The Tale of Board Game Painters 2012-2013 - Month 1 & October WIP

[Solun Decius]

Tale of Board Game Painters 2012-2013

Detailed description on what is going on here
You can sign up whenever in any progress/WIP thread of the tale!

Painters in this Tale:
BTJ - Space Hulk
Daemonslave - Space Hulk & Warhammer Quest
EmperorNorton - Space Hulk
HereBeDragons - Home built Warhammer Quest
iamjack42 - Space Hulk
Jonahmaul - Super Dungeon Explore
Mr Potato Head - Space Hulk
robscott5598 - Warhammer Quest, Talisman & more
Solun Decius - Finishing SDE
steevn - Space Hulk
Zark the Damned - Zombicide

In this thread we post finished photos of last month's work. After a while of that we start posting constructive comments on each other's work and some WIP photos of what we're doing this month.

Don't forget you can still sign up anytime!

Happy Painting!

[steevn]

a slow start for me, but i like them, when all the terminators are done i'll apply RG decals to them.
it took me some time to remove the most blatant bloodangel iconography and my cat seems to like them as a toy... (the little tankthing is still missing...)

space hulk ravenguard

[EmperorNorton]

My first contribution:

[Daemonslave]

Ok, here's my Space Hulk mini's that have been touched up after getting 'misted' by varnish;

The serg;



and his shield which pretty much had to be started from scratch




The other term is here with his more fortunate brother. It doesn't look too bad in this photo, but they are now slightly darker than their fellow termie;



The Genestealers (which apart from the nails and head were not too bad)







These genestealers, as a result of extra washing, now have a darker tint to them, but hey ho - I'm not going to start again on them.



Also as part of my tale, I'm trying to get my Warhammer Quest boards done, here's the casted corridors;



As you can see I have started on 3,

This is the stage I am to get them all to by the end of this month;



Before the following month adding any final touches, such as the odd skull or fallen leaves, etc;

[robscott5598]

Ok, Those first two submissions showcase right there one of my favorite aspects of this "tales of". We have two very different, but equally awesome and inspiring takes on the same game and the same miniatures. Both members have their own unique style to their painting and both look really good. Great work guys!

@steevn - I really like the dark moody tone of your minis and the extreme edge highlighting sets off the details very well. That "ancient" Terminator in the throne has always been my favorite mini in the game box and you've done a great job bringing it to "life" with your paintjob, especially interested in seeing how your RG scheeme will look across the other models. I like the aged "heavy" feel to the metals. The old dirty bone feel of that skull also just rocks! And although all of the Librarian is nice I especially like the extreme highlighting and details of the shoulder pad in that pic, and the details of the force axe blade, very nicely done.

@ EmperorNorton - Lovely Termis! You've nailed the "traditional" blood red scheme to a tee! Beautiful red tones, excellent inking of the armor details, subtle, excellent highlighting shades (check out that smooth thin edge highlighting on the exhaust ports on their backs!) all around just wows me. The realistic browns of the "robes" is excellent. So much detail, so well done. The commander's face just pops! The power sword effect rocks, but I think it's the smooth, subtle, but so well done color transitions on the black of the commanders loin cloth and cape that are some of the best painted details as well. You make me insanely jealous.

EDIT -

@Demonslave - Nice, you ninja'd your post in there while I will still putting my photobucket stuff together. Again, another great example of what I was talking about your red Blood Angel marines are in a different tone than EmperorNorton's, more of a orangy red with your highlights, but certainly no less awesome because of it.

From the photos it's impossible to tell that you were having issues with the overcoating mist effect. Very nice recovery. I know all too well how tedious and disheartening it can be to essentially have to repaint a mini that you already spent so much time on because of the sealer going south. Extra Kudos to you for stepping up to the plate and getting it done, again, for all of us to enjoy looking at! I think that power shield and the details are just awesome by the way!



For my part I got a few things finished, Firstly the wolves, which will be used as well, wolves, for Warhammer Quest and probably Super Dungeon Explore, cause I just love the slightly manga-esque vibe of their sculpts, and the insanely "kinetic" feel of their poses.



certain ones are my favorites





And Then I dove head first into my new box set of Descent 2.0 because you can have never have enough dungeon crawler board games right?
I really like the quality of the minis in this rereleased version of descent much better than the original version. Not only are they generally much better sculpts for the most part, but the quality of the plastic suffers less from the "rubbery" feel and texture of the original game, allowing for a better painting experience all around.

