Something Like Painting: The Infinity Challenge

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Quite possibly the best feature of X-Wing: The Miniatures Game is that the models come painted. You can walk into a game store, drop $15 on a ship in a cool toy-like package, pop it open, and be using it in a game within 5 minutes. It's amazing.

Since my last blog, I've started playing two games that are not like that at all: Malifaux and Infinity. While both of the games immediately captured me with their rules and their fluff, I have found myself far more devoted to Infinity than Malifaux (even after spending $150 on two Malifaux crews). Unfortunately for Malifaux, I rarely have Tuesday nights free to play at my FLGS.

However, both of these games come with figures that are unassembled and unpainted. You cannot pop them out of the package and get to playing within minutes, or even days.

Malifaux can be particularly nasty to assemble. The models are done in a type of plastic (I won't pretend to know enough to say which type) and require tweezing, scraping, holding, and praying to get assembled. Some of the Malifaux models are unbelievably complex and tiny at the same time.  I'm looking at you, Mr Unassembled Electrical Creation.

Infinity is usually much easier to assemble, but all of the models are made out of a 2%-5% led compound. Not exactly the best for having around kiddos, especially when they're unpainted and unvarnished. Most models come in 3-5 pieces, and some have tiny antennae that will get lost, bent, or broken.

The Infinity miniatures have been a joy to paint. The metal sculpts have plenty of detail, and you can probably get away with a simple base coat plus washes to turn out great figures.  To keep my motivation up, I started a personal blog of my painting progress and goals.  There were some incredible deals over Black Friday, and suddenly I'm looking at only having about 20% of the models I own painted. This isn't good enough.  My personal challenge is to flop that to 80% of my Infinity painted. That is going to take a few months, but it is the end goal. The painting journal and goals helps to keep me on track.

Here are a few of my favorite Infinity figures:

This is Keith Young, the baby of the 3 Young brothers in my Caledonian Volunteers. He's carrying a Chain Rifle and is the cheapest of the Caledonian troops at 6 points. He also has 1 kill to his name so far, the game winning kill when my brother was playing the forces of PanOceania.  This was the second batch of tartans I had painted, and turned out okay.  I could clean the tartans up more, but I left them where they are in the interest of time.

Munro McGill is the first of the Highlander Grey Rifles that I painted. I did a standard Black Watch tartan on him, and tried NMM on his chest plate, which looks better in this picture than it actually does. His skin is okay, but as the picture shows, his chrome dome isn't as blended as it should be. I should probably also add a spot highlight on the top of his head for the reflection off of the skin.

Abigail Thompson is one of the 3 PanOceania Fusiliersfrom Operation: Icestorm that I painted. I tried applying a blush with a very thin wash, but it didn't turn out as well as I was hoping. Otherwise I'm quite pleased with how she turned out.

Eva Nogales is Abigail's counterpart on the Nomad side. A standard, Combi Rifle Alguacile. I love how her hair turned out, though it's actually bad. It looks incredibly fake and that's not such a bad thing.

Mateus Garcia is a Mobile Brigada from the Corregidor Nomad's ship. I really didn't give his tactical rock as much attention as it needed, but otherwise I'm pleased with how he turned out. There is some detailing on the gun that is obvious when you're holding him, but this picture doesn't capture as well.  I still need to add a few extra touches to him.

Derek Ortmann, a Knight Hospitaller of PanOceania, is my favorite miniature I have done to date. Not only do I love how dynamic he looks, but I'm really pleased with the paint job for getting him done in only 4 nights. The picture unfortunately adds a little highlighting that isn't there, but otherwise captures the paint job perfectly. The free-hand work on his paudrons and robe are my favorite part, and the rest of the figure is shaded well enough to help him pop.

Infinity is immensely fun to paint, and also incredibly fun on the table. I will hopefully start doing a weekly summary blog to go along with my personal painting journal.

Figures coming up are: Nisse (for Gamers Haven painting competition), Cameronian, William Wallace, Reverend Healer, Spektr, and an Akali Sikh.

Reaching for the Moon

Yeah, another post about the moon from Sunday night.

After watching the Broncos successfully demolish the Lions on Sunday night, it was time to get the minion into bed.  As we crossed the street, we turned back to see the fully eclipsed super moon.

It was gorgeous. A massive world of red hovered over our neighbor's house.

The minion's response was immediate and demanding.

"Oh! Daddy, can we grab it?"

