Painting fine raised details and edges without drybrushing

  This is a by request tutorial from members of my own meta and in response to me running my mouth online and saying something about it's as easy as brush angle and the amount of paint on the brush.

  Painting raised filigree is a daunting task in many cases.  It happens as a last step on a mostly painted model and has every potential of ruining your paintjob.  It's very fine detail and unless you know what you're doing, it can make or break the model.  Hvarl's red axe was nervewracking for me to put the final white touches on the cracks, but it made that blade.

   So lets begin.  I have a mostly painted Custodes dude from the Burning of Prospero box that has lots of really pretty raised filigree that I'm going to tackle for this walkthrough.

 I'm using a medium sized brush.  Less than a #2, but larger than the tiny detail brush from GW.  I can paint this with a #2 though because this technique is Not about fine control with the tip.  This technique focuses on the belly of the brush, the area between the tip and the base.  This particular brand, Master's Touch from Hobby Lobby, like the curl within a few paintjobs, and have a slight curl at the tip.  That actually works better for me in this case because it keeps the ends of the bristles up out of the rest of my model while I paint these raised edges, but it's not required.  

  Here's the paints I'm using.  I actually won't end up painting with the P3.  The thing about your paint consistency is A) How much is on the brush and B) How dry it is.  Regular model color isn't bad.  P3 is a little too wet for this detail work in my opinion, and the Game Air is here for really bad examples.

  This is way too much paint.  The motion used to do the painting is to lightly drag the belly of the brush across the model at a very shallow angle that keeps the tip up off the model.  If the brush is overloaded in paint, it will slough off too much and pool and build up badly.  Wipe some of this off on a paper towel.  Not drybrush levels, but just to get the large glob off.

  My bristles split on me in this picture. I had to wet it down and reshape the brush, but that's the amount of paint that should be on the brush for this.  Note, that if you have to wet your brush to clean it, dry it thoroughly, or the water added to the paint will lower the surface tension of the paint and allow it to run down the edge of the filigree easy, causing problems I will demonstrate here shortly.

  Alright, so look at this picture.  Nevermind the white mark on the left of the pad lol.  When doing this filigree, these raised edges, you're using the brush exactly like this.  A very very shallow angle in relation to the model that keeps the tip up off the rest of the model.  The direction of motion is extremely important as well.  If, in this picture below, I move the brush up and down on the filigree, perpendicular to it's edges, I will scrape paint off the brush and build up paint on the filigree, losing the detail.  What I want to do is move the brush along the filigree, with my tip at and angle that can't reach the model.  If the paint is too dry, it isn't going to come off of the brush.  If it's too wet, it'll puddle.  If there's too much paint, it will glob onto the model, and if there's too little, it won't do anything at all.

  So pretty.

  Same technique, on an even smaller scale, hitting these little claw feet on the top.  Keep the angle of the brush so that it does not encounter what ever is behind your detail.  Why are we using the belly of the brush, you say?  Because 99% of us do not have the fine control over the brush to use the tip.  On top of that, as you work, the bristles can split or paint levels change and now you're all over the place.  This is the safest, most efficient way to do this.

  Here is where I put too much paint on my brush and tried to run it against the filigree on the bottom of the pad, under the bird.  You can see where it filled in that area in the middle because I had too much paint and it scraped off, filling that area.  Too much paint.

  This is too wet of paint.  I switched to the Game Air for this demonstration, and you can see that it just began running off the filigree and all over the upper edge of the shoulder pad.  The surface tension became too low with the moisture and just ran off.

  Here, I'm doing a large flat raised area, not just a fine filigree line.  This is where brush direction has has to be very careful because you can slough off the edges and fill them with paint.  Take this in layers.  There's more area, so you don't need as much paint. Hit it a couple of times to build it up.  Use the belly of the brush and try to run with the edges as much as possible, exactly the opposite of drybrushing.

  Because this is what Drybrushing looks like on the right knee here.  Inconsistent, just scratches, and there's paint in the recesses in the middle that got scraped off too.  You can't see it as well but there's paint around the logo that the drybrush left as well.  For new painters, dry brushing probably works ok, but if you want a cleanly finished looking model, drybrushing largely goes away.

  Just painting more detail here.

  Here, my paint is a little too wet.  Not bad, but it's not covering super well so I let it dry and hit it with another layer.  You can see though, that about the middle in that detail, some of the detail is lost because I let the paint get too wet and it basically became a wash and filled in some of those gaps in the wings logo.

  This technique works excellent for edging, as well.  

  Tada.  One great looking set of filigree and edges, done.  This is not actually how I'm going to paint this model, I'll use silver, but for this tutorial, I wanted something that would stand out a bit more.  That's really cleaned up those edges, popped everything, and was not drybrushed.  So none of the scraping patterns across the side anything.  All clean egdes and filigree.  You can use this same technique to highlight these areas, and/or shade them.  

  So, in Summary:

1.  Brush size matters less than you think.  Small brush does not equal better control.

2.  Do not use the tip.  The control is much less out there and every vibration in your hand is felt there.  Use the belly of the brush, where a tip error won't ruin everything around it.

3.  Pay attention to the motion direction of the brush.  Do the opposite direction you would of Drybrushing.  Drybrushing WANTS to scrape paint off of the brush, this technique does not.  Move with the edges, not against them.

4. Paint consistency.  Thicker paint drybrushes well, but may need slightly watered down here.  Be careful with that though because again, if your surface tension gets too low the paint will spill around like a wash.  

5.  Paint amount.  Dip lightly, rub the large globs off on a paper towel.  The paint you're using will come from inside the brush.  

6.  Pay attention to your paint consistency throughout the session.  This varies for every brand, paint age, and paint color.  White gets very dry quicker, and chalkier than some of the darker pigments.  If it's in a pot, this is less of a concern, but pay attention.  Sometimes, I want it dryer, so I'll let it set for a few minutes before painting.

