Something is Finished! Huzzah!!!

It is finally all starting to feel possible. I've finished not just one but TWO whole models. One of them has three skinks on the back, so that practically makes it 5 whole models! Watch out guys the freight train is moving now. If I keep this up I might even finish more than my planned 1000pts worth.

Okay now I'm just dreaming, perhaps the progress has made me slightly delirious, potentially that was paint fumes, but for some reason now that something is done doing the rest seems that little bit easier. Pity this realisation is coming 24 days into a 31 day challenge, but oh well.

First we will start small, I've finished the Scar Veteran on Cold One. By finished I mean I haven't touched his base. Shut up Greg, and stop thinking it as well, bases don't count. Unfortunately for the whole painting challenge thing I think they do, but we're ignoring that at the moment in the spirit of progress.

I'm fairly happy with how he has turned out. He looks fairly nice, and the highlighting on the shield really stands out. The colours in this photo seem a bit muted, I might try and take another one sometime.

The scales seem really flat in this picture. Maybe it is the fading sunlight outside...

As you've probably assumed the other thing I managed to finish was the Bastiladon, which I am glad about. He was a fairly complicated model to paint, especially given he's mostly just flat scales. But things like his back scales as well as the prism on his back just threw me a bit, I wasn't really sure how to paint them. Today I just sort of experimented with the prism until I was happy with it, luckily it didn't take as long to get right as the scales did.

I'm very happy with the prism/crystal bit!

In fact I'm quite happy with the whole model!

I was worried the blue would just be too much on such a large model, but I think it works fine and it is *very* striking. People will definitely notice this model sitting next to the table when I play games with the army, pity he won't make the tabletop but I just don't see the Bastiladon being that useful in game.

Next up on the painting table is finishing off the Stegadon, as he is worth a lot of points. Then I'll probably get started on the Temple Guard or Tetto'Eko. Both are nice models, so I'm looking forward to them!

Slowing Down and Speeding Up Again

I figure I should display the nice logo Owen made in at least one of these posts...

It would appear that I paint in fits and spurts. This is quite different to how i used to paint, where I would constantly be working away an hour or two at a time and just grind things out. Each day I would paint a little bit more and eventually things would be finished. Maybe that was a legacy of being a student living with my parents and not really having that much to do.

Things have changed, I have to pay rent for my apartment so have to work more, and I'm still studying. Duelling Paintbrushes has also come in the middle of crunch time for uni, which has been a pain. I thought this week would be my week to do lots, but I ended up at work when I would otherwise have been painting as things got a bit busy there. I had a day off today and spent almost the whole day painting.

About an hour ago I despaired at my lack of progress. The Stegadon hasn't really gone anywhere, the Cold One rider is mostly painted but just looks way less significant compared to the other two beasties, and I wasn't happy at all with how things were going on the Bastiladon.

All I did on this guy today was the grey on his howdah, as well as a little bit of the first scale layer.

I ended up scrapping the technique I was using for the scales on his back, and tried something new. I sort of half drybrushed half dabbed paint onto each scale individually, which made for a much more gradual highlight than the way i'd been doing it initially. This looks *way* better than the other way of doing it, and is actually way quicker as well. Within about 20 minutes i'd finished the scales on the Bastiladon, and then got a bit more work done on the Scar Veteran as well! Now I am feeling much better about my progress, and hopeful that I might even finish my 1000 points worth of stuff before the deadline.

I'm still not sure how to do the massive club at the end of the tail...

I did get a little bit of progress done last week as well, which means the cohort of skinks with the Kroxigor is practically finished. They are all packed up in a case at the moment, so no picture of them yet. As mentioned the Scar Veteran on Cold One is almost finished, pretty much all the basecoating has been done and he just needs a bunch of highlighting. The blue scales are done though, and that is the most time intensive part of all the models.

Quite clearly the grey and gold need to be highlighted...

All three of the beasties together in one picture. Funnily enough the Scar Vet is probably the scariest of the lot despite being by far the smallest...

The one thing that will stand between me and completion is the bases on the models. I have some ambitious plans for basing this army that involve water effects and the like, which is going to be difficult to achieve in the remaining time. Might have to work out an interim solution, see how we go...

Duelling Paintbrushes: Update 1

So for those interested I haven't really gone through what duelling paintbrushes is. Basically it is an inter blog painting competition that we run each year around this time of year in order to encourage ourselves to paint some figures. The basic premise is that each participant has to fully paint 1000pts of stuff in 1 month. Last year the 1000pts had to be legal war hammer army, made up of at least 25% core etc. I'm not sure if this is the case as the armies are going to be used at Warhammer World Series, so will ultimately just need to be a segment of the larger 1500pt list.

Either way I've made my 1000pts a legal force, which you can see below and I got painting right away! Then I stopped, and basically only started again last night. It is now the 11th of the month, meaning 11 of my precious 31 have slipped away already!
1 Scar Veteran on Cold One
1 Skink Priest
10 Skinks with a Kroxigor
2* 10 Skink Skirmishers - Javelins and Shields
1 Bastilodon
1 Stegadon
10 Temple Guard
1 Salamander Hunting Pack


Thankfully Greg over at The Hoodlings Hole has also false started a bit, as has the other Nick (Short Shorts and Paint Brushes), so I don't look too bad. Owen (Terrain for Hippos - beware Hippos! has done his usual thing of paint a billion figures every day, so no one really compares to him anyway. Freak.


So I tried to do a little bit of painting early in the week while I was watching TV with my girlfriend. Normally I don't have any problems painting while watching movies or the like, but I used to do it at a desk with something playing on the computer. Unfortunately sitting on a couch makes it really difficult to paint detail, so I didn't get much done and what I did do wasn't great. Last night I changed my tack, got out the biggest brush I own (disappointingly this was like a GW standard brush or something) and started base coating some of the larger models. This was a way better idea, and in not too long I had the first layer of purple done on a Stegadon, a Bastiladon and a Scar Veteran. Frustratingly assignments for uni distracted me from doing any more painting, but I'm hoping to do more tonight.

How exciting! 1 whole layer of paint!

The Bastilidon is really exciting me at the moment, I think if I do the large scales on its back well using the colour i do most of the scales in he is going to look really good. Although given the size I may need to mix a few extra stages of colour in so that the colour steps aren't as obvious. I contemplated doing a colour blend on every single scale, then realised how ridiculous that would be. Not sure I could finish that model in a month, let alone the rest of them.

I'm going to go out an buy a bigger brush as well, mainly because these big monsters are going to need some dry brushing, which really isn't possible with the equipment I have at the moment.

Alas it is time to do more uni work, if all goes well tonight there might even be an update tomorrow! Although I'll probably be busy playing warhammer, as I haven't had a game in almost 10 days and it is really getting to me.