MJ;-) Project Log: New Objective Markers

image from Privateer Press

Having just posted some hopes and dreams for 2011, the first thing I do is something NOT on that list. Go figure. . .

I've been using some relatively flat objective markers during the lifespan of v5 40k. Poker chips, poker chips with some emblems on them, but in the end, flat and kind of boring.

I've wanted to do something more 3-D, just never really got struck fancy by anything in particular. The DEAD MARINES Games Workshop put out are OK looking, but really seem to go with a power armor force of some kind or another.

Finally, while playing some Warmachine/Hordes, I was struck by the models for SHIFTING STONES for the Hordes faction Circle Orboros. The picture at the top of this post is from the Privateer Press website's Circle Orboros gallery.

Very cool looking. The best part was that they aren't thematically pegged to one particular 40k army. They could just as easily be Chaotic, Eldar, Power Armored, or even simple "Imperial."

Perfect.

They are typically $12 for a blister of three, but your standard internet discount brings a package down to the $9 range. So for under $20, I had 6 of these bad boys.

The shifting stones come with 30mm bases. Although not a written rule per se, most of the 40k world seems to agree that 40mm is a good size for an objective marker. So I fished out some spare 40mm Privateer Press bases I had. I like them better than the GW ones simply because of the rounded edge and the indented surface (which makes for better flocking/basing). After mounting them to their bases with some cheap TWO-PART PLUMBING EPOXY PUTTY, I set to work on them.

The stones are not all that large, so I didn't bother with spray priming them. I simply started in with my initial basecoat. I painted them in my typical stone fashion - basecoat dark gray, heavy dry brush of medium gray, and light dry brush of light gray.



I wanted them to have a splash of color to them, but didn't want to replicate the glowing green effect shown on the Privateer Press site (see pic at top). So I simply washed them with six different colors (badab black, gryphone sepia, baal red, thraka green, leviathan purple, and asurmen blue). I didn't worry about being all careful with the wash, I just slapped it into the four sides of the bottom section and top section for the six markers.




Time-wise, all six took me about 2 hours. Although I did have to split it up over two nights because after the three colors and the wash (night 1, 1.5 hrs), I had to let the wash dry before going back with a light dry brush of light gray (night 2, 0.5 hrs).

Not bad IMO. I like them, and can't wait to get them out on the tabletop for some bloody fighting over. Hopefully they'll bring me some good luck!

And if you're wondering, when I was snapping a few pics of the markers, my son and his monster truck wanted in on the action. So here you go. . .

Scenery Review: Temple of Skulls, Arcane Ruins, and Urban Barricades

Boy, it sure has been a while since I've posted here. Lot's of medical issues, plus a couple of secret projects that I'm not ready to make public yet. Big thanks to MJ for keeping the home fires burning!

For some reason I got it in my mind recently to spend some money on the scenery that GW has been putting out recently. I'm a HUGE fan of the Moonscape and a firm believer that every single 40k player should own at least one set. (I have two!) The Planetscape-specific version fell a little flat due to the weird decision to use vac-forming instead of injection molding like the Moonscape, but the original is still available and awesome.

So, thanks to a gift certificate to The War Store, I got my hands on The Temple of Skulls. It is really, really cool.

It is marketed as a Fantasy Battle terrain piece, which doesn't make much sense to me. Yes, it has more skulls and less guns, but it is pretty impractical in a game of Fantasy Battle. Only skirmishers, monsters, and individual characters have any chance of making it onto the thing without falling over. The slope on the side is very steep.


It comes in a large box around the size of a starter army set. The base is one single piece and it comes with a great "skull and column" sprue for the three upright skulls and the two columns. I've painted mine in a rough limestone style that I can't keep myself from using. (I think I'll be painting the opposite side of my three 2'x4' table toppers in a similar fashion so they all match.)

The most impressive thing about the Temple is how sturdy it is. Years ago this would have been so flimsy that you wouldn't have been able to put a dragon or Land Raider on the top of it without risking permanent damage. Now, you could safely stand on it. See the following picture of the underside.

