Tale of Four Gamers - Challenge 2: Warriors of Chaos

Justin was over at my house last night and, fully confident that a mere digital image could not convey the exquisite detail he had lovingly lavished upon his model one brush stroke at a time, he brought a single Chaos Warrior with him to show me.  Alas for you, dear reader, I am afraid you must suffer through just such a misfortune, perhaps even unto your dying day feeling a woeful sense of unfulfillment permeating your soul- a small, Chaos Warrior-shaped hole in the very fiber of your being.

As you can see, Justin has carried his armor technique from his Chaos Knights over to the Warriors and produced a great result.  Over the Gretchin Green base, he washed Devlan Mud and then went 'Eavy Metal on us and used red to shade the green further.  Someone with a more professional art background can explain the color theory better than I (or my layabout brother who claimed he couldn't remember much of the color theory course he took in college), but by using a complementary color, in this case red, for the shading, the contrast of the red and green makes the green look, um, greenier.  Anyway, just look at the figure and you can see what I mean.  I think the right knee is a great example.  The underside of the knee looks like a very natural shadow to me.

Good work, Justin.  Only 11 more to go.

Brandon

Tale of Four Gamers - Challenge 2

Well we successfully put month 1 of the ToFG competition behind us, and now it is on to the second challenge full steam ahead.  This month, we have elected to set the following rules for Challenge #2:

This challenge is worth 40 points total.
Fully assemble and paint one unit of troops from the Core section of your army book.
There are no painting quality points in this challenge (as of now), this is strictly a "get 'er done" challenge.
Deductions for non-completed models will be taken on a points/model basis.
The unit must contain a full command section, as listed in the army book.
The deadline for this challenge is October 9th.

This challenge will be a little more work, with 10 or more models to paint rather than 2, but there is less emphasis on the painting itself so hopefully people will be able to crank them out.  This is always a fluid process, as this is the first time any of us has ever done anything like this so the rules are always subject to change.

The selections for this challenge, as I understand it, are:

Brandon- Swordsmen
Chris- Lothern Sea Guard
Justin- Chaos Warriors
Cam- Clanrats

Here is a sneak peak at my Swordsmen, ready for primer:

We'll have some more WIP shots as the challenge progresses through the month.  This month I'll also be putting up some photos of our 40K armies as well, so it wont be all ToFG all the time.

Brandon

Tale of Four Gamers - Challenge 1 Final

Well all the entries have been turned in, all the votes have been counted, and the points have been awarded.  Challenge 1 is officially over!  We all had a good time dipping our toes into the Warhammer Fantasy universe, even if time seemed to pass much more quickly than we might have imagined.  After adding up the points for completion and painting, here are how the standings, uh, stand, after the first challenge:

First place:
Brandon - 39/40 points

Second place (tie):
Chris - 37/40 points
Fictional Happy-Time Bonus Points awarded to Chris because his Noble was voted the best-painted model of the Challenge.

Second place (tie):
Justin - 37/40 points

Fourth place:
Cam - 34/40 points

As you can see, the standings are still very close and there is plenty of time left in the game for anyone to take control of the competition.  Coming up later this week I'll announce the second challenge of the contest.

Brandon

Tale of Four Gamers - Challenge 1: Skaven

n proper Skaven-y fashion, my models are bringing up the rear. Believe me when I say that I brought it down to the wire for these guys. I got both models completely painted and washed, although neither has any highlights (which is my favorite part!), and the bases leave a whole lot to be desired (they are literally covered in sand/dirt from the back yard, and not very well either).


Queek was a tough nut to crack with paint. The model is amazing, but there are a lot of details to deal with. I'm looking forward to getting the highlights on as I think it will really help bring out the color in the armor and gold.


My Warlock Engineer just barely made it. Again, highlights will help a lot, but I think the model needs a little blending done on the lighter sections as they look kind of chunky. Either way, he is ready to begin blasting his enemies with corrosive warp stone energy!


Putrid!

Cam

Tale of Four Gamers - Challenge 1: Warriors of Chaos

Justin sent me the promised pictures of his Chaos Knights Champion and Standard Bearer this morning, so now it is both an honor and a privilege to pass those selfsame pictures on to you, the loyal reader.  I've already laid out the blueprint for Justin's knights in a previous post, and not much has changed here.  He has managed to completely paint the horse's skin for his Champion and he has also begun highlighting the model.  While it is still not finished to the level he would like, it is still a sharp looking model.

