Brush Slave II Entry...Batch Painting Continues!

Hello all,

As I am still in the midst of my batch painting madness I didn't come up with anything really original for this Brush Slave Entry but rather pulled three of my partially painted figures out of the batch and finished them off for the contest.

As you will recall I'm currently working through a group of about 35 figures that comprise a good chunk of the missile troops from my Bretonian based force...including a group of Squires with Bows, Mounted Squires and  Armored Bowmen.  I painted up a group of the Bowmen as one of my entries for the LPL last year and I've been using their color scheme as the basis for the scheme for my entire force...lets take a look at them...

As you can see their uniforms are based on a fairly dark blue and a deep green with a tertiary color for their unit...in this case a tan/yellow.  I will try to continue the blue and green theme across all the non-knight units of this force...but I will try to vary the Tertiary color with each unit.

So...for the unit of Squires with Bows...which in my army will be the scouts...I chose to try a burnt orange color as their unit specific color.  As I have not worked with orange a huge amount I saw the Brush Slave deadline as a chance to crank through three figures with this color scheme allowing me to iron out the wrinkles with the color before I tried it with the other 15 figures.

And here are the results...

Not bad...the Orange is Ok...I think they will look better en mass than as a small group like this.

Overall the Batch painting is going very well and I'm making progress on this group.  At this point I have all the base colors on all the figures...and all flesh tones have been highlighted to completion.  Next I will knock out the highlights on the blue and green on all the figures.  Then I will break the big batch into smaller groups for each of the respective units to complete their tertiary color highlights and the fiddly bits on each figure.  Basing I may do as a bog batch again at the end. 

I am certainly seeing the efficiencies in this type of painting as I've gotten a lot of figures a lot further along in a relatively short amount of time compared to when I was painting 3-4 at a time.  Its does get tedious painting one color all night...but not enough to make me stop...when I have a couple of complete units at the end of it it will all have been worth it.

I would love to show a picture of the progress but I'm planning on using some of these figures as entries in future painting contests...many of which forbid showing figures before they "compete"  So once I narrow down which ones will be competitors in the future I'll show the "bench warmers" as examples of my progress.

Cheers for now!

Blue

Loorassh...Friend of the Trees...Golden Gobo II entry

Howdy all,

As the Batch painting continues to cruise along (perhaps 30 mini in a group is a FEW too many!) I thought I would fill the gap by posting the pictures of my Golden Gobo II entry.  For this contest I chose to paint a unique miniature in my collection...the classic Zoat Wizard sculpt.  A truly classic figure and a new challenge for me as far as painting goes...I've never painted a Zoat before!  Now I just need to finish collecting and assembling a Wood Elf contingent to go with this guy.

Anyway...here are the photos and below is a bit of Fluff I wrote about this character and his stat lines.

"Thats MY marble Mother F*&#er!"  :)

Loorassh  20^th Level Zoat Wizard

Spikk cowered under the over turned wagon.  Around him was a scene from a nightmare.  The rest of the orc wood cutting team lay in tatters around their work site, pieces of equipment and bodies were scattered about.  From behind him he heard the sharp sound of another blue bolt of electricity tearing one of the ladz apart.  He scuttled a little further back under the wagon.

Spikk whimpered uncontrollably, terror stealing what was left of his wits.  They were only cutting firewood for the armies’ camp over the hill!  They hadn’t harmed anyone or anything (well, today at least!)  The wood cutters had been hard at work when the creature suddenly emerged from the forest.  With an enormous mace in its right hand the abomination smashed anyone who was within reach; with the lightning from the red orb in its left it smote anyone who attempted to run.  It was a bolt of the lightning that had flipped over the wagon Spikk had been riding.  The wagon that now hid him from the view of the creature. 

The tread of the beast was amazingly light considering its enormous size.  As it came around the wagon Spikk was not aware that it was drawing closer until it entered his field of vision.  It had a huge four legged body as large as a bull but with a torso, arms and head like orc attached to the front, but more “reptilian.”  It was mostly covered with thick dull grey scales which Spikk had seen the axes of his mates fail to penetrate.  The torso and head were more greenish in color but were heavily muscled. The monster’s face was surprisingly gentle looking considering the destruction it was currently inflicting on Spikk’s mates.  Perhaps more disturbing than its size or obvious power, was the fact that the creature had made no noise as it went about destroying the woodcutting party.  It had remained completely silent. 

