You there! Do something!

Time to paint the officers and the first painting of flesh so far on these figures and this is your warning this blog will contain disparaging comments about FFGs sculpts and figures, if you can't except this move along this is not the blog you're looking for. Okay every body set right then.

The hand and facial sculpts on these figures is piss poor, the jedi Diala Passil looks as if she's lost the ends of her fingers in an industrial accident, although this may explain why she doesn't have a lightsaber to begin with(when keep finger tips you can, lightsaber you may have hmm). Gideon Argus does not have a large facial scar, this is a mould line, and nobody has any idea what he's trying to do with his blaster but that has been fixed with a scalpel and hot water as for the hand holding the monoculars apparently kissing your sister is something of an issue in the star wars universe becaues those lower two fingers are one. There are others but those are the ones I had funnies for, so the imperial officers lets see what we have at this end of the gene cup, middle finger on the pointing hand does not exist after the first knuckle, middle finger on the gun hand I have no idea what's going on there, ears previous boxing career? and mold line from the shoulder up the neck that makes him look like plastic surgery. And there are the excuses for my piss poor painting, but seriously I intend to play and rum tournaments for the skirmish side of the game and if I have to £45 pounds for 9 rebel troopers those sculpts better be pretty impressive, cards aside that's £5 a figure which makes GW space marines a bargain. I'm not expecting GW level sculpts but I do want to see basic anantomy. Now on with show,

I've started by applying base coats to all areas the uniform is GW codex grey and the flesh is P3 midlund flesh, with P3 thamar black for all black bits and GW ironbreaker for the buckles. Another  whinge now the belt buckles, the first thing I do when I come to paint these figure is go on to google and search for images, basic research. All imperial officer belts have a flat metal plate buckle not a standard belt buckle, it's a little thing but it irritated me and I didn't notice it till I started painting it. When I get time I will return to them and green stuff a proper buckle. The grey is very light and this is down to them being ground forces.  Light grey ground forces, dark grey the navy and black security.

 Next thing I did was give a black wash GW nuln oil to everywhere but the flesh and GW reikland flesh on the flesh areas, when it had dried I picked out the eyes with black

 Firstly I will be doing the uniform and ignoring the flesh areas, I've started with a watered down GW codex grey to soften the shading from the black wash.

The left hand figure has a mix of GW codex grey and GW fortress grey this is the next stage picking out the more raised areas and continuing the blending 

 It is then  painted with watered down GW fortress grey on the raised areas of cloth keeping the blend. I had problems keeping the paint wet during this one solution is a wet pallet which I use but couldn't be bothered sorting out for three figures and one colour, the other option is a retarding medium which stops the paint drying as quickly and aids in wet blending I use a Vallejo one  It's good for little jobs like this.

 Finally I picked out the edges of the uniform(this where the photo research comes in handy as the sculpted lines are faint to non existant) to give it defined cut.

 Now to the flesh, I've gone over the the washed flesh with P3 midlund flesh  watered down again to soften the wash. You know from this angle he just looks like he has a bad cock and balls dildo for a hand.

 This image is a little bright sorry, so what I've done is mixed P3 midlund flesh with P3 ryn flesh to highlight areas, It's okay but I'm not sure it was worth the effort as there isn't the detail to pick out. Now the eyes my advice after doing them is don't bother as you have to to some effort to make sure that the left eye isn't on his cheek, but if you're going to try this You painted the eye black earlier when the wash picke out all the lines making it easier to define eyelid from eyeball now just put a white dot in each corner and you have eyes. Do this whilst you still have your skin mix wet on the pallet so you touch up any cack handiness(eyes on the cheek, seriously i made him look like he was having a stroke)

 Then pick out the detail silver pin on cap, and buckle GW chainmail, rank pins red GW mephiston red and blue GW ultramarine blue. Fill in the bar with the colour and then paint thin black lines through them to the appropriate rank

 And they're done.

 Two lieutenants and a captain

 And the story so far

Dum, dum, dum, dum de dum, dum de dum.

