Metal Soldiers for Frostgrave

So here we have some metal Northstar miniatures.  It interesting that they make a high quality plastic box to pretty much make the bulk of the basic soldier types, then they have all these different metal blister packs for specific types of soldiers.

Here is the Knight....

Here is the templar

And finally we have one of the many captains....

and here is all 3 together

So there you have it.  The knight was an interesting model to paint.  I used one of my space wolf transfers for the icon on the shield.  I think I should've probably used a lighter color as the black doesn't really stand out against the dark purple.  Also the wooden pattern on the inside of the shield was all free-hand due to it just being a smooth surface.  The captain's face was really bad (hence the angle I put him at in the pictures).  Half of his face was higher than the other half, and there really is no way to fix that.

Anyhew, that's it for now.

The Necromancer

For my next duo of wizards for Frostgrave, I decided to paint up The Necromancer and his apprentice from the Northstar Miniatures line.  While these are not my favorite looking models, I like the spell load out in the game for them and since I had already bought the models I decided I would paint them up and play around with painting light flesh tones.

Here are the end results.....

One thing I've learned with very light skin is you really have to thin your paints.  With most paints, a 50/50 ratio will work.  With light skin, you almost want to do like an 80/20 water to paint ratio.

Lots of black in these models and I still struggle painting black.  I guess my main issue is when trying to highlight (whether I use gray for a warm highlight or blue for a cold highlight), I have issues trying to figure out when enough is enough.  When I first started painting miniatures as an adult, that was one of my biggest hurdles.  Over highlight and you've completely changed the original color, under highlight and your model looks like shit.  Oh well, it's something I will continue to work on.

The Sigilist

I recently got my back drop mats from a kickstarter I backed a few months ago.  I was playing around with it last night and took a few pictures of some models I've painted in the past few weeks/months.  Since my blog was pretty much dead from May to January, I figure over the next few weeks I'll share what I've been up to.

So up first we have the sigilists from the northstar miniatures line for Frostgrave.  This was the first wizard duo I painted up for this game.  I dig the "battle nun" look and I loved the look of these models in particular.  I tried to go with the same color scheme that northstar went with, and I think I did a fairly decent job.  You be the judge.

I thought about doing some weird "glow" rune effect on the scroll, but decided against it.  I did a little free-hand on the trim of the main coats which turned out pretty good.  I also tried a different skin tone than I normally do.  I went with reapers "rosey skin" triad which was different and I think worked pretty good with the models.

One thing I will say when it comes to northstar, sometimes there molds don't line up and you get face stretching.  What I mean is part of the face gets pulled up and clearly from the box art this shouldn't be the case.  This happened a little bit on the main wizard (the one on the left), which wasn't a big issue on these guys, but I've had a few metal models from them which looked horrible and there was no way to fix it.

Anyways, just a quick update here...

Painting Eyes

I've been wanting to make this blog post for a while now.  I had trouble painting eyes for the longest time.  I watch numerous videos, read countless blog tutorials, practiced with other people's way of doing it and it always turned out like crap.  My miniatures would look googly eyed and terrible.  I've heard countless experts say "You don't have to paint eyes, just shade in the area", and every time I would do that it would feel like something was missing on the miniature.  That's because the face, specifically the eyes are a focal point on the model.  You're eyes are attracted to the face naturally, specifically the eyes.  Even animals do this, like when you yell at your cat and it looks at you in the eyes.

I've tried numerous methods of painting eyes over the years and I found a method that works for me and it might work for you.  I am by far no expert, but maybe this little tutorial will help someone.

The trick to this method is using the right equipment and keeping your paint as thin as possible.  If it's too thin, you'll lose control of it will run everywhere while if it's too thick, it won't flow right and clog up your brush.  I'd say a ratio of 3 drops of flow aid to 1 drop of paint depending on the consistency of the base paint your using.  Like I said previously, you want the paint to be as thin as possible.

I'll be using a one of my extra space wolf heads for this example...

I find painting the head separate from the body makes it easier to get into all the nooks and crannies of everything.  I basically just drilled into the bottom and shoved a toothpick with a little super glue on the end of it.

Next, you'll want to base coat the miniature or the head depending on how you're painting the model.

I mainly use reaper colors for most products unless I'm following a specific tutorial in which I'll use GW colors. I used reaper tanned shadow, reaper auburn shadow for the hair, and gw russ grey for the base.

