A June Wrap

July 05, 2017 by David Springer in Programming, Miniatures

Sounds tasty!

Or buggy. Not sure.

Speaking of bugs, I made a startling amount of progress on the Rap Sheet Builder in not a lot of time in June. It started with a rebranding, and ended with integrating assigning equipment to actual units. Super cool!

A feature summary is:

Added the equipment for all crews under /equipment. This allows you to print cheat sheets of equipment for your particular crew.
Added the strategies for all crews under /strategies. Similar to equipment, it allows you to print cheat sheets for a crew for their available strategies.
Added a trait browser under /traits. More basic as it only allows searches, and is less useful.
In the rap sheet builder, you can now add equipment to crew members.
In the rap sheet builder, you can now print the current list out to a code, and can print a summary for pasting into Facebook or other forums.

Kinda awesome, really!

Painting was a bit less productive. The month started with three speedsters for BMG: Black Flash, Reverse Flash, and The Flash (CW).

The Reverse Flash, The Flash, and the Black Flash. Three speedsters for the Batman Miniature Game.

Then, almost no painting for three weeks. Craziness at work, and a desire to get Bruce's Utility Belt out the door pushed painting onto te back burner.

However, the last week of June, I felt challenged to crank out a few Saga minis that had been sitting on the back burner for a while.

An Anglo-Dane Warlord directs his most loyal warriors and warrior priest across a psychedelic battlefield.

I kinda had fun with these , and the firm end-of-the-month stopping date helped keep their pallette more simple. I wanted to trend toward more yellows, greens, and reds to contrast against the cooler green grass.

Onward! Show the Viking dogs who has the best mustaches!

There was some downtime while the Saga minis were drying, so I picked Gordon out of the vat of primed and 1 color painted BMG minis, and somehow finished him in two days to a reasonable level.

James Gordon as an old man. He was really a fun mini to paint, and deserves better pictures.

I may go back and add a couple white glints to the glass part of his glasses, otherwise I am really pleased with him as a tabletop+ model.

Gordon was the perfect send-off for the month. The closing totals are:

June ending model count: 870 (+50)
June ending painted count: 211 (+14)
June ending painted percent: 24.25% (+0.52%)

Next month I will continue to hit Batman Miniature Game minis hard, will hopefully release Bruce's Utility Belt into the wild, and...

HAVE BABY #3!!!

Boom.

Finally (Almost) Getting It...

May 22, 2017 by David Springer in Miniatures

The Arrow was a sign of the next level.

Man, there should be something really clever to say about an Arrow and feeling like I am getting better at painting. The Arrow is pointing at improvement? Too obvious.

Oliver Queen is one of the first minis where I feel like I got it. Which is strange, because he is one color.

What I finally grok is contrast. The value of shading. The importance of pushing your highlights those extra shades brighter. It finally paid off with Ollie.

The paints here range from Reaper Brown Liner, through the Reaper camo green triad, up to Vallejo Ice Yellow. Near black to a white yellow. Contrast.

The lessons learned from Oliver have carried over into other models. The Gotham Police Department Officers were done faster, but with the same approach. Blue liner to shade, up through a white-blue.

Not quite Gotham's finest. A few too many donuts.

Liam Neeson was a blast to paint, and I intentionally left his skin a darker tone, focusing on bringing out the contrast of his skin.

Ra's Al Ghul - somewhere between the Batman Begins Ra's and Arrow Ra's.

Most recent was Bane and a few lackeys for 150 point Batman Miniature Game demo games. He was an interesting challenge as he is supposed to be in all black. Instead, I chose to have contrasting armor pieces and a leather jacket to make the model more interesting.

Clover, Bane, and McGregor. Mercenaries to murder the Bat with.  The shadows on Bane are actually painted there. It still surprises me. — Clover, Bane, and McGregor. Mercenaries to murder the Bat with. The shadows on Bane are actually painted there. It still surprises me.

Nearly two years after starting to paint miniatures, probably close to 1000 hours of painting, I finally feel like I get it.

The feels are good.

