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Oh dear god. ALL MY MONIES. ;_; (Or: How Tabletop Miniatures Took Over My Life)

sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
edited November 2012 in Off-Topic
image

Finally got around to painting my warhammer dudes.

I'll update this with pictures at each stage, but I'm too tired and the lightning in my room is too poor to continue tonight.
Post edited by sandmanCCL on
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Comments

  • BrudeBrude Member Posts: 560
    That is very cool. Are these display only or do they pull active duty in games?

    Looking forward to more pics!
  • WardWard Member Posts: 1,305
    Nice particle board, smooth veneer.
  • PsychogasmPsychogasm Member Posts: 10
    Are those Dark Angels i see? If so, we can be bff's.
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    @Brude: I have yet to play a game. These are literally the first guys I've ever attempted to paint. I told myself I wasn't going to play a round until my army was painted, but I've been so busy with school I hadn't got around to it.

    @Psychogasm: Yes. I bought the Dark Vengeance starter kit as well as the marine squad paint starter kit about a month and a half ago and just now got around to painting dudes. Funny thing is I'm planning on going Chaos mostly, til I get that army where I want it. I'm starting with my Dark Angels first because I care less about them. Not to say I don't care about my figurines, but I'm more comfortable mucking up some starter Space Marines first compared to, say, my Helbrute.
  • PsychogasmPsychogasm Member Posts: 10
    edited November 2012
    Oh my god. I did not know that dark vengeance starter kit even existed. I've been in and out of the hobby for the past 10 years, i recently started painting my Dark Angels again to passed the time. Those DA models are so sexy i'm tempted to buy the start set just for them...
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    image

    Botched the eyes on a few of them, and most of them have pretty messed up shoulders. My brush went haywire on me toward the end and I'm still a painting scrub to not know how to get my brush to get back to a nice tip.

    Still, I'm pleasantly surprised by the result.
  • PsychogasmPsychogasm Member Posts: 10
    edited November 2012
    Not bad at all, better then when i first started! One tip i could suggest is for the wings (chest/guns for example) take a brush and dip it in the paint then wipe most of whats on your brush onto a paper towel then do sort of a dry brush technique over them. It'll leave the recesses black and the raised parts gold (or whichever color you prefer), giving it some depth.

    Its a simple technique that has a lot of uses and that you will find you use often.
    Post edited by Psychogasm on
  • DrugarDrugar Member Posts: 1,566
    Also, lick your fingers and then use those to make the brush pointy again. It doesn't work for completely messed up brushes but it does the tricky when they're just a little frazzled.
    I'd say clean up the shoulders a bit and it's time to apply your wash/shade. Then highlight again :-)

    Looking good so far! Better than my first models anyway...
  • AnduineAnduine Member Posts: 416
    @sandmanCCL: I used to be heavily into Warhammer 40K, and I too favoured the Space Marines. I used the Ultramarines, mostly. Also had some Black Templars and Blood Ravens.

    FOR THE EMPEROR!
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    No, seriously guys, I am not a Space Marine guy. CHAOS 4 LIEF. I'm going to run my own custom-themed Tzeentch army, because sorcery, and tentacles.

    @Psychogasm: I actually know about that technique but didn't really learn until after I assembled all my models most people don't put the guns on the dudes until after they paint their chests up. It was difficult enough as is to paint what I did there without totally messing up their guns or getting excess on the insides of their shoulderpads. It's a lesson learned the hard way but isn't that the point?

    @Drugar: Yeah I know. I didn't have the Biel-Tan green wash til just now because my hobby store didn't have any in stock til literally last night when the GW truck showed up. I could just order my paints online but I want to support my hobby store because they've straight up told me they'd hire me part time once they start turning a profit (they are operating basically at cost right now.) So, I'm going to wash the shit out of all the green parts then retry getting the insignias. I didn't think that part would be so hard, but it was easily the most difficult part of the entire thing.
  • DrugarDrugar Member Posts: 1,566
    Blood for the Blood God!
    Skulls for the Skull Throne!

    Wash is miracle stuff. Boring model one moment, pretty shading and highlights the other.
    The details are usually a bitch. I've got 40 Stormvermin lining up to be painted, 80% is doing noses, necklaces, earrings, teeth, eyes, nails, etc.

    On another note, I did finish my daemon prince;
    http://sphotos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/604096_4917786420860_80977459_n.jpg
    /showoff
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    edited November 2012
    @Drugar: Damn. That's pretty awesome, dude. Doing each of those skulls and then having to switch to finish the spikes on top of them couldn't be easy.