Next, I shade the miniature like so...

I used reikland fleshshade on the face and hair and nuln oil for the base.  I like to put the shades in before I work on the eyes, that way I can see exactly where I need to put them.  Sometimes there's an eye lid, especially on gw models and if you put the eyeball on it, it looks horrible.

Now we're ready to define the area of where to put the eye.

Any black color will work for this.  If you make any mistake during this point (like I did with the left eye, getting some of the black on the lower eyelid) it can be fixed during the layering phase with the skin.  This is why I do the eyes after the washing as most mistakes can easily be corrected.

Next I used a cream color to do the actual eyeball.  It's good to use an off-white color as a straight white doesn't look right.  I used reaper creamy ivory for this.

Basically you want to draw it inside the black, leaving just an outline of black.  Again, you can see I screwed up on the right eye during this as I didn't thin the paint out enough which cause it to clog my brush which resulted in more of the cream color to come out covering the black at the bottom of the eye.  It's an easy fix as well since it happened right where I need to put black again for the iris.

Next, we go back to black (I usually add another drop of thinner at this point because it'll probably be too thick and this is very precise work) and I draw a line going down the center of the white on each eye, then slowly round out the sides in the shape of an iris leaving a little white on each side.

So you might be thinking the eyes are done.  Nope!!  Again, this is why I do the eyes right after the washing phase.  I know I'm going to make mistakes, I always do.  You can see I got black all over the eyelids, and I usually get black in places I don't want to.  It looks good, but it will look better after I layer the skin tone and can fix my mistakes... like so...

 

I reshaped the lids, kept the shade in the dark recess of the eyes, and added a quick tone all over the face and now we have a pretty decent face.  Sure, another layer of a lighter skin tone would look good, but I think I've made my point.

So, the take away points are as follows....

- Do the eyes after the flesh wash on the face.  Mistakes will be easier to fix and you can easily identify the eyelids and where the paint needs to go

- Any mistakes with the black can be fixed during the flesh layering phase

- Use an off-white color.  Straight white looks bad

- Thin your paints more than usual.  You need absolute control of it when doing this type of work

- Practice, this is not easy to do.  A steady hand is required, I also recommend using a head mounted magnifying glass along with a winsor newton series 7 3/0 brush

Here is a picture of the magnifying glass I use for anyone interested...

You can get these for pretty cheap off of amazon.  I think they're like $10 - $20.

Anyways, this is something different than what I normally post.  Probably not the best tutorial, but I think I get my point across with mistakes and all.  I hope it's been helpful.

An update

Hey guys, I know a huge portion of time has passed since I post anything on this blog and I just wanted to give an update on my personal standing in the miniature painting sphere as a whole.

As you can see, I'm still very much alive and functioning.  I have not quit painting, nor have I gone else where to post any work, nor have I slowed down at all.  I've been painting on a regular basis since my last post in late May.

You might be thinking "Well then how come you haven't posted anything here for over half a year?".  Well, I wasn't happy with how the past few updates pictures came out.  I didn't have the space to set up a light box or do anything photography related.  If I don't like something, I'm not going to do it.  It's as simple as that.  We've since moved into a townhouse where I have the room to set up something, but due to projects needing to be completed by a certain time, I just haven't gotten around to it.  I also recently invested in a kickstarter that will be sending me backdrops in February so I've been in this kind of limbo where I want to post pictures and get this blog back up and running, but I also want to wait until I can take professional grade pictures with a cool backdrop.  So more than likely, I'll start posting again in February when I have a good set up.

In the mean time, note that I haven't forgotten about this blog.  I'm planning on being more active here in 2017 than 2016.  The goal is 100 figures this year.  I also want to do a tutorial in the next week or so involving an aspect of figure painting that many people have problems with.... eyes.  I have my own unique way of doing them that will hopefully give a little insight to folks.  I also have 4 projects upcoming that have a time table, so those will be posted as I complete them.

So, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and I look forward to a fruitful year in miniature painting.

- Dave

A few wolves

This is going to be a quick one.  A little side project I work on from time to time is a little 40k.  Am I a dedicated child of the emperor and 40k fanatic?  Naaa.... but I'm a fan of the models and it's a good diversion when I'm between projects.  Anyways, here's a few pics.....

