5 Painters I like right now - January edition

  The idea of a monthly  5 Painters piece kinda went out the window when October showed up and my favorite 5 were the same ones in September.  The last month has been really good though, so pull up your reference folder and be ready to save images.

1.  TorkaThor.  I've never heard of this guy, but he posted some holiday work that is absolutely wonderful.  His thread is here.

2.  Kommander_Redfinger.  He's got a couple of threads, including some Khador I believe.  However, his Granite Trolls are by far my favorite, for completely unbiased reasons.  This army specifically is for Trevor with Chainattack, and Trevor has some fine taste in comissioned artwork.  This thread is here.

  

3.  Jolly Roger Studio.  This is a collaboration of artists, so the thread has multiple contributors to it as they complete projects together.  They have a very definitive artstyle shared between them, and it's some of the best cohesiveness between a set of artists that I've seen in the miniature painting realm of things.  They have a Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/JollyRogerStudio, and a website, www.jollyrogerstudio.org.

4.  UnlimitedColor

  I didn't find this guy on PrivateerPress, but rather on CoolMiniOrNot.  He's got two models there that I noticed, but none more than his Mammoth.  The red is brilliant, and he's paid a lot of attention to detail.  As if that wasn't enough, he added even more.  Not only are the tattoos fantastic on the mammoth, the intricate detailing everywhere where there wasn't originally is very well done.  Having never owned or painted a Mammoth, I had to go find pictures to see if that detail was already modeled or if he had freehanded it.  He freehanded it, and it looks fanastic.  His website is here.

5.  BadHouse.  I really like a lot of the Convergence models, and there's a few (like Axis) that I'm probably going to pick up at some point for the sole purpose of painting.  So it's exciting for me to see well painted Convergence, and there's been a few champions out there.  Most people stay with the traditional silver/blue, but a couple of have gone off the beaten path.  BadHouse is the second Orange Convergence I've seen, and his thread is brand new.  Definitely enjoying this and I'm excited to keep up with it.  That thread is here.  I don't think he's the most technically proficient, and talented painter in this list, and his colossal has a couple of issues I see, but everything else is pretty awesome.

  Besides, the title is 5 Painters I like right now.  Not the 5 best painters in existence, or 5 painters I think you might like.  

Honorable mention.  Found this guy Monday morning.  GuitaRasmus.  Typical trollblood quandry on the forums these days, wants to play trolls for the big guys, but that's not how you play trolls.  So he's doing Legion instead, but he's doing it in style.  He's only got one completed sculpt, and unpainted at that, but it shows a lot of promise.  This thread just went up, and it's here.  He also has a blog that I'll be subscribing to, though it appears to be mostly 40k stuff.  That's ok.  I don't miss playing 40k, but I do love a well-painted Space Marine.  The blog is here.

  So that's that. I've got Borka2 painted, and will be posted shortly along with the Croak hunter that I was given for Secret Santa.  I got two games in over the weekend against Scaverous, and used Highwaymen both times, and that was fun.  My brother bought me Dynamo, so I grabbed a second Minuteman, and based them both yesterday. It appears that I'll be playing Cygnar in the near future, at least a few times.  Probably just Kraye.  Otherwise, the moving is settling down, so hopefully this will start picking up speed again.  Enjoy your new years!

Warpborn Alpha - Secret Santa

  We're moved into the house.  I've unpacked my Cygnar, Circle, Khador and what little I have of Menoth from the 2 Player box on a shelf in my very uncompleted den.  It's not much progress, but the more important aspects of the house are coming along nicely.

  In the midst of that move though, the Secret Santa we had in our local group started getting near it's deadline (Being Christmas, but most of us aren't going to see anyone after this last Saturday until new years).  The online random generator landed me a guy that just joined the group, bringing Circle and he wanted either a Warpborn Alpha, or something else.  A Wilder I think.  I chose the Warpborn for purely painting reasons, and picked it up a couple of weeks ago.

  Then I lost it.

  So now I've bought two.  When I find the first one, that's great because my Wife will play it.  The model is kind of a pain to assemble, but it's pretty cool when it's done, and I don't mind how it turned out.  Pardon the photo setup.  Again, I haven't had a chance to really do much in my "studio", so this is straight up, unedited pictures shot from my phone outside.

  Soon enough I'll be back into it full swing and we'll see some more updates.  For now, enjoy your holidays!  Merry Christmas.

Unboxing the Highwaymen and assembly

  They're here!  I preordered them two weeks ago, but wasn't able to pick them up till today.  My wife and I just finished moving, so the next week will be unpacking, and then what renovation is left.  It's be a crazy two months, and I haven't been able to hit the tables very much at all.  It was a nice break then today when I got the chance to put together these guys.  