    Edit: Finished my touchups.

    image

    This probably looks way nicer than my last one for two reasons. One, I think I did a bang-up job with my touchups. Retrimmed everything with the dark green, even had to repaint one guy's entire eyeball afterwards, also repainted all the dark angels shoulder emblems totally green to re-do it with the Ulathan Grey. I figured out what I did wrong the first time, and that's try to use that Layer paint like it was the other types of paints. It's way thicker and stays on the brush seemingly forever so once I figured that out, making it smooth was actually fairly easy. Not that it's easy to tell, but I also washed all the green parts so there's more depth, etc.

    Two, there's just way better lighting in my room right now.
    Post edited by sandmanCCL on
  • PsychogasmPsychogasm Member Posts: 10
    Ahh gotcha. What i do is paint the chest pieces while they're still on the sprue's then assemble and paint the rest.

    @Drugar That's a pretty awesome paint job, i'm nowhere near as good but here's my WIP Dark Angel Company Master: http://imgur.com/AsZum
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    @Psychogasm Dude that flame effect on your sword is awesome. How did you do that?

    I also think you may have overdid it on the dust effect you've got going on there, but it still looks cool and I'm sure you were going to clean it up a bit as you said WIP.
  • PsychogasmPsychogasm Member Posts: 10
    Yeah i'm not really happy with how the cape turned out. At first i did the dust effect on just the cloak and not the red symbol to give the cloak a more textured look. Then it looked odd with the perfectly red looking insignia and dusty cloak, so i tried doing the same effect to help it look more natural and blend it better but i think i totally botched it.

    The Power weapon was my first attempt at something like that, i thought it turned out pretty decent (Here's a pic of the back where i think the blade looks better: http://imgur.com/Zp1V4 ).

    What i did was (trying to remember from memory its been a while) paint the entire blade regal blue, bottom half ultramarine blue, bottom quarter enchanted blue. Then took ice blue and did the lightening. I think i need to take some white to the center of the lightening for a little more effect.
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    I would have just left the "pristine red" part alone and simply ran a brown wash on it. Agrax Earthshade would have toned it down to match a ruddy cape, I think. That seems like an easy enough fix, really. The cloth part looks great, it's just the insignias now that look off.

    I don't have the skill to do that flame effect. I thought you used some trickery for it but apparently that's just skill. Haha.
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    @sandmanCCL, seeing your awesome ability to paint miniatures, I'd love to see your work on some D&D figures.
  • PsychogasmPsychogasm Member Posts: 10
    edited December 2012
    @SandmanCCL Honestly its not hard, the final result just looks complicated. I actually messed up the front and just ran with it and it looks like i did it on purpose lol.
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    Don't most D&D figurines come pre-painted nowadays? Who knows.

    I'm technically not done with the guys I have honestly, but I lack the paints to highlight and edge the way I want so it'll have to do for now. Gonna spend all day tomorrow on my next batch of dudes.
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    @sandmanCCL Actually, I have old, unpainted Lead *yes, lead* miniatures in my collection. All my paints dried up and the hobby shop I used to go to closed, so I have no more place to buy paints. At some point, I want to get back into painting and finish up the miniatures which are in the holders in my closet. I still have my D&D, Shadowrun, Vampire: The Masquerade and some Champions minis I painted waaaaaaaaaaaaay back when.

    My particular favorites are my elementals. Here they are in the box level: image

    and here are the closeups of them in each half of the box: Fire image
    And Air, Earth and Water: image
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    you weren't kidding. the elementals are way nice. i really like the water spirit!
  • John_RainbowJohn_Rainbow Member Posts: 15
    @LadyRhian: try eBay for paints. I get a load of mine from there - even the second hand/used paints are generally good.
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    edited December 2012
    @sandmanCCL Yeah. That shows what inks and drybrushing can do! Water Elemental started out in a color of royal(ish) blue, layered with darker blue ink, and deep emerald green ink, then lightly drybrushed in white to bring out the features. Although it's hard to see in this view, the back of the miniature has a slightly lighter white edge of seafoam- you can just make it out under the outstretched arm, between the elemental and the fish.

    The Earth Elemental got the same ink treatment, only in rich chestnut brown, and there is a squirrel on one of its "branches" (on the right side towards the back).

    @John_Rainbow I never thought of that! Thanks for the tip!
  • Kitteh_On_A_CloudKitteh_On_A_Cloud Member Posts: 1,629
    @LadyRhian: The Roman soldier, the wind Elemental and especially the water Elemental are my favourites. They look awesome! :)
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    Thank you! The Roman Soldier guy is a Titan.
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    edited December 2012
    edit: moved photo

    Got my next batch of dudes ready to go for tomorrow. Doubtful I get to the sergeant because I don't have any fleshtone paints yet. Looking forward to figuring out how to do the plasma bits on the guys with plasma weapons, too.