  Hopefully this has helped and pointed you in the right direction.  Feel free to leave any comments or questions or insults.

Hvarl Red-Blade, the Space Wolf HQ without a model.

  Let's lead off with at least one image of the final product.

  So, in the new Inferno book, under the Space Wolves character HQ, there's the Fell Hand, Red Blade and Russ, and two of the three have models.  Russ, who can't be taken below 2.5k points and Geigor, who comes in the Prospero Box.

  Of the three, Hvarl is by far the most desirable due to accessibility (<2,5k pt games) and the abilities he brings to the table for his army over Geigor's just really decent melee prowess.  So of course, Hvarl doesn't have a model.

  To further complicate things, Hvarl is slated to wear Tartaros armor which is a relatively new sculpt in the Horus Heresy line, most Tartaros armor suits coming from the Prospero box.  The only really cool Tartaros sculpt out there is the exlusive HQ dude that's holding a two handed spear thing.  Really pretty model, and probably what I would have chosen if I had ready access to it, which I did not.  So I began browsing models looking for options.

  I decided that most Indomitus pattern Terminator suits would actually convert into Tartaros pretty decently.  The chest just needs an edge sculpted onto the front, and the legs need their recesses filled in and the round kneepad needs sharpened into a point.  All of this can be done with the addition of greenstuff, rather than the removal of material. Pack some Tartaros shoulderpads on and we're basically there.  Hide the problems under the fur and we're golden.  The arms didn't bother me too much since there's a lot more freedom given to HQ models, and a lot of it was going to be largely unseen anyways.  I also decided not to cut off the heraldry on the legs since I liked what it added, and could simple add a greenstuff edge to the knee.  So, let's begin.

  Logan Grimnar's Stormrider kit.

  Grimnar has all the fur cape that is awesome, has an axe already, and a lot of detail that doesn't interfere with a Tartaros conversion.  The only thing he really needs is a Heavy Bolter, and not the wrist mounted Storm Bolter which made me a little sad but ok.  I don't know what I'll do with the Stormrider.  Probably make terrain out it.  Really the only part of the model I won't use for awhile.  The wolves, however, I really like, and in the previous article, sculpted fur onto them to create Leman Russ's personal entourage instead of using the two roided-out rats that Forge World has instead.

  

  Most of the leg work was filling in the leg recesses.  I left the joint material.  I didn't add the hip plates because he comes with some already that are more decorative and again, indicative of an HQ.

  

  Here you can see I added the ridges specific to the Tartaros lines.  I also cast a Tartaros pad and Geigor's shoulder pad together to create these shoulder pads.  My other Tartaros termies are wearing the same thing, though lower quality.

  

   The leg on the left is more easily seen here and you can see the kneecap angle I added.  I also bulked out the chest and brought it to a fine point/line across the torso just like the Tartaros.  I added some decor to it but you can't tell at all under all the stuff Logan has going on.  Some easy fur sculpting to cover gaps and make everything meet.  The cape has one shoulder pad sculpted in that I had to cut out, thus some more fur liberally sculpted in.  

  So, here, my newness to the game shows through because I thought the wrist mounted gun was a heavy Bolter and was luckily corrected before I basecoated the model.  So I took an MK3 heavy bolter (I think) and shaved down the hand embedded in the sculpt and glued it right into the spot left by the storm bolter.  It actually works pretty well.

  The base is sculpted out of Super Sculptey III and baked.  It keeps with the same Prospero theme I've been using in my bases.

  

  Here, I've got the base painted, him mounted and basecoated.

  And final pictures.

  I'm extremely happy with how the axe turned out, and I think it holds his name very well.  I didn't plan on painting this model until March, but I just couldn't hold out that long and so I broke down and started playing with the axe and when I was done, the model was finished.  6 hours of painting.  Really enjoyed this model and holy cow have I missed this kind of modding and hobbying.

  Hope you can learn a few things here, or perhaps steal the idea for your own Hvarl since it's likely going to be awhile before FW releases one, if ever.  Any comments or questions, feel free to leave.  Enjoy your weekend!

Quick How-to on Fur Sculpting

  With the recent pickup of the Space Wolves for 30k, I've been doing a lot of Fur Sculpting.  Forgeworld is rumored to produce models specific to the Space Wolf Horus Heresy line, but I'm not that patient, or completely convinced that I'll prefer them (or their cost) to what I can do with what I already have done.  At request from the Space Wolves 30k page, I put together a quick basic how-to on fur sculpting.

  I'm not a fan of the recently released wolves for Leman Russ, so in this tutorial, I'm converting the ones from the Logan Grimnar Wolf Rider kit.  They've got some spots on the shoulders where the harness glues in, and there's a belt around the abdomen.  There's also some fur detail missing on the hind quarters that they expect to cover with the harness that I need to fill in.

  What you'll need is green stuff, moisture source and a tool or two.

  I've got a little tin with water in it.  Some guys keep some moisturizer or something on a thumb nail and apply it to their fingertips or tools when needed.  The biggest problem is catching your tool or fingers before they've dried enough to start dragging your material around and misshaping it, undoing work you've been doing.  If it sticks at all while working it, you're too dry.  The trick is to catch it before you hit that point, but without over applying it and getting your green stuff too soft.

  I've got three or four different shapers, but my favorite tool for fur is the standard GW shaping tool.  It's got a pointed blade on one end, and a flat round on the other.  The round is good for smoothing stuff out, the point it good for the edges and fur.

  So, here's the gaps on the shoulders and the belt.  I cut off the peg on the top and I'll do a belt on most of waist and on the hindquarters where there's a lot of fur missing from the molding process.  The harness would normally cover it but since we're not using it, I've got to sculpt it.

