McCragge speedpainting

After making some promises to my ten year old nephew (hint; ten year-olds Never Forget Anything) I realized that I had to paint most of an entire Macragge set this weekend, around other things necessary for living. Yikes.

Thanks to the new GW washes this wasn’t a total disaster. Here is the finished set, replete with crashed lander, or landed crasher. Aquila, just pwerful enough that it can just barely kill you.

I used the black MIG powder mixed with silver and some Calthan Brown GW foundation paint for the scrapes and ground bits, the chicken pit area is Catachan Green and the rest of the Aquila is Astronomicon Grey with various washes. I freehanded the big 5 on the right wing.

Wide view of McCragge terrain

Marines were, umm Catachan Geen with a Thraka Green wash over that (might be some drybrushing on the top bits). Some quick details are done here and there like shiny bolters and gold eyeslits. I spent the most time on Brother Sergeant Benjamin (my nephew’s name). I added the Safety Stripes to his chain sword. Why do weapons need Safety markings anyway? It is a popular trope, so there. Any flesh was  washed with Wonderwash brown over the closest flesh approximation in the GW foundation set.

Note that Lt Varras has a six pack of Light Beer. heh. I also just realized that inverted V markings on the [i]right[/i] shoulder pads aren’t visible in this picture. Sigh.

Who has the beer?

Thank you Leviathan Purple wash over Krylon white primer. The Tyranids were a snap. These washes are great. I did not spend a ton of time cleaning up the figures because I was in a dang hurry. So mold lines and sprue attachment points really show up well when the fig is washed only. Maybe they are belly buttons.

Leviathan purple over white primer for the win!

After getting everything in place, paintwise, where it didn’t look horrible, I used a flat Armory brand spray dullcoat, which when combined with the humidity or temps at the time instantly became the [b]Glaze of Massive Lacking[/b]. Apparently it also attacks decals that have been Microsoled down too. GAH. Of course it looks worse through the lens than it does in real life. Some.

Argh, the dullcoat! It burns us, like, hygiene!

Upcoming Local Game Events

Guys I added two upcoming events to the calendar. The first is The Congress of Gamers in Rockville on September 20-21rst 2008. I haven’t been to one but it has been described to me as a low key couple of days of game play in a variety of genres. Looks like fun.

Second up is the DC Gameday III which is on October 18th 2008. This is a roleplaying game day that is organized on the Enworld game site forums. This also looks like fun and I am considering running a session of Dark Heresy there as well as playing a session of something.

Also worth a mention is of course Fall In coming up November 7-9th 2008. This year’s theme is Warfare In The Trenches: Petersburg to Cambrai and Jeff will be running a WWI trench game, Ed will be doing some sort of colonial trench thing and I will be doing a Safari game with my Tanzanica II rules.

ADDED: Just found this little con up in Glen Burnie this weekend as well: Assemby Point Sept. 6-7th 2008

A Couple More Army Painter Figures

These are some Reaper D&D figures I did for my son’s group. The figures were primed white and the only shading done before applying the Quickshade was the armor being painted black on the knights then dry brushed with a metal. To fight the pooling I ‘painted’ the figures lightly with a paper towel strip anywhere I saw pooling.

As always click on the thumbnail to get the full sized photo for detail.

These are Reaper D&D figs dipped in Strong Tone Quickshade from Army Painter.

Happier with the overall effect this time with the pooling removed.

Army Painter First Trial, In Which Lessons Are Learned…

Ed Watts once said that I put more work into a miniature for less result than anyone he knows and it is true, I am a pretty cowardly painter, always forgetting the two foot rule. When I am painting a figure I look at it too closely, forgetting that for the bulk of my troops as long as they look good from two feet away as they are moved on a gaming table they will be fine. As a result, I didn’t like the results the last time I tried a staining painting method a couple of years ago, the results were uneven and blotchy and far too unsubtle for me. Then I got to see Warlord Games painted Romans and Celts at Historicon and was convinced to give staining another go, using the Army Painter product they sell. They kindly sent me a can and this article is a summary of how my first experiment went with some tips on how I can do it better next time. Read the rest of this entry »

More Plastics Coming Out

Sample Sculpt. Has a lot of undercuts still on it that will have to come off, but a nice model by any standards.

Just spotted this on the Lead Adventures site, a new company, Victrix has announced plastic British Napoleonics due to start production in September. The photo on their site is great, but they say they are in tooling and layout now so these are not the final models. I am sure they will be great, but I like to look at miniatures in my hand before I get too excited. This along with the Perry’s announcement of Napoleonic French means a great year for Napoleonic gamers!