Recap of the last couple weeks

I have cleaned and washed 20-ish Full Thrust new NSL fleet ships (and got some nifty magnetic basing for them from Ninja Magic).

I cleaned Beyondicus (the MoW Drakhun) and 3 Man-o-War (one of which will become dismounted Beyondicus).

Laid down the base coats of metals and reds on Sorcsha (variant), a Kodiak and the Behemoth.


Near Future:
Over the next couple of weeks, I anticipate painting a shit-load of Circle minis, as the rest of the P3 line of paint arrived today.

Mid-Future:
I have RTV and I want to make some wreck markers for jacks.

Little Diversion... Assembly!

Well this is a Painting blog but for many figures you first need to work out the assembly long before you get to the painting. As with most of the other bloggers on here I’ve got a pretty heavy focus on Privateer Press figures recently. Just last week I got a new Shipment in from the Warstore and I set about to assemble the Skorne Cataphract Cetrati.

Privateer metallurgy is actually not the best. They do a pretty good job but sadly their “white metal” seems to be a bit more brittle than the competitors (particularly GW and Reaper, Rackham is an entirely different story with their lead figures). Now usually it doesn’t matter. But when working with Pole arms the metal matters a lot. And, of course, the Cetrati have pole arms. I’m tackling these the same way I tackled the last set of Privateer pole arms. By replacing the weapon shaft with 0.057” Music Wire. Stronger than brass rods this stuff is cheap and hard as hell. When I first started working with it I destroyed a pair of wire cutters on this stuff and I only got a minor scratch for my efforts. So now I saw it off with a cutting disk on my dremel and it works pretty well. I follow that up with a grinding wheel to get a flat smooth edge to maximize surface contact area for best adhesion.

There are numerous site out there that offer a lot of good info on replacing weapon shafts (most notably Brush Thralls) but once you’ve got the new shaft you have to cut out the pieces of the weapon and hands, then drill holes in them and re-assemble. A fairly time consuming process but one that results in a miniature that will not be wielding a broken spear in battle.

Jeff M. got me started in using JB Kwik Weld on my figures. This is a 2 part 4 minute epoxy intended for use on metal and stone, “dries” in 4 minutes and “cures” in 30 min. So now I’m “tacking” figures together with super glue, then going back and lining the grooves of the joint with this epoxy. The super glue holds plenty strong to ensure a stable joint while the epoxy cures. After the epoxy dries I can go back with an Exacto knife and cut away the excess. Or wait for it to cure and file/sand the excess away. So now I’ve got the joint filled and I’ve got extra adhesion power with the joint filler. This is working much better for me than trying to keep the joint stable in my caffeine deprived shaking hands for 4 minutes while the epoxy cures. And I’m hoping that I can cut out some time from pinning figures as I used to always do. For whatever reason figures just are not staying assembled for me with only superglue anymore.

Trollblood Kriel warriors: Day 3

The first troll is mounted up in the pin vise and the painting has begun.

I have started with the basic base coating. True blue for the skin tones, Earth brown for the leather and the wood of the shield.

I am going to keep working on the NMM so the weapons were based with Grey Stone.

An idea I have for the skin will be to shade and highlight using grey instead of mixing with blues. My thoughts on it is that the grey will help give the more worn and dusty look to them but still leaves the base color of blue showing.

Druids: Day 1

Pulled them out of the box and got them glued together and rinsed off. Will hit them with the primer today and get them ready to be worked on next week I think. I have to see how I will work them into the cycle with the Kriel Warriors.

18 weeks till GenCon

By my count. I've been wrong before but hey, it gives a good number.

Time is moving quickly here. And after I factor in the time with my kid, gaming, WoW, SCUBA, and school... My weeks turn into days.

So, in addition to my Day status of what ever I am working on, I'll also try to work in a week count down.

The day will try to focus on the details of what I'm working on. The week, the overall progress. If I find that one is redundant, I'll just drop it.

Let the count down begin.

GenCon Plans

I will also work in some plans to enter the GenCon painting.

Mostly I will focus on PP stuff since that is what I play and like, but I might try for a single figure or so for the General painting and use some Confrontation figures from that.

I think I'll try for a battlegroup (warlock/warcaster and Min. 2 jacks/beasts I guess). One problem I have in deciding on what to do is I have not settled on what force I want to play with. Since I thinking playing with a force might keep them out of the judging unless they want to come and look at them on the table.

I could go with Menoth since I have enough for a battle group right now and don't have any plans on playing them.

Hmm.. Maybe a Ashes to Ashes theme.

Try to paint everything with a feeling like they are stepping out of the Testaments Feat.

Will have to give it some thought.

Trollblood Kriel warriors: Day 2

Spray Primer is fun!

So I took them outside and gave them several very light coats. I then through them under a heat lamp to see if it would help make the primer harder.. I though I read that some where. On well, either way. Next step painting.

I paint much better and oddly faster when I'm working on one figure at a time. So I'm going to start with the Shaman and I will resolve to get some pic's up as my progress goes.

One thing I want to change with my trolls is to start showing a darker grittier side. They have been pretty clean and neat so far. So I want them to look like they are in a war for their lives.

Painting plans from now until Gencon

Here's my painting plan for now until we go to the con.

Note, I will probably NOT be actually playing Hordes there, but the pieces have my interest right now (if only the rest of the damn P3 paintes would be released I'd be pretty happy).

1. 2 x 750 Hordes lists (see bet below)

2. at least 500 points of Rezolution figs (for after-hours play at Gencon)

3. my 8 Infinity Yu Jing figs


I think that should be doable.

There's a bet on the table...

So, Rob, knowing what a slow painter I normally am, has placed a bet on the table: to whit, he does not think I can paint 750 points of Circle up by Gencon. I say I will not have just 750, but 750 Stream Roller points (two lists) painted by then.

On the line: One softcopy of Hordes: Evolution, to be paid at Gencon.


Current models in progress:

Warpwolf (90% complete)
2 x Argus (90 % complete)
3 x Shifting Stones (70% complete)
6 x Druids (10% complete)