  I'll start with what every sculptor starts with, some globs of green stuff.  If you're doing a shoulderpad or patch of fur on the torso or whatever, a glob is generally what I do.  If I'm doing a cloak that's going to flow a little independently from the model, I'll usually sculpt it out on a flat surface and let it dry for 45 minutes to an hour depending on how much moisture I had to apply during the sculpting process.  Then I'll peel it up and apply it to the model and shape it while it's mostly dry so it stays in place for the most part.

  For what I'm doing here, we won't need anything that complicated.  I'll start with a glob on each gap in the shoulder blades here.

  Here's my tin and my green stuff I'm pulling from. 

  I smoothed out the spot a little and now I'm using that blade to work this fur into the plastic fur.  On a flat surface like armor, just drag it out like strands of fur.  Here, I'm dragging them into the fur and trying to reduce the edges.

  In the case of a patch of fur on armor, your texture can be whatever you want, but in this case, I'm attempting to match the fur to the area around it.  Your texture can be fine or as rough as you want, and here on this shoulder, it's pretty coarse.  Try and match it.

  Now I'm adding this band around the middle to hide the belt.

  Again, trying to match the texture here.  It's a bit finer at the abdomen than it was on the shoulder.

  I'm going to repeat the process on the hind quarters, and again on the other wolf.  

  I'll get these guys primed up, basecoated, based and painted and they'll be running around with Russ in no time.

  Here's a couple of vets I've done.  I did this kind of work on every Marine in my units, trying to keep the cohesive Space Wolf feel.

   The fur isn't painted yet in this case.  The below pictures are my completed models to date.  A Contemptor, 3 praetor/HQs and a unit of Tacs.  I've got four or five units that are assembled, fur sculpted on, based and basecoated, but they're in line to be painted.  Just in a playable state right now.

  That's it for now.  Hopefully this short walkthrough can get you started with wolf pelts for your own wolves.  Feel free to comment with critiques, questions and comments.

Paint Brands and where they fit with you as a painter.

  I can count on one hand the games I've gotten in any miniature game whatsoever in the last three months.  Here's why.

  He's 5 months old, loves bright colors, being up high, and possibly penguins.  They are the most successful at sidelining his attention so far.  

  He, on the other hand, is easily the most successful at sidelining my attention, and thus my gaming has really dived.  Given my time at home though, I've gotten a ton of hobby time which is great as I descend in Horus Heresy 30k and return to the world of GW.  It pains me a little bit, but while I've spent the last month assembling, painting and forging new skills, I have yet to play a single game of it.  I'm definitely loving the hobby aspect though.  I have desperately missed this quality of models.  NOTE: This draft was originally written in January, and I have since gotten in... 3 games.

  Anyways, as I'm painting through my stuff it occurs to me the vast array of paints I have accumulated, used, discarded, disdained, praised and spilled everywhere.  I can most certainly recount the many opinions I've had of what my favorite brand is, and the more I look at it, the more I think it absolutely had everything to do with my skill level.

  The caveat to that is that I don't actually think that paint brands are intrinsically linked to your skill level.  There's a measure of that, I'm sure, since nobody that wants really nice models ever uses Walmart acrylics, but there are excellent painters that use each brand.  I generally feel sorry for the 'Eavy Metal guys who are forced to use GW paints for all of their models.  I'm sure there's some workarounds for that, but thousands of space marines painted that way?

  I'm out.

  So, let's talk paints.  This is meant to be a fairly quick article, a reminder that I'm still alive, and a nice preview of the plethora of stuff I have in the pipeline.  But that's towards the end.  Paints.

  There's a few brands I won't say much about, like Reaper or Scale75 since I haven't gotten the chance to reaaaaally delve into those lines.  Scale75 is one I'm itching to try out though.  At the beginning though, I was living in a dormitory in Keesler AFB on the gulf in Mississippi, and the gaming store catering to the strictly nerd training Air Force Base had all GW paints, and Reaper. (Not kidding about nerds.  We were all Radio, Radar, or some form of data networking.  Nerds.  All of us.  Except the specop guys carrying rocks on their shoulders for Para Rescue.  We didn't run into those guys at the comic book store).

  So I have owned Reaper, and painted them, and what I remember was really liking them.  However, I had next to 0 idea how to paint that point, so I can't tell you if my fond memories of them are worth anything.  I do know that they loved to clog in the tip though.

Games Workshop, or Citadel

  GW (Games Workshop, or Citadel) was the other thing, and what most painters have started with, or tried at some point along the way.  The advantages of it at that time was that it was thick, and covered very well, and worked very well with the GW wash.  GW paints can be applied pretty quickly, less that perfectly, dumped in a wash and come out with decent looking tabletop quality.  Drybrush and go.  As thick as the paint is, everything will have consistent color, everything will be covered, everything will be popped well by the wash, and it's good to go.  It's also a huge range of colors, and available in every store that has miniatures.  On top of that, every single painting tutorial ever produced by White Dwarf or Warhammer TV uses the Citadel colors.  They also have several different styles of paints, including "basing", "layers", "drybrush" and "washes".  

  The downsides are pretty quick to show their face though.  The paint is super thick, which is why it covers well, but it dries with a thick, textured surface.  In the videos on Warhammer TV, they show the guy watering down the paint, but when you're new, you really don't have a clue what consistency you're looking for..  It doesn't blend well into the other paint on the model without lots, and lots of watering down.  There are now "layer" paints by GW, but they're still pretty thick.  By far, thicker than most other paints on the market.  

  Then there's the pots.  You can't pour from them, you can't mix the paints very well.  There are accomplished artists that get deeply offended when you count pots as a con since the paint should be the only thing that matters, but this is my article, not theirs.  And I don't like those artists anyways.

  The specialty paints... specifically the drybrush stuff, I hate.  Just use regular paint.  Their washes, however, are pretty legendary, and most painters still have a bottle of it somewhere and use it. I have mixed my own washes, but since I use washes for only very specific applications anymore, even that has gone down.  In fact, now that my LGS carries the Vallejo Game Ink (similar to a wash, but has it's roots in the panel liners from the WWII/Model Color series produced by Vallejo), I probably won't use washes but rarely.

