Finished Unit Filler; Other Odds and Ends

A semicolon in a post title, edgy.  Finally finished a unit filler that I started a horribly long time ago, but only now had the time to finish because everyone at the one inch warriors home base has been ill with a stomach flu, which wreaked havoc amongst social calendars but generated hobby time/baseball postseason viewing opportunities.

I also finished an odd Kroxigor I had lying around, which subsequently spurred me on to start the tedious project of re-basing the older units in my army.  I originally based the lizards in a horribly dark scheme topped off with some flat looking flock.  In redoing the Krox's I added some 5th Edition Chaos Warrior debris in Khorne colors to round out the color scheme on the unit.  

Finally, I also painted up a standard bearer for the unit.  The sword is from the Cold One Cavalry kit.

Unit Filler #2 - Appeasing the Lizard Gods

One of my ongoing Lizardmen projects has been building unit fillers for my Saurus regiments.  One of my ideas was to construct a small statue of an ancient, long dead lizard god festooned with trophies taken from the fallen enemies of the Old Ones.  After sketching a few designs, I realized the best way to make the idea come to life was to sculpt the statue out of Sculpey clay.  I have no sculpting skills, which is apparent from my first attempt, as seen on the left in the photo.  The thing came out looking bloated and lethargic, lacking the vengeful, cold-bloodedness that I wanted to evoke.  It's also too large and looks like a fifth grader made it.  I was going for an ancient, crude stone statue, but yuck.  Attempt number two on the right came out better, but there's still a few spots that will need to be cleaned up.

After it's mounted on a 50 mm base the plan is sculpt some jungle vines creeping up the sides with green stuff and pile up skulls, severed heads and helmets around it, in homage to some unnamed, angry serpent deity.  Then, I'll model some Saurus warriors presenting their latest offering to the gods.

Product Review - Secret Weapon Leaf Litter

A little while ago From the Warp had a great post about putting together woodland themed bases.  The concept is equally applicable to jungle bases and Ron's post got me thinking about how I could punch up my Lizardmen.  I've been using static grass and clump foliage, but that doesn't quite give the impression that my army is marching through a dense Lustrian jungle.  After doing some research on Google images, I determined that the best way to represent  jungle terrain on a standard sized infantry base was to model on some fallen leaves.  I turned to Secret Weapon Miniature's dark green leaf litter, a blend of various dried herbs and whatnots that smells rather lovely.  I've previously used dried, crushed bay leafs for autumn leafs on a Halloween diorama, so I had little hesitation about using this product.

I used my Saurus Calvary and albino Saurus Lord to test out the product, and I'm very satisfied with the results.  I didn't go overboard with applying the leaf litter, as I wanted a more subtle effect:

Since this worked out so well, I'll eventually go through and apply the leaf litter to the rest of the army, and there should be plenty in the bag to get the job done. If you really wanted to do-it-yourself, you could concoct your own blend herbs and tea leaves, but for the price and convenience, Secret Weapon's is the better option.  If you're interested in trying this stuff out, check out Secret Weapon's how-to video for the product.

Slann & Temple Guard Family Portrait

If you're gonna put down a unit that costs 700+ points, you want it to look good.  I'm fully anticipating that in the next game I play with these guys, freshly-painted-model-syndrome will kick in and they will die a horrible, agonizing death.

And now more Temple Guard

See, hockey playoffs end and I get back to painting minis.  I normally love combining two of my favorite pastimes by painting minis and watching sports simultaneously (usually a third pastime, drinking beer, gets involved) but NHL playoffs are too intense and there would be an extreme risk of me knocking paints and figures everywhere when something exciting happens like Kopitar or Carter score gaming winning overtime goals in the first two games of the Stanley Cup finals.

Moving on... I finished off the last eight models so all that's left to do is base the entire regiment and then go through everyone for touch-ups.  Once that's done it'll be time for glamor shots with the hypno-toad.

Albino Saurus Hero Finished

Managed to sit down an wrap up this model over the weekend:

The only thing interesting about the final steps on this guy was that I played around with Lahmian Medium to make a few glazes and washes.  It pretty much works as advertised so I won't pontificate on it.  This stuff would have been nice to have when I did the washes on the skin since my usual soap + water + paint technique didn't give me the results it normally does.  If you look closely enough you can spot the areas around the lower legs and feet that didn't turn out that great and which I was too lazy to re-paint. Despite that, I'm happy with the figure.

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.

A Note on Painting Wooden Weapon Shafts

I've always been a bit beguiled when it comes to painting weapon shafts - you know, spears, flails, etc.  It's easy to do a simple highlight but with that large amount of blank, cylindrical space, I always felt that a wood grain texture gives the model more life.  The problem I've had is finding a way to paint such for a 20+ figure unit in way that looks good and is efficient - the latter of which is always a constant struggle for me.  I've tried something before with my Saurus Calvary, but it was too tedious and I wasn't terribly excited about the results. 

I had one of those lovely Eureka moments while reading a recent post on Dave Taylor's blog - who is a much more prolific painter and blogger than I.  There's a nice close up one of Dave's Empire Flagellants, who's wielding a flail with a dinged up wooden shaft.  With that close up, I was able to break down Dave's technique and realize that this is the solution I'd been looking for.

After making some crude post-it diagrams breaking down the necessary steps (my best thinking is usually transcribed on these yellow squares), I grabbed a few Temple Guard and went to work:

Where the *bleep* did one inch warriors go?