  There's been some bad rep on these dudes as far as the models go.  I'm not a huge worryer when it comes to flashing and sculpts.  The only models I worry about that on are usually casters or models I want to put into a painting competition, like the Mt. King or Janissa.  So I've got a ton of pictures, and some heads up for the assembly.  Let's roll through them.

  

  This box is packed.

  Seems like all of the bodies are in the first bag here, and arms/heads/most bits in the other.

  Right off the bat, I love these torsos.  These look fantastic.  I don't see a whole lot of flash issues outside of what's there for the slot on the base.  There's a few exceptions, but these really don't look bad.

 
  There's a little bit on the sash for this one that's kind of rough.  The next one is by far the worse on the bodies.

  For starters, the leg nearest the camera sucks, but the worse part is the kilt right in front.  That seam runs across the flat of the cloth, and has nearly no access it.  A sanding stick is pretty much your only option for that area.

  All your bodies here.  Three main sculpts and the leader.  One of the clothes goes to the Leader, and the other three go to the sculpts at the top.  There's also three little kneepads that I've already glued in this picture, and they go to the same upper three models.

  

  And pandora's box.  This is a lot of pieces for a PP kit.  I haven't seen this many bits since I played Space Marines, but it's not nearly that bad.  All told, I think there's 81 pieces in the box not counting bases.  That's a lot compared to say, the Fenns.  This is also where the worse flashing is.  You'll see that there's two holsters and a bandolier for each model as well.

  All of the arms have that seam, and that same port spot on the upper side of the shoulder where the resin came in.  Kind of a pain, but meh.  The worse ones are the dudes with hankerchiefs.  The seams run up either side of the face and are pretty evident.  The hats also have a port in the side that doesn't come out very well.  It's pretty much going to be a notch in the hat no matter what.

  So now, trying to put pieces together.  For the three standing straight up male sculpts, you'll need the hats, the heads with pegs on top, and the arms with sleeves all the way down to the gloves.  That's the first sculpt.

  The lady sculpt is pretty simple.  The female head, bodie, and the skinny armys with no gloves, some wrist wraps and a patch on the elbows.

  The third sculpt is the dude ducking down for cover.  It comes with four sets of arms and four heads.  Two sets are rolled up sleeves, the other two are bare arms completely.  The heads are the two with hoods and the two males with the bandanas.  

  The right bare arm for this sculpt specifically.  These arms all have a visible port that doesn't hide very well against the model, as seen below.  You also get to see that seam again.

  Last, but most certainly not least, the leader.  This is a beautiful model, lots of detail, exquisite cloak.  I really like how this one turned out.  

  You can see this is where his cloak covers.  It's sculpted as well, allowing you do use a different head for your leader and ignore the cloak altogether if you so choose.  A nice motion from PPress.

  Then we have this.  Ten bandoliers and twenty holsters (ten right, ten left).  Each set of ten is identical, and the bandoliers are all flat.  You will either have to warm them up and bend them to the curvature of the figure, or just bend them by force.  I chose the latter.

  Assembling them was kind of a pain.  Everything really went together pretty well though.  The holsters were what got my fingers glued together, but they turned out ok.  The biggest complaint I had was on the male sculpt with a cowboy, the way the arm sockets are constructed you don't have a choice but to do the gun up in the air stance.  I think this model specifically would look pretty slick hip shooting, but he's got the celebratory firing guns heavenwards stance instead.

  Overall impressions are that these sculpts are awesome.  The biggest complaints are:

1.  The hooded head flash lines on either side of the face.

2.  The flash line right in the middle of the kilt on the first male model sculpt.

3.  Little to no pose options on the arm sockets.  Since these guys aren't holding two handed weapons, I think they could have given us a lot more headroom to pose these armsockets how we wanted, but unless you've got grey stuff handy, you're stuck with what you got.

4.  The little bandolier and holster pieces.  The holsters I think I get, they wouldn't have come out of a mold very well.  The bandolier I don't understand, and I think it's an unnecessarily small piece to fight with.

  Positive comments:

  1.  Going to say it again.  Beautiful sculpts.  Lots of crisp detail for resin.  Lots of straps, ropes, flowing kilts, and a fantastic leader model.

  2.  Female sculpt.  I personally don't buy all of the "pp is being sexist" crap I see on the forums, but it's still kinda cool to see a female sculpt in some of these models.

  

  I got everything assembled, but not based.  I'll base them later.  For now, the sculpts are assembled and below.

