By popular(?) demand, I'm starting a plog. I already have one for Lizardmen, which can be found here http://lustria-online.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=10474&start=0 As this is a Lizardmen forum, I'm keeping the Lizardmen plog "pure" as I think that will help anyone who has come here looking for inspiration. But this is going to pretty much show the atory of.my painting journey for the last 3 years. But before I post any pics, I suppose a bit about me would be good. As I write, I'm 33 but staring down the barrel of a 34 shaped gun. I've been involved in tabletop games of one form or another for 22 years, ever since I got Heroquest and Space Crusade. I started painting about that time and got into more mainstream games workshop a few years later. I continued up until about 2001 when the circumstances of my life changed somewhat and I had to give up collecting for a while, although I still played D&D regularly. This was due largely to having found myself bereft of parental subsidy and having to pay my own way in the world (damn you mum and dad for making me go to work and stand on my own two feet!). Although I never thought about it in the 8 year haitus, I suppose it was inevitable that I'd get back into it and that's what happened in 2009. My painting abilities had diminished a little but I still knew the basics so I knuckled down and got to work. I've found that the boxed games have been very useful, supplying a large number of.models to practice on and it doesn't matter if they don't turn out quite as planned. I'll post some pics later.
I suppose it's probably best to do this chronologically. I mentioned that I had found the boxed games very useful for practicing painting on and when I first got back into the hobby, Battle for Skull Pass was the warhammer box. I picked one up because I thought as a product, you get a lot of models for a relatively small amount of cash, certainly less that you would spend buying an equivalent amound of Dwarves and Goblins. Fair enough, the quality isn't as high because they're not poseable but at that time it was all about volume and getting back into the habit of painting. It didn't matter that the models were cheap and not as good as the off the shelf models, in fact it was better that they weren't as I didn't know how they were going to turn out. But, anyway, here's the Goblins, as they were the first thing I painted. Well, that's not strictly true, the first thing I painted was a box of Lord of the Rings miniatures, the Fellowship of the Ring, but I don't have many photos of them. For some reason, I have not photographed the Troll, Warboss, Shaman or archers. I shall do so later and update the post. Even back then when I was first starting I found it hard to follow the rules. For me, Night Goblins are pretty much the bottom rung of greenskin society (accepting that Snotlings exist but that they are more like dogs than people and so do not count) and should therefore look suitably shambolic. I didn't want the "uniform" black look that night goblins normally have, I wanted a sort of psuedo-uniform, like they were mimicking Humans and Dwarves but failing. So I decided that they would all be wearing some kind of dirty, brown coloured robe and their uniform would consist of little more than a black hood and matching shields.
I followed the Goblins up with the Dwarves. Again, I didn't like the "vanilla" blue scheme and went for a sort of Forrest Green colour, which complements the gold well. I also wanted them to have polished shields rather than coloured shields. Even now I look at the shields and I like the effect. I quite like the blind eye on this guy, looks very grizzled. The Thane that came with the Battle for Skull Pass has since been demoted to leader of the Dwarf Clansmen, a unit which has been added to since this photo was taken (now stands at 25, with a further 5 models till to be painted.
Having completed the Battle for Skull Pass, I started looking for something new. My local GW store was having a sales drive - oops, sorry - a painting challenge, where you set a target of a certain number of points in a certain amount of time so I signed up for 500 and then had to select an army. In my younger days, I'd always had a thing for Bretonnia, but they were a predominantly metal army, and so quite expensive. By the time the Lizardmen vs Bretonnian box was released, I was already collecting High Elves. But this was a clean start for me and, crucially, being a working man I had disposable income so I opted for Bretonnians. I regret it now, not because I find them boring (quite the opposite, they suit my painting habits much better), but because I like them so much and yet Games Workshop doesn't feel the same, or they'd have updated their army book and (limited) model range by now. Anyway, I decided I wanted my army to have a crusader look, rather than the look described in the army book. For me, each unit of Knights of the Realm is one Knight and his retinue of men at arms, much like you see in Kingdom of Heaven. The rest of the people who fight with a knight wear his colours and arms, but each army could be made up of multiple knights fighting together. Thus, over time, I plan that my Bretonnian army will grow in blocks and each block will have a common colour scheme. This is the first block that I painted, it's pretty much the Battalion box set with a couple of extra models thrown in for good measure. Something else that has improved in the last three years is my ability to photograph my work, I apologise for the poor quality on some of those photos. I also have a few extra models in my army. A green knight, which I bought and painted just because I liked the model, when it was first release in the mid-late '90s. I also have the Battle Standard Bearer, who is painted in the colours of the second block of my army. And I also have this guy, a converted Bretonnian Lord using the Green Knight as a base. This was done last year as an entry to a painting competition where the theme was "mounted model"; it came second which wouldn't have been so bad if the winning entry had been a "mounted model". The winning entry was an Imperial Guard Valkyrie aircraft.
