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.

A Painting Manifesto

May 04, 2017 by David Springer in Miniatures

Vacant blog is sad blog.

The origin of this despair has been abundant productivity. Not the painting kind of productivity, but producing a software product productivity. Hopefully I will get the go ahead from the copyright holder to post said product, but until then, peaceful silence for all...

But painting! In the highly occupied month of April, I only completed two models. I believe that is the worst month in the past year, maybe since I started painting. However, I think there was a hidden benefit to having put down the brush for 4 weeks.

Perspective.

Specifically the rejuvenation of my perspective on painting.

Slipknot and Killer Croc from Knight Models's Suicide Starter Box. I did a bunch of experimenting with these models, and none of those experiments turned out great...

The reality is that my painting queue is 624 long. 624. And I truly do want to paint about 90% of it. That is a lifetime of painting unless something changes... Or about three years at 15 models a month.

So something changed.

I had two Batman models from the previous order to complete, and decided that I would power through them. The result was actually quite excellent:

Completing the Quick Response Force. Really pleased with how they turned out in a short amount of time.

In my post-mortem for the two, I reached nirvana, or at least a state of greater understanding, and wrote down a series of guiding statements in the form of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development:

As a painter, I favor:

Contrast over blending
Dark lining over washing
Faces over outfit
Getting it done over getting it right

As with the earlier Manifesto, the stuff on the right is important and should/can be done. However, the stuff on the left is more important and is where more emphasis should be placed.

These statements form my style. They give me the freedom to work on contrast instead of making sure my blends are prefectly smooth. They also let me put more time into the face than the clothes, guns, swords, or backpacks.

Style is good. For now, this is mine.

Batman (the Miniature Game) Beginnings

February 20, 2017 by David Springer in Miniatures

It's tough to say which superhero in the current twenty-first-and-a-sixth-century-pantheon-of-superheroes reigns supreme. One thing is for certain; Batman is on the Mount Rushmore of superheroes.

Batman's resurrection with Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy has kept Bruce Wayne in popular culture while previously popular heroes have languished.

I'm looking right at you, Superman.

Catwoman, Damian Wayne Robin, and Batgirl from Knight Models' Batman Miniature Game.

For about five years now, a small Spanish company known as Knight Models has been manufacturing DC miniatures for a skirmish game set in the Batman universe. The models are in 35mm scale, and all are cast in a white metal.

I should stop now and say that Infinity has spoiled me.

I struggled for hours with Catwoman's round face.  I never could get her face to be worthy of the sexy Selina Kyle.  In fact, I decided to just leave her without makeup in my final attempt. — I struggled for hours with Catwoman's round face. I never could get her face to be worthy of the sexy Selina Kyle. In fact, I decided to just leave her without makeup in my final attempt.

As great as the Infinity models may look, all of the details on Infinity models are exaggerated to make painting easier. I have always found it surprising that folks coming from Games Workshop games struggle to deal with the details on Infinity models. Now I understand their pain.

Batgirl from Knight Models' Batman Miniature Game.  I love this sculpt, and a happy accident made it even more awesome. — Batgirl from Knight Models' Batman Miniature Game. I love this sculpt, and a happy accident made it even more awesome.

BMG models are wonderfully detailed. Look at Catwoman's suit, it has two textures. The underside of Batgirl's cape has a very subtle texture intentionally applied to it in order to help the cape have more sheen.

But all of the details are shallow.

Damian Wayne.  The least popular version of Robin.  Still, this is a wonderful job by a superb sculpter capturing so much of his character. — Damian Wayne. The least popular version of Robin. Still, this is a wonderful job by a superb sculpter capturing so much of his character.

These are not models you rush. Too thick of a base coat and the details are gone.

And now I feel spoiled by Corvus Belli's line. Even when the Infinity line is considered difficult to paint, the details on BMG sculpts are so tiny that they're easy to lose.

That's not to say that the BMG figures aren't fun to paint. Quite the opposite. It's an exquisite experience having so much character emerge as you paint them, something that Corvus Belli's sculpts often lack.

These three models took about a week from assembly to completion, and I'm excited to dive into more.

The Monthly Best

February 14, 2017 by David Springer in Miniatures

There's more to miniature painting that simply completing forces.

... Duh.

Sometimes when you get in a groove, you wind up in a rut. That's where I was stuck after painting forty Anglo-Saxon and Viking Warriors in five weeks. Burnout was on the horizon, and the easy way to stop a fire is to stop putting wood into it.

A break was needed. Something different. Something without cloth or chainmail. Science fiction would do the trick, so Drakios and Hector from Infinity were chosen after an intense hunger games competition between toy soldiers. Okay, really just a hunger games for my head, and my heart.

The Tinbot, Hector, and Drakios from the Steel Phalanx of Infinity.

Determined to reverse the burnout from painting that many little soldiers to a low standard, Hector was volunteered as the model to receive the best paint job. The shift from focusing on speed to giving myself as much time as I wanted to finish helped reverse the burnout and motivate me to pick up the brush again. Nearly twelve hours later, triple the average Infinity model paint time, Hector was ready to put his chubby face on display to the world.

The ultimate intent of doing a model to the best of your ability each month is simple: deliberate practice.

Hector showing off his back side.  I think this is the best view of the model, but that has more to do with the color choices that are obvious from this angle.  Had I chosen a better color scheme, the model would be much more interesting. — Hector showing off his back side. I think this is the best view of the model, but that has more to do with the color choices that are obvious from this angle. Had I chosen a better color scheme, the model would be much more interesting.

On Hector, the focus was smooth blending and a stronger Zenithal highlight. The result is good, but in the end doesn't quite fit the model. I think he would have turned out more interesting if I had simply done diffuse lighting, making everything pop.

The turn of this post is that even painting models as quickly as possible can be deliberate practice with a little thought applied to the process. For example, these wolf pelts that I recently painted on a few Berserkers.

Saga Berserkers parading their wolf pelts. Thankfully, the animal rights group hasn't found Saga or Vikings yet...

The pelts were an easy combination of dry brushing and applying washes. The focus was painting them quickly, but some before and after thoughts on them, as well as feedback from the experts at my FLGS, help turn it into something more than just painting quickly. Those extra efforts and thoughts are the key to improving.

This post was originally intended to emphasize the value of painting a model a month to the best of your ability. It is a good idea, and will help you improve your painting. Instead, I would rather exalt finding the nuance in all of your painting. It's in this nuance, and the celebration of it, that improvement lies.