What MacArthur said about old soldiers is also true about blogs -  they don't die, they just slowly fade away.  For a while I was content to let one inch warriors fade away into the depths of the blog rolls, never to see site traffic again... although apparently I've still been getting tons of hits from bizarre Google searches, but that's probably a result of the images I've poached to spice up my posts.  Alas, having spent months away from blogging, painting and gaming altogether has renewed my spirits and instilled a new, yet slightly tempered yearning for hobby action.  I also have a bunch of half-finished posts that if left uncompleted would make me feel criminal for the deprivation inflicted upon my (hopefully) loyal readers.

Right before my on-again-off-again hobby odyssey was put on a self-inflicted temporary hiatus, I had agreed to help best-warhammer-buddy Justin work on his then new and shinny Dreadfleet box.  Unfortunately that didn't get too far due to a multiple fatality car accident that kept him stuck in traffic on the freeway for most of the day that we were planning on using to assemble and paint the games pieces.  With the little time we had, we got things built (those boats were challenge) and primed... and then decided to go drink beer with our old college buddies!  I did manage to get one ship painted a few days later:

Need a seafaring vessel - why not Zoidberg?

Saurus Unit Filler WIP & Other Odds and Ends

I like to be frugal, whether I'm shopping for groceries, pet supplies or hobby goodies.  This is why unit fillers in WFB appeals to me.  My two Saurus units presently have 20 models each, but I want to expand the units up to 24.  Inexpensive solution, take the 8 unpainted models I have and turn them into unit fillers.  After sketching out some crude diagrams on post-it notes, I've assembled the first one.

2011 Golden Skulls Painting Challenge

This weekend the L.A. Battle Bunker held a "Hobby-Pocalypse" - a non-stop 33 hour event filled with painting competitions, mega-battles and mini-tournaments.  The festivities included their 2nd annual Gold Skulls Painting Challenge, the store's own version of the Golden Deamon.

Last year my Slann won 1st place for Fantasy Large Model and my Saurus hero won 3rd place for single fantasy figure.  This year I entered my Stegadon in the Vehicle/Monster category.  This year's competition was much tougher.  I took 3rd place after thinking I wouldn't even make the first cut.  Apparently, their was some heated debate about this particular category amongst the staff judging the event!

The staff put on a great event and it was fun to talk shop with all the great miniature painters.  You can check more coverage of the weekend at the store's facebook page.  I managed to get a few clear shots of some of the awesome models:

A Quick and Dirty Finecast Review

Prior to our last big game of Warhammer Fantasy, my friend Justin picked up a Citadel Finecast Rock Lobba to add to his goblin army.  He just bought it the night before and he needed to assemble it before we headed down to the Battle Bunker to, um, do battle.  I haven't bought a Finecast model myself so I was interested to check out the assembly process.

Assembly

Salamanders and Stuff

... the kind that spit fire, for Lizardmen, not the green-armored space-dudes.  I had to explain this to several GW staffers when I was trying to find these models.  No, I'm not looking for Forge World Rhino doors, dammit.  Anyways...

These were a fairly straightforward paint job.  The tough part was that there is not much space between the Salamanders' underside and the base, making it difficult to get a brush in there to paint the undercarriage.  I'll base them up later when I paint the Skink handlers.

Stegadon Finished

15mm Warriors - Scaling Back to Paint Flames of War Miniatures

Recently Flames of War has pried my interest away from my Lizardmen army after I picked up some Operation Market Garden intelligence briefings - my favorite WWII battle.  Before I jumped into my next FoW endeavor I'll share with you my experience during my first go around with 15mm mini's.  In 2008 I was given a British Para company for FoW. They don't see much action, much similar to the real 1st Airborne Division, aka the Stillborn Division (that's not a sick joke - read A Bridge Too Far).  Prior to getting my hands on the paras I had never painted anything besides 20-30mm figures.   Despite the rather straightforward painting guide in the D-1 book* and the solid advice of Art of War Vol. 1, painting 60+ of the buggers looked daunting. Particularly, I was concerned how difficult it would be to get effective shading and highlighting at this scale.

I painted these one platoon at time, ending up with 3 platoons, extra PIAT teams, company HQ, snipers and a blister pack's worth of machine gunners. With each platoon I modified my technique slightly, until I did the final platoon and though "dammit, why didn't I do this the whole time." Here's how I developed my  technique as I moved through the company.  Note that I used Vallejo paints for the entire company, with the exception of the bases.  If you haven't tried Vallejo, I'd highly recommend them particularly if you're setting out to paint WWII mini's as the colors are close to being 100% historically accurate.  The little eye dropper bottle are fun too.  Sorry for the poor quality pictures, they where taken before I built a light box.

What to get the hobbyist who has everything?

I was struck with this dilemma this Christmas season when trying to figure out something hobby related to give to my best Warhammer buddy for Christmas.  Whilst wandering my local Home Depot searching for furniture pads and poinsettias I was struck by holiday inspiration.  I saw a set of six battery powered tea light candles and I remembered the Santa Cruz Warhammer article about making wrecked vehicle markers with them!  If I can't purchase something for the gamer who has everything, then I can make something!

Knight of Bal Timorea Finished!

Well, things haven't been all that productive around here at One Inch Warriors with the holidays, work and a road trip to the Grand Canyon.  However, I managed to sit down and finish off my knight:

Knight of Bal Timorea WIP & a Call to Arms!

Here's a quick shot of my knight thus far:

Not terribly excited about how the is red turning out, I think it needed another shade in there between the base coat and the Blood Red.  We'll see how it looks when the whole thing comes together.

On a related note, the deadline for Bal Timorea participants to complete their knights for submission has been extended to January 1 (see John's announcement on Santa Cruz WH).  This means that if you've been thinking of participating in the project but were pressed for time, you now have more - so get off yer ass and paint a knight!  If you don't have a knight to spare, I'm sure you can scrounge one up on the cheap.  I got mine of eBay for a reasonable fee.