Valhallan Part 3:Shading

I am having so much fun with these guys I had to do some shading. Basically I recovered each base coat with a very thin amount of the original color. The yellow-ish bags got slightly more treatment. I tried to paint on some folds that are not present on the actual minis. I would hate to have to paint 100 of these guys, but a squad of 10 is just right!

so I have to ask... what on earth is up with these guys' hands? They are huge! These hands are cantaloupe sized@

Valhallans Progress

I've decided to hold off on shading this guys until I have all of the base colors plush washes completed. This way I can do the shading as a batch process. There is a lot of work to do, but I like how these guys are turning out now, and have found a way to remove some of the yellow glare from my photos. I think these guys will be right at home with my mostly cadian force.

Valhallan Part 2

The washes are still drying, but I could not help myself from basing these test minis. I am not sure if I like the sort of painterly look of the previous test mini, or these more muted guys. I am loving the Vallejo paints, though my paint thinner is acting really weird with them. The thinner makes the paints clump together, and might be the reason the first mini looks so gloppy. I normally use the thinner as a way to help dissolve each layer into the next, but it just did not work this time around.

Valhallan Guard Test Model

I have one squad of these Valhallan Imperial Guard, so I am trying to come up with a color scheme that fits with my mixed cadian regiment. I am really not sure of the painting on this guy. I like looking at it, but I see all kinds of flaws. I used Vallejo earth tones for most of the painting. I thought I should post this anyway to show a variant of the normal Valhallan theme.

Maybe I will paint another one up and see if I do a better job. This guy could be looking at a simple green bath!

Shadowsword Powdered

I just added the first layer of forgeworld powders to the shadowsword. So far I have added the rust colored powder as a wash to the tracks, around random bits of machinery, and as streaks from whatever those circular things are on the side skirts. To make the wash I mixed FG rust powder into a large amount of Tamiya X20A thinner. Once the thinner had evaporated I dry-brushed very light deheneb stone over the whole tank. I think my next step will be to use the ash colored powder as a dust around the tracks and the side skirts of the model.

I've been having trouble getting good shots of the tank, but I think you get the general idea. In the future I think I need to use more of a contract on the camouflage colors, so the heavy weathering has something to play off of. I've noticed that grey-blue tanks, look fantastic with rust colored patches. This guy is a bit monotone, but I am enjoying it again. That whole dull coat incident really burned out my painting desire for a while.

I wish I had reason to use this guy in a game. I've never played an apocalypse game, but think that might be my best chance. I don't have a gaming group here in DC, so I just rely on the GW springfield store. All this talk of narrative games has me itching to get involved in one. Imagine a strong narrative game where painting and modeling are part of the process. History could be added to each model as the game progressed. Units that had done well could have new battle damage, more weathering, battle honors etc.

Genestealer Step By Step

So a while back I won a painting competition with a genestealer. I have put off writing the step by step until now. Rather than follow my original steps I decided to try the process using only water, white primer, and gw paints. The missing ingredient in this is Tamiya X-20A acrylic paint thinner. The process definitely works better with paint thinner if you have it but it still does ok with water. The key thing with this whole process is very thinned paints, followed by targeted washes.

1. Prime White
2. Mix Scorpion Green with a lot of water. It should be soupy and naturally shade the mini. It is best made using a few drops of paint thinner rather than water, but I used water here. Whatever you do, do not use an airbrush for this step. The goal is to not have any even dispersal of paint!
3. Paint the whole mini except claws.
4. Wash the full mini with Gryphonne Sepia. The key here is to add a little thinner so the surface tension of the wash is broken. Again I used water here to see what would happen.
5. Once that was is essentially dry, use washes of Levian purple around the base of each claw. I also added some wash to the face detail on the mini, and a few random spots. The purple is key because it really pulls out the detail. I would not put too much on though.
6. Dry brush the whole miniature with some light color. I used bleached bone on one of these, and will probably use the deheneb stone foundation paint on a different on. The goal here is to hit the top of the head, the hands, and boney protrusions. Be careful not to add too much.
7. Paint the tongue red
8. Make a bleached bone wash and hit the tips of the claws and hooves. Finish this by adding some white to the wash to highlight just the tips.
9. rinse and repeat. I like to vary the colors just a bit from model to model so the bugs do not look like carbon copies of each other.

These take me almost no time at all to paint. I basically did them interspersed while doing other tasks. A careful approach to the washes will yield better results. Paint thinner really shines when doing work like this, but I know many people do not have it.

The Shadowsword Lives

So post terrible frosting mishap, a green stuff scrubbing and some resprays, the shadowsword is looking ok. I really think I had something cool before, but at least this thin is salvageable. I really dislike thick gloppy paint, but unfortunately this guy has it in patches. I believe the testors dull coat caused the problem by drying and contracting the light coat of paint on the surface. It was an interesting effect on areas that were not totally whited out. This guy is due for a dunk in the delvin mud bath, maybe that will tighten things up a bit.

Testors Dullcote = Massive Frosting

These were supposed to be work in progress shots of my shadowsword. I did not expect them to the the last shots of it. Testors dullcote ruined the thing. The kit is entirely destroyed. I am so mad right now. I was very happy with the progress on this vehicle, and now it looks like total crap.

These posts are pre-washing, pre weathering, pre shading. The dull coat also made the paint crack as it dried, producing a completely cracked look. Just after it happened I grabbed the tank ran to the sink and dumped simple green on it to see if I could clean off the frosting. It seemed to work, but there are now large black spots where all the paint is gone. I think I will just weather the damn thing as if nothing happened as a way to test out techniques. I really had not planned on painting more than one of these, and I had hoped it would be a good center piece for the army. I don't play apocalypse so this was not going to be a gaming piece.

New ONI rating for testors dullcoat: NO AQUILLAS!