I'll stop here for a moment to say that the moon is a big deal to our big-little human. He has a moon, complete with phase changes, hanging on his wall that operates as a night light. Goodnight Moon has been read so many times that we both can recite it from memory. The closing line of another of his favorite books is "I love you right up to the moon and back." It's a frequent stall tactic of the blond-haired-ball-of-mischief to point out the moon as we go to bed.

The eclipse was going to be a big deal for him. Anyway, back to the moment.

Startled, I decided reaching for the moon was worth a shot, and lifted him as high as I could.

He couldn't quite reach it, so I set him down and tried to explain that the moon was a long way away.  This wasn't good enough for the minion.

"Dah, I gunna go git the wadder! Come on, Dah!"

We tried to reach the moon multiple times from that point, but could not quite get there. There were two things about that moment that I want to remember forever.

First was his imagination. It amazed me how creative he was in trying to solve his simple goal, reaching the moon.  He asked me to lift him as high as I could.  We jumped off of the curb, then off of taller structures in an attempt to reach it.

Second was his persistence. That low hanging moon was his, and he knew it. He just needed to keep trying ideas until he could finally grab it. The only way I could convince him to go inside was to attempt to grab the moon from the window in his room.

I'll leave you with this picture of the little dude from my brother's wedding. Keep coming up with ideas kiddo. When those fail, think of more.

A Zombie Post

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Can the record show that the Empire is boring? 

I know, it is largely my own fault for choosing to paint them in plain schemes. However, I was attempting to keep the Emperor's forces as similar to the movies as possible. And that meant uniform, consistent, and repeatable for the inevitable second purchase of the Imperial Assault core set.   

Now Zombies? Zombies are interesting.  

There are no uniforms for the recently-dead-and-now-not-so-dead. You can paint colors other than white, gray, and red. Also, Vader will not be around to murder you if there is some dirt on your pants. 

Base coated zombies. 

Last weekend, I started on a few test zombies from the first Zombicide box set. The figures have a decent amount of detail, though they are less detailed than the Imperial Assault figures. There are enough ridges and lines to guide a newbie painter, yet still give freedom to give the minis life with extra details if desired. 

For the color scheme, I decided to go with a yellow death skin tone as opposed to gray, puke green, or white. The goal is to reproduce the cartoony feel of the art of Zombicide.  Then again, when everybody's yellow, nobody's unique.  Final flesh colors for all 80 of the zombies have not been determined by the panel of experts on zombie dermatology.

Another fun part of painting the zombies is that I get to consult my wife about the colors, involving her in the process at least a little. For the first three zombies, she helped pick out their outfits. I hope that when my wife's survivor puts the zombies down for good, it will be more than just a zombie to her, it will be something she helped create.

Washed zombies chasing Doug. 

Another skill that the Zombicide minis are allowing me to learn is mixing paints. Purchasing a huge chest of Citadel paints to get every shade of color I want is not even close to financially possible.  It's somewhere closer to broketown and pennylessville than here. Instead, a dark blue jean color has to be mixed by hand. It's fun when the color you want finally comes together, and a bummer of wasted paint when it doesn't.

The decision I have not been able to make is whether or not to highlight the zombies after applying a black, cartoony wash.  I kinda like their over-dark form, and it makes painting them very simple and quick.  The survivors are supposed to be the centerpiece of Zombicide, and having bright zombies would certainly compete with them.  

Unfortunately, you don't get better at highlighting when you don't ever highlight your minis. Strange how that works.

Early work on the survivors.  Really pleased with Wanda (chainsaw lady) and Phil (the sheriff), but Doug's glasses and Amy's monochromatic bags/belts are giving me fits.

Going forward, my plan is to continue to paint the survivors, and steal a mixed color for a zombie or two. I hope to have a varied group of zombies to compliment the the bright survivors once everybody is painted.

Recent Adventures in Painting Miniatures

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The last two weeks of painting has been a bit like high school: fun, repetitive, and awkward. 

Some of the last figures of the Empire were the first goal, and that required a paint purchasing frenzy. My goal was to finish the Imperial Guards and the Imperial Officers to try my hand at blending. 

The results weren't disastrous, but they were disappointing enough to wait on the Rebel heroes. 

The Guards are easy to paint; they are red. The problem is making them interesting. Sorastro attempts to liven them up by applying highlights, so that's what I would do! 

I decided to use Citadel's red wash, which is labeled for flesh, as the wash for the Guards. This wound up uneven after the first coat, so a second application of the wash was applied. The result was over-dark reds and largely uneven shadows, which would make the highlights contrast more than intended. 

Over-washing the figures was my only major mistake on the Guards, and I am pleased with how they turned out; red and a bit boring, precisely like the Emperor's Guards in the movies. 

