What did you do today.

[Mattb]

I finished up my special weapon squad with flamers. Completely terrible on the table top, but I just thought the idea of a flamethrower squad was really cool. Also I really wanted to have the three extra riflemen carrying extra ammo fuel tanks on their backs - I imagine its so they can quickly pick up the flamethrower when the bloke in front of them gets shot.

[Jye Nicolson]

That's a great looking squad, Matt! You were right to go with the extra tanks on the riflemen, looks good and ties the unit together.

Also looks like a great game, @MiJ, especially with the Squats coming out. Did you manage to knock them over for Grandpa Nurgle?

(And no, I haven't tried weathering, or much of anything else other than contrast --> metallics --> wash. I'm telling myself I might give more advanced techniques a try just as soon as the backlog is clear)

[me_in_japan]

@jye - yes, eventually the Nurgley imperviousness wore em down. Their armoured walkers were hard to take out, but sadly their bikers were just a bit too fragile. That said, my opponent readily agreed that he was using them wrong (tactically) and that next time he’d be able to put up much more of a fight.

As for weathering, I certainly encourage you to give it a try. I find it hella liberating to do weathering, and it’s easily my favourite part of painting a mini. There’s no pressure on you to be neat, and it feels much more expressive than regular painting, where you have to consider light placement and colour composition etc.

There’s a ton of weathering techniques, but I’d suggest starting with some simple oils. Grab a few cheap tubes of oil paint (brown, red, yellow, and some green/blue/black/white if you like) as well as some thinner (usually odourless turpentine.) This lot should be cheap, and will last basically forever. Then just play around with dabbing small spots of paint onto things like rivets, seams, and anywhere that looks like it might take a bash from time to time. Once you’ve put the spots of paint on, take a clean brush, get some thinner on it, and streak the paint spots downwards. Super simple, and super effective. Just don’t do it the day before a game, as oils take literally days to dry (but if you thin em enough, they’ll be touch dry in 24hrs or so.)

Also, making oil pin washes is pure sorcery, and I guarantee your jaw will hit the floor the first time you try it.

Best of luck! I consider myself to be mostly an eldar painter, and tend towards faffing about with smooth blends and technical nonsense like OSL and NMM etc, but I do also have a nurgle army and have done a few orky vehicles in my time, and through these I’ve come to really appreciate weathering techniques, so feel free to ask any questions you might have. I’m sure others will have their opinions on things, too

[The Other Dave]

You can do a heck of a lot of weathering with just a piece of sponge and some black paint, too - here's everyone's favorite gunpla lady Senasuke trying out some of the basic techniques, and for something a bit more in-depth, here's Eastern European supermodeler Martin "Night Shift" Kovac with a range of "easy" to "more time-consuming than I'm really looking for" chipping techniques (sponge weathering starts at 4:51).

Having picked up a bunch of little airplanes from Jye to paint up for him, I've actually gotten my butt in the chair and started getting some work done over the past couple days. Said planes (the Marine half anyway) are pretty much all ready to go, and I've been taking the opportunity to finish up some extra titan weapons I've had half-painted for a while, while I wait for the primer to dry.

[Mattb]

You can do a heck of a lot of weathering with just a piece of sponge and some black paint, too - here's everyone's favorite gunpla lady Senasuke trying out some of the basic techniques, and for something a bit more in-depth, here's Eastern European supermodeler Martin "Night Shift" Kovac with a range of "easy" to "more time-consuming than I'm really looking for" chipping techniques (sponge weathering starts at 4:51).

Cheers for the links - weathering is something I've always wanted to have a crack at as well. Especially since I have so many Imperial Guard and Ork vehicles.

I think the biggest hurdle is getting over the fear of only having one shot to do it right. If you mess it up you've ruined a perfectly good model.

[The Other Dave]

Practicing on a bit of scrap plastic or the underside of a model is probably a good place to start, yeah. No harm in chipping up the edges of a bunch of plastic spoons first! But I've found that the basic techniques are very forgiving - like if you look at the Night Shift sponge chipping bit, he does up a panel with too much paint on the sponge and says "never do this," but then when he goes in and tidies it up it looks great (if very weathered).

[The Other Dave]

OK, paint successfully applied!

Just the missile and one other not-pictured missile, not the whole titan - what's that you say? Is there a connection between my buying and painting these and Vortex Missiles being really good?

Also, as I hoped, it's gotten some mojo back, as I'm making good progress on some Xiphon Interceptors for Aeronautica Imperialis for Jye, woo hoo!

[Mattb]

I've been incredibly busy lately, so it's taken me almost an entire week to paint a single Guardsmen. Oh well, he has a plasma gun, so at least he's worth it.

[Jye Nicolson]

The one with the plasma gun is always the one that matters!



Even less TLC than normal but the Stormcast backlog is getting worn down. By any reasonable definition I have an army now, but there's a bit of rounding out left to do (and some dragons).

[The Other Dave]

That red and gold looks ace, though, great work! (One point to maybe think of moving forward: the yellow-brown on the bases kind of blends in with the gold armor - sticking to just grays for the bases will help the models pop a bit more!)

I've gotten in on the AI commission I'm working on for Jye, some [s]Colonial Vipers[/s] Xiphon Interceptors:

I may dirty them up a little bit when I get the whole air wing done, but I like the basic clean-ness they've got going now. They're really nice models! Kind of remind me of Battlefleet Gothic in how well their mechanical greebliness responds to some fairly basic painting techniques. Two Storm Eagles and a Thunderhawk, then I'll go back and fill in some gaps in my own growing backlog before getting in on the Eldar.

(I'm still not hugely interested in AI, but this does kind of make me want to get a few planes and build an airfield terrain piece for Titanicus.)