Back From the Abyss

Well then.  It's been a while.  But, after 2.5 months off I am back, refreshed and motivated.  In my defense, at least one of those months was spent learning how to be a father after my wife gave birth to our first child in December.  Good news- I've learned it all.  Nothing but smooth sailing for the next 18 years now.  Back me up on this, dads.  So now I am back with the itch to paint, but what to paint?  My wandering eye has moved off of fantasy and back onto 40K, so I've picked up my Blood Angels again.  I believe at this point I am contractually obligated to inform you that I started Blood Angels BEFORE the new codex came out.  And I also started them before the rumor of the codex even came out, so I'm a real BA player, whatever that means.

So what got me motivated again?  Well, my buds Chris and Justin informed me that our local GW store is holding a single-model painting contest: purchase any model in the month of January and have it painted by the end of the month.  There are no other rules, which does strike me as somewhat odd in some respects.  Our pal Sean is painting Azhag the Slaughterer, and it seems to me that it would be hard to compare that to Chris's puny, pitiful Prince Althran model if you were having to judge.  Irregardless, this seemed like a good time to pick up my favorite model of all time- Astorath the Grim.  Opinions seem to be kind of mixed on him as a model, either you love him or you hate him.  Well, I love him.  No idea what he is like on the table, but then I don't know what half of my army is like on the table either.  I'm not exactly a dedicated general.  On to painting.

I started by priming the model black and then basecoating all of the red parts with scab red.  I did this in several thin layers.  The basecoat was followed by a layering of a 50/50 mix of scab red and blood red.  Astorath's armor is quite a pain to paint.  Essentially you want to wetbrush or overbrush the ridges (like drybrushing but with more paint on the brush).  The trick I have found is to touch your brush to a paper towel to drain off quite a bit of the paint from the bristles before giving it a go.  If you have too much paint on your brush it will come out too quickly and pool between the ridges.  You can see in this picture a few places where that happened to me.

I hate looking at pictures of my models, all I can ever see is imperfections that I swear did not exist before I took the picture.  When you are doing the ridges just make sure you take it nice and slow.  Approach it like you are doing a line highlight with just the edge of your brush and you can generally sweep across 3-4 ridges at a time that way.  Just avoid the temptation to start moving too quickly, thats how you can end up with too much paint.  Anyway that is all for now, I've got to do a further highlight of blood red, blazing orange, and vomit brown on the red parts and then move on to all the other bits.  I'll have more pictures as I progress, and possibly some of Chris's and Justin's models if they send them to me.  Here are a couple more Astorath pictures as I leave.

Brandon

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

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