  I quit using GW paints when I quit buying GW products, right at the beginning of  2013 when GW was really being a douche in the legal department.  That has since backed off, but I still won't use the paints because when I moved from GW, I went looking for Reaper.  Reaper doesn't actually exist in Omaha, so I moved into Vallejo.  Next on the list, though, is Army Painter.

  Army Painter

  Is also everywhere.  Follows Flames of War around like a little brother Mom won't let you leave behind at home.  They've got the spray cans too, which is a nice touch, however expensive.  I only recently bought Army Painter, and only because the new LGS that opened up, that's what they had.  So I tried it.  IMO, it's GW in a bottle.  So, now you can mix it easier, which is nice, but it's still thick stuff.  If I'm doing a basecoat by brush, I might use it, but when I run out, I won't buy anymore since my LGS got into Vallejo.  I've also found that it separates really bad over any period of time.  Worse than Vallejo or GW.  

  Vallejo

  Vallejo is 90% of my paint library.  I'm a dropper bottle fanatic, I love the assortment of colors, I like that they have thinners, glosses and all sorts of additive products designed specifically for their paints.  There's two (three, if you count the Airbrush line) lines of Vallejo, the Game Color and Model Color.  Game Color is your fantasy stuff.  Bright colors, more shades of it, wider selection of a larger spectrum.  Model Color is at Hobby Lobby more often than not these days, and focuses specifically on military and environment colors.  A billion shades of drab green, brown, grey, etc.  One or two of the other shades.  Might only be a dark purple and a light purple, etc.  Which is fine.  If you have Model Color in your area, you're fine.

  Vallejo has a good consistency out of the bottle that usually covers in one coat, but likes to have two depending on how you primed.  If you have a good solid primer that's in the vicinity of your shade, you're golden.  If you're trying to put yellow down on white and don't want a yellowish white, but actually a strong yellow, it's going to take a few coats.  I've also noticed that the paints are a little inconsistent in their thickness, and it's either travel/storage dependant, or shade dependant.  The white always gets a little chalky, while the dark greys always seem more watery.  It's weird.  It's all smoother than GW though so I'm fine.  And there's a thinner to fine tune it, or water works just fine too.  

  There is also the Airbrush line I mentioned earlier, but I'm going to cover that separately.

  P3 (Privateer Press's paints)

  This particular paint is pretty different from everything else.  It's got a different acrylic and is a completely different formulation of paint than most other brands.  When I was a PG, I finally broke down and started buying P3 because I felt like I should understand a paint that I was promoting.  I don't own very many of the colors, just a few of the primaries, and I actually use them quite a bit.  It's possible I'll replace them when I'm out of them even, but I'll still keep those colors in Vallejo as well.

  P3 is still in a pot, so no mixing without getting it everywhere.  Major downside at first, but we'll get there.  The acrylic, on the plus side, is non-toxic unlike most other acrylics like Vallejo, so that's a plus.  P3 is generally very thin, probably the thinnest I own.  Good luck getting the wrong bright color down on the wrong primer.  However, if your primer is right, it's a smooth paint, layers very well and blends extremely well.  The reds and blues below were painted and blended straight from the pot, and did really well.

The only complaint I have about P3, outside of the pots, is that you will struggle to drybrush with it because it is so watery.  If you are an avid drybrusher with a P3 arsenal, I would consider getting a second white, or whatever you're drybrushing, in a different brand.  Vallejo or GW white is fine, and if the white is specifically for Drybrushing, the GW is probably better just because it's thicker.  

Skill Progression

  I have one more paint to discuss, but I want to hit this real quick before we go there.  

  GW is an ok starter.  It covers thick, washes well.  It's forgiving, easy to work with and has a huge arsenal.  If you're just starting, you go with this and it's not too bad, you feel pretty good about your work until you realize that A) it's nearly impossible to layer or blend easily and B) you're literally feeding your brushes to the blood god and you can't keep brushes alive for longer than like, a month of painting.  So then you move into:

  Army Painter or Vallejo.  Army Painter if it's around, Vallejo if you have the choice.  Or Reaper.  Now you can mix paints.  Now you can thin your stuff out without using a wet palette.  You put drops in a tray, mix it together and get exactly the shade you want.  This is how I operated for a long time, and still do most times.  I'll start with straight, unmixed, undiluted dark color to basecoat, then add thinners, lighter paints, and use a couple of different spots in the tray as I work my way up the spectrum to my highlight.  I even have a retarder to keep the basecoat and following layers wet so I can go back to them if needed, to fix errors or 2 brush blend.  The lighter I get, and the closer to the highlight I get, the more I water it down to blend and layer.  I despised anything in pots because it's such a disaster in mixing. The only downside to this is the wasted paint you inevitably leave in the tray, but it's largely unnoticed.  I feel like I get my money's worth out of the bottle in most cases. 

  Then I got some P3.  Suddenly, even with less color selection, I can layer quite easily because of how watery the paint is.  I can dab my brush in the pot, once on the towel and go to the model where it stays wet enough to blend around and work into the layer below it.  Now, mixing is less important.  It's quite convenient.  If the direction I want to take a color is the same as one of my P3s, I'll probably use the P3 for some of it.  Reds and Blues especially, I've been using the P3s a lot, though I'll do my final highlights in Vallejo for specific control.  At this point, I'm able to actually work in layers, do 2 brush blending.  I can mix washes, but it's rare that I use them anymore.  The paint preference changes with the skill level and style.

  This brings me to my final paint, 

  Vallejo Air

  Vallejo Air is the exact same colors as Vallejo Game color, but pre-thinned for the airbrush.  I finally broke down recently and gave up trying to mix airbrush paints by hand, and just bought the stupid paints.  Then I started using them by brush.  It's straight up the best of both worlds.  It's watered down like P3, but has all the shades and mixing ease of normal Vallejo.  

