I have a lot of minis available to me. At some point, I’ve bought them because I’ve got excited about painting them. Then, I’ve bought more minis because I also got excited. Now, I have many unpainted minis and sometimes I’ve actually forgotten they exist. Other times I’ve been so overwhelmed by choice I don’t know what to do!
The thing is I want to do a nice job on them. Each piece doesn’t have to be THE best. But, I still want it to look good.
Back in the New Year, I talked about using KPIs (see That New Year’s Feelin’) or hard targets to measure my hobby and how that really doesn’t make me feel happy.
When I tried this in the past, I think I misused the term; “Done is better than perfect,” in a way to convince myself it was ok.
What makes me happy is completing a mini and not feeling like I need to rush it.
I recently finished the newest iteration of Gotrek for Age of Sigmar.
I love this guy. For me, he is the epitome of Warhammer. To honour my love for him I went all out to gauge how good I am.
So I did. It basically boiled down to glazing and contrast.
I’m also really happy with how he came out.
But what’s next?
The Quest
Now I want to continue this focus, not to the same extent, but I do want to get better at painting and also the understanding of colour theory etc.
This is the list I’m working from:
- Zombicide Black Plague and Green Horde
- Massive Darkness
- Village Attacks
- Tiny Epic weapons
- Conan Kings Pledge
- Monster Slaughter
- Circle of Blood
- Wander Cult of Barnacle Bay
- Many Awesome Minis from smaller companies like Creative Sculpt, The Old School Miniatures Company, Rotten Factory, King Games, Fenris Games & Ye Alchemist Miniatures.
- A set of Dwarves from Warhammer Fantasy Battle of Skull Pass.
- A good selection of some old Gw sculpts.
- Also a good selection of minis from Model boxes.
That’s actually a ridiculous amount of minis.
I need to get these done but I don’t know where to begin.
So one of the things I am looking to do is get a game of Rangers of Shadow Deep in with my wife.
However, that involves building a table, gaming mat and terrain so I’m in no rush to get there yet. More on this later.
In my last post, I spoke about Goobertown Hobbies random box method.
I like this.
But I’m adjusting it to my own thing, seeing as most of the minis will be the same sculpt I don’t need to focus on the colour scheme as much.
They are going to be some great experiments for batch painting with an airbrush.
I somehow managed to attribute a number to cover everything.
I won’t go into the details here but from that above list I broke it down into factions:
For example Zombicide:
Heroes, Zombies, Special Zombies wolves NPCs etc, abominations, necromancers.
Everything seemed to work within the realms of a dice roll.
Lucky me!
So I have built a program in a spreadsheet to randomly select a miniature from my collection, also preventing me from buying more minis, colour and some challenges to try and push my skills by
I definitely need to get some more technical challenges on the list, but that will come as I push my skills and knowledge.
Small Victories
I was really excited when I reached out to Instar Paint to see if I could use it to test their Alpha Range and they said yes!
If you are interested in building something similar I have uploaded it onto my blog with an overview and a link to download for your custom design to save space here.
Now for something completely Random!
The selection
So my results were rolled and I have a challenge, colour and a range to select from.
I chose this lady, in the end, Countess Ludmilla because I thought that the Pink will be great on the dress and I can work on some cooler colours with a pale skin challenge.
The pale skin challenge has been the first point where I realized I’ve made something quite interesting.
Originally the terms for my challenges were quite generalized painting ideas. But then when chose the countess, I realized it would be really fun to paint her up as blue blood with that pale foundation and gaudy makeup.
Suddenly I’m now pushing skin techniques and also adding makeup details whilst thinking colour theory to contrast a bold colour.
I may have scared myself…
The Planning
I decided to shrug off the fear, how else will I get better, and how will I get it done?
I’ve made a mood board, these are great tools if you are planning something small or large.
The basic idea is to take generalized search terms for your mini and work up what will work based on other imagery to reference.
I’ve done these for my wedding (I used Picasa for that and it was so great! RIP you beautiful tech!) and I also did it to get a general look for some hobgoblins I painted up for D&D last year.
It is also really useful to have if you take a break from the mini or have multiple projects going on at once
I’m going to be in the latter part of this as I have taken on a commission to paint up Warhammer 40,000 Dark imperium by the middle of March.
Leaving my hobby plans a little restricted in terms of available time.
The irony of having to put some measures on a painting project so soon after saying it’s not a good idea is very much apparent to me here :D
But I’m so pumped to paint the Countess so the Mood Board is going to help here.
Time for some Google-Fu
17th-18th Century Makeup – Products used, finish, styles I also found some youtube videos to have more imagery and less reading.
This was an amazing find and lends to the story behind the makeup:
Steep the lead in the pot of vinegar, and rest it in a bed of [horse] manure for at least three weeks. When the lead finally softens to the point where it can be pounded into a flaky white powder [chemical reaction between vinegar and lead causes lead to turn white], grind to a fine powder. Mix with water, and let dry in the sun. After the powder is dry, mix with the appropriate amount of perfume and tinting dye.
Source: http://www.danceshistoricalmiscellany.com/painted-faces-cosmetics-in-the-18th-century/
EvilAristocrats – To see how I can create an interesting scowl.
Colour Theory- I looked at making the colour be that main focus without just painting the whole miniature pink because realistically is it going to be all over her dress or just a splash to show wealth in an otherwise bland world
The blues and greens were perfect against the pink helping to create a nice picture in the end.
The Painting
So off I went and started and Woah these paints are lush by the way!
If you are doing a basecoat I wouldn’t advise a wet palette.
Originally I started with a Dead Skin Colour as the paint to achieve that I’ll look but as the piece developed I worked away from that and more into a paler less I’ll looking skin, but that is the great thing about a mood board I was able to compare and adapt.
Shading the mini was a fun experience I was aiming for areas where there were patches of dirt even if the dress was bright not even Ludmilla can avoid the filth that looms on the streets.
Here you can see the development of the skin and getting the glaze from Instar Pure Red in the cheeks and lips.
As I moved towards finishing the mini I realized I hadn’t planned anything to do with the gem.
Green is a good colour against the purple, blue and yellow.
But I’ve not really painted gems before, so this was purely an experiment and I want to try more minis where maybe there are larger gems to try.
I don’t think I was in the right mindset for this. By this point, I had been painting for around 6 hours and at that time I was knackered.
Another lesson, take a break!
That night I slept for 12 hours, Fortunately, the baby didn’t stir :)
But here is The Countess, I’m happy with her.
This isn’t my best work, but Gotrek took 3 weeks and I would rather look at getting things done.
So how was it?
I just want to paint.
I enjoy it, it helps me de-stress. I’m not a people person by nature and after a long day, some quiet focus time is so relaxing.
As I said at the start of the new year I’m not a fan of painting to a target. I added some with a major colour selection, kindly supplied by Instar Paint, and in addition 2 optional challenges.
These are in need of some extra options so please shout out in the comments if you have any ideas!
I’m hoping that this is going to help keep things fresh over the next year. In addition to other projects, a randomizer is going to be that mini that’s a challenge, or at least I hope it to be.
I also end up looking at the minis more and planning the job more as a result of attempting to complete the challenges.
Getting the backlog done to a decent standard is the dream after all!
This months’ came out quite nice but I think. I have rushed some areas because I’ve got so much on the table.
A lesson there as well…
I hope you like the final piece I am quite happy with it!
What do you think about this approach?
How do you plan your next colour scheme?
How do you decide on your next mini when you look at a mountain?
Cheers for having me on!
Shameless Plug:
I’ve just started up a Youtube Channel look for me here for hobby tips and tricks:
