Random Fantasy stuff.

[SamVimes]

Well, I've decided to start a plog. I'm just getting back into painting after a three year hiatus, and I'm a little rusty. The first thing I painted up is an old Ral Partha Dwarf Ram rider (Pics up soon-ish). I did him as a test mini to test out painting with the so-called dip method, which I'd never done before. I decided to try and do the dip method because I'd seen some pretty decent results on other people's plogs, and I wanted to try and save time since I don't have much to spare on painting minis. So after the test piece, I decided to paint the Kobolds from Descent (Well of Darkness expansion). I painted all of the normal guys in various green shades so I could use them as Snotlings in other games. The masters (which in descent are like mini-bosses and come in red plastic instead of cream. However, they are the same sculpt) I painted in slightly reddish brown skin colors.

Well, since I haven't painted in forever all of my old GW paints (with the crappy screw on lids) have long since dried up, and since I'm low on discretionary spending money (buying descent and some other old dungeon crawlers pretty much ate up all of my girlfriend's patience, especially as I "forgot" to tell her I was buying these things. Thankfully she really likes descent, and the other stuff is going to be my Christmas) I decided to use the ginormous collection of Apple Barrel paints to paint everything with. Well, it worked pretty well on the test mini at least. For the Kobolds, it took about 5 layers of paint to get a basecoat before I gave up. And the base-coat still wasn't perfectly smooth, which I didn't think would be a problem, especially after I min-waxed them. I also gave the Kobold's skin a single, large area highlight coming from the top, just to suggest lighting. Then it was time for the dip! So I paint on the dip for all the green guys, and it comes out pretty well I think. At least at first. A few hours later, after basecoating the red guys, I decide to go out and dip the rest even though it's dark. Well, I couldn't see very well and I ended up using too much varnish on a couple of guys and clogged some of the detail. Sigh. Well, after a day of letting the Kobolds dry, I can cal 'em done, right? Well, no, the dip didn't look that great, so I'd have to go over some areas and do some highlighting. Not a big deal, I was planning on doing a final highlight anyway. Well, a week later I finally get some time to paint (this is yesterday), and I end up spending a ton of time (almost as much as if I just painted them straight from the begining!) higlighting their back. Well, Apple Barrel paint sucks, and the pigment separates pretty easily, especially when thinned as much as paint for minis needs to be thinned. So, here I am, fighting my paint to try and get these guys to a standard I can live with. The highlighting turns out ok, well, as far as I can tell at this point. The shinyness of the dip makes it hard to tell if I'm doing a good job, and I've read that once you dull coat the models, you can't go back over them with paint. I'm also perplexed my some of the anatomy on these little guys. The models have some great detail, especially for being soft plastic, but it looks like the sculptor forgot to add the trapezius on the right side. Instead the shoulder-blade takes up the whole space, and gives the back a really weird look when comparing the two sides. The kneeling guy looks almost as if his left arm is dis-located at the shoulder, but it's hard to see, so I'm not to concerned about it.

The bottom line: It's good to be back painting, even if I really suck at it now. I'm not too sure about this whole dip-method yet, but I'm gonna try it out on the Ferrox and Deep-elves before I make a final judgement. I suspect It'll work a bunch better if I get a really smooth base-coat. Which brings me to my next point, Apple Barrel paints suck for painting models. They are grainy, erratic on coverage, and super easy to chip until you seal them. I'm going to bear it out on the Ferrox and some other random stuff I have, but I have a feeling that these are going to be relegated to terrain only status. I think I'll beg the GF for a basic set of Vallejo Model color paints.

For next time: Shots of my dice tower, the WIP of a second, larger dice tower, WIP 3-d dungeon tiles, and maybe some shots of cheap halloween party favors being transformed into terrifying dungeon denizens. Oh, and some Ferrox and deep elves