Blog It puts the paint on its skin, or else it gets the hose again

This is going to get long I think so bear with me – (or skip to the pics that’s what I do a lot of the time).

So, I normally have a really hard time getting paint on miniatures. I know I know that’s the case for a lot of people and I’m not trying to say that it’s more so for me at all but regardless – the struggle is real. When I played back in 5th edition I split a couple of starter sets with my friends; I got the Bret’s and they got the Lizards. My knights rode magnificent grey horses and they wore the finest grey tabards to match their grey metal armor and weapons they kept for the entirety of their career as table-top minis. The first thing I did paint was a unit of 20 bowmen, but I didn’t paint them very well and I hated the colors I had picked. A friend of mine told me he heard that Pine-Sol took the paint off so before I went to bed that night I tossed them all in the same mason jar of pine sol and went to sleep. The next morning I had what amounted to some bowmen that looked more like Freddy Kruger or maybe that guy that gets melted by toxic waste at the end of Robo-Cop. Between that and my purple/gold “Green Knight” that got heckled constantly I decided the painting/modeling part of the game that wasn’t for me. In fact I became pretty adamant against doing it for a while. Games Workshop was running a total racket. What kind of company sells an unfinished product for so ridiculously much money? They wanted to charge premium prices and then expect the customer to finish the assembly process! Needless to say I didn’t appreciate the hobby aspect of Warhammer at all (mostly because I was terrible at it).

Some things have changed. I do really appreciate the hobby aspect of the game now; it’s just that I’m still terrible at it. When I first got back into Warhammer again (and I mentioned this a tish in my introduction thread but I’ll reiterate it again here) 8th edition was on its way out but we didn’t know the next game up was going to be Age of Sigmar. Everyone was guessing what 9th was going to be like and well…the popular rumor was that Lizardmen were going to get the ax. So in my area there were a ton of Lizard’s being sold off here (really on eBay the prices dipped as well) and I started picking them up for pretty cheap. At the time I figured either a) GW wasn’t really getting rid of lizards or b) that I could still play 8th edition with the guys at the shop anyways (a lot of people were pretty vocal about just playing 8th even before we knew any details about the new edition coming out). That started early last summer I think. Since then I’ve continued to pick up random Lizards here and there. Really the only thing I don’t have represented at all in my collection right now is anything on a Carnasaur and Ripperdactyls; oh and I guess a few little things – the snake prophet guy and the damned Astrolith bearer (that’s turning into something that’s frustratingly hard for me to find – I’ll get to that later at some-point). So my Lizard army really isn’t in bad shape and everything I’ve purchased has been well, most of the time well below 50% of retail, sometimes 50%. The only thing I’ve paid full price for was two Bastiladon’s and one old-blood on foot. I think I’ve been doing pretty well in that department.

Painting is a whole different story. Like I said before I picked up my first (first-again) Lizards about the first of last summer and since then I’ve painted exactly 30 old-style saurus warriors with hand-weapons+shield; and honestly I hate what I did to their shields so I’m about to pop them all off and throw them in some simple green and try again at an undisclosed time in the future (I was told Simple Green wont melt my plastic like the Pine-Sol did). Now part of my lack of painting also had to do with my lack of playing. I live about an hour away from anyone that plays and well, I’m a full time student and a part time care-giver for my grandmother; also this semester I have an internship at a local counseling/treatment facility. Being able to schedule a game is really up in the air – I have a hard time committing to a time to-play and I’m not going to set up a game and then bail out. That being said any chance I’ve gotten to go watch games - I’ve done that. Anyways, the point is though I still have a heck of a time getting paint on my miniatures. I spend a lot of time looking up paint schemes and trying to find easy tutorials (if I do keep up with this plog it’s going to be pretty obvious I’m pretty lazy as far as doing things the proper way), looking for cheap mini’s or things I can convert or use as good looking proxies. It’s just the actual sitting down and painting that really …eludes me. Which the fact that I can’t make the painting happen is sortov frustrating to me sometimes because now I DO really appreciate the hobby part of the game despite the fact that I’m not good at it. When I walk through the mini’s section of one of our LGS I’m constantly going over what I could clip off or recast off the different thing’s to use as bit’s to kit-bash something, or mulling over what I could make out of green-stuff to make something new, or even just snapping pictures of things because I might use the color’s at some point. I really love the IDEA of doing all these things. I just never finish anything.

I have to tell you guys that I’ve hung out here a lot since I started picking up my Lizards. This place is a wealth of information; crunch, fluff, aesthetics, numbers – it’s all here. This place is greatness and I hope you guys appreciate what you have here. This is the Shangri-La of all things Lizard and Warhammer and well…community. There are lots of websites that cater to some narrow niche or demographic of users that call themselves a community that have no idea what that word implies. This place really has the feel of old friends getting together to socialize – to talk about something you guys are all commonly interested in; it’s warm, it’s approachable and it’s a precious thing to have on the internet now-a-days. I like you guys. You guys don’t know me, and you don’t have to like me (I hope that eventually you do on both counts) The thing is though, I like you guys. I’ve been here enough, I’ve read enough thread’s and seen enough interaction here that I know like you guys and well, that’s part of the reason why I think this plog is going to help me get out of this “finishing things” rut (related to Warhammer). So I agreed to do this plog. I fully intended to do this plog before it was mentioned when I introduced myself to the community. I just think maybe if I can take this part of it seriously enough, it’ll make me more accountable to getting things done. Don’t get me wrong I don’t expect anyone here to be the painting police (please don’t) but generally I know me – and I know that if I put myself out there that it’ll motivate me to do better – I shouldn’t say better because I’m not that great of a painter – but at least more consistent with production.

