Blog Update....

It is Friday, and thank goodness....for me that means many things, and among them now is the weekly updates I will be doing for my blog. Theses updates will be where I will talk about tutorials, showcase some work, and share thoughts in general.

Before I get into showing some stuff off I want to talk a little bit about what I call the 30min rule. Here is the situation;

A friend of mine approached me the other day and we were having a conversation about painting, he is currently working on Grey Knights and is feeling a bit bogged down by all the painting. So I shared with Bobby my 30min rule....Basically when I am painting my army I don't spend more than 30min painting a single figure, unless it is a centerpiece or vehicle. This is alows me to keep things moving and progress through units rather quickly. One thing I feel that new players get hung up on is trying to make each piece be a stand out piece....This will drive a player insane and lead to discouragement, resulting in many times as burnout. A great thing about limiting yourself to 30min a figure is you really begin to polish your painting skills, and after some practice you can sit back and see just how far your skills have progressed. I would like to share a few tips that I use when using my 30min rule to help speed up my process....

1. KISS--Keep It Simple Stupid....not sure where I picked this acronym up at, but it is a mantra I try to live be, life is as complicated as YOU want it to be, and miniature painting is not much different. Dont try to get all creative on every figure. As I will talk about later you can change some colors around here and there, and change poses of your models up a bit, but the bottom line is, at 3 to 6ft away, a CLEANLY painted mini can look just as cool as a showcase piece.
2. Color Pallet and Planning--This is a very important step, keep your color pallet simple, say between 3 to 5 colors tops, and I would say that includes highlights too. Plan out what colors will be where, decide where your light source is coming from and above all if you mix colors, write down the ratios! Color is also a good way to give a little variety to your guys. Perhaps some grenades are painted green, and some red, and others yellow. Unify units of space marines or other troops by painting a certain part of each guy the same color. This is where you have a lot of room, but keep it simple, remember, you only have 30min a figure
3. Keep it between the lines--Brush control, this perhaps is the biggest skill to focus on as a painter, putting the paint where you want it. As I mentioned earlier, a cleanly painted unit can look quite impressive. If you keep your lines clean and crisp, as soon as you put that unit on the table I guarantee it will get compliments, because there is a "cool factor" that takes over when a unit gel's together because of a clean paint job, dont get "clean" and "nice" confused, they are very different terms.

So there you have it, 3 simple things to keep in mind when you paint to help you move through those figures, just keep it simple!

Lets move onto some updates!!


First up is one of my all time favorite mini's Sigurd, from Reaper's Dark Haven line. I dont know what it is about this guy, but I love to figure. This was a personal project, call it a practice if you will. Recently I attended a painting class where using a wet pallet and some other painting techniques were discussed, so I took some time to practice on this guy, I dont think he turned out to bad considering it is really my first time using this blending technique. I have some other figures that I will be doing as will over the next few months to help reinforce these skills and make me a better painter. He is about 95% done at this point, I ordered some UHU Glue from the UK today to add some nice blood and gore effects to the axe, that too will be a bit of a practice, as currently I have some Neverborne on my workbench that are going to get a nice gory treatment....





Lastly...here is a Imperial Fist tac troop that I finished up. The unique thing about this guy is he was painted with oil paints, and it took about 30min. I will be posting a tutorial on oil painting soon, but
the more I work with it the more I like it. It does have a steep learning curve, so be prepared to get a little frustrated from time to time. As far as the model goes, it is a set of FW Mk V shoulders, and legs. The knee caps will drilled and a steel bearing was inserted to match the artwork in the SM Codex. The base is from Secretweapon Miniatures and has been weathered with pigments.


Well that is it for this week, check back next Friday for some more updates!!

Ashton

I am BACK!!! and this time I have company!

That is right folks, I am back in contact with the real world. I will be ramping back up to full painting production with in the next week, still have a few boxes here and there to unpack. In the meantime though I was able to get this guy painted up. He will be auctioned off at a charity event called "Clash for the Cure" I was trying to strike a balance between playable and showcase. In addition I was also trying out some new wet blending techniques, I think as time progresses and my skills increase, it will definitely be a technique that I will use often.

Another unique thing that I tried out with this model was playing with colors. Typically my go to color for shading reds is Vallejo Black Red. I decided to try something different this time and I shaded with a Vallejo color called, "Dark Sea Blue" it is a really nice deep greenish-blue color. I really like the resulting effect as it seems to add a richer deeper red to the over all scheme.

Another new thing I tried was the base, it was actually colored using pigments form Secretweapon Miniatures. Pigments are not a new thing to me, I had used them quite a bit in my military modeling days, but I found that using them on mini's was no fun. After talking to Justin over at Secretweapon, come to find out that many of the weathering powders out there have a binding agent in them, like a wax or some other thing...in the small scale of mini's this often translates into a mesy, or blotchy look, Secretweapon's powders are pure pigment, no binders, so they go on much smoother and have a more even appearance. The base turned out a little darker than I would have liked, but I am happy with the results.

Lastly, I know things have been a little sporadic around here on updates, going forward I am going to have weekly updates, talking about everything from recent completed projects, to tutorials, and possibly rants on my own gaming experiences. Look for those updates to come on or about Friday of every week!

Ashton