Topic: Sy's Mini Painting Journal

[sirean_syan]

Yeah, this discount isn't even really worth it. I'm just looking at it as more of a goal setting thing with a small cherry on top.

I do have a simple solution to your problem though.... it involves a room slightly dedicated to such things.

[Quemaqua]

And what room would that be?  The magical one that exists inside my head?

[sirean_syan]

It already exist. You've already painted in it.

[Quemaqua]

You mean *yours*?  That's a magical room, too, but that involves me having to go to your place.  I need someplace here.  I'm always away from Julia all day as it is, she likes it when I stay home and hang out with her.  Of course, it is now feasible to take her with me since we'll likely be painting together, I just have to be careful not to let her overdo it.  But with her painting, maybe we'll be able to set something up here soon...

[Pugnate]

They should really just stop letting me into the game store. I have enough to work one.

You can guess the new guy. The other's are there just for size comparison.

Where do you guys find the time for this?

But that's pretty awesome. I love the one in the center with the silver look... pretty sweet.

[sirean_syan]

The silver look is just because he hasn't been painted yet. The figure it made of metal, so that's where the color comes from. Now he's all black like the guy on his right because he has a coat of primer on him.

As for time... I haven't played very many games in the past few months. You can blame a lot of that on this.

[Pugnate]

OK now I feel fucking stupid. 

But the acrylic gel was a nice touch. It can't all be tension free though... one mistake's your last?

[sirean_syan]

Sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel stupid. We get plenty of figures that just stay in their natural metal state for random things (lots of those freebies that come with games, for example), so it's understandable. A lot of the guys I do are just plastic models, so we get a lot of mixed media going.

The acrylic gel is actually really forgiving, believe it or not. It dries really slow and shrinks a lot while it dries while managing to stay firmly connected to surfaces it's touching. So, I kinda just glob it on and walk away for a couple hours. The hardest part is actually getting free drips to stick around and the trick is to exaggerate the drip while you're working with it. Even then, since I'm applying it to models that already have a varnish on them, the dried stuff peels away without much trouble so I can always restart the effect if I didn't like how it turned out.

[sirean_syan]

Gentlemen. Behold!



Actually, I really suggest looking at the detail. The above shot it more of a preview.

So yeah, colors and my "rules" are pretty much down. Personally, I don't think I've ever seen a cooler scheme for Nids (and believe me, I've looked at a lot).

Now it's Beo's turn. I believe he mentioned a Land Speeder?

[Quemaqua]

Dude.  Freaking.  Awesome.  That's all I can say.  I've liked your color scheme from the start, but it's matured so much since the beginning.  These guys look absolutely amazing.  I can't wait to see them in person, because they looked freaking amazing last time I saw them.  The drool in particular is excellent.  I'll be posting my 2nd sister test up shortly as well... you inspired me.

[Pugnate]

Very nice. No wonder you stopped posting on the gaming forum.

[beo]

sweet! really awesome - well done, sir. damn it, my land speeders aren't even assembled. going to have to get them done now though...

[sirean_syan]

So, I've dabbled a little in terrain building now and this is my first piece*.



I can't take credit for the whole thing. The tower was created by some architecture student who left it at my work and it was just sitting in the office to be claimed or destroyed it. I claimed it and put the guy to use.

Terrain is pretty fun so far. You can do decent looking things without actually putting a whole lot of effort or being very neat once you get the hang of things, which makes it a nice project to work on in between some characters.

*This isn't actually my first piece, but the first that I've been willing to not destory. I tried my hand at a couple hills and stuff, but I totally ruined them or used the wrong kind of foam so they looked like total crap. Those pieces are now enjoying their new homes in the trash.

[Quemaqua]

Dude, that looks awesome!

[sirean_syan]

This is just sorta silly, but I wanted to share.

I was cleaning up a group of models, setting up another set, and being pretty anal while doing everything. The end result just looked cool.

[sirean_syan]

More terrain maddnes, although this is just a work in progress. I spent the day experimenting a little and think I have a process on making trees now. Right now they're just wires covered in plaster, but once that dries I'll prime them up like normal models, get them all painted, then add some flock. Should be pretty cool.

[Pugnate]

Some of this stuff is really awesome. Good stuff Sirean.

[sirean_syan]

Well, I've got my first test done... I'm pleased and I'm not.



I'm pleased because I think I like the scheme, I managed to freehand the Guardian logo on the head, and the eyes turned out pretty well. I'm not pleased because I think I did a sloppy paint job and my highlighting it pretty blah. I need to work on getting thinner highlighting lines. Also, my paint looks chunky because I wasn't thinning out the paints quite as much as I usual... it just adds to the general messiness. So, I've got a ways to go before I can really go into painting a lot of Eldar. I've got big plans, but I don't think I've quite up to snuff to get what I want to get just yet.

Also, you might have noticed I changed the Craftworld name. Supposedly Jainofell comes out to something along the lines of "Storm Strider" according to rough fan dictionarys of the Eldar language. That fits more with my Craftworld theme as they seem themselves as riding out a rough spot in their history. More importantly, it sounds a little cooler.