Here's the crimson guard, step by step with lots of pictures. Quick note I am in my 40s some of my paints are in their 30s but there are near enough versions around and I just like these colours. Here we go first step for me with anything red is GW foundation paints Mecharite red which they no longer make but I'm sur they'll have a base similar to it. If you manage to get hold of any on the onterwebs and like me you're a brush licker be warned, they taste like shit.

 The next stage is done with GW mephiston red base across the cloth areas only.

Then pick up the raised areas with a mixture of mephiston red and ruby red, the first picture below is left hand guy before right hand guy after.

 Then with all of them done.

 And finally a wash of Drakenhoff nightshade which picks out red shadows nicely.

After that leave it to dry for a night and come back to it, then you start it all over again but with thinner colours and this is what should you get the next day.

 Now with watered down mephiston red start toning down the ink and blending here's another A-B comparison.(there's a theme here)

 And now with a a highlight of mephiston red and ruby red mix A-B-C (see showing off now)

 And finally just picked out highlights in ruby red(A-B-C-D will it never end) when doing the highlights look at the miniature from above and pick out where the light hits.

 Now to the shiny helmet(couldn't help myself tried but failed) This is mephiston red mixed with quite a lot of ardcoat about 50/50 mix this is the base for all the colours so you'll have to have enough to finish all the figures but it only has two stages.

Add caption

 The next stage is add ruby red  till it's lightened to the point you like then pick out the edge of the head band bit and round the eye slit.

 Finally P3 Thamar black on the staff and GW irongut highlighted with GW chainmail  at the tip for the steel pieces. Then paint the base how you want and dirt up the bottom of the robes if it fits.

 And here they are with the rest of the completed figures.

 And finally this is what I've been doing over christmas, This the ghost from star wars rebels which I really hope makes it into X wing and it would be nice if the crew made it into  Imperial Assault.

I have you now!

What do I have? I have Imperial Assault! And it has many pretty toys find it here.
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5263

And I have started painting the figures that have come with it which are quite a few and although not upto most wargame figure standards they are quite good for boardgame pieces.

I have split them up into two groups, Stormtroopers, Nexu and rebel heroes white, AT-ST and everyone else black. I had intended to spray them all white but didn't think I had enough in either can to completely undercoat either of them.

we'll start with the AT-ST.

I scoured google for images and the thing is pretty uniformly grey but it's a very light grey, I've used GWs Mechanicum Standard Grey as my base

Important tip and learn from my mistake, Build the sod first, there is absolutely no margin on the pins paint there is your enemy as is trying to get the chin gun in without snapping the barrels. Mine came with warped barrels and lightsabers these can be rectified with a cup of boiling water and a cup of cold water. Dip into boiling water for a couple of seconds bend straight dip into cold water to set.

And huge leap time because I didn't take any photos, hers the steps I took;

1. GW mechanicum standard grey mixed with old GW codex grey
2. GW codex grey
3. GW codex grey and P3 white
4. Rust patches are done using GW blazing orange (get most of the paint of the brush and dab) 
5. The barrels are done with P3 battlefield brown drybrushed on the with P3 black drybrushed on with GW blzing orange rust dabbed on at the vents.
6. GW nuln oils was used on all the cogs and then P3 turquoise ink added on top to give it that oil sheen
7. Green bits are GW straken green using the same technique as the orange rust
8. The base is a mixture of sand and gravel painted P3 bloodstone and then highlighted with a mix of P3 bloodstone and GW zandri dust
9. Finally some secret weapon weathering powders rust red and exhast black where added on the gun barrels to give it a flatter carbonised look and the rear vents for heat damage and rust red on the legs for dust.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. Finally added rust red round the rivets and painted 501 in Aurebesh and went over in grey in place to make it look as if it had faded off.

Now stormies;

Sprayed with GW white and then painted with P3 white and black, I use P3 white as it has more pigment in than GWs so it's less coats, There are some horrible mold lines on the troopers on the upper arms to the shoulder pads that you'll have to slice off with a sharp scalpel and one on the left hand side of the helmet that pretty much buggers up the vent details. 

So paint the white bits white paint the black bits black and they are quite acceptable, or you can then give them a very watered down GW nuln oil wash(or watered down black paint) then leave them to dry for a couple of hours.

