EmperorNorton's Overabundance of Projects

[Azendral]

Great work on those goblins! Even if the last batch took you longer instead of shorter time, 10 goblins in an average of 4 hours is a win in my book. I can understand feeling a bit drained after that though and I think the way to go is what you yourself suggested, paint base colours in batches of 10 or 20, then go back and do detail work and highlighting in smaller batches of 5 or so.

[Sureshot05]

I have been working on a NG army for a long while now, and can say that converting the spider riders is the easiest bit! Simply buy a box of the regular NG warriors, file a little between their legs (and I do mean a little) and then repose the arms so they are pointing forwards and you're done. As soon as I finish my next regiment they are to hit my painting station so I'll see if I can send you a photo so you can consider it.

I've found batches of 20 work well, but for December last year I set myself the challenge of painting a 100 in a month and just about managed it! I also have a NG rule for my painting area. I always have 1 NG on the go. It seems a little, but you find that they slowly add up and it helps to get through the horde.

You NG look really good but if you really want to work on true huge hordes and are not wanting to spend time on it (I'm looking at my horde and it's been 5 years and they're still not finished!) I would suggest that you cut down on the highlights on the backranks and just do base coat, drybrush robes, wash. A friend did this for his and managed a horde of 300 in a month. The back ranks don't look great, but as the front draw your attention it does the job.

Your painting as always is really good to see Norton, and your Empire force is a great piece of work. Your neat painting and brilliant blending have recieved praise, but I thought I'd add your consistency in continously bringin new stuff to the party on a regular basis is something you should be very proud of as well. Keep it up!

[Kisanis]

Advantage: Emperor Norton

Well kudo's on getting the progress made. They look fantastic!

[Killshot]

Nice work on the goblins!

[EmperorNorton]

Thanks for your comments, guys.
I'm in an incredible hurry right now, so I will edit in individual answers later.
I can say, though, that your support is really helping me stay motivated.
Exhibit A:


And Exhibit B (group shot):

[Lord Dan]

25 down, buddy! Those goblins have nothing on you.

[Eldorad]

Thanks for your comments, guys.
I'm in an incredible hurry right now, so I will edit in individual answers later.
I can say, though, that your support is really helping me stay motivated.

Keep it going they are looking great

[Grisnik]

Keep it up.. they be looking good.. have been in the same position as you though and painted up a few hundred of them.. was going at them in batches of 20-60 at a time.. and yes.. I felt the same burn out after doing some of them.

Once you get your groove though, it can be a quick way to get things finished. Good luck with the rest of the project.

[Azendral]

I'm stunned, looking great and you're pushing them out quickly too! Never been very good at speed painting, still have loads of unfinished gaunts laying about... Maybe I should follow your lead and try to get some of those finished.

[EmperorNorton]

Well it may have been tough, but what you've done in 2 days took me more like 2 months! They look good too, but just as other people have said, dont burn out!

At the moment I don't feel like that's even a possibility, but I have to be careful nonetheless.

So not unlike my first impression: "Wow these brushes are great, I bet I could do all kinds of stuff with them... if only I knew how to do stuff."
Also they do smell nice.

It did not occur to me to smell them.
My first impression was "Wow, those tubes are fancy." The second thought "And needlessly wasteful", because I immediately threw them away.

One hour more is only 6 minutes per goblin, not that bad. If it helps, I think the new batch looks a little better than the first.
Did you do something else while painting? Maybe watched something in the background or listened to something. Because I often do that and I find that painting time and the according results vary greatly, once you get caught up, even a little bit, in something else. Even thinking about other stuff intensely can drop your output ratio significantly. Who the heck do I think I'm talking to right now? Of course you've painted loads more minis then I have, I guess you'd know yourself whether you've done any of those things or not.

60 more to go.

I don't think I did anything differently. I always listen to the radio while I paint. Watching TV is too distracting and painting is too boring without some background noise.
Some parts of the second batch came out better, but others were better on the first, I think.

Grats on taking the plunge for the W&N - glad you like them! When I first got mine it took me a while to adjust to them (it seemed like the paint on them dried out quicker for some reason) But now I've gotten several years worth of good use from them.

I noticed as well that I have to water down my paints more, but that is very much a good thing. With these brushes I suddenly understand how blending might be possible, because they appear to have a much higher capacity for holding paint and seem to give better control. Not that I've actually had the courage to try, mind. Still, they are marvelous.
I just hope they have a lifespan that corresponds to the price, because now I feel I can't go back to cheaper brushes ever again.