  Lately, my workflow has been to start with a Vallejo color and use it for the basecoat, then mix in the Vallejo airs to simultaneously thin and change the color of the paint.  It's fantastic.  

  There's also the straight up cheating aspect of the Airbrush in the first place.  I shaded Ahriman in a few minutes.

  But now, back to Skill Progression.

  Look at the paints you're using now and consider if it's A) the paints you've always used, or B), you have tried the rest of the market and you definitely like these.  If it's B, that's great, even if it's GW! You're comfortable with your paints, you're churning out good quality, and that's awesome.  You've unlocked what works for you.

  For me, my style is still developing I feel.  I know the looks I like, but sometimes when I'm shooting for those (Jolly Roger Studios is a favorite of mine), I end up doing something slightly different, and actually like it maybe more.  I love the contrast of JRS work, but I'm finding some of my stuff turning out looking somewhat like I used a sketching technique like what Matt DiPetrio has been teaching for awhile.  Idk if it'll stick.

  Like I said, I haven't played more than two or three games in the last three months, but I've done so much hobby work that I've really gotten to enjoy learning my brush and pushing my envelope.  I still like my Vallejos.  Scale 75 is next on the list, but now that I've got Vallejo Air, the game is on.  It's amazing what all I can do now with a watered down paint in the hue of my choosing.  P3 only has so many colors, and you kind of get shoehorned into one specific shade track without lots of extra work like glazes and mixing out of pots, whereas Vallejo has it all.  

  So, look at your paints, and think about trying some other ones.  Secondly, look at your skills, and if you feel like you've hit a wall, and there hasn't been much improvement, try a new paint.  Thin a paint down and play with it.  See what you can do.  I'm having a blast.

  Incoming Projects

  For starters, I'm neck deep in Horus Heresy, for kicks and giggles.  So expect some of that.  I have some of the Prospero models coming in, some of the Calth models, whatever.  All in on Space Wolves since I wished I'd played them back in 40k.  Won't make that mistake again, so here I are.  I also have an assembled, magnetized Leman Russ primarch model on my WIP table.  Priorities atm are playable models, but I doubt I can hold off on painting Russ much longer.  He's playable currently, but I only have two or three praetors, a chaplain (or rune priest.  Nobody knows yet EDIT: Rune Priests/Priests of Fenris.  We know now.), a contemptor and one unit of marines actually assembled.  I have a ton more at home to be built or in the mail, including a Leviathan Dread and a Sicarius, but those are in due time.  The big 30k tournament in Omaha is in June I believe, so that's my deadline.

  With that mess, I also chose to develop some new skills, specifically, resin casting.  There were a couple of custom sculpts I did on shoulder pads and such for the terminator variants that instead of doing a set for every single termy, I just cast them in a silicone mold so I can reproduce them for all of my terminators, of which I intend there to be many of.  I love the looks of the Cataphractii, and the Tartaros is growing on me.

  The offshoot of the resin project is the basing project.  I didn't base my 40k marines at all hardly, but I will be this time.  Instead of individually basing every single one of them though like I have with all of my Warmachine stuff, I just sculpted bases out of FIMO and Sculpey, and cast them in Resin.  Expect that article here in the next few weeks because I'm really excited about it.

  So that's it for now.  Bunch of great stuff in the pipeline, including a detailed version of what you see above.  I'm still alive, just super busy with life.  Have an enjoyable Valentines day!

Step 3 into Guildball: Choosing your first Guild

This is Part 3, indicating there's a Part 2 and Part 1.  If you missed them,

Part 1: Guildball Intro

Part 2: What do I need to play?

  Secondly, this article is piggybacked off of the statistical analysis I did last week.  It covers all the Guilds with a fairly comprehensive infograph that hopefully hits all the main points of a Guild for you.  If you're new to the game, a lot of the numbers don't matter to you, so I'm just going to summarize the basic playstyle and aesthetics to each one, and link you to the full thing if it interests you.  I want to hit some points about actually choosing a guild for the game here, whereas in "Guildball at a Glance", I just wanted to get the info out there after I'd worked on it for two weeks and it was a lot of info, for new people and veterans alike. For the full article and all links, it's,

Guildball at a Glace: A Statistical Analysis of the Game

  So, the meat of the subject.  Choosing your First Guild.

  By first, I mean that you're addicted now.  You've passed that threshold.  But now you're going to pick a team, a Guild, and you don't have any clue where to start.  Or maybe you've got one, but you've got to pick between two or three of them.  Let's cover a couple of basics.

  A) This will probably not be your only Guild.  This isn't a pledge of allegiance or a huge financial commitment.  When I came to Guildball, I looked long and hard at playstyles and guilds and playtested a few times before I bought in.  Coming from Warmachine and Warhammer before that, buying into a faction can become a 1000$ investment in a year.  Even if you don't like the faction, by the time you've built enough of it up to find out, you're already stuck.  You can sell it off, sure, but used rates are 40-50% of MSRP or what you could have paid for it.  On top of it, charging extra for a decently painted army just ensures that it won't sell since most people would prefer to paint it themselves, or to play it bare metal instead of paying extra for any painting at all.

  This particular problem doesn't really carry over to Guildball.  A full fledged 75pt list in Warmachine is easily 400-500$ and you need two lists for a tournament.  Guildball wants 8 models for a tournament.  6 to play, 2 subs to put in to switch it up.  My first tournament was Esters, Scum, Hooper, Spigot, Friday, Mash, Stoker and Gutter.  That meant I had bought the Brewers starter set at 32$, and then Esters for 20$, Mash for another 20$ and the rest for roughly 10-15$ apiece.  Mostly about 10.  So 120$ for a tournament list, and a model to spare since I wasn't playing Tapper from the starter kit.