    I have to prime by brush because that's all I have the paint to do right now. It's really time consuming but it feels pretty good to get it done especially to cover up all the scratch marks and blemishes I put on models when I trim mould lines and file down other protruding bits.
    Post edited by sandmanCCL on
  • Kitteh_On_A_CloudKitteh_On_A_Cloud Member Posts: 1,629
    @sandmanCCL: They look really cool!

    It's sad that the only Dungeons & Dragons shop I know of in my place has closed down some years ago. I really liked coming there with my brother, who was still interested in real table top games back then. Sadly, my place never really had a culture of table top games going, so I know only very little of how the original Dungeons & Dragons games were played.

    Also, I'm certain I'd mess up with painting such figures. It looks quite difficult to me. Also, remember all the small parts which require a lot of detail! Argh, I'm sure I'd mess up. >_<
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    edited December 2012
    It's pretty cool how well this new store is doing down here in sleepy Saint George. There's a lot of hobby enthusiasts, and they were really smart with how they run the store. It's not JUST comics, or JUST ccg games, or JUST table-top stuff, or JUST board games but is well rounded in all of them, and has the space for people to play in-store.

    A store with board games does super well in a family-oriented town like ours, and that gets a lot of folks in the door. I've seen at least 2 or 3 people pick up Warhammer/Warmachine stuff when they see the groups for those games meet, too, because "that looks like a lot of fun."

    And @Kitteh_On_A_Cloud, I was stressing about that too before I actually sat down to do it. It's really not so bad! I haven't attempted to do anything super tricky yet but the only parts I found to be difficult were the eyeballs. As long as you have a little bit of patience, getting specialist brushes and paints handles all the hard parts with very minimum effort on your part.
  • DrugarDrugar Member Posts: 1,566

    @Drugar: Damn. That's pretty awesome, dude. Doing each of those skulls and then having to switch to finish the spikes on top of them couldn't be easy.

    Edit: Finished my touchups.

    [Image]

    This probably looks way nicer than my last one for two reasons. One, I think I did a bang-up job with my touchups. Retrimmed everything with the dark green, even had to repaint one guy's entire eyeball afterwards, also repainted all the dark angels shoulder emblems totally green to re-do it with the Ulathan Grey. I figured out what I did wrong the first time, and that's try to use that Layer paint like it was the other types of paints. It's way thicker and stays on the brush seemingly forever so once I figured that out, making it smooth was actually fairly easy. Not that it's easy to tell, but I also washed all the green parts so there's more depth, etc.

    Two, there's just way better lighting in my room right now.

    Thanks dude! It wasn't so bad actually, I'm usually more apprehensive about doing eyes. You fuck those up and it's nearly impossible to fix.
    Your Space Marines look really good, the images on the shoulders are done neatly and the other details look great. You might want to give the rims of the shoulders and/or kneepads an alternate green or iron colour, it brings out some more different parts of the armour.
    Good luck on the next batch! I'm also very curious about your Dark Vengeance Chaos units, the Chaos Lord and Hell Brute are awesome models (I got the Chaos Lord seperately some time ago, planning to cut away his gun and put in an axe or something, that should make him work for Fantasy).

    Also, I'm certain I'd mess up with painting such figures. It looks quite difficult to me. Also, remember all the small parts which require a lot of detail! Argh, I'm sure I'd mess up. >_<</p>

    You'll mess up your first one, and your second. Your third will look a lot better and by the time you're on your tenth model, it's autopilot.
    Good brushes and good paint make it a lot easier, the rest is just having a steady hand and filling in the colours.
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    @Drugar: Those first 5 were the dudes who come in the starter paint kit, so I was painting them up the way they looked on the box.

    With my next batch of guys (which i'm going to start on shortly) I'm going to do them up as much like the guys on the back of the Dark Vengeance set as possible. I'm pretty OCD about making guys who are part of one of the more iconic chapters look like the rest of their chapter, and Dark Angels actually DON'T trim their shoulders in a different color. They are just solid dark green, with one of their knees being a pinwheel green/white. (Example of a tac marine.)

    My chaos army, I am planning on doing my own scheme. That's the nice thing about the Chaos in the set having a lack of iconography, is they are just whatever you want them to be. I'm actually going to go a really light, ethereal looking blue for their armor because I think that would be cool considering all the defacto Chaos armies are all BLOOD AND DARK AND EVIL HURRRRRGH. Gonna use a dark metal (bronze) for the trim. Can't wait to get around to them, but I'm not skilled enough just yet to do what I want to do with them so I'm working on my Dark Angels first.
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