Fail of Four Gamers

Wow.  This has been unfortunate.  You may recall me stating at the beginning of our ToFG competish that one of the stated goals was to encourage army building without leading to burnout.  Apparently we greatly overestimated our ability to stay focused.  After 1 challenge completed the ToFG has ground to a virtual standstill.  It's quite embarrassing, actually.  I really can't say what caused the problem.  I started off pretty strong, getting my Swordsmen assembled and primed before challenge 1 was even finished.  I worked through a couple stages on a few guys to get a quick and repeatable scheme worked out that could get a figure basecoated and washed in about an hour.  Then... nothing.  I got out of the painting mood and couldn't jump start myself back into it.  In the end I got 5 Swordsmen partially completed- basecoat, wash, no basing or highlighting.  That's a pretty poor effort.  Chris fared no better, but at least he had a 2 week hiatus in Singapore as an excuse.  Cam I'm not sure even realizes he was supposed to be painting.  Who knows what goes on with that guy.

The only member of our pitiful group to acquit himself well over the month was Justin, who managed to churn out 12 Chaos Warriors to a fair tabletop standard.  He didn't finish the highlights, but he got all of them painted and washed and some basing work done, which was good enough for the terms of the second challenge.  Check out my post on Justin's challenge 1 entry for all the details on painting the armor for the Chaos Warriors.  Justin included a nice little freehand Nurgle banner with this unit- not too shabby J-bone.  I happen to know that Justin is also currently working on a unit of Khorne Chaos Warriors, so I'll try to get some pictures of them and his recipe for red armor as well.

Our less-than-stalwart competitors will be attempting to get their units finished over the next few weeks so we can try and get this train back on track.  In the meantime, I'll try and round up some pictures of our 40K armies and some other Warhammer related projects (Chris has a High Elf Dragon that I have seen him eyeing longingly on more than one occasion.  Can his Lothern Sea Guard hold his attention?)

Brandon

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