Here is my first attempt at the "Shadow Dragon", which after I first checked out the rule book seemed to be some kind of albino deep cavern dwelling dragon which was, in the pictures for it, breathing some kind of glowing green "acid cloud" effect. Thus I tried to paint an Albino look with some OS lighting effect on the face.







After I finished the dragon, I went back and really gave the rule book pic a second look and feel that "albino" was probably streaching it a little, as the dragon should be more of a almost smoky light purple skin tone really, so although I'm not entirely hating on this one, I will be trying to do the second one in a significantly different color palette alltogether.

[robscott5598]

And then there was the Ettin. I think this was the best sculpt out of the lot of the figures. It just has character. Both heads are clearly arguing with each other while the giant is in the middle of trying to squash some pesky adventurers with that club at the same time.






And finally, some Kobolds from Super Dungeon Explore.

Firstly, the Kobold Stabbers. These guys are fun and easy to paint, I just wish the sculpt quality of the figures for Super Dungeon Explore were more consistant. Half my figures have either horrendous amounts of flash and seamlines, witch takes hours of prep work just to ready a handfull of figures for actual painting, and the other half have "too softly" molded features where things like their faces were essentially almost featurless blobs.



Some Kobold Slingers



Some Kobold DragonShields





And the Kobold Wyrm Priest

[Jonahmaul]

Fantastic looking stuff from everyone. I'll leave more in-depth comments once the first week is out. Here is my pretty boring submission for the month. As intended I have put together and cleaned up all the miniatures for Super Dungeon Explore. The guys on the left hand side at the back (all the ones in the third picture) need some green stuff to cover up gaps but most of it is pretty simple and shouldn't take too long. My painting plans going forward are to do a group of kobolds or a big guy plus one or two heroes each month depending how much time I have (hopefully I'll do more than this). Thinking of mixing the colours up a bit from the standard. I'm thinking purple for the kobolds and possibly blue for the Ogre's. Not sure about the dragon stuff yet, I'll either stick with red or go for green. What do you guys think?

[Solun Decius]

OK, so I wasn't really as quick as I thought to finish this, so i can't really call it last season's finish.

I'll allow the final touches of my SDE to float over to this tale here, also just because I love to have something to contribute to this great thread.

SDE Heroes.


This month I really really have to finish the dragon and the Drake spawn point. Also the second Boo Booty.

So much good stuff here guys! So much to comment on. I'll give it another couple of days to sink in

[robscott5598]

@Solun - nice to see some more stuff from you, especially for SDE! The facial expression and the eyes of the druid are perfect! Love it.
The fireball effect in that staff head rocks as well.

@Johnamaul - I think the purple sounds awesome for the standard Kobolds, should look nice and be a different take on them. Blue sounds good for the Ogre-Kobolds too. Can't wait to see 'em.


So......is it too early to start posting WIP pics for October projects? 'Cause I always get really fired up around this time of year and start cranking out lots o Halloween themed minis madness. I got a few things I wanna take some pics of to slap up here before I get ahead of myself and finish the whole board game......

[Solun Decius]

@robscott: Thanks! Yeah, I think it's OK to post a little WIP, even though a few of us have yet to post photos.
I meant to ask you about the names of the SDE models. You use the names Stabbers, Slingers, DragonShields & Wyrm Priest (good names BTW) so confidently while my game calls them Gougers, Flingers, Ironscales and Dragon Priest. Is it just your way of making yours more your own (or you simply didn't remember the exact names when you posted), or does your printing actually have those names?

[robscott5598]

@robscott: Thanks! Yeah, I think it's OK to post a little WIP, even though a few of us have yet to post photos.
I meant to ask you about the names of the SDE models. You use the names Stabbers, Slingers, DragonShields & Wyrm Priest (good names BTW) so confidently while my game calls them Gougers, Flingers, Ironscales and Dragon Priest. Is it just your way of making yours more your own (or you simply didn't remember the exact names when you posted), or does your printing actually have those names?

Woops. No, my copy of the game uses the same names you mention.....however.....just recently I used these painted models in a game of D&D against my players. And in 4th edition D&D, that's what they call them (with the exception that "stabbers" would be Kobold skirmishers). I just sorta fell into the retuine. lol.

It's kinda funny because it's very clear when they put together SDE board game they deliberately used the 4th edition D&D monster manuel to create the Kobold "classes". The descriptions of things like the "Wyrm Priest", "Slingers" and "Dragonshields" are just perfect matches for these miniatures, and the rules for things in the game mechanics are way too perfect. There's no way it's not a deliberate homage.