I noticed you had some Secret Weapon Miniatures wash in the background of your pics. Do you like those? I've been wanting a source for when I run my original GW washes dry (I tried two of the new ones, and while Nuln Oil is fine, Agrax Earthshade is a piss-poor substitute for Devlan Mud). Plus I'd feel good tossing a little cash Mr. J's way - he helped me a lot when I was first starting to paint.

Do you mind explaining that last sentence a bit, because I don't follow.
That aside, I'm not a massive fan of the Secret Weapon washes and I don't think they are a good replacement for Devlan Mud. From my experience they are somewhere in the middle between an ink and the now replaced GW washes. They have their uses, but since they dry fairly shiney those are limited. I quite like the Sewer Water wash, which is a bit like a more intensive Devlan Mud. But the Dark Sepia, which I got recently to try out in the hope it would be a direct replacement, was a big disappointment.
The closest I have found to replace Devlan Mud is Army Painter's Strong Tone Ink.

Great work on those goblins! Even if the last batch took you longer instead of shorter time, 10 goblins in an average of 4 hours is a win in my book. I can understand feeling a bit drained after that though and I think the way to go is what you yourself suggested, paint base colours in batches of 10 or 20, then go back and do detail work and highlighting in smaller batches of 5 or so.

Sounds like a plan.

I have been working on a NG army for a long while now, and can say that converting the spider riders is the easiest bit! Simply buy a box of the regular NG warriors, file a little between their legs (and I do mean a little) and then repose the arms so they are pointing forwards and you're done. As soon as I finish my next regiment they are to hit my painting station so I'll see if I can send you a photo so you can consider it.

I've seen a couple of guides where people used the Skull Pass goblins, but I can see where the multipose ones would be better. A photo would be nice.

I've found batches of 20 work well, but for December last year I set myself the challenge of painting a 100 in a month and just about managed it! I also have a NG rule for my painting area. I always have 1 NG on the go. It seems a little, but you find that they slowly add up and it helps to get through the horde.

Congrats on reaching your goal!

You NG look really good but if you really want to work on true huge hordes and are not wanting to spend time on it (I'm looking at my horde and it's been 5 years and they're still not finished!) I would suggest that you cut down on the highlights on the backranks and just do base coat, drybrush robes, wash. A friend did this for his and managed a horde of 300 in a month. The back ranks don't look great, but as the front draw your attention it does the job.

That would be the sensible thing to do, but I can't bring myself to cut down on quality that much. I am comfortable with my current compromise between quantity and quality.

Your painting as always is really good to see Norton, and your Empire force is a great piece of work. Your neat painting and brilliant blending have recieved praise, but I thought I'd add your consistency in continously bringin new stuff to the party on a regular basis is something you should be very proud of as well. Keep it up!

Thank you very much for your comment, it's one of the nicest I have received, although I'm not sure that buying heaps of random crap and not being able to catch up with painting is really something to be proud of.

Advantage: Emperor Norton

Well kudo's on getting the progress made. They look fantastic!

Thank you!

Nice work on the goblins!

Thanks!

25 down, buddy! Those goblins have nothing on you.

Not sure. Unlike me they have company.

Keep it going they are looking great

Thanks!

Keep it up.. they be looking good.. have been in the same position as you though and painted up a few hundred of them.. was going at them in batches of 20-60 at a time.. and yes.. I felt the same burn out after doing some of them.

Once you get your groove though, it can be a quick way to get things finished. Good luck with the rest of the project.

A few hundred? Wow.

I'm stunned, looking great and you're pushing them out quickly too! Never been very good at speed painting, still have loads of unfinished gaunts laying about... Maybe I should follow your lead and try to get some of those finished.

Do it! I have found that as long as you only think about it it feels daunting and overwhelming, but once you get started it usually isn't all that bad.


So, no Night Goblins today.
I am completely overwhelmed by the positive reaction they have brought to my plog, but I figure it'll get old when I post evey day that I painted another five of the green little buggers.
I will stick to batches of five from here on out, because I rather enjoyed that yesterday. Took two hours to finish them, but at the same time I was putting some paint on these minis:


Yes, I put the Warmachine stuff to the side again to paint some more Malifaux. Because obviously starting yet another thing will yield results more quickly than staying focussed on the things that are already halfway done. Or something.
You wouldn't know it by looking at her, but Lilith is not easy. There are a fair few areas on that sculpt that are very hard to reach. In fact, those older sculpts are kinda making me fall out of love with Malifaux, because they aren't that great upon close inspection. Sigh.
My original plan was to paint a tartan on the Mature Nephilim's toga (that's the big guy, in case you are wondering), but I'm not so sure now. It'd be very difficult.