  If you want to just play a six man list, you're looking at 32$ for the starter and 30-40$ more for a mascot and 2 more players.  In the Brewers, the only 20$ models are Esters, Mash and Stave, and it's mostly according to base size and the accompanying pewter.

  I now own all available Brewers.  If I wanted to sell them off, I'd probably get 100$ for it.  Maybe a hair less.  Even if I got 80$ for them, that's most of another Guild.  The Brewers only have 9 released models right now, 10 including Quaff by the time this article is released probably.  80$ picks up most of another Guild easily, and 10$ purchases here and there afterwards are nothing compared to needing another 75$ trollblood unit for Warmachine.

  The TL;DR, don't overthink the commitment.  It's easy to come back from finding out you don't like a Guild's playstyle.  Half of the time, someone came to the same realization with the guild you want and will trade.

  B) Don't be afraid to proxy, either with the paper models or on Vassal.  Steamforged wants players and so does your local community.  Nobody is going to mind if you bring the paper models.  My local store has a box of them so you can try it out even.  People want you to play, and they'll accommodate that.

  Online also has an option called Vassal and the module is built by Steamforged.  Hop onto the Vassal Ball facebook group and request a game and someone will run through the ropes with you.  Play some games.  It's all free, and in some cases, easier than playing Guildball on the table.  If you'd like to try vassal, check out this article on this blog here,

  I'm also prone to proxying models, even if I don't have a paper representation.  The Season 2 Brewer's Mascot, Quaff, has been a zombiecide dog mounted on a base for a long time, and Vet Spigot has been played by regular Spigot for awhile too.  I think my first time playing Esters, I used Calandra, a Trollblood caster.  Generally nobody minds, as long as you don't take it to a tournament.

 What do you like to do vs. what looks the coolest?

  There's two main things I look at with people getting into a game.  If they've never played a miniature game before, I encourage them to go with their gut and pick the coolest looking models to them.  They can ask a lot of questions about playstyle and etc, but it's really hard to actually know what you enjoy doing if you haven't ever played anything similar before.  So pick the neatest looking models.  What makes you really want to put that model on the board and charge into the other team?  What captures your imagination the most and puts you on the pitch?  That model for me is Tapper, and similarly Hooper and Stave.  That full out sprint from two models with their sticks out swinging, kilts billowing in the wind behind them and Stave moving up the center lobbing bombs to cover them?  I love it.  The Brewer's playstyle is also very similar to the Trollbloods I came from, so that translated well, but really, it was the aesthetic that did me in.

  What do you like do?  If you're playing a 6 man team on a ball field, do you want to play ball?  Then, off the top of my head, you're looking at Fishermen, Alchemists and Engineers.  Do you want to fight?  Get in and mix it up in melee?  Brewers, Masons, Butchers and most Union builds (though they have a strong ball kicking element as well).  Or are you a dick that hates people deep down and wishes they would all die?  Then Morticians are you what you want, and if you don't like easy buttons, there's the Hunters.  Both are control Guilds, but Hunters do it with a very tightly developed team hit and run strategy, while Morticians are basically standing around while Obulus takes all their influence and does it all by himself.  Super solo with 5 other models out there with him.

  Then there's individual differences.  A few player changes and the new Captains and everything is different.  Tapper with the Brewers is a very bashy player.  Esters, however, buffs her team to do nearly anything, including strong bashing, but she brings a great control element game with her ranged plays.

  The Fishermen are probably the best example.  Shark doesn't want to fight.  He wants nothing more to run circles around you and score the ball three times.  Corsair is the opposite.  He's all Brawler with a higher than average kick.  A few player changes, couple of Union models and the Fishermen suddenly have one of the tankiest teams in the game.

  All of the Guilds have their own niche.  Both Brewers and Butchers want to bash, but Butchers are little squishier, yet hit a little harder.  Brewers can tank decently on their own, but are little slower to the field .  They also have a ranged element between Esters and Stave that the Butchers don't have at all.  The playstyles are all very distinct.  Some similarities do exist, but the tools are all different, and instead of becoming more similar, so far, Steamforged has done nothing but show that they can become more specific and diversified.

  Before we get started, probably the most useful infograph to you is the basic Guild Comparison chart.  It'll give you a lot information about the Guilds, but if you haven't played a lot yet, the difference between Offensive Character Plays and Defensive ones and whether they're ranged or Guildball probably don't matter to you a whole lot.  However, the whole thing can be seen here.

Guild Comparison

  So.  Alchemists.  Alphabetical.

  Alchemists are all in on ball kicking with some ranged condition attacks.  They have two extremely adaptive super solo Captains, one heavy guy that's yet to be released that's worth taking and Vitriol, one of the models in the game.  So good nobody knows if she's supposed to strike or fight.  If you want ball kicking team with a captain and at least one or two models that can really put the hurt down (Midas, Vitriol, either Katalyst), get the Alchemists.  Midas is really what it comes down to.  Smoke, the Season 2 Captain, is very much a ball kicker and condition damage dealer.  Midas actually dictates what the opponent brings since he has the ability to steal a character play.  You opponent builds a list around having something like "The Unmasking", Midas can take it.  He and Vitriol are also exceptionally difficult to kill, and especially him.  Really feel like you get models killed easily, well, most of the team won't help you out but Midas is pretty forgiving in that regard.  DEF 5 base, Unpredictable Movement standard, can give himself both Clone and +1 ARM as well.  If you don't like Midas, don't buy Alchemists.

  Aesthetically, they're kind of a Victorian era steampunk looking group.  Obviously the overall theme of the game is moderately Steampunk, but that idea is really carried by the Alchemists and Engineers.  The Midas sculpt is a great rendition of the typical Ironman landing, and he's such a dynamic model in the field that part of me wants to play the Alchemists just for him.  

  Nah, Vitriol.  I want to play it for Vitriol.  Even though I despise her ballerina sculpt.