So, when I made my introduction it was suggested that I get all my stuff out at once so everyone had a good idea what I was starting with. At first I thought that was a perfect idea (and I still do in theory), but then I started thinking about well…my intricate filing system…and how things are stuffed in other things and in various stages of paint on or off the sprue…well, I’m probably not doing that. Inventorying everything at once would be really really useful. There are things I’m not sure about (how many actual blowpipes I have, or how many actual spear wielding saurus I have). It’s just that pulling all that stuff and going through it now would also probably be enough of a chore that it might kill my motivation to do the actual painting part again and that’s really what I’m going to try to do here is get things done painting wise. So how I intend to start this thing is well...paint what I’ll use the most and I’ll drag out those minis and anything related t that part of my army at that given time. For example I don’t have a finished Slann.

When I got my first load of used Lizzies a buddy of mine sold me a fully painted/based old-style Slann (I’m kinda weird about playing with someone else’s painted mini – it just never felt like mine).



Now, I really do like my friends paint job. I like the color choices and he made a neat home-made base for the thing to sit on with lots of little battle-worn shields and weapons of the Slann's defeated foes. Also and I'll go ahead and mention this here I love the new models, but I also love the old models for different reasons. I'll go ahead and admit I'll play with something because of the nostalgia involved. If I had one of the really old Slann Mage's with the human palanquin bearers I'd rock that thing in my army in a heartbeat. I think the new models look totally killer, but I'm also a fan of the old stuff. The only thing is (besides the part about using someone else's painted mini) that you can tell it's an old paint-job. The color's aren't bright anymore. You can tell that it was painted back when 5th edition was the cool new thing. So before I play with this one, I'd at least want to touch it up, but I imagine it's been finished and I dont want to strip it. I know I'm not supposed to paint over old paint but that might happen. I don't know how to approach it yet so I'm going to put it away for now and try to start more or less from the beginning with a different one.

Within about a day of getting my friends Lizardmen (and his Slann) I was able to pick up another old-style Slann that was NIB along with a lot of used Lizardmen from our LGS (at the time I wanted some sort of red paint scheme...thus by the time I took these pic's it had already been primed and semi-base-coat-ed).

.

When I finally started painting I still decided that I wanted to go with red although I felt the need to add some orangey-yellowness to it. Even though they’re technically daemons in AoS I didn’t want it to end up looking like a big fat Bloodletter. What I ended up with was something very similar in colors to what my friend had already done…which I’m not unhappy with. If I figure out how to touch up the other one without ruining it then at least they’ll match more or less.

.

Sooo, I had forgotten how long this actually takes to do. I think my little fatty here is at a stopping point right now. I have a little less than two weeks to get at least a solid framework of a 100 wound AoS army painted for play so I'm not going to go all out (not that me going "all out" would be any better than this probably) and spend too much time on anything, but I'm happy with the frog part at least. Later today at some-point I'll have to decide on a color for the palanquin and whether or not I want to do the stegadon-chair-back thing in actual bone colors or maybe stone or even Jade if I think I can do it...who knows? It's hard for me to use painting guides sometimes because I generally only use craft paint and the colors are hard for me to match. When i sit down to paint having a plan to do something generally goes out the window pretty quickly.

Oh yeah, before I forget...I am totally open to criticism or idea's or opinions or whatever. That being said I might not actually DO everything anyone suggests, but I love to hear new ideas. Like I said before I know this place is a wealth of information and I know there's a ton I don't know, you know?

 

double post - I talk too much.

 

• Thanks for your kind words - and it is the community that keeps me coming back, too.

Most of my acquisitions were second hand, and I have just painted over the top without stripping. Scalenex would probably pay money for your zombie bowmen, though. I run my paint too thick, so many models look a bit blobby anyway, going over another coat isn't going to make things that much worse. I figure off the are good enough to look at at tabletop distance, that will do.

I am not a fast painter, but a few things have helped me do batches faster and given my boys a more consistent look

Disclaimer - I am telling my secrets to you because I am not a master painter. You can get all sorts of master craft advice on the net, but where do you come for lazy?

A comment about color choice. I'm running a very boring dark blue with light scales / light blue with dark scales for my rank and file, gold trim and red as my contrast colour. If you go with a complementary main palette and a shared spot colour across the range of units they look like they were meant to run together. The red might only be a dot for a gem but it is on most models. Gems, a feather, red shields with black wash, black shield with red wash. Slann and monsters get different skin color but keep the red and gold