Something Like Painting - Zombicide Black Plague Start

June 28, 2016 by David Springer

Opening the Zombicide: Black Plague kickstarter box was truly magical. My 20 month old daughter was my companion for the opening ceremony. After each item we removed, she would utter "awesome" in her most powerful (for a 20 month old) voice.

The thing is, she wasn't wrong.

It was awe inspiring. Box after box of miniatures and artwork were pulled out. There was an endless supply of miniatures, both hero and vilian, and we had an incredible time looking through all of them.

Since that wonderful evening a week and a half ago, I have tried to focus that excitement into painting as much Black Plague as possible. The zombies are the largest portion of the work, and the least exciting. I started with the first nine of the walkers, runners, and fatties.

The first Zombicide zombies covered in Army Painter Strong Tone Quick Shade

The only problem was that I lacked the quick shade, and my FLGS did not have the Strong Tone Quick Shade that I was looking for.

Instead, I started focusing on the first six survivors I wanted to paint. First up were Cadence and Lady Grimm:

Lady Grimm and Cadence from the Marc Simonetti Guest Box

Lady Grimm was a bit of an experiment, and the first mini I have painted in less than an hour. I used Army Painter Silver to base her armor. The armor was then covered in a blue shade, hoping that it would give good depth and make the armor look more like steel. Unfortunately, it didn't come out like I hoped. She does have a good amount of depth though, and I think she looks good on the table.

Cadence is my favorite survivor sculpt out of the many (30+) that came in the Kickstarter. She's dynamic, interesting, and just damn cool.

Looking at her now, my only regret is that I didn't put more contrast into her face. The Reaper fair skin triad does not produce enough contrast, and I need to start shading down further.

I then moved on to Baldric and Nelly.

Nelly and Baldric from the Zombicide: Black Plague core set

I worked on Baldric first, and tried to crank up the contrast by using an excess of wash. It worked really well. I love how his hair and the inner brown robe turned out. The hair is Celestra Grey, blue shader, and then highlights with Celestra Grey and Reaper Ghost White (a white with a hint of blue). The robe is the Reaper Ivory triad with a heavy wash of Army Painter Strong Tone, a brown wash equivalent to Agrax Earthshade. His outer robe is Reaper HD Armor Grey Shaded with Nuln Oil, and highlighted up. The skin is Reaper's Tanned Skin triad.

Honestly, Baldric is an exceptionally easy figure to paint. He looks fine without eyes. His robes have deep grooves to help give him character, and all of the cloth is easy and obvious to highlight.

Nelly on the other hand is not. Her arm blocks access to her face. Her sword is flimsy and- even after straightening multiple times using hot water- bent back awkwardly. Her apron, which is whitewhite in the character art, is angled oddly which makes it difficult to highlight.

I tried a few different things with her. Perhaps the most radical was mixing a dark base skin tone. I combined Rakarth Flesh and Mournfang Brown to create a dark rosy skin tone, and base coated the skin (that I could reach) with it. I then created harsh highlights using the Rosy Skin Shadow, and highlighted up appropriately from there.

Her eyes were also nearly impossible to get right. I intentionally left them large and thoroughly surrounded by eye liner and mascara. The addition of a white dot on the pupil provides the simulated glint of crazy eyes. I feel this makes her look a little more like the barmaid who has lost everything and finally snapped.

Her hair is the standard Reaper red hair triad. The apron and blouse (that's what a frilly shirt is called, right?) are Celestra Grey, washed with Nuln Oil and highlighted up to white. It has nice depth, especially in hand.

The weakest point of both figures is unquestionably the sword. I don't really know how to pull off True Metalic Metal well. They lack the depth and interest of the other parts of the model. For that reason, I may switch to NMM... But it's so slow, and more work than I want to do on these figures.

It is worth noting that Sorastro's approach to painting on bases is quite incredible. It doesn't take much work, but turns into a lovely painted road pattern. Bigger stones and smaller lines look better, but it is kinda hard to mess up (I would have messed it up otherwise...) because each "mistake" simply gives it more character.