  Female Sculpt 1:

 
  Male Sculpt 1:

  Male Sculpt 2:

  Leader Sculpt with Bouncer for comparison:

  

  Group Shot:

  Overall, I'm super excited for this unit, both for their rules and their models, and I'm really looking forward to getting them on the table proper.  Hopefully this post has given you a glimpse of what you've got coming when you pick up a box or two of these guys.

  Otherwise, I'm moving into my house.  I have these guys to paint up, and I've bought a Bouncer, a Winter Troll, and Borka2 (Thank you miniaturemarket), both beasts for him specifically.  Although Calandra can use the winter troll.  Borka2 is going to get a grizzly bear mod I hope, and I'm going to sculpt a bit on the winter troll too, having seen someone else mess with theirs to good return.  But that's all happening after I get settled into the house, which will be a few weeks yet.  Looking forward to it.  Enjoy your holidays!

Reposed Braylen Wanderheart painted, with Fell Caller to boot.

A friend of mine grabbed Braylen for me at WMW.  I love the model, but don't care for the dual-wielding position.  It's crowded, and as an experienced shooter, I've got no use for shooting that way.  I changed it up enough to look a little more realistic, but that's about it.

  I cut the arm at the glove wrappings, drilled in a wire to both sides and sculpted around it with Greystuff from PP.  I prefer that to Greenstuff from Citadel so far.  Mainly because the solidifier (the dark grey) doesn't bloody stick to every tool in your box like the blue in the Greenstuff does.

  So, Braylen, finished:

   At the same time, I finished my Fell Caller as well, the guy I've been doing metal tutorials on.

  And Gunslingers.  Jarl's almost finished.  I keep losing steam on him. And Gunnbjorn doesn't count as a gunslinger because I don't own him yet.

  That's it for today.  Happy Thanksgiving!  We're in the process of moving here shortly, and I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks remodeling the important aspects of the house, and then in turn, my Den.  I've got a two-room area I'm converting into an all out Office/War room/Den area.  Mancave, if you will.  So it'll be busy.  Won't be many games, or painting, but the return will be amazing and I'll have a full out lighting setup, and painting corner, and game table right in the middle.  It'll be glorious.  Thanks for reading and enjoy your holiday!

NMM/Flake Part II: Silver/Steel

  I got this project started, and then my Mountain King took full priority.  I don't know why, but I figured while the momentum was there, I'd get him done.  Then I got Braylen Wanderheart, and started working on her.  I hit the metal on her, and decided to finish the Fell Caller's metal too, and this tutorial.

  So.  Here we go.  I've tried to mke the metals work for a long time, and I've never felt like they looked very good.  Never bad, but just not what I wanted when you use them as your primary color.  They're great drybrushed, but not as just your color.

  I'm starting with a black, and I'll mix 1:1 with gunmetal.

  Now we'll dabble in just a little grey.  Vallejo-wise, is Stonewall Grey.  Probably 2:2:1.

  More stonewall grey.  Getting into a 1:1:1 ratio.  This is also where I took a break, and picked him up again, thus the background change.

 I'm trying to pick on the upper half of his armor, and I'm trying to create a conflicting gradient on the sword blades.  At this point, blending is getting difficult, and the ammount of paint you're mixing is kind of ridiculous.  To change the hue you have to add enough paint to change the whole pot, so you may be better off starting another pot with a lot less paint.  We're going to Gunmetal, Grey, black, 2:2:1 with a little retarder thrown in.  Also, I'm starting to get into a basic 2 brush blend.  One brush is my color, the other brush is basically water.  I'll hit a spot with water real quick (not much, just enough to dampen it), and then paint it, then blend again with the water brush.

  Starting to get lighter.  I'm not touching the backplane of the armor anymore, just the protruded edges.  Really trying to get a good gradient on the outer rim and on the sword blade.  At this point, my black is pretty much out of the blend completely and I'm doing 2:1 gunmetal and grey.  The metal actually darkens the grey enough at this point.  

  At this point I'm mixing a little white into the pot.  2:2:1 Grey, gunmetal white.  What you're seeing is the exact same lighting as everything else, but the metal seems like it's reflecting it.  It's not.  This is the paint color.  It's the goal here.  For the last one, I do a white silver (Plata Silver for Vallejo) at 1:1 and touch the very tops of what I'm shading.  I end up watering it a down a bit and dragging it back across a lot of the blend translucently enough that I don't hide any of my work, but I brighten it.  Then I go pure silver and do just a little bit of edging.  If you've ever basecoated a model, and then played it in a game, you've seen the wear on the corners and edges that takes it back down to metal.  That's what you're trying to replicate essentially.

I also did Braylen simultaneously.

  And there it is.  I hope this has helped a little bit, or pointed out a few things.  If you give it a shot, let me know and shoot me results!