[Jonahmaul]

OK, I can't wait any longer for comments so here they are:

steevn - very nice looking stuff. I really like that you've gone for an alternative to Blood Angels. I've used some of the Space Hulk terminators for my Brazen Claw army so may paint up the rest so that I can play Space Hulk. Next year maybe, too many projects......

EmperorNorton - I've said it in your PLOG but it's worth saying again - these are excellent. The shot from the back really shows off the captain's sword as well which is ace.

Daemonslave - excellent looking Space Hulk stuff (de ja vu!). I've had issues with misting before and it's a real pain in the ass. Putting gloss varnish over then respraying does help but doesn't completely get rid of it. What varnish was it? I find Army Painter stuff is very bad for this (I've stopped using it for this reason). I really like those corridors and just had a quick look through your PLOG (will take a proper look when I have more time). Really impressive stuff. Have you thought of selling resin casts of the rooms and corridors I assume you still have moulds for them all? If so I may be interested depending on the price.

robscott5988 - all that stuff looks really excellent and nice to see such a variety. The dragon in particular is great because that is such a hard colour to paint well. I feel your paint about the SDE stuff, I spent soooooooo long cleaning up all my stuff ready to paint and I still need to do some GS work on a fair few things (the bigger things I expect but what's up with almost all the heroes needing GS?!)

SDE - I love your SDE stuff, it looks so good. I also hate your SDE stuff as it convinced me to buy it as well so my bank account i lighter! Oh well, no money to go out, more time to stay in painting! There's possible a 'backdoor' method to done to the Relic Knights Kickstarter according to Soda Pop so I may be able to get the SDE special editions directly from Coolminiornot. I'm waiting for them to reply.

[BTJ]

Ok, first of all, there's some really nice minis in this thread. Secondly, I'll put up the break down on my Space Hulk set.

Month 1- 3 Termies

Month 2- 3 Termies

Month 3- 5 Genestealers

Month 4- 5 Genestealers

Month 5- 3 Genestealers + Broodlord

Month 6- 3 Termies

Month 7- 3 Termies

Month 8- 4 Stealers/Objective

Month 9- 4 Stealers/Door Bases

Month 10- 3 Stealers

[Zark the Damned]

OK, finally managed to get some decent light levels for not-too-horrible pictures!

September's painting was one 'row' of Zombies (5 walkers, 2 runners, 1 fatty) plus Nick and Dave.


Dave and Nick face off against a small horde!


Just to show off some of the small details like tattoos and logos

Haven't gotten around to varnishing the blighters yet, though I may redo the bases on the runners before that anyway.

This month will be another row of Zombies, and another survivor or two. Not decided who yet. Two 'special figures' each month should keep me going until the next bunch of specialists in March (iirc).

[Jonahmaul]

Excellent stuff Zark, really loving the extra details you've put in. I think that it would be good to do even more of the bases like you've done for the runners. Don't suppose you've got any extras of the promo characters have you?!

[HereBeDragons]

Sorry I'm late, I had these finished ages ago just haven't had chance to get online and post! I haven't made any progress on the rooms, but I hopefully have all the stuff I need now to start (had to wait till I could pick them up from my parents house). As such, all I have is the spiders:





This month I'll be painting Orcs and hopefully some rooms! Although we are already a week in and all I've been doing is assembling SDE... which takes forever btw.

[HereBeDragons]

And some replies:

@steevn: Nice work! Ravenguard termis will make a nice change I suspect. Great work on that librarian, I love the extreme highlighting on the armour.

@EmperorNorton: Fantastic work on the terminators! Dunno how you managed to get 4 finished in one go, but good going!

@Daemonslave: Damn, way to show up my efforts on the WHQ front lol. Now I really need to get on with them rooms! Space hulk stuff looks great, shame you had difficulty getting the colours to match perfectly after all this time. It certainly doesn't matter for the genestealers, just say they're different broods or something!

@robbscott5598: I need to know how you painted those wolves robbscott! And I'm going to keep asking! I think your dragon looks great! So what if it doesn't perfectly match the description. The etin is a great sculpt as you said! And the SDE stuff is just stunning, I hope I can get my stuff to look as good. Did you have one of the older print runs? I got mine just recently and all the models I've assembled so far seem pretty consistent?

@Jonahmaul: Well done getting it all assembled, I'm trying to do that atm and it takes soooooo long! I like your idea of different colours for the kobolds! Will add a nice bit of variety to the thread

@Solun: Great work on those hereos! They look beautiful! I don't know how you manage to get such detailed textures from such flat pieces of plastic. Btw have you actually finished those blurred heroes in the background? I suspect some NMM still needs doing there!

