Chaos & Kroot: Painting for Fun

Right in the middle of painting the Khorne Berzerkers up I decided to paint some Kroot. A while back I found a posting from a guy who had painted some amazing Death Korps of Krieg troops using primarily washes. Since have yet another order to DKK crack coming in, I thought I should overcome my fear of painting such expensive models. Naturally I picked Kroot as my inexpensive test figures. I love painting them. I could paint 50 of these in a day. They painted using mostly washes. The 4 I painted took around 20 minutes. I think the best part is that I can imagine getting a load of these painted up with just two coats of the washes, and then just saving the rest the details for later. This way a giant squad could be pumped out in a single afternoon.

The hardest part about painting these guys......having enough glued together to fill the painting queue.

Just Slopping Some Paint On For Fun

Ever get the desire to just throw some paint down, to not care about careful blending or composition? I've had eight Khorne Bezerkers hanging out on my painting table for ages, and I just felt the need to paint without restriction. These miniatures are textbook un-eveness. I painted what I wanted to paint. I doused the whole miniature in a homemade wash that left gunk in all the cracks and I just don't care. I am having so much fun painting these guys, that at some point I may feel the need to paint more to show the world what I can do technically. Right now I am just painting for speed, fun, and experimentation with random techniques. Isn't this what painting is supposed to be about in the first place?

Home Made Resin Bases Pt2

I tried out a quick and dirty paint job on my resin bases today. Brown, Dev Mud, and then that Tau yellow color make up the recipe. Now that I can whip up 5 bases to try out new paint schemes on in under 10 minutes trying new paint schemes does not feel wasteful. There is none of that stress that comes from potentially ruining a nice miniature or base when I can just cast a duplicate and try again.

I plan to use these bases with my death corps, so there there will be more color difference between the models and the bases than is show in this photo. The goal is to have a warm muddy base paired with cool green or grey toned Death Korps.

You can see my sand bags curing on the cutting board to the left of the miniatures. These are being created for the larger weapon team bases I am working on.

Tutorial: Casting Your Own Resin Bases

A while back I created some press molds to make some green stuff bases for my Blood Angels/Grey Knights armies. Since then I have walked the way of resin! While prepping the images for this post, I cast 25 resin trench bases. The coolest part about this process is that it is dirt simple. I can completely re-theme an army by creating cool new bases, and then mass producing them. The bases you see here are for my Death Korps of Krieg army.

You should go online and buy the starter kit from Alumilite. Seriously...do it now.

Just A Flocking Rant

I just washed off a failed flocking attempt on my Realm of Battle board. I don't know what mojo you master flockers out there have, but if you have some advice please share. Luckily the section I flocked up washed off easily without loosing any of the paint. Now I have a huge mess on my hands with nothing to show for it. grrrrrrrrr!

This is a flocking disaster!

Realm of Battle Board 1

Drathmere 0

SCENERY Ruined Chapel WIP1

Now that I have a battle board I need something to put on it. I love more realistic scenery, so I decided to pile up debris in the corner. I really like the way this is turning out because it looks less like a toy and more like a diorama. Somehow that lets me enjoy games more! I think I may cut out colored plastic to make jagged edges of broken stained class all along the windows.

I think I may try to get some trenches created to go with my Death Korps army. Knowing how to easily reproduce a section of scenery makes it much more enjoyable!

Last Day For Storm Wardens! MD battle bunker

I am heading to the MD battle bunker today to drop off the LR I painted for the charity drawing. If anyone is up for a quick game let me know. You've got a few more hours left to make your donation and potentially win this fabulous army. I may even bring a Dark Angel's army to throw some dice down with.

The Wardinians have been getting all gushy about the end of this journey, but I think there is good reason for it. Usually bloggers swap little blurbs of discussion, and while there is community, it is very casual. Getting together with a group to achieve some goal (in this case helping Doctors Without Borders) forms a community bond that I am sure everyone who has been helping get the word out is feeling as well. I want to meet everyone who participated in this. I've followed many of their blogs for a long time, actively engaging in the hobby is how friends are made. John and Mike started something really special here, that I have never seen done before on this scale.

battle board WIP 2

I had a lot of really good responses to my last post. Unfortunately I jumped in and painted the thing up this morning. In hind sight, I wish I had kept the board in an ash wastes motif, but barreling ahead like normal I broke out my airbrush(just use the brush it comes with) and the brown paint from the scenery pack and had at it. At the moment, the board is off the dinning room table, the floors are mopped, and I think I may engender some more good will by cooking my wife a special dinner. I may even offer to take a dance class with her after this. I cannot describe the look of horror on her face when she saw the thing on the glass table.

Some great blogs to read on painting up one of these:

• A Gentleman's Ones :I love the look of this board!
• Jarakadar's Picassa Album: beautiful board using pastels

I speed paint, so trying to paint this thing was like an endurance race run by a sprinter. My arms are so tired I cannot believe it right now, and I am still not totally satisfied with how the thing is turning out. One of my problems was painting it in sections, and running out of wash half way through. Some good advice on the other blogs, just paint this thing as one whole table and avoid the tiled look that min has. One possible solution is to make another wash and even it out. I am tempted to try pastels, but as you can see from the photos, our condo is filled with white furniture, so I may have to pass on that. Maybe a heavy dry brushing would help. I know it needs a matte finish, but I think that will happen post pigments (perhaps) and post flocking.

I think ground up pastels could really work here, as would some dried grass. I have not mastered flocking, so there is some trepidation there.

I am going to wait this time and let the community guide me on next steps. My arms can't take any more dry brushing anyway!