  Full infograph on them is here: Alchemists Infograph

  These are my guys.  I own four Guilds and I keep coming back to Brewers.  Their playstyle is very natural to me and I enjoy it a lot.  They're a very bashy team, and that's what they want to play, but they can switch gears very quickly.  Friday, both Spigots and Season 2 Mash can all strike very well, and Friday and regular Spigot both can fight pretty decently too.  If you're looking for a team that can play several playstyles easily, Brewers are one of the options.

  Right now the craze is all Esters.  Tapper, who I originally played Brewers for, is very straightforward, and easily predictable or controlled.  That can be played around, but I find Esters is far more forgiving in that regard.  She patches a lot of holes in the Brewers with her buffs and just really supports the team.  She also is one of the best ranged models in the game, and a Tooled Up Esters removes mascots and Greede from the game on a regular basis, Turn 1.  

  They're also a fairly tanky team with plenty of defensive buffs.  It's not often they get one-rounded.  

  Aesthetically, they're Scotsmen.  I keep saying aesthetically, as if you can't see the picture above I posted, but the Sculpts are what drew me in, not the concept art.  Everyone in the Guild except Esters and Friday are sprinting or hauling up the field all out fighting.  I love it.  Very dynamic sculpts, and I'm a sucker for kilts.  

  Full Infograph here: Brewers Infograph

  The Butchers have a lot of things in common with Brewers.  Very melee oriented, brings conditions to the table quite a bit.  What they don't have in common is they're far faster than Brewers and will easily get into the fight turn one.  They also die way faster than Brewers do and are basically glass cannons.  Their 2'' melee models in the game are not particularly popular right now, so they struggle with a lot of things that 2'' melee makes simpler, like Unpredictable Movement and Clone.

  They do kill though.  Not so much because of their high TAC value, because their playbooks are just as long, but because of their damage buffs.  Ox alone has 3 ways to get +1 damage on a model, and can do all 3 in one turn.  They're supported by a couple of decent strikers like the Briskets, but overall, the team wants 4-6 takeouts a game.  You want to fight, brawl and be dirty about it, Butchers are your people.

  Aesthetically, they're all in aprons.  They're actually more dynamic in most regards than the Brewers are.  Boar, Boiler and Shank are all beautiful models. Shank's chains spiraling around him is one of my favorites.  

  Full Infograph here: Butchers Infograph

  Engineers want to kick the ball.  They've got consistently strong strikers across the board, and their mechanica models are extremely difficult to remove.  They also have some ok ranged elements from their Season 1 Captain, Ballista, and they have the ability to gain momentum at range with him as well.

  As far as ball teams go, they probably have the toughest learning curve, but it pays off when you get it figured out.  They don't really want to fight much, though probably more than a Shark Fisherman team.  They do have access to Rage right now, the Union slaughterhouse, so that helps them quite a bit but for the most part, they want to push you around from range, run their mascot into you and blow him up, and score goals.  

  Aesthetically, they look like a bunch of welders with some puppets that play the game too.  Imagine a whole guild run by a bunch of Geppettos.  Pinocchios a real team.  The only dynamic models in the range are the strikers which are notoriously difficult to put together.  The Season 2 Captain isn't bad either, but most of the models in the range are pretty stoic.  They just stand there and look at you.  Even the giant spider dude from Toy Story without the doll head.  He's stoic until he charges 12'' at you under Pinvise.

  Full Infograph here: Engineers Infograph

  

  The Fishermen are probably the easiest Ball playing faction to step into.  Specifically a Shark led team, the Season 1 Captain.  At decent TAC, they build momentum fairly easily, and with 2'' melee across the guild and high DEF, they can do it pretty safely.  If they get caught, they die, but they're tough to button down.  

  The other side of the coin is Season 2 brings Corsair and Sakana, both of whom can fight a bit, and with Jac and Kraken, the beefier guys from Season 1, they become a bit more of a seafaring Brewers team that tanks moderately well.  Not as well as Masons or Brewers, but pretty well, and still amazing a kicking the ball.  If you want to hop right in and start scoring, the Fish are for you.  

  Aesthetically, their sculpts are great.  Kind of a waterworld feel to them (old Kevin Costner movie that wants to be a Mad Max in the Sea kind of story), lots of whispy movement to their poses.  Shark's model alone is one I need to own, and if I own his, I might as well own the rest.

  Fishermen's Infograph: Fishermen Infograph

  I can't find any concept art outside of the box, so here's the Hunters.  They play almost entirely a ranged game except for that one dude Jaecar and then the Bear.  Both come charging in, wreck your day, kill everything you love, and then one of them runs away and hides and it's not the giant bear.  No, that guy stays and hangs out in your face and counterattacks you at TAC7 with a push on Column 1 or a KD on Column 2.

  The rest of the Guild is not that straightforward.  The rest of them want to shoot, and stay back.  The Captain starts wanting to fight in melee towards the end of the game but for the most part they stay and try to control the flow of the game.  Very steep learning curve and some very good players in the game have yet to figure out how to play these guys.  A couple have demonstrated that it can be done, but by and large they struggle in the meta. I own this guild, and they're fun, but I can not make them work for me.  However, since they've only got six players right now, one captain and one mascot, they're pretty limited in what they can do.  Their day is coming.  Want to get in on the ground floor of a Guild, these are the guys.

 Aesthetically, they're Robin Hood with a little bit of Tolkien.  Theron looks like what one of the Hobbits from the last trilogy would have looked like if he was 6ft.  All beautiful sculpts.  The only boring one is Chaska, who just stands there.  With his shotgun.  Yeah.  He brings a shotgun to a soccer game.  How's that?

Full infograph here: Hunters Infograph

  Masons.  Another adaptable Guild, but they've got a far better ball kicking capability than some of the other beefier, tankier teams, yet they tank the best as well.  They're not quite the fighters that Butchers or Brewers are but they've got the tools to get it done.