@BTJ: Thats a good plan, good luck with it! Stick up some wip picks once you start!

@Zark the Damned: Wow that looks like a great set! I love all the little details you've put on them. Are the other rows of zombies in the same poses?

[Jonahmaul]

Yes it does take FOREVER!! So many parts. And I've still got the GS a load of it.

[Zark the Damned]

And now, some comments:

@steevn - Ravenguard guys are looking good, nice to see some non-BA versions. Hope you find the CAT! (the little tank thing)

@EmperorNorton - Nice work on the Termies, the red is very smooth. I like the purple purity seals.

@Daemonslave - Great work all around, I really dig the WHQ Tiles.

@robscott5598 - I love the dragon, the OSL on the face works really well.

@Jonahmaul - That's a lot of stuff assembled! From what I hear the Kobolds can be a pain to put together. Purple could work for the Kobolds, though I would paint Rex the same way (as he's a big Kobold).

@Solun Decius - The heroes look good, you've managed to bring out the cartoonyness, especially on the Druid & Bear.

@HereBeDragons - The spiders look great, have a real 'giant tarantula' feel. Wouldn't want to meet a swarm of them in a dungeon!

And some replies:

Excellent stuff Zark, really loving the extra details you've put in. I think that it would be good to do even more of the bases like you've done for the runners. Don't suppose you've got any extras of the promo characters have you?!

The plan is for Runners to have the base details, as in a couple of games with the unpainted stuff it somethimes got hard to pick them out from a crowd of Walkers. I may add some other markings to the survivors in place of the base rims though. Fatties and the Abomination are eay enough to pick out so don't need markings really. And sadly no spares here, I just ordered the Abom pack and one of each of the extra survivors.

Wow that looks like a great set! I love all the little details you've put on them. Are the other rows of zombies in the same poses?

Yeah, each row of Zombies is the same. I plan to paint them up as individually as possible to hopefully break up the legions of same poses. I keep getting tempted by the Victory miniatures deal on 200 individual Zombies to use for replacements though...

[Solun Decius]

Comments:

@steevn: I really like those two minis you've got. Pop nicely with bright highlights and details/accents, but are suitably dark and dritty nonetheless.

@RmperorNorton: Those Termies look so good! Four terminators is also a huge chunk of the total project, as I imagine you can paint the staelers much faster. Great start!

@Daemonslave: They still look really good, so good job fixing them. The one that didn't have the accident is just a little bit more vibrant. It's always devastating to have these things happen.
You're off to an amazing start on the WQ set. I'm looking forward to seeing all those tiles painted up and ready to go.

@robscott5598: Amazing output as always. Great SDE stuff and very interesting experiment with the Glow on the dragon's face.
The two headed giant, as you said, is a great model and the paint job is really smooth.
Those wolves though, they just come right to life. Awesome stuff!

@Jonahmaul: As all of us know who have assembeld that set, cleaning and gluing alone is a pretty huge undertaking. Nice job getting all that done. I like all your color ideas, and think it would be interesting to get a bit more variation from red on the monsters. If I were to paint the second half of the Kobolds I would definitely paint them in a different skin tone, purple sounds great.

@BTJ: Excellent plan, mixing it up, so as not to get bored, but still focusing on the same thing each month. Looking forward to seeing you first contribution next month!

@Zark the Damned: Love that Zombicide! The khorne hoodie and clasic shiny Nike on the runners. Flash T-shirt too and all the other details. I can't wait to see what you've got cooking for the next row of minis.

@HereBeDragons: Spiders still look good. Great to get some of that batch painting out of the way first, right?


Answers:

@robscott: Thanks! The Druid really has this excellent facial expression. I'm glad I managed to keep it right when painting.

@Jonahmaul: Thank you very much. I'm not that worried about your money so I'm just glad you got the game! There's no stress with the Relic Knights thing. It'll be a while before anything happens there. Just let me know what you decide, and I'll let you know when the decision has to be made.

@HereBeDragons: Thanks. I really enjoyed going for the fur texture on the bear (it's really really flat!). Some of the other stuff I tried to do really smooth, some of it I did in a more cell shading style. I guess you can mix all that and it's still manga. NMM is done now

@Zark The Damned: Thanks man! That's definitely part of what I'm aiming for.


New photos:

OK, I finished the final details on the heroes and the Starfire Dragon. I just couldn't wait until next month to post them here.











That's it for character minis. Now it's just Boo Booty and the Dragon Spawn Point.