One of my side projects, something I kind of add to when I'm bored, is an Estalian army. I have some big ideas for this and I think that as soon as I've cleared the backlog of things sat on my shelf needing a paint job, I will divert more effort to this. I'm basically using empire troops as the basis for the army, with a few simple head swaps. I think this army would prove a great adversary, visually at least, to a lizardmen army. The Cannon was painted for a painting competition, which it eventually won! (go me!) I think that some people thought it won because of the base. Now while it is true that the base is a big part of the entry and a lot of work went into making it, I like to think that the metalwork on the cannon barrel and the free hand wood-grain effect on the entire cannon frame contributed at least in part!
I recently got a copy of Island of Blood. I can't really praise the quality of the miniatures in that game enough - considering that they are the (supposedly) cheap, mass produced stuff to go with a beginners' game, they are superb and a re huge step up from Skull Pass. I used to collect High Elves, many years ago. I've pretty much lost every model I owned, but I can live with that. Back in the olden days, I always wanted a High elf army that had a different scheme to the vanilla "white". I experimented with colour schemes (yeah, I was rock and roll, while my friends experimented with cigarettes, alcohol and recreational drugs, I experiemented with paint) but most of them were a disaster. However, I am older and wiser now and I like to think I have at least a basic grasp of what makes a good colour scheme, whether it's complimentary colours or just making something that looks believable, that you can relate to based on things in the real world. I decided I wanted an ancient theme for them, and this is what I came up with: I'm currently working on the spearmen
Dang. Those are super nice. I like the Orc's war axe with congealed blood. Looks like he hasn't gotten around to wiping it off yet. For the record, as an engineer in profession I would be hesitant to fire a cannon that had rust on it.
I have also been known to dabble with the odd 40k model, from time to time. 40k was how I originally got into the hobby, so I can't give up on it entirely. Obviously, this has been made easier for me by the release of not one but two limited edition space marine captains, both of whom have graced the cover of a rulebook (Rules versions 1 & 2 no less). I couldn't resist them, even though I generally dislike Space Marines. As I was painting the Crimson Fists captain, I foolishly left it unattended one night when I went to bed. There was, erm, an altercation of some description during the night and this happened. The Necron Lord was given a stern talking to and they've since kissed and made up, or what passes for kissing given the obvious limitations of an all enclosed, environmentally sealed armoured suit and a lifeless endo-skeletal structure when it comes to displays of affection.
The gems are one of the basic citadel colour schemes, Caledor Sky, Teclis Blue, Hoeth Blue and Etherium Blue. I wanted something that would really stand out against the red and blue so I had a look for some gems online and opted for Lapis Lazuli, which I think was common in the ancient world, especially places like Egypt. The shields are Warplock Bronze, Aggrax Earthshade, Brass Scorpion, Coellia Greenshade, Runelord Brass, Gryphon Gold finished with a very thin wash of watered down coellia greenshade. The copper detail is Screaming Bell, Reikland Flesh, Hashut Copper, Sycorax Bronze finished with a 1:1 mix of red & yellow glaze to give it that polished orangey look
I've got two spearmen left before I go onto the command models so I'll try and do a step by step guide.
Some of the best looking elves I've seen, kudos. Especially good job shading the red, which is usually my downfall.