Justin has also completed the base on this figure.  He explained to me, "I tried to go with the miniature theory of if the model is dark then the base should be light, and vice-versa."  A great tip, and one that can also be found, along with more tips and basing "recipes", in this helpful Games Workshop article.

Justin didn't get to spend as much time on his Standard Bearer as he would have hoped, but he was at least able to get it covered in paint and it definitely counts as being tabletop acceptable.

I think Justin has gotten off to a good start with his knights, and I am sure they will be a fearsome unit to behold once the whole lot of them are done.

Only one contestant left to cover before we wrap up Challenge 1 and award the final points.  Up next: Skaven.

Brandon

Tale of Four Gamers - Challenge 1: High Elves

The deadline snuck up awfully quick on my fellow TLoDH bros, who had to scramble to get paint on their models and finish what they could.  Chris was able to complete his High Elf Noble, and it looks fantastic.  The banner is what really puts this model over the top.  There is a ton of detail modeled into it and I was really impressed with the way Chris was able to paint it.  His highlights on the banner are great- very clean and fine brush strokes.  I think my number one problem when painting is doing fine highlights, and Chris put on a clinic with this banner.

Unfortunately for Chris, he wasn't able to get his High Elf Prince completely painted, although he worked furiously this past weekend to get as much done as possible.  As you can see, he got most of the figure painted, minus the base, and was able to get shading and some beginning layers going on a lot of it as well.  It's very much a model that you wouldn't think twice about seeing on the table, but definitely not yet painted to the standard that he set with his Noble.  This model also shows off Chris's armor washing technique well.

I'm sure this is a model which will look great when finished, although he better hurry because he has a unit of Lothern Sea Guard to paint this month and he is already short on time thanks to a 2-week jaunt to Singapore at the end of the month.  Get painting, Chris!


I'll have a final shot of Chris's models in my wrap-up post as well.

Brandon

Tale of Four Gamers - Challenge 1: Empire

Well, the deadline has come and gone and Challenge 1 of the LoDH Tale of Four Gamers has come to an end.  I'll be posting updates on everyone's finished (or perhaps unfinished!) models and then I'll have a wrap-up post with some final comments and the scoring for Challenge 1.  Only Justin has yet to turn in his pictures, although he assures me has has taken said pictures and only has to find the cord to connect his camera to the computer in order to send them to me.  A likely excuse, Justin!  I should have expected as much from a well known ne'er-do-well such as him.

I don't have much of an update for my Captain of the Empire, as he was pretty well finished earlier this month.  I did, however, finish basing him- my first model ever to have paint on it's base!

I had a bit of a rough time with the lighting while taking these pictures.  I'm not an experienced photographer by any stretch of the imagination, so I apologize if the details aren't as clear as they might possibly be.

Here is my finished General of the Empire on warhorse, a model I am pretty proud of.  For his armor, I tried a bit of a NMM effect while using metallic paint, so it's really metallic-non-metallic metal.  Weird, I know.  I think it worked out pretty well, although I'm afraid the pictures don't show it as well as they could.  I used a base of Chaos Black and Boltgun Metal and then layered it by adding in amounts of Mithril Silver until I was using pure Mithril.  I think it looks great in person and has exactly the high-polished look that I think a General of the Empire, especially one from Averland, should have.

This angle doesn't show off much of the armor, but I wanted to show off the cloak which I was also proud of as it required many, many layers of yellow to paint.  It's not Golden Demon quality, but I was concerned that I didn't have enough yellow in the model to really scream out "Averland!" and the cloak took the model all the way up to 11 (which, as the great philosopher Nigel Tufnel points out, is one more than 10).

There you have it- Challenge 1 completed!  I'll have another picture of both models included in my forthcoming wrap-up post.

Brandon

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Brandon

Tale of Four Gamers - Challenge 1: Skaven

Well hello! Let me introduce myself: my name is Warlord Cam Ratpainter, and I'm here to give you the low-down on the Skaven army in the TLoDHFAWHFBToFG. As soon as we made the decision to explore the world of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, I quickly noticed that Warlord Queek Headtaker was by far the coolest looking mini of all the armies, so I settled on the Skaven army. Naturally, the army will be Clan Mors, with Queek laying waste to all in his path. With that in mind, it's important that I try to make Queek look like as much of a BA as possible to better strike fear in to the hearts of my enemies.