It obviously was made as a proof of concept for the design process which made the Realm of Battle boards a possibility. I'm fairly certain if the RoB had kept its rumored $200 price point that a great many more would have sold. If I could have received the internet's normal discount I'm pretty sure that I would have one by now. Having two would have made my in-house Apocalypse game setup much easier, but there's no way I'm dropping that much on it.

I was so pleased with the Temple of Skulls that I picked up the Arcane Ruins set as well. This is another set that will be very difficult to use in a game of Fantasy Battle, in which case it will probably just be impassible to any ranked unit. See below for the 'assembled' version.

Of course, it is a ruin by name and looks even better knocked over.

I've been planning to make a skull-themed table for a while, inspired by the recent battlefields featured in a few recent White Dwarf reports. The Isle of Blood was particularly nasty looking. One of the great and unmentioned things about the Arcane Ruins is that it comes with way more skulls than you could ever use on the piece itself. Below is what I had left over, perfect to be used on my project to tie everything together. That's a lot of skulls!

Even more delighted, I decided to spring for the Urban Barricades set. As you can see below, you get six barricades in the set. I have the unfortunately-discontinued Sandbags set which came pre-painted (looks like a single coat and drybrush) and flocked. I think it is some sort of light resin. This set is also resin, but unpainted. It has a much higher level of detail, though, including a crashed Space Marine bike. Unlike pretty much everything else mentioned in this review, these really need painted before use, especially the one with the bike. There are a wide variety of textures and they don't look very good in the default grey resin.

I painted the bike in a non-descript color, added some metallics and rust here and there, and now they look great.

So, to cut to the rankings: (With a Moonscape at a 10/10.)

• Temple of Skulls: 8. Less useful as a Fantasy Battle terrain piece, but very, very sturdy and nicely detailed.
• Arcane Ruins: 7. Not as nicely detailed as the Temple, but the abundance of extra skull bits helps a lot.
• Urban Barricades: 7. Nice off-the-shelf, impressive if painted.

For the money, the Moonscape is still the best bet. Every player needs a set, and the price is low enough that everyone should have one. If you are thinking about a second Bastion, I'd recommend the Temple of Skulls instead. It might make a good, albeit small Landing Platform (if protected by chaos magics, that is).

Next time, notes about joining in the Biggest Apocalypse Game in the World!

PAINTING: The Lazy Man's Way (drybrush & wash)

As eluded to in an earlier post, and being a little delinquent on fulfilling my promise there, I'm finally at a point where I can give a better detailed lesson on my Lazy Painting method - specifically the Drybrushing and Wash method.

Volunteering to help me demonstrate this methodology is my Forgeworld Deathguard Terminator Icon Bearer (complete with Combi-Melta and Power Axe).

Step 1. Prime Black.

OK, so this step is pretty easy. I doubt I can teach you anything with a step-by-step for priming (and if you've never primed a model, I'm sure you can find numerous tutorials elsewhere). Instead, I'll wax philosophical about what I use to prime models with.

Citadel/Games Workshop Chaos Black.

Expensive? Yes, yes it is. To expensive? Yes, yes it is... While expensive, I like the fine-grained nature of the product and the very even and smooth finish you get in the end. Being lazy, I tend to prime a little on the heavy side, so other products I've tried, like Krylon, were just a tad to "thick" for my style.

Step 2. Heavy Drybrush of Basecoat Color.

As most of us know, drybrushing is a technique where one uses a dry brush, and before applying it to a model, wipes off almost all of the paint from it. Use a textured paper towel to wipe on - you know you're good to go when all that is taking paint off the brush is the raised edges of the texture.

I like to use a larger brush, as a pointy and/or skinny one gets into the crevices to easily, and we want to avoid that.

Now, to do it "heavy" and "the Lazy Man's way", I tend to leave a tad bit more paint on the brush than a true drybrush method might.