Say what you like about Games Workshop, but their new colour system has very easy to follow paint schemes. Red is now especially easy. A vibrant red is Mephiston Red > Carrouburg Crimson > Evil Sunz Scarlet > Wild Rider Red > Kindle Flame > Bloodletter. I've noticed a marked improvement in the quality of my painting since switching to their new range because, aside from the colour names, the shades are very intuitive.
If only I had any idea what those colors actually were! My main problem with GW paint, aside from the fact that the "bolta" paint pots never sealed properly (and several other paint pot designs were almost as bad) is the fact that they use proprietary names for colors, making comparison with the range of traditional artist acrylics like Liquitex (which far superior and about one-tenth the price) very tough. Even regular craft paints, like the kind you pick up at Hobby Lobby or Michael's are every bit as good as GW (and most Vallejo as well). I personally love the Golden Acrylic range (here is a link: http://www.goldenpaints.com/products/color/fluid/fldcht1.php). Golden acrylics are very cheap, as they are about half the price for a 1oz bottle that with a lid that seals air tight, equal in quality in every way to GW paint, and in fact better with a little extender medium mixed in. I realize GW's uses the silly names to strengthen their intellectual property, make it hard for competitors to compete and make the paint colors sound more appealing to 12 year old boys (who would rather buy tentacle pink than fuchsia, snot, blood and gore to...well just about anything else, I imagine), but as a consumer I hate it, as it is also designed to make it harder for me to compare and get the most value for my dollar. I'd love it if you could take a stab at telling me what the equivalents would be in standard art colors. I tried to figure it out for myself, and near as I can tell Mephiston was supposed to be the equivalent of Mechrite Red (I've been told that they don't match), but looking at this chart: http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Range_Compatibility_Chart, my sense is that the first color you are referring to is probably very close to Burnt Sienna. Carrouburg crimson seems like a maroon perhaps. Evil Sunz is in fact "scarlet" (thanks GW!) or fire engine red, fka "blood red". I have NO IDEA what "wild rider"> "kindle" or "bloodletter" are. Are these washes or glazes? Just as a side note, is it really necessary to go through 6 layers of paint to get a decent rad effect? Seems like a lot of work. If you would post a step-by-step...someday when you are feeling really bored and generous, perhaps? I would be MOST GRATEFUL! Thanks!!
I don't really want to derail this thread with a discussion about various paint ranges; the paints you use are a matter of preference. I have nothing at all against other paint ranges, I use citadel mostly out of convenience; I can get to my local store via a short tram journey and pretty much buy paints on demand, no need to wait for mail order deliveries which would be the case for any other range. I would say that the new expanded range is much better than the old range, not just in terms of the colour ranges available but also in terms of the quality of the paint itself. And GW now also have a medium extender (Lahmia Medium). When I post something, I will post the name of the paint I've used as it is on the pot, but if you're interested in copying my methods, try this handy colour conversion chart, which converts to some of the major colour systems (http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Range_Compatibility_Chart). One piece of advice - the conversion from old citadel to new citadel is full of gaps and some of the supposed "matches" are absolute rubbish. For instance there is no suitable alternative to Snakebite leather in the new range, despite GW claiming there is.
Getting a decent effect is all about layers. Generally (there are some exceptions), the more layers you use the better the final effect will be. You could do away with a couple of those stages and it would probably still be passable (so get rid of the last highlight and the glaze for example). Alternatively, you could use more layers using mid-tones by mixing adjacent layers. I'll try and get a step by step on an elf like the ones above done on Sunday, I'm painting a Blood Angels Terminator Sergeant for a contest in my local store at the moment, or I'd do it now! The colours I used are: Mephiston Red - Base Carroburg Crimson - Wash Evil Sunz Scarlet - Layer Wild Rider Red - Layer Kindleflame - Dry Compound Bloodletter - Glaze Aside from the Dry Compound and the washes/glazes, I thinned all paints out with Lahmia Medium. That's obviously the paints in GW terminology, use the Dakka Dakka conversion chart to translate it into other colour systems.