Saturday, November 21, 2015

We can rebuild her- we have the technology (and $100 bucks)

Miniature painting is my idea of therapy.  Through dark times, those little inch high bastards have kept my mind from the maelstrom.  
I will just say that things have not gone well with my move.  It has been the darkest time of my, er, extremely interesting life.  I needed a lot of help this week.  My therapist said to find something I enjoy that can distact me from all the horrible things going on.  Something to calm my mind.  You know the first thing my mind went to?

Well, yeah, of course it was dirty, dirty sex... but after that, I could think of nothing better than losing myself in the craft of miniatures.

It's time to get back to doing what I love. So here it is... the next phase of my miniatures adventures.  Laney rebuilds.

With my studio packed up in a storage unit nine hours drive from me, this meant starting again from scratch.


So, I went to Mind Games today and with a budget of $100, I set about picking the best paints for my style.

 I put together this kit.

•Black.
•White.
•Steel.
•German blackbrown by Vallejo (for me, it's a no brainier.  It's one of the most replaced paints in my collection.  Infact, I find anything vallejo with the word 'german' in it extremely handy.)
•Cryx bane base.  Shading up grey looks dull, but the green tinge this gives is super pleasing.  It works for stubble glazes too.
•'flesh' (I say scowling at the racism) i.e a warm caucasian skin color that has enough titanium in to be a great base to glaze over.
•warm leather (which is skin colored for many I might add)- a great punchy highlight to the cool german black brown.
•turquoise- a great accent color, good for aging metals, eyes, magic, clothes.
•hot magenta- which will really pop flesh when glazed and be a bold accent color on pouches and stripes.  My drunken noses need it.
•Lahmian medium was a must too.  I am a glazy bitch.  I glaze into the abyss.

•0 and 000 brushes:  I prefer windsor and newton watercolor brushes but time was short.  These expensive ones will do for starters.

Finally something to clean off flash and add battle damage.  It's a new fangled thing called a craft knife.

So, something to paint.  Hmmm... The bones range at Mind Games isn't huge- it irks me that I had no money when at PAX so couldn't buy any of the thousands of Reaper minis there.  So, I just grabbed some bugbears because they where cheap and frankly just badass cool.  It also interested me to try to color them with just those paints.  I would have gotten more sandy colors and rusts had I planned it.  This is a fun challenge.


So here I am... Once again armed and dangerous!  And yes, I am starting to look a lot like my Darkling games logo character- apparently I was subconsciously drawing my true self all along- how's meta is that?


[edit] aaaand first one done.  No lamp, not much light, bad camera, and I suck, but so nice to be back on the lead horse.

It occurred to me that the paints I would buy would vary hugely to what you lot would get.  So, if you had to start off all over again, what would you pick?

15 comments:

  1. Crikey, I wouldn't know where to start! But I do love painting orcs so there would be some form of Goblin Green in there, and I do have a habit of painting armour in a dark royal blue, so there'd be some of that.

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  2. I also find myself using painting etc as a way to combat my demons. As for what paint to get, it's a tough question but VMC Deck Tan would be on the top of that list together with Black Red and one of the Scale75 mid range skin colors.

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    1. I hope you beat those demons and get the XP and loot.

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  3. Great work on the bones fig with such a limited palette of paint. I'd probably cry if my box of paints disappeared. I'd definitely include an ink....probably sepia. I find I do a lot of base colour, ink down and highlight with the original shade. With limited colours I'd likely double down on the technique.

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  4. They would all be P3 paints, I've been using them for so long that most other paints don't behave themselves correctly on my brush now. Battlefield Brown, Sanguine Base, Skorne Red, Exile Blue, Jack Bone, Gnarls Green, Greatcoat Grey, Black and Beast Hide. That would give me a good base to start with. I'd have to buy a decent brush, diamond files and some zap-a-gap.

    Really you know I'm going to have nightmares about all my stuff disappearing now and having to start fresh now.

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    Replies
    1. At least I know it is still out there and safe. One day it will be mine again, it's gonna be like Christmas

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  5. Nice work for a beginner! ;)
    If I were starting fresh I'd go for citadel foundation paints or whatever they're calling them now and choose all rich hues plus white and an army painter shading wash. My quickest paint jobs are done with bold base coats washed with "strong tone" or whatever it's called, sometimes I won't even want to do any highlights. That's all of course if I want to quick tabletop jobs, I can endlessly noodle away at silly complex jobs......

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    1. Army painter strong tone is equal to the sorely missed citadel wash devlan mud, and dark tone is black. I must grab one now you mention it! I use black ink with lahmian medium for edging instead of dark tone.

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  6. Nuln oil and Agrax Earthshade would be two musts for me. Other than that I would probably get a white, black, barbarian leather, a bone colour and the GW base range red, yellow and blue as they have great coverage.

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    Replies
    1. I avoid the base range because they go glossy. My fave bases are now Reapers new formula paints followed by VMC diluted with windex tainted water.

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  7. Good to see you painting again; sory to hear things aren't great though.

    I would choose, if in your situation -

    Black
    White
    Black Ink
    Chestnut Ink
    Red (GW Evil Sunz Scarlet)
    Sunburst Yellow
    Elf Flesh
    Snakebite Leather
    Bestial Brown
    Goblin Green
    Green Ink

    I think that would be enough to paint most sci fi or fantasy subjects - at a pinch.

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  8. I know from experience painting/modelling can be a tremendous help in dark times, getting things done, having them end how you wanted to end is soothing and having a few things constructive and positive around is just so important.
    If I had to start over with the same amount I'd probably have picked the same paints and brushes but I have to say I don't like those craft knives.
    Models wise, I would have picked old lead like some classic Goodwin or some Bob Olley, something I know paints itself and looks cool.
    Bugbear's looking good in those earthly colours, just the kind of balance between fantasy and natural I like.
    I'm amazed you get anything painted to the standard you achieve by holding your brush this way but the results are undoubtedly here so maybe I should reconsider how I hold my brushes ;)

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    1. I hold my brush weird. It goes between my index and middle finger on the second bone. The handle sits at the base of my thumb. My index finger motions steer.

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  9. I currently use a lot of GW paints because I know them, trust them, and want to use them up before adding anything else.

    Lets say I'm going for no more than a dozen to sort myself out:

    Averland Sunset
    Steel Legion Drab
    Zandri Dust
    Rakarth Flesh
    Agrax Earthshade
    Athonian Camoshade
    Fuegan Orange
    Seraphim Sepia
    Cadian Fleshtone
    FW Iron Hands Steel
    Typhus Corrosion
    Nihilakh Oxide

    From that list, I'm missing most a blue wash or clear paint for cleaner metals, but most of what I do is rusted and corroded, so I'll live without. ;)

    Now I kind of want to paint a model with just those paints and nothing else!

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