I fully admit that I know very little about these dudes or squad formation or anything for that fact.  However, I know Leman Russ was a badass and that out of all the Space Marine chapters, the space wolves look the coolest (IMO).

These were pretty interesting to paint.  Lots of little details and I learned that it's best not to to fully build these dudes before you start painting (ie. don't attach the heads or shoulder pads).  Lots of edge highlighting and the heads have lots of character.  They were a lot of fun to paint and I hope to paint some more.

Next update should be sooner as I'm working on some Frostgrave stuff.  I make no promises to when you'll be able to see it, but it shouldn't be a month and half.  Don't quote me on that though as my professional life is pretty crazy this year.

Adepticon 2016

I RETURN!!!!

 ::pause for awkward dramatic silence::

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.  So after my last post, I painted some wild warg riders for my nephew and got incredibly burned out in the process for some reason.  It's probably because the time table pushed me to my limits with having less than 2 weeks to get 12 miniatures done and wanting to experiment with different techniques of blending that did not go over well.  Unusually I'm at my best when I'm pressed for time as it forces me not to dally and stay focused on the task at hand.  Meh... it happens....

So what have I been up to lately?  A lot actually.  I took most of January and February off from painting.  Papa Nurgle decided to pay me a visit during that time and took me out of commission for a long time (3 weeks or something like that.....).  Yup, it sucked.  At the end of February it dawned on me that Adepticon was a month away and I hadn't gotten anything done that I planned for the two tournaments I was scheduled to play in for Bolt Action.  All the miniatures were purchased months earlier and still sitting in the packages they came in.

With a long deep breath, I dug in at the end of February, cleaned off my brushes, lubed up my airbrush, and got to work.  I spent the month of March painting every night, literally every night.  From the time I got home from work to bedtime, activity was happening on my work bench.  Whether 1 hour or 8, shit was getting done.  All the way up to March 31st (the first day of adepticon), and even then I stayed up till 4am wrapping things up and doing finishing touches.  It was rough, but rewarding.  Here are the fruits of my labor....

First up are my Panther's I won at Operation Sting last year...

And now for the Marder's.  Note that I didn't get a chance to paint the crews for them yet.  It's in the backlog for now.  They're glass cannons in the back that rock a huge punch but a glance will pretty much destroy them.

Here is the SdKfz 231 Heavy Armor Car, also known as Dracula's Coach.  Yeah, it early war and wouldn't have been included in a late-war German Grenadier force.  I just thought the model was cool.  It also filled the void I was looking for.... a cheap armored car used for annoying the opposing force.

 

  

 

Note that all the above armor was mostly painted with my Badge Patriot 105 airbrush (just in case anyone was wondering).

Now onto the men on foot.  Up next we have 3 of my special teams.  My medium machine gun, produced by Gorgon Studios, a flamethrower team, and a panzerschreck team.

Finally, we come to where the bulk of my time was spent.... the ground force.  I have 3 German Pioneer's (used as Assault Engineer's) mixed in there.  The flamethrower team and the dude holding the strumpistole.  They can be picked out by the blue pants.

All the above pictures is just what I got painted in March.  As far as the tournament, I used a bunch of guys I painted last year, so this is by no means the entire army I played.  Mainly I was rocking 3 squads of Regular Heer German (7 guys per, 2 Assault Rifles, 1 LMG Team, NCO with Assault Rifle, 2-3 guys with Rifles), 1 squad of Veteran Assault Engineers (1 strumpistole, 1 flame thrower team, 1 NCO with SMG, 2 guys with SMG's, 2 guys with rifles), 1 flamethrower team, 1 panzerschreck team, 1 medium machine gun team, 1 medium mortar team, 1st LT with Assault rifle with 2 guys, a Panther, and my SdKfz armored car.  The total was 1250 points on the nose.

How did I do in the tournament?  Well, my first game I got crushed.  I was taking on the Americans.  My guys couldn't hit the broadside of a barn door, and I couldn't pass any leadership test (even with 1 pin).  So I was rolling low when I needed to roll high, and rolling high when I needed to roll low.  All I could do is laugh at my terrible luck.  I missed getting a minor defeat by 1 point and ended up with a major defeat.  A great way to start a two day tournament.