Another difference here, compared to a normal drybrush methodology (where one only wants to slightly pick out the highest of details), is that I work the brush fairly hard (pressure) and repeatedly (re-loading paint on the brush two or three times).

As you can (hopefully) see in our Test Subject here, the drybrushed basecoat has almost completely covered the black primer (pressure element); however, going back over a few times (repeatedly element) adds more and more basecoat to the raised details to help further define them.

Voila! One Step, Two Tones!


Step 3. Medium-to-Light Drybrush of Lighter Color.

Now, get a lighter color to drybrush, which will help further define the details of the model. For the Terminator Test Subject, the basecoat in Step 2 was the Citadel Foundation color Gretchin Green (the one that is kind of olive-drab colored). For this step, I chose the Citadel (regular) paint Rotting Flesh. Its a nice contrast to the Gretchin Green, but still within the green spectrum of things.

On a side note, while I've now pointed out two Citadel paints that I use, I actually more frequently use the cheap craft acrylic paints one might find at any craft store like Michaels or A.C. Moore - Ceramcoat by Delta, Apple Barrel, Americana. I like these because (a) they are cheap and (b) they come in a range of colors, so you can easily get two or three shades of the same thing. For example, planning on jumping on the Blood Angels bandwagon in a few weeks? Then round yourself up two or three shades of red craft paint and use the Lazy Man's drybrush method basing in the darker shade and then moving through the brighter shades.

Step 4. Wash

Sheesh, again with the Citadel products... For washes, I am absolutely sold on the relatively new range of Citadel washes. Devlan Mud has got to be the best product released for my Lazy Man's painting method.

Right, so what does that matter, you ask? Simple. The next step is to wash your model. Get that large dry brush out and slap that wash all over the place. But do make sure that any places where it pools too heavily, you hit it again with the brush to "soak off" some of the excess.

Stupid me, I forgot to snap a picture of our Test Subject after this stage. But Fear Not! I have a back-up plan for you. Below, in Step 5, look closely at the shoulder pads in the picture there. While the main body of the Test Subject there has been re-drybrushed with Rotting Flesh post washing, the shoulder pads have NOT, so its a good example of what Step 4 should look like (kind of - the shoulder pads were washed with Thraka Green while the body was washed in Devlan Mud; also, I went a tad heavy on the shoulder pad wash as I wanted to really mute/obliterate that Gretchin Green/Rotting Flesh color).

Where the intent of Step 3 is to help define the details, the intent of Step 4 is to help define the recesses.

**IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER**

If you proceed withOUT letting that wash COMPLETELY dry, you'll be sorry... Seriously, let that wash dry completely, overnight if possible. Me - I like to get a whole bunch of miniatures to the point where they are ready to wash. That way I can spend one evening doing nothing but that, and then letting them all dry until the next painting session. You've Been Forewarned... Mwhaahaaahaaaaaa...

Step 5. Repeat Step 3.

The only thing to point out about Step 5 is that you'll definitely want to lean more towards the lighter side of drybrushing. In fact, where Step 3 is a "modified drybrush technique with more paint and more force", Step 5 should be more like a "true drybrush technique" - very little paint on the brush, and very little application of force.

Like I mentioned above, look at the shoulder pads on this Test Subject image to see what a wash looks like before Step 5.

You'll also see now that Step 5 is complete, I've moved on to Step 6.

Speaking of which...


Step 6. Detail.

All that's left to do is paint the details using the regular ol' cheapo craft paints mentioned above. At this point, I consider the vast majority of the model complete, so like to use Step 6 to add some "pop" into the color scheme. For example, with these Deathguard Terminators, I'll use a lot of bone/white and red and silver/boltgun metal and gold on the details and extra bits, to help the model "pop" on the tabletop.