Then take them back upto white again, I've used P3 white mixed with GW ardcoat to give the white a gloss sheen without making it look like I've lacquered them. Tidy up the black and add some wash to pick out the vents some more. The same basing as the AT-ST and don't wory about hitting the lower legs whilst drybrushing.

Finally using secret weapons rust red pigment powder brush lower legs and hands and barrel and everywhere you decide dust has gathered (less is more whilst applying this stuff) and bits of exhaust black to denote wear. When doing this so they didn't all look the same I thought about haw they got dirt on them, this guy just has general marching grime, this guy fell on his arse, this guy was crouched firing this one kneeling.

And finally I added some tufts which just make the basing infinitely better.

 And there they are.

I was planning on doing the crimson guard tonight but I'm sat waiting for an engineer so I can hand over the Fucking Electrics of death I've found on  a site today. I am in a pub in Liverpool there's no power because I've had to switch it off and It's December, I am a tad chilly and a Manc.

Till next time.

Painters block (or living with others)

Well todays blog is brought to you by management inefficiency and power mad little control freaks as I've been sat waiting to do a half hour job for the last 3 hours, so we'll have a quick update of where I'm upto on my golden deamon entry.

I've done fuck all, but I have committed to not painting another 200pts of stuff by the end of the month! Oh and armies on parade is on so I'd better get cracking at that too, all with Robyn now at university which is very time consuming, because she has actual important stuff she needs to do and a 4 hour journey there and back to the place where she has to do these things. Also assignments appear to have kidnapped the kitchen table.  So what have I done? Well I've made a movement tray for my glade riders.

 See, pretty, it has a tree!
And I decided that the wood elf horses where not in the pose I required so cut them in half and made them how i wanted or as near as i could get with out just sculpting my own horse(this is Robyns fault as I spend a lot of time watching horses now and my OCD needs the horse to be in some semblance of accuracy)

 The other thing I need for my armies on parade board and my actual army is three more citadel woods, now I have the bits of one from last wood elf book where you were only allowed a six inch diameter wood that I cut and laboriously green stuffed to look good, only for the new book to come out and make all this work wasted, and that I'd bollocks up a perfectly good wood for nothing.

Lets put it back together! Now when I cut something apart I'm not gentle with piece I don't need so there are sections that don't marry up properly (there's a lesson here) green stuff will required to fill those gaps.

 Right it became obvious fairly quickly that this wouldn't last with out support as I'd created so many weak points in the base structure when I cut it apart, so I stuck the entire thing onto a sheet of plasticard and modeled in the bits I'd either lost or destroyed when making the original wood. I then cut the majority of the excess with scissors and trimmed it flush with a scalpel.

 Added some dryad bits to the trees and some unlucky beastmen and sprayed the whole thing black. We are now ready to ignore this until it has to be done for armies on parade.

So with all this why have I not done anything on the bile trolls, well because I've learned that if I'm not in the right frame of mind to paint a model I'll only fuck it up so I do a little side project to get me going or the project will just stagnate and become a burden rather than a joy. This is one of the reasons I don't do commissions as that attitude would have to change and an actual work ethic employed, which I could do but would ruin my hobby and as I've got 30 odd years invested in this lets not.
Next time actual progress as writing this has put me in the mood to progress with the trolls, it's amazing what a bit of blahing will do for you.

Killing time post

This is just a quick post while i waste a little time and will be mostly pictures with a little blurb, we'll see how that goes.

 I've started doing red on the exposed muscles and boils and tears in the skin.

 I've used used Sanguine base and Sanguine highlight  both P3 colours to start the base mix and used GWs Pallid Wych Flesh to highlight that mix, till we got to what we have above. There are about five varying layers in there and after this i washed the exposed muscle in Baal red and the boils in Carrienburg Crimson (that may not be the correct spelling the pots at home I'm at work) I'm also kinda searching for ideas on horn and talon colours, so any ideas would be appreciated, I may not use any of them but they will point me in the direction I want to go.
I've also done a test with the Vallejo water effect which I am quite happy with and I'm kind of overloade with ideas on that front just not sure if they will all work, but I'll go into that at a later date.

 And finally the Xwing addiction continues not with anymore repaints but with other tat Xwing soundboard app, get it and enjoy.