My next game was another American army.  This was an attacker/defender game with 3 objectives that needed to be controlled.  I played the attacker.  It was a stalemate.  I stacked the right flank and hit a brick wall.  By turn 4, my panther was burning and my left flank was barely holding.  I did some gutsy charges and managed to take 1 objective, contest 1 objective, and couldn't get to the third.  It ended with a draw.  I blame the table partly as it was the desert island one with lots of water and shitty LOS.

My third game saw me taking on the Brits.  My opponent had 15 order dice to my 11, so I was outnumbered.  He had lots of cheap inexperienced units, and teams I've never seen before.  It was a base game where you needed to protect your base while getting guys in your opponents base.  The bases were in the corners of the table.  There was a large building in the middle of the board, and I made the mistake of charging the bulk of my force up the middle behind the building.  I was going to slit my force on turn 2.  My opponent declared he was rocket bombing the center unit and rolled a 6, taking out 2 units and stacking like 4-6 pins on everyone else.  I thought the game was done at that point.  My panzerschreck proved his worth by destroying an armored car carrying a large unit right into my base.  Managed to destroy the car and everyone inside.  My force then shrugged off the bulk of the pins, fought through the barrage of shit thrown at me, and I rammed my panther right into my opponents base on the last turn while holding the line.  It was a major victory for me.  Very fun game that could've gone either way.

My 4th game (Sunday morning) saw me in bed.  I overslept and missed it.  I still feel pretty shitty about it.  It's not like me to sleep in, but getting everything painted on time involved staying up late and took a toll on me and I slept right thru my alarms.  So I took a big fat goose-egg for my 4th game and rightly so.

I managed to crawl out of bed and get down to the hotel for my 5th (and final) game.  This one saw me taking on my painting buddy John's German force over at Plastic Legions.  It was a basic "kill the opposing force" mission, so not much thinking involved.  He won the roll off and deployed his force across his side of the board.  Being sneaky (and very typical of me), I stacked the right flank as we had 12" by 36" square along the right side of the board to deploy as well as the usually 12" on your side.  The first turn I thought I made a huge mistake as he had vets in a choke point in the forest preventing me from picking more optimal targets or even getting thru so I could get to his force.  I figured I'd sit back for a turn or two, put a little pressure on the choke point while getting the bulk of my force into a more optimal position.  He managed to get his guys over to me and it looked like I was going to get over-run when his motorcycles popped out from behind.  He had fanatics, so I didn't want to get into melee with him.  I just kept shifting my army while forcing him to change his tactics all while feeling his army out.  The last 3 turns saw the game shift back and forth a few times, but I think the deciding factor was my mortar getting a direct hit on his fanatics, forcing him to change his priority targets.  I give him credit for the ballsy panzerfaust attack on my panther.  I don't think it would've really changed a whole lot had they hit, but it brought his guys out of the choke point and allowed me to clear them off the table along with the commander.  Then again, it could've swung back to him if he'd taken out the panther as I wouldn't have been able to take out the bikes, which would've wreaked havoc behind my lines.  With it being a nail-bitter, victory being balanced on the edge of a knife, it turned out to be the funniest game of the tournament for me, and I walked away with a major victory in the end.

So I ended up with 2-2-1.  Not bad.  I think the Panther is a fun tank, but I probably should've taken a less point sink tank like a Panzer III or Panzer IV.  I think with a little tweeking here and there, I might have something really good.  I like the Assault Engineer's with the flamethrower, heavy SMG's, and will be using them from now on as my close range veteran unit.  I think 2 flamethrowers are a bit much and I'll probably drop my single unit.  I'll probably upgrade 1 of my Heer units to vets, all with Assault Rifles, and 2-3 regular Heer units.  A Panzerschreck team is now something that I will always have in my army as it saved my ass more times than I can count.  I bought 2 Hanomags at the show along with some bikes and a Kubelwagon, so I might try to fit some of that in the point gaps.

I also played in Bolt Action Tank Wars the first day of Adepticon.  While I won't go crazy into it, it's a fun game.  I ended up going 1-2 for 3 games.  I got annihilated my 3rd game, completely tabled.  Again, the Panther's are fun, but are not worth the point cost and Marder's hit hard but are weak to basically everything shooting at them.

So Adepticon 2016.  Fun as always, but it's lacking the charm from the prior few years I've been going.  It might be that it's getting too big, but it is what it is.  I look forward to Adepticon 2017, and I got my sights on Operation Sting in October.  Time to proof-read this thing and post it.  Hope you guys enjoyed it.