  Season 1 Captain, Honor, can put models to ARM 3 relatively easy.  She's also got great Guild support built in with some solid character plays and she's got some solid bashing stats herself.  Season 2 Captain is Hammer, and he's all in on the fighting.  He can score just fine, but he really enjoys just smashing other models.

  Anchoring the team when they can't get the TOs enough is Flint, the supposedly best striker in the game, and then Mist from the Union, whom they have access to.  The two of them run the ball extremely well and can make the game a 2TO - 2 Goal game very quickly.  Another Guild that my wife and I own.  They're a lot fun, easy to pick up and play and answer a lot of questions.  Pose a lot of questions too.

  Aesthetically, they're kind of the knights of the game.  Lots of pretty colors, pretty armor.  Very aesthetically pleasing.  Most of their sculpts are the early ones, so very small compared to some of the newer stuff but that's being fixed slowly but surely.  They're probably some of the more boring sculpts right now though.  They're ok, but they don't really inspire me.  I like my Brewers.

Full Infograph here: Masons Infograph

  It's like the Adam's Family had a Guildball team.  These guys are all in on control.  Not much for kicking the ball, they like to hide it against scoring teams, or keep it on Obulus who is very, very difficult to button down.  Relying on some Union choices to do their own scoring (Mist), and their killing as well (Rage), they spend most of the game choosing your order of activations.  They focus on disrupting plans and order on the other side, tearing it apart piece by piece and wrecking the isolated models.  Obulus and Ghast, both with 2'' melee, generally anchor the team for damage, tanking and momentum generation.  Rage, Fangtooth, Mist, Avarisse and Greede are all common choices to be in a Morts list.  Honestly, a Morticians list is Obulus (rarely the Season 2 Captain, Scalpel), Ghast, Silence and Dirge.  The last two are Union.  

  Season 2 Captain isn't bad.  She does lots of great things, but she doesn't just straight up answer and ask questions all day to every guild like Obulus does.  Knowing the opponent's team is just as important as knowing your own when playing the Morts, so players getting into this Guild want an approximate knowledge of the game.  They don't play like any other guild, but are also very strong.  

  Aesthetically, they're the undead.  Again, very Adam's Family looking.  Dark, brooding, long robes.  Not quite the same undead look from other miniatures games, with skulls and ghouls everywhere, mind you.  Just rough looking pale guys carrying burial and post-mortem equipment.  Some beautiful sculpts though like Ghast, Casket, Obulus.  Ghast is another one of my favorites.  Very dynamic, full of motion.  Take a look when you get a chance.

  Full Infograph here: Morticians Infograph

  Last, but not least (That was the Hunters), we have the Union.  Union's got the largest playbook, so the most variety as well.  Their captains are pretty straightforward.  Mostly bashy, but some support.  Blackheart, from Season 1, probably has the most support.  Great Legendary, 2'' melee and just some great all around things he can do.  Vet Rage, from Season 2, is all bashy.  He can buff speed for one guy, but mostly he just wants to kill and helps others kill.

  However you want to play the game though, the Union has it.  Not as much control as some other guilds, but a little bit.  You want to play bashy though?  They've got it, all day long.  Kick the ball?  Got it, all day long.  There's a little bit of everything in here.  If you don't know what playstyle is for you, kinda want to try it all, Union's a great place, and the nice thing is that any guild you buy in the future will use some of the Union models you already have now.

  Aesthetically they think they're either classy English gents in top hats, or ninjas swathed in stealthy robes.  Then you've got like, Fangtooth and Minx who nobody knows what happened there.  I don't like some of the Union models, and the standard Minx model is one of my least favorites.  However, both Rages are straight up copies of Daniel Day Lewis's character from Gangs of New York, which is pretty cool, and Avarisse & Greede are great sculpts too.  Again, English gents with Tophats. I like that aesthetic.  The rest of it, meh.

Full Infograph: Union Infograph


  So, maybe you got a glimpse here in the last three (four) articles of something you liked about the game and maybe even a Guild to get started with.  Worst case scenario, show up to your FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store) and get a demo in with someone.  Try some different guilds, play the game, etc.  I've tried to build a decent platform here to view the game from, but I definitely encourage you to roll some dice out there and see what you think.  It's a great game, in a great place right now.

  If you've got any questions, email me here, comment or catch me on twitter, @diceotfirstdegree.  I'm Jedianakinsolo on most of the forums, and I can't give you any high tactical advice, or which is more broken, Fillet or Obulus (Though I have an opinion) but I can definitely show you how to assemble and paint your first models, walk you through the rules of the game and get you going.  I'm all in for that.

  Enjoy the last of some of this great weather and I'll see you guys around!

Guildball at a Glance: A Statistical Analysis of the Guilds of the Game

  Everything in this article is for a wifi connection, heads up.

  This is technically part III of getting into the game but it became a lot more than that.  Everything it pretty well explained in the images themselves, so I won't go into great detail.  If you're getting into the game, start with the first image, the largest, the Guilds at a Glance where every Guild's basic stats are compared across the board with the game average tossed in.  

  Beyond that is an infographic for every Guild.  If you're looking at getting into the game and trying to figure out what playstyle interests you, hopefully some of this stuff can be a decent glimpse for you into the kind of game you want to play.  I'd love to put all the images up here but Blogspot's format is not happy with the size of the graphics, so I'm linking you straight to Imgur.

  Guilds at a Glance

And then the specific Guilds.

Alchemists

Brewers

Butchers

Engineers

Fishermen

Hunters

Masons

Morticians

Union

  The full Imgur album is Here

  If you'd just like to download the full album, it's Here

  Hopefully this was worth the wait.  I hope you guys enjoy the information here.  Feel free to leave comments, critiques and corrections or email them to me directly, or catch me on twitter, @diceotfirstdegree.  

  Enjoy your Labor day weekend and I'll see you guys around!