Field Report: New Citadel Paints

On my lunch break today I was able to hit up a local GW store and try out some of the new Citadel paint range. When I first learned about the new range I was pretty curmudgeony about the whole deal, but that's mostly because the names of the colors are so horrible (Exhibit A: XV-88...), but now I'm more optimistic about the whole thing.

The store had multiple paint stations set up with about 15 different paints to play with. Since I was pressed for time I only tried a few paints that interested me the most.

First, believe the hype about the new base white. I tried it over a piece of black primered sprue and it produced fairly solid coverage with just a single coat without being too globby or streaky. If I were painting my own model, I'd probably thin it down and build up several coats. Still, very impressive stuff. The new base red also looked really good in person. It's fairly bright and not desaturated like the old foundation red.

Next I tried the green glaze over a space marine shoulder pad than someone already painted silver metal. It works just like the launch video on GW's website promised and I was very pleased. I'll be buying some of this for my lizards since I glaze all their gold weapons and armor and now I won't have to make it from scratch every time.

I also tried one of the dry paints over a dwarf's beard that only had a black undercoat. The stuff is very thick and worked just like GW says it does. A little bit goes a long way and it covers well over a dark color. The only issue I see with these is that the selection of light, almost pastel colors seems odd. These will require further experimentation.

Lastly, I gave the texture paints a go with a spare base. In my opinion, these are just OK. I don't see them replacing modeling materials for people who want to create really dynamic bases for their minis. However, if you just want to get an army on the table as soon as possible, these would interest you. These might have some potential for weathering mud and sludge on vehciles or terrain.

Albino Suarus WIP Part 2 - Painting Gold

The next step in my little painting experiment is trying a new technique for gold.  I encourage you to read Luaby's post on this technique since he's far more knowledgeable about these matters than I am.  For those of you too lazy to click the link here's the gist of what I'm going for: gold paint in general stinks because it lacks opacity and thus does not provide good coverage, but you can cheat and mix it with brown paint (good opacity!) and layer up to straight gold paint.  I've seen this done in White Dwarf painting tutorials, but they never explain it properly.  They also leave out a key point that Lauby brings up: you need to properly match the brown you mix in with your gold  - i.e. a yellowish brown for a yellowish gold.  If you're new to that idea, go do some reading on color theory at The Back 40k, it'll blow your mind.

Back to my Saurus.  For my Lizardmen army I usually paint gold by putting down a layer of Cathal Brown foundation paint for an undercoat, base coat with Shining Gold, wash with Devlan Mud, highlight with Burnished Gold and then glaze with Dark Angels Green for a tarnished look (I know these colors are now obsolete, go look up the conversion chart if you must).  This recipe is based around Shining Gold, so I used this as the base to mix a brown into.  Consulting SandWyrm's super awesome color wheel, I reasoned that Shining Gold seems to have a good deal of orange in it and thus Bestial Brown would be a good match.  I used a 1/1 mix, with a spot of Scorched Brown added to darken the color.  Scorched Brown has a lot of red in it, but I didn't want to use straight black and end up over desaturating the hue of the gold.

The next step was to wash everything with Devlan Mud and then layer on a roughly 3/1 mix of gold and brown.  Now there's enough base color on the model to paint on layer of straight gold without it going on streaky:

Albino Saurus Lord WIP & New Paint Brush Review

One of the casualties of last year's hobby-hiatus was the plastic Saurus hero that I bought to experiment on with some new (to me) painting techniques.  Armed with my new Winsor & Newton Series 7's and needing a break from painting Temple Guard, it was time to get back to work on the Saurus hero.

One of the things I wanted to try with this model is a method for painting a "cool" black and white using turquoise to shade and highlight the colors.  I based my recipes from two BoLS tutorials (here's a link to the black and the white).  As these call for some P3 colors, I modified them so I only have to use my GW paints.

The Saurus is going to have albino skin with black scales.  The turquoise should tie him in with the rest of my army, which is painted with the now OOP Scaly Green.  If you know your Lizardmen fluff, this means he's marked for greatness by the Old Ones!  Since the bulk of the model is going to be white, I started with a light gray undercoat (another first for me).  I then built up the albino skin with the following:

1. Base coat with white mixed with a small amount of Hawk Turquoise and Fortress Gray.  You know you're in the ballpark when you look at the color and think "minty fresh toothpaste."
2. Wash the area with Hawk Turquoise. 
3. Apply a wash of Hawk Turquoise mixed with black into the deepest recesses.
4. Going back to the base color, start adding highlights.  Then mix in white for the next layer and use pure white for the final highlights.

(Sorry for the poor photo, I'm still learning to use my new camera)

More Temple Gaurd Finished and New Brushes

Over the past week I put the final details on eight more Temple Guard, including the command group.  Eight more of these guys to go, and the whole unit will be done.

I might need a break before moving on to the final eight models.  Temple Guard are time consuming due to their level of detail.  From start to finish, this is what needs to be painted: green skin, black scales, stone details on the halberds, gold, bone/skulls, wooden weapon shafts, cloth straps/wrappings, gems, eyes, shields and the occasional shrunken head.  The skin and scales aren't too hard since they were dry brushed, but all those damn intricate details made me go cross-eyed a couple of times.  They still need to be based, but that can wait until the whole unit is ready to go.

Old Stuff Day 2012

 

It's Old Stuff Day - it's just like shopping at thrift store, which I've done in the past because I had no money in law school, not because I'm a hipster... Anyways, not like one inch warriors has been super productive since Old Stuff Day 2011, but I've combed through the archives to give you some links to awesomeness.  First, my best post from the last 12 months was about painting wooden weapon shafts, which I wrote a few weeks ago... not that vintage... well then, go check out my Stegadon and the Chapel of St. Nigel.  Those should keep you from doing anything productive for a couple of minutes.