There you have it. A step-by-step tutorial on Painting The Lazy Man's Way. Its kind of funny to me, having written it out, it seems SO time intensive. Trust me, its not. For a typical squad, say 10 regular infantry or 5 elites (with that extra bling), I can usually do steps 1 through 4 in a single evening and then wrap it up with steps 5 and 6 in a second evening. I'd say four to five hours of effort for the whole unit. Easy-schmeesy.

Painting: Confessions of a Lazy Painter

My next few posts will include a couple of painting-related articles. While these forthcoming articles will detail a particular unit I’m painting, their intent is really to show *how* I paint in general.

So I thought it would be best if, before those articles, I laid out the type of painter I am and my styles of painting.

I am not an ‘Eavy Metal painter. I’ve never entered one of my miniatures into a painting contest, and probably never will.

I am not a Pro painter. I do not paint umpteen layers of wet-blended highlights or line/edge armor plates or etc. I simply have too much to do and not enough time to do it all.

But I do strive for a paint job that accomplishes two goals:

1. Much better than basic “Table Top” standard (i.e., more than simply three colors and based).

2. A finished product that amazes the pants off my non-gaming friends/family and even elicits the occasional “nice paint job” from the various gamers I encounter.

To this end, I basically utilize two painting styles, depending on the army I’m working on or what I want the finished piece to “look like”.

1. Painting with Inks

2. Dry brushing and Washing

Painting with Inks

For bright, sharp, crisper looking models, like the ones in my Eldar army, I primarily “paint” the minis with inks and then do details with regular paint. The process is rather easy.

Step 1. Prime white

Step 2. Then paint UNDILLUTED ink over the major parts (this is like a “basecoat”). With inks, the important part is to let them dry for a long time before proceeding.

Step 3. Once all the inking is completed (and dry), then it’s merely a matter of picking out details with regular acrylic paint to broaden the color palette on the mini.

By inking over the white primer, it’s like “killing two birds with one stone” in the sense that the flat parts will end up with not as deep of a color compared to the recesses where the ink pools. If I’m doing a “centerpiece” model, like an HQ Independent Character or something, then I usually go back and dry-brush some highlights to give a third level of depth to the model, particularly cloth or leather items (I guess this could be considered “Step 4 – Optional”).

If you look at those Dire Avengers above (sorry for the less-than-spectacular picture of them, it is an old one I had on the computer), I'd say that maybe even more than 90% of those models are covered in ink. The entire blue body and all the red on the helmets (plume and face).

Dry brushing and Washing

For dirtier, grimier looks, like my Deathguard, I use a series of dry brushing and washes. The process is rather easy (notice a pattern yet?).

Step 1. Prime Black

Step 2. Heavy dry brush of “basecoat” color. Be liberal with this step, but do leave some of the black primer showing in recesses.

Step 3. Medium-to-light dry brush of lighter color, typically similar to the color in Step 2, but just a lighter shade. The point in this step is to (a) not cover the Step 2 “base color”, but also to (b) liberally hit the high edges and details to lighten them up.

Step 4. Wash. Color is chosen based on the desired effect – brown for skin and leathers, black for chainmail, I’ve even used some purple washes for “bruised” effects.

Step 5. Once the wash is completely dried, I then repeat Step 3, but definitely lean towards the “light” and not “medium” scale for the dry brushing. The point here is to simply re-define those most raised edges and details that have been muted in Step 4.

Step 6. Pick out details using regular acrylic paints.

If you look at the Jetbike Autarch above, you actually see both painting styles (again, apologies for the poor picture). The Autarch himself was done primarily with the ink method. The Jetbike, particularly the front nose, was done with the dry brushed method. First, the nose was inked blue, midnight blue was dry brushed near the front/tip to darken it up, and a lighter blue (almost "Carolina Blue") was dry brushed at the handlebar end.

So there you have it, "Confessions of a Lazy Painter." Currently on deck for me to paint is a squad of Chaos Deathguard Terminators (dry brush/wash style) and a unit of Zombies (ink style). They will be my next posts to give real-world examples of the methods outlined above.

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