, which looks awesome but...yeah. I tried the traditional ochre sept too, and they turned out better...but that armor is harder to paint than you think. It's not like Skaven or Nurgle stuff, where you can be sloppy and it looks fine. And it's more finely detailed than Space Marine plate, so if your lines are perfect and your panels aren't butter-smooth...it doesn't look great.

If I had to do it again though, I'd maybe try it with a color primer first.

Yeah, I'd probably do them in wacky non-traditional colors but I take your point. I figured with the large areas of single color armor Tau would be pretty doable.

The problem is the shading...it's not all just flat panels. It's flat panels with recesses that need shading, and then if you want that 'Eavy Metal look, you have to edge highlight all of those panels too. You can pin-shade, but it's impossible to not get it all over the edges. So then you touch it up...and oops, you got paint down in the recess. So you have reshade. Then you get shade on the panels again. Etcetera.

The models, especially the mechs and vehicles, look awesome when they are painted well. I think maybe airbrushing may be the best way to do it so you get a fine, even coat of paint without the brushstrokes and inevitable build-up.

Painting is definitely a decompressing thing...fix a cocktail, put something on Netflix or whatever, and just put some colors on little warrior dudes and monsters for an hour or two. It's nice.

Well, maybe don't do every panel, especially with the Fire Warriors. Crisis Suits, sure.

Finished up some levy dudes for Dragon Rampant.

Well, I feel a little used by the FFG grinder, but I picked up Legion at a FLGS going-out-of-business sale. Most of my friends flatly refuse to play any FFG miniatures games, mainly because the meta for these games is expressly written for toilet CHUDS. I have yet to play the game and I may never. Still, in this nascent form, I like the rules. The miniatures are a bit of a mess but paint up okay.

Sevej wrote: Finished up some levy dudes for Dragon Rampant.

How do you like Dragon Rampant? We got one game in a short while ago, and then got caught up designing our own skirmish game. I’m eager to play DR again.

GorillaGrody wrote: Well, I feel a little used by the FFG grinder, but I picked up Legion at a FLGS going-out-of-business sale. Most of my friends flatly refuse to play any FFG miniatures games, mainly because the meta for these games is expressly written for toilet CHUDS. I have yet to play the game and I may never. Still, in this nascent form, I like the rules. The miniatures are a bit of a mess but paint up okay. ]

Nice looking figures. I just got Pete's copy of Legion and I'm going to be painting them up this weekend with my mini-human. You are totally right that the figures are a little rough. I did not have a ton of flash or mold lines as I had seen described online, but the detail made me not bother with the limited amount that was there. They do not look to be high enough quality to waste the time to get them perfectly clean. They do assemble amazingly quick because of the flexibility of the PVC and should be fairly resilient.

Anything unique about the material that I need to worry about for painting? I was planning on treating it like the materials I am most familiar with (resin, white metal, HIPS).

barrowdown wrote:

GorillaGrody wrote: Well, I feel a little used by the FFG grinder, but I picked up Legion at a FLGS going-out-of-business sale. Most of my friends flatly refuse to play any FFG miniatures games, mainly because the meta for these games is expressly written for toilet CHUDS. I have yet to play the game and I may never. Still, in this nascent form, I like the rules. The miniatures are a bit of a mess but paint up okay. ]

Nice looking figures. I just got Pete's copy of Legion and I'm going to be painting them up this weekend with my mini-human. You are totally right that the figures are a little rough. I did not have a ton of flash or mold lines as I had seen described online, but the detail made me not bother with the limited amount that was there. They do not look to be high enough quality to waste the time to get them perfectly clean. They do assemble amazingly quick because of the flexibility of the PVC and should be fairly resilient.

Anything unique about the material that I need to worry about for painting? I was planning on treating it like the materials I am most familiar with (resin, white metal, HIPS).

I just primed and painted them, mostly with a combination of grey Krylon and Army Painter white primer for a dash of highlight.

I did these in a quick and dirty fashion, and because I didn't want to make a lot of choices about colors, I sort of followed along with some of Sorastro's suggestions and approaches (though I did nowhere near as many highlighting and finishing touches as he does). I'm satisfied but not thrilled with the result.

I sort of regret doing a traditional rock-and-flock base for the vehicles. In doing so, I lost the front arcs imprinted on the bases, and I've had to draw them back in. If I had it to do again, I'd have used a thin layer of Agrellan Earth in order to maintain the original imprint.

Thanks for the advice. I was also planning on doing the quick and dirty painting (which is necessitated by having a 4-year-old aid in the process).

GorillaGrody wrote: How do you like Dragon Rampant? We got one game in a short while ago, and then got caught up designing our own skirmish game. I’m eager to play DR again.

A lot!

As a game it's probably an 7 or 8. Tabletop game designers have to deal that people will have various minis & terrain, so I understand if it's not as tight as board games. It's definitely not a simulation, but it's a really, really good game. It also puts more emphasize on behavior, when compared to similar games. I always like non-traditional and semi random turn order. There are some subtle but great innovations (like units rolling 6 dice at the very least). The amount of models required is just right and you always roll a lot of dice (6 or 12, never less!).

But what makes it really exceptional is the way the army list works. It's my favorite type of army list. The author took a long, hard look at fantasy as a genre and distilled the various units, beasts and monsters into a handful of groups. I find it makes me *want* to build armies. It's not a perfect system, but very workable. This is the rule I'd pick if I want to play a fantasy tabletop game, with any setting.

I hope someone do the same for the science fiction genre.

imgur.com/gallery/VuowVlZ

Totally love this model- one of GW’s best IMO. Painting this guy was a hoot- I had primed it a while back (when he was free for Silver Tower in a White Dwarf) but let it sit in a drawer. I’ve been painting Stormcast Vanguard and wanted a break. So I knocked this out in about 2 hours.

Primed Skeleton Bone (an Army Painter spray). Washed the skin Reikland Fleshshade. Armor is Death Guard Green. Guts are Screamer Pink. From there it is mostly washes- layers of wash to get that mottled, rotten effect on the skin. Axe was easy- Leadbelcher, Typhus Corrosion, Ryza Rust, Necron Compound, Nurgle Rot. Base is just Stirland Mud, Tyrant Skull, Nurgle Rot.

Next on tap- Plaguebearers.

Those pustules look great.