Now it was looking for survivors.  Spikk saw it examining each of the bodies to insure it was dead.  It also seemed to sample the air, its head and neck swaying from side to side as it sought its prey.  Perhaps it was his stench that gave Spikk away?  Whatever it was the monster’s head snapped to the right and peered under the toppled wagon looking Spikk directly in the face, its eyes glowed with massive intelligence, and flared with massive fury.  

It turned and approached the wagon.

Spikk wanted to run but his legs wouldn’t respond, though his bladder did.  He was frozen in fear.  With casual ease the beast grabbed the edge of the wagon and flipped it up and off of the cowering orc sending it crashing off behind him and leaving him curled in a ball on the bare ground.  The reptilian centaur gazed at him for a moment, examining him.  Spikk felt as if the monster was looking straight through him at his black shriveled soul. Not knowing what else, but knowing he must break that aweful gaze, the orc gulped some air and managed croak:

“Wwwwot da ‘eeell are you? Wwwwho da ‘eeeell are you?”

The creature was roused from its revelry by the orcs words.  The orb in it left hand glowed and crackled with energy, it raised the mace in its right hand high, and the same time it lifted its right leg off the ground, the enormous “foot” casting a dark shadow over the whimpering orc.  Still it uttered no sound, but as the foot descended on him an enormous rage filled voice exploded inside the orcs head.

“I AM THE LOORASSH!   I SPEAK FOR THE TREES!”

Stat Line:

M

WS

BS

S

T

W

I

A

Ld

Int

Cl

WP

Pts

7

7

4

5

6

6

7

2

10+2

10+3

10+2

10+3

335

Equipment:

Loorassh carries only his large mace as a weapon (treat as a hand weapon) though he can choose to wield it with both hands if he feels he needs the S bonus.  The orb that Loorash carries was a gift from a woodelf mage, and though the item itself does not contain magic, it acts as a focal point for the Zoat’s own massive magical powers.  The Zoat wears no armor.

Cheers,

Blue

A Reality Check, A Change in Tactics, and an Update on Brushes

Howdy all!

As I have little in the way of painted figures to show off, or games to talk about, I thought I would take the time to update you on whats going on in my head these days as well as touching back on my choice of new Brushes that I mentioned awhile ago.

As you know over the last month or so I've put a fair amount of time into getting many of my unpainted figures based and arranged into units.  I did this for a number of reasons..

1. It helped to clarify the condition of my collection and pointed out figures that were lacking/needed and ones that could be passed along to other lead heads.  AKA bringing some focus to my collecting...lord knows I need it!
2. It helped ensure that I had the right number of slotta bases for my figs....still need more!
3. It gave me units that could be arranged for battle rather quickly compared to rooting around in various boxes trying to find missing figures and then having to blue-tac them into bases and wasting valuable gaming time.
4. It got me thinking about how I'm going to store my figures in the future....the bag and shoebox system I have now is not a long term solution!
5. Having them built and based would also allow me to get around to priming and ultimately painting.

Of course....it also had the consequence of demonstrating just HOW MANY figures I need to paint to play the games I hope to carry out before I retire....and lets just say...its a SHIT load of figures (and I'm not done basing yet!)

So with the bald truth staring me in the face...and knowing my plodding painting speed...I have decided to try some new tactics for getting painted forces on the table.

1. Bulk Priming:  I've just used up an entire can of dark gray primer getting about 2/3s of my "Bretonian" army ready for painting....all in one afternoon...its going to take days to get the paint off my fingers!
2. Bulk Painting:  Following the advice of ZeroTwoThree on his blog Paint Machine I have decided to try painting a BUNCH of figures with similiar color schemes all at once...hence my work table now looking like this.
   

   

   As you can see...last night was "flesh night!"

   
   

3. Adjusting Expectations:  This is the tough one...I'm having to accept the fact that if I want to get usable painted forces on the table in a sane amount of time I'm going to have to cut a few corners.  I still want very nice looking units that display the wonderful character of the figures I chose to paint...but they may not all be showcase level paint jobs...finding the balance between speed and perfection is the challenge before me now. 

So what does this mean for the Blog?  Well I would hope that it means less posts about a figure here and there and more posts about completed units and wonderful games that I have had with them...that is assuming I don't pull my hair out and go completely nutters after painting the same color for days in a row...;-)

Anyway....I digress....Lets talk about Brushes!