The officers were another story. 

My goal with the Imperial forces was to capture their clean appearance. One of the themes I find in the great Ralph McQuarrie's work is that evil is clean, shiny, and a bit bland.  It is as if the evildoer's... evil removes them from the color and dirt of the universe they inhabit. Good on the other hand is often dirty and rough.  It takes effort, sacrifice, and perhaps duck tape to be good in Star Wars, and I love that idea.

Using the idea that evil is clean, I decided to paint my regular officers in black uniforms, and the elite in a star captain's gray.

Making the figures interesting was going to be difficult. The essence of the sculpt is not the blaster, uniform, or even the face; it is the index finger. The officer points in a manner that is one part command, and another part condemnation. 

My biggest mistake was not realizing the finger was the focus until after the figures were painted.

Instead, I focused on the uniform or the face, leading to some hilariously odd Officers. 

My original thought was to make the uniform the focus, even on the two officers in black.  I applied highlight after highlight, but made a few mistakes while doing so.

The first mistake was that my highlight layers were not thinned enough.  This resulted in lines that were far too strong instead of gradual.  It made the officers look as if they had zebra stripes.

The next big mistake was making overly bright highlights in places that should have been darker. The officers looked as if their skirts were glowing.  Hardly the representation of Imperial might that I was going for.

Thankfully, with an additional layer of wash, I was able to tone the highlights down.

The next task was even more daunting: the face.

More unsuccessful eyes...

Instead of following Sorastro's suggestion of using a red wash on the Officer's faces, I decided to go with the softer Serapham Sepia wash in hopes that the Officers would look more pale. However, even this less-colorful wash made the Officers look healthy.  Oh well.

Next, I decided to be brave and try to paint eyes.  As you can see, it didn't go so well.  For brevity, these are some of the things I learned about painting eyes:

  1. Never try something on a special unit when there are grunts available to practice on.
  2. It's easier to get the bottom part of the white covered, but that's not what you want.  Try to cover the top of the white first.
  3. Use a small brush and clean it between each attempt.
  4. Be quick, the paint on the tip will often dry before applied.  If it does, be patient and wash it out instead of trying to brush it on.

The truth, which you can even see in the photo below, is that the Officer's finger should have been the focus of my highlights the entire time.  Sure, the uniform did need a highlight or two, and the faces needed some texture.  However, if I had spent more time making the accusing point of the Officer stand it, it would have been a more interesting figure on the table. Instead, I barely spent any time on the Officer's hand, only applying a single highlight and a wash to the most interesting part of the figure.

Fenn facing down the newly painted officers.

Somehow, I only have the Royal Guard Champion, 2 AT-STs, and Darth Vader left to paint for the forces of the Emperor.  Overall, I'm quite pleased with my Imperials.  The Officers could be better, and if I paint more Stormtroopers, I am going to go with a much lighter wash on the armor.

That said, I do not have much confidence in my ability to do Vader justice and cannot find a good gray primer unfortunately.  Before continuing with Vader and the Rebels, I decided to take a break to paint a bunch of Zombicide figures.  Getting to play with colors and devise outfits for the zombies and heroes has been a bunch of fun, so I'll be writing about that in the near future.

Something Like Painting: A Better Shot

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The One TAR posted a fantastic guest-hosted video on her channel about taking better pictures of board games. You should watch it!

I've been trying to pretend that I know how to take photos for a long time, but Scott makes numerous fantastic points about what makes a good photo. 

To re-post, here's the photo I took with my cell phone when my Stormtroopers were first completed:

There are a legion of issues with the photo.

  • The lighting isn't good leading to poor white balance.  I could have corrected the balance post-photo, but that seems like cheating for the point of this blog.
  • The focus of the picture, the Stormtroopers, is uninteresting.  There's no context for them.  My goal was to show how painting the miniatures, even poorly, improves their presence.
  • The background is busy, and not in a good way.  The paint streaks on the paper towel add character to the scene, but the ones on the left lead you away from focus.  Additionally, the window well and brushes on the right distract from the troopers.

The Emperor would not be pleased.

I decided to take 30 seconds to stage the shot and get better lighting, leading to this:

Sure, the shot still has issues, but it is a massive improvement!

The viewer gets a good idea of how dramatic the transformation from unpainted to painted is. It also gives context to the troopers being on the table and the improvement that makes.  The same ideas were attempted in the first photo, but without the extra effort and thought it is a significantly worse picture.

A big thank you to Scott for taking the time to create the video for Tiffany.  It's short, yet delivers great insight into taking better photos.