[Quemaqua]

Don't know what you're smoking.  Looks great!  You've been kind of working on a different style of stuff anyway, so I imagine you'll get the hang of armor and crap once you do it a bit more.  Yours still looks better than mine by a long shot, so... shut up.  The gem on his chestplate is aces, too.  I never have any luck with that.

[sirean_syan]

I think I know my problem. I just put way too much paint on the brush. Areas where I didn't worked out to my liking. I imagine if I take more time next time around things should be rocking.

What do you think of the actual scheme though? The real purpose of this guy was to see how it all works together and I'm very open to suggestions at this point. I'm kinda thinking of making to softer armor on the body (the lighter blue stuff) a slightly darker blue, but I really don't want to make things too dark.

[Quemaqua]

I don't know that you'd be remiss in going a little darker, as long as it wasn't too dark.  I think the scheme overall looks tops.  The helmet and stuff looks really sumptuous.  That's a great color.

[beo]

awesome! i wouldn't change the blue - i think it looks great the way it is. the highlighting is far more than adequate for a regular trooper, i really wouldn't stress about putting any more detail in.

[sirean_syan]

Thanks. I've been waiting for you to show up because I figured at least one more person would give me some sort of feedback.

Do you still have those images for your old Eldar guys, Beo? I was just curious about the scheme you used.

[beo]

i do somewhere - i'm posting from my parents though, (since my router died a few weeks ago), so not here. the colour scheme was ulthwe, but old style colours with yellow instead of bone helmets, and i'd highlighted the black sections with turquoise to look as what i saw to be more eldrich.

[sirean_syan]

For some reason I thought you had a Biel-Tanish scheme. I'd be interesting in seeing them again if you ever get the chance.

[sirean_syan]

Well, I'm pleased to announce that I've started building a guy in honor of the meeting next week. I won't say much, but I will say that he's got claws as big as my normal troops and he'll be loaded with spikes. We'll see if I can actually get him built in time though; he's going to take a bit of greenstuff to become presentable and that slows me down with the drying time and all.

[Quemaqua]

Ooo....

[sirean_syan]

And it's built (mostly). It doesn't have arms right now because I'm going to put those on after most of the painting is done, but you can see what the general shape of the guy is going to be.

[sirean_syan]

Tonight I finished my first brood of Hormagaunts. These were the guys I used as tests for my color scheme, but I've never had one done in what I consider to be the final method, much less a group of them. This is cool because they're probably my favorite part of a Tyranid army, visually. Yeah, giant guys area awesome, but swarms of these guys are really what sold me and I sorta designed the color scheme around swarms of these guys looking interesting with the bright claws and white stripe along the back. So far, I think it's really working out.

[beo]

looking damn sexy!

[sirean_syan]

I decided to finish up a couple of terrain projects I had around tonight. Just a mini-hill and those trees. Next time I'm going to have to make the trees a little shorter, but they look cool. Special thanks to Stumpy for modeling for me.... he's angry at numbers.

[Quemaqua]

Damn.  Those look fucking good.

[beo]

yeah, they're looking excellent!

i really should make some headway on my gaming table. at the moment it's just painted black, and i have no scenery.

[sirean_syan]

Trees rock!

[Quemaqua]

Man, that's seriously awesome.  Those look amazing!

[sirean_syan]

This weekend Que and I managed to do some painting together and this was the result from my side of things.



We've sorta deciding on making a small joint Marine army so we can get playing with pretty armies sooner. Marines are easier to paint to a level that we both like and it really doesn't take a whole lot of guys to get a usable forcing going. With various starter sets we've got a good head start and it's hard to deny the Space Marines charms, so working on them for a bit is an easy choice. We'll be continuing the worn red scheme from the Marines Que did with one of the starter sets and I tried to be consistent with that while making small improvements since we've both improved since then.

[Quemaqua]

His looks remarkably similar to mine.  Almost identical, even, just with some minor improvements here and there because he's better at this than I am.  His helmet especially looks way better than mine.  But yeah, it's going to be a fun project.  I think I'm actually almost more excited about building an army together than building my own.  I'm not sure why.  I guess just because this is such a group thing for me.

[sirean_syan]

I just wanted to share a little since I like how these guys are turning out. For now, they get to reside here but I do intend on making a Goblin/Orc army and I'm debating if I want to start a new thread.... maybe I should just consolidate my current ones. Anywho...



It's still a work in progress, but all the major colors are there and all that's left some of the details details. These guys are a lot of fun to paint and they're just so cute.  They're like angry migets; they're really pissed off, but they're so little you can help but give a little "awww."

Edit: Merged the topics. Everything is here now.

[beo]

nice! i love goblins, they're really fun models. i had a fantasy greenskins army, and while they look cool with all their mentalist units, they didn't win me a single battle! very unpredictable - and goblins outright suck on the battlefield.

the marine looks good too. have you guys come up with a chapter name / heraldry yet?

[Quemaqua]

Heh, we've been debating this quite a bit.  I think we've officially decided that the chapter has descended from the Salamanders, but while we're getting close to a name, we just haven't quite found the sweet spot.