As I mentioned in a previous post (Here) I recently changed brushes and gave the ones from Rosemary & Co. a try.  I replaced my much loved set of Windsor and Newton sable brushes with a wider selection of the R&Co's Sable/synthetic blend brushes....so whats the verdict after 5 months?  Its good!  I like them a lot and they have manged to hold their points fairly well...and as mentioned in the previous post their price is hard to beat!  If I have one complaint it would be that their bristles are too long...One of my favorite aspects of the W&N sables was their short bristle length...I find the ones from R&Co to be a bit bendy due to the extra length...but again the price makes these a worthwhile investment.  If you're married to the W&N (which I fully understand...they are AWESOME) then you might think about picking up some of these for painting metals or other tasks that are "beneath" your better brushes.

I'm not saying I'll use them forever...but with the amount of painting I hope to due this year I'm going to ride them out till the bitter end!

That's all for now...got to get back to "Flesh Highlight 1 night" ...sigh...pray for me in my hour of need...

Cheers,

Blue

December Brush Slave Entry...Something Different

Just another quick update from me today...life still has me by the short and curlies...though I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and hope to have more hobby time soon.

For the final monthly challenge over on CDO known as the Brush Slave League I opted to do something a little different.  Back in the 2011 during the Lead Painters League on LAF one of the themed rounds was "Africa" and I choose to paint a team of DAK soldiers.  In pulling this team together I purchased about 20 German infantry from Battle Honors Figures.  The unused figures have been languishing on my shelf sense then.  In an effort to move them along and make some money at the same time I agreed to paint up the rest for a Bloke on LAF who goes by the name of DD-Chris.  DD was kind enough to allow me to use some of the painted figures for the Brush Slave last month.  For 25mm figures they are well sculpted with decent detail.  There was a lot of flash to remove on some of them but still a very cost effective and good looking set of figures.

Here are the three I submitted for the contest.  A machine gun crew and an officer of the DAK.

Rommel's Ground Pounders

Next time I'll be back in more comfortable figure territory.

Cheers,

Blue

A Brief Update

So the holiday season got the better of me this year and I got little done in the way of hobby over the last month.  That said I thought I would keep my loyal readers (yes I'm talking about you...;) ) up to date on what I have been doing.

Since my last post I've been working on a couple of painting commissions...some of which I hope to share with you soon...some of which will have to wait awhile.  Other than that I got exactly NO painting done...sigh.  I did build a few more units...yes there are more!  This consisted of basing up much of my Chaos force....insert teaser pic

Marauder Thug Regiment with a couple of Citadel Thugs added to mix things up a bit.

More of that force to come in the future.

I also built a couple of mounted units...including this group of Oldworlder Knights (aka 4th ed. Brets)...

Mix of Knights of the Realm, Questing Knights, and Knights Errant.

....sooo....the to-be-painted pile grows to mind numbing porpotions...

...best not to think about it!

I did manage to squeeze in another 3e game with my crew from work.  This battle saw a mostly Empire army (including a few dwarfs and some halflings) facing off against a Chaos War Band that included Marauders, Dwarfs, Beastmen, and a Troll.  This game featured even less painted troops than the last battle and we were forced to rely on very basic scenery...some would call it primitive.  Anyway...it wasn't the most photogenic game but it was a lot of fun and we found out that my co-worker Paul has Magic Dice Hands!  particularly when rolling for missle troops...his empire archers and handgunners mowed down huge numbers of enemy troops in this battle despite a BS of 3.

Here is one embarrassing picture just o prove that it happened...

Sigh...so many unpainted figures and crappy terrain pieces...My Kingdom for more TIME!

So thats been the last month at Blue's house....I hope the next one allows me to make progress on a few of my lead piles and I'll be sure to share pictures with you if it does!

Cheers for now!

Blue

Golden Hat and Brush Slave Gobos

I finished up a decent sized group of goblins to cover two different painting contests over at CDO.  5 of these were used as my Golden Hat entry and the other 3 were used for the first round of the 2nd year of the Brush Slave League.  The plan was for the GH entry to be displayed and voted on before the BSL team made an appearance but due to some delays the GH pictures were actually posted after those from the BSL...so much for being an anonymous event...haha.  Anyway...on to the figures.

These are all from the Marauder MB4 Goblin Raiders Unit...perhaps the best goblins from the Marauder range.  It is an interesting unit...originally sold in a blister box of 12 figures...4 command, 4 warriors, and 4 archers.  As we all know a unit of 12 goblins is just asking for disaster on the table top so I have expanded my unit to 22....and I equip them as archers and just move the warriors to the front rank if they engage in melee.

here is the Golden hat entry which includes the musician from the unit

Front...not undead shields...also known as Bacardi shields

Here are some closeups of these guys

These three are my favorites of the bunch

And here are the Brush Slave boys...

And...All together now!

Thanks for looking!

Blue

Building Some Units...