Something random I bought recently:


This is the Kraken Hunter from Axe Faction.
I thought about using this for Malifaux somehow, but the sculpt is far too delicate to use as a gaming piece. In fact the skirt was broken in two places when I got her in the mail, but since the company is just starting out I refrained from complaining and I think I fixed it okay.

[Schmapdi]

Do you mind explaining that last sentence a bit, because I don't follow.

Oh, sorry. It's not really here or there, but Mr. Justin is the internet nickname of the guy who runs Secret Weapon minis. I've "known" him for a while, as we both frequented a rather small, obscure painting forum a few years ago, when I first got started painting stuff. And he was always a very helpful chap with giving me advice/tutorials. But I have little need for all the little conversion parts/etc that make up the bulk of Secret Weapon's product line. So I thought the washes might be a good way for me to toss a little cash back his way if they were good.

I wasn't looking for an exact match for Devlan mud per say, just pointing out that the "new" GW Devlan mud was very lacking, so I thought I'd keep my options open.

[EmperorNorton]

Over the last two days I have been spending about 8 Night Goblins worth of time on this:


"Great, a headstone on a base, what's exciting about that?"
Well, in the world of Malifaux you never know what might be hiding just around the corner...


These two miniatures caught my eye back when there wasn't any game for them to be used in. And now they have finally come into my possession.
They are not 100% done yet, but close.
A size comparison:


Not sure why Candy's right eye looks messed up like that, must be an odd angle.
Some of the detail is hard to make out with the naked eye, though.

[Discover&See]

the eye looks abit off but also photos can be deceiving! liking the flesh on the killer baby looks very smooth.
keep up the awesome work looking forward to seeing more.

Regards
D&S

[EmperorNorton]

the eye looks abit off but also photos can be deceiving!

I put what I thought were the finishing touches on these two today, but the eye is still a bit dodgy. It's missing a darker line directly above the eye and I'll try to put that in tomorrow.
I'm happy with the candy, though:


And the back:

[Lord Dan]

Those are some of the creepiest models I've ever seen. Well done!

As for the eye you need a small amount of red in the very top center of the right eye to balance it out.

[biginbelgium]

Creepy stuff indeed, good work.

cheers
Tim

[HereBeDragons]

Fantastic job on those two! I love the blood drops/smears on the ground, and the swirl on the sweet. Really good touches there!

[Azendral]

Those Malifaux models are awesome, I've been tempted to get them myself even though I don't really know what to use them for. Anyway you've made them just as creepy as they should be, great work.

I took your advice and just started on the gaunts, and on some Gargoyles, and a Tervigon, and a Hive Tyrant... I might have some focus issues.

[EmperorNorton]

As for the eye you need a small amount of red in the very top center of the right eye to balance it out.

I think that's it, now I just need to manage to do that without messing it up. Eyes are still tricky for me.

Creepy stuff indeed, good work.

cheers
Tim

Thanks, Tim!

Fantastic job on those two! I love the blood drops/smears on the ground, and the swirl on the sweet. Really good touches there!

Thanks for noticing the swirl. I am happy with that, although the stripes on the candy canes were harder to do.

Those Malifaux models are awesome, I've been tempted to get them myself even though I don't really know what to use them for. Anyway you've made them just as creepy as they should be, great work.

If it's any consolation, I haven't played the game a single time myself.

So, to continue with the tiny creepy things, how about some Night Goblins?




And the whole unit so far:



Regrettably (well, not really, you know what I mean) my actions yesterday have potentially messed up the counter in my signature beyond relief...

[EmperorNorton]

To keep with the theme I finished these today:


Incidentally that brings the number of models I finished this month to a not too shabby 65. Now if I managed to keep up that pace for a few years I might actually have a chance at getting my collection fully painted, but I guess that is pretty unlikely.
I want to finish at least three more models this month, though: Lilith, the Mature Nephilim and that Empire guy with the two pistols. Maybe I'll even manage to squeeze in a few more gobbos.