I'm a bit behind in the competition, but I'm hoping to make a strong showing to finish out these last few days. My Warlock Engineer is only primed at this point, but I do have Queek completely based (it took forever!). So the plan at this point is to get the WE based as quickly as possible, and then dual-highlight the models at the same time. Anyway, on to the Q-man.


I really like the red armor that Queek is typically portrayed in. Because I'm cheap, I don't use GW paints (I use a set of acrylics), and therefore have to mix my paints each time to get the desired colors. I'm happy with the red I created, and later on I'll be adding some fiery highlights to really make the armor pop. The gold will be a challenge, as NMM always is, but to be honest I'm just not a big metal paint person.


While fooling around with paint mixing, I made a light, almost powder blue that I decided to use for Queek's accent cloth under his armor. It felt like a gamble, but I really like the way it contrasts with the deep red of the armor.


I went for a pretty bleached-bone white for the skeletons on Queek's trophy rack. I think it's maybe a little against the norm for a rat to not be grimy, but I like the idea of of Queek valuing his trophies so much that he keeps them shiny and polished, to better taunt his enemies.

So there's Queek. He needs some work, but I'm feeling good about his progress. Now if only that pesky Warlock Engineer would get some paint on him!

Cam

Tale of Four Gamers - Challenge 1: Chaos Knights

Today I got Justin to send me some pictures of his WIP Chaos Knights Champion and Standard Bearer for this month's challenge.  From the outset, Justin planned to paint a basecoat only on both models before adding any additional layers of shading or highlighting.  That way he would have fully painted models that counted as complete for the competition and could take his time painting them up to a higher standard later.  Games Workshop uses this technique in a lot of their online tutorials, I think primarily because it is easier to create an article with a progression of pictures of the whole model rather than individual pieces.  How does Justin's "(Not Very) 'Eavy Metal" technique measure up?  Let's find out.

As Justin is painting an army devoted to Nurgle, we can expect to see lots of Nurgly colors throughout- lots of earth tones in greens and browns.  These Chaos Knights are no exception.  Justin wanted to carry the Nurgle theme right down to the horses themselves and paint them to look rotting and diseased.  While he is only sticking to basecoating at this point, he has painted two legs of the horse up through the highlights so he could nail down his painting blueprint.  He started with a basecoat of Khemri Brown and highlighted the legs with increasing amounts of Bleached Bone until he reached a pure Bleached Bone final highlight.  If you look carefully you can see where he has painted very fine veins of Regal Blue over the legs so that the horse's flesh looks kind of sickly.  The final step is a liberal wash of Gryphonne Sepia.

Justin says the key to painting veins is to remember that veins stem from the heart, so they should always branch out towards the extremities and never towards the center of a model.  Justin isn't a doctor, but he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so I would believe whatever he says.

All of the armor was painted with a 2:1 mix of Boltgun Metal and Gretchin Green.  I think it looks really good.  It's got a richness to it (is that the word?  richness?  fullness?  saturated?  someone help me out here) without being bright and un-Nurgle-like.  The accent trim and chainmail were painted with a simple coat of Tin Bitz.  Here is another shot where you can see the veins painted on the front left leg of the horse.  Note how he appears to have failed a panic test against a Terror-causing lampshade.

Justin followed this same procedure for painting the unit's Standard Bearer.  He plans to freehand a Nurgle icon onto the banner, but that feature probably wont make it in under the deadline for this challenge.  I'll be sure to post pictures of the finished model when he gets it done though.

It looks like Justin's strategy is going to pay off and he will be able to turn in two "completed" models to fulfill the challenge requirements.  I think this is one unit that will look great when the rest of the knights have been painted up and I'll be sure to post pictures of the fully painted unit when they are done.  Well, three of the four contestants have made some real headway towards finishing the challenge, but where is our intrepid Skaven companion?  Has he done anything at all?  Is he done already?  Is he laying in wait in the vast subterranean passageways of the Under-Empire planning our demise?  Stick around because Cam himself- the man, the pig, the legend- should be along shortly to give us an update on his progress.

Brandon