My painting "mojo" seems to have escaped me this week...I just can't seem to find the time or energy to finish up the few projects that are lingering on my table.  So, this week, I did what all hobbyists in such a situation do....I started a bunch of new projects!  haha

I recently ordered a batch of 100 20mm square bases with the "horizontal" slot...and upon their arrival I've had the urge to get some of my many units based up and ready for priming.  I'm really making a push to get as many units as possible in a game ready condition...even if they are not painted...so that I am more likely to actually use them in games...which I hope are going to be a more common occurrence this winter.  One of the major impediments to that task was the lack of straight slot bases in my collection.  This shipment makes this work possible.

Here are the units that I managed to get set up over the last couple of days...as you will see I have been focusing on getting some missle troops ready to rumble.

1. Dwarf Crossbows

This unit is composed mostly of Marauder Dwarf sculpts (MM15s) and includes some wonderfully characterful pieces.  The shooters in the front rank are all "plug-in" figures that could be armed with a spear or Crossbow...sadly I only have 4 of the six crossbows that I need....but I'm fairly confident that the ones produced by White Knight for his dwarfs will fit these guys pretty well.  You may also notice that the musician for this force is actually the piper that came with the Marauder Pike Dwarf Unit (MB1) and that the Standard is from the MM11 dwarfs.  (The Pike unit will be built with the MM15 Drummer).  Fellow dwarf fanatic, Hitmonkey, on Bugman's has recently started painting a unit of these and his work has been a great inspiration for me to do something with mine.

2. Empire Handgunners

Here we have a unit of the excellent Puff and Slash Empire handgunners that came out towards the end of the 3rd edition.  I'm a big fan of the Empire forces that were released at this time...and these handgunners fought many a battle on my table back in the day.  I could have wished for one more variant on the shooter poses but I'll work with what was produced....though I've been considering a head swap or two...

As you can see I need to convert that slightly damaged halberdier into a standard bearer.

3.  Empire Archers

Continuing with the Empire theme I also got this unit of archers based....more lovely sculpts though a little more difficult to rank up.  I have yet to find a musician I like for this unit...so they may have to survive without one.

4. Empire Crossbows

Closing out the Empire branch of my army for this post is a unit of Crossbowmen...again dating from the end of the 3rd edition.  With a command section of Marauder Figures from the MM61 range.  Sadly the drummer causes a lot of problems with ranking these figures so I might have to figure something else out for command models...but these look good for now and are painted...so YAY!

I've never been a fan of the big black plastic crossbows that game with these, and many other 3rd ed shooty types, so I'm exploring weapons from other manufacturers.  If you have suggestion please leave a comment.

5. Bretonian Armored Bowmen

These are the figures that have sent me down the rabbit hole of chasing 4th and 5th edition Brets for a small army...I've owned a number of these sculpts since they were released in the mid-90's but only got around to painting some for the last LPL contest on the Lead Adventure Forum.  In the process I realized that they are just great figures and that I needed to own them all!  You will notice two plastic figures in this group...despite my nearly unviersal contempt for plastic figures these ones are not too terrible and blend in well with their metal counterparts...well enough for the back rank anyway...:-).

Well there you have it...five new units for me to work on...that should keep me busy for the next lifetime!  Sadly this is but a fraction of the units I need to build up and paint...sigh...and YAY!

So what have I learned during this exercise?  A few things have come to mind.

1. I've often said that I like to collect "units" rather than "figures" and I think that mindset shows through with this selection.  This thought probably really places me outside what most Oldhammer folks would call the "classic" period of citadel figures...but I am starting to feel that the figures from the end of the 3rd and the early years of the 4th editons make the best, most cohesive looking , units.  I still appreciate the earlier models tremendously, particularly the RoR, but for much of my army I prefer this slightly later style of troops.  (please don't throw rocks at me...)

2. I have way too much painting ahead of me!  I'm going to have to work on some systems for speeding up my process with these units.  I would love to spend unlimited amount of time on each figure...but at the rate I'm going these guys will never make it to the table top in a painted form.  Comprimises must be made in the hopes of having completed armies before I die!

3. I seem to like units of 18 for shooty types....but now that I look at them...maybe 22 would be better...hehehe

4. As I finish these units up and get all the final little fiddly bits for them I can see my collecting focus really shifting to quality over quantity.  In almost all my units I'm looking for just a few pieces to make them complete...hopefully a reduction in the amount of time spent on ebay will allow me to make more progress on getting table ready units in a game.

5.  100 straight slot bases was not enough! I see another order in my future...

Anyway...enough rambling for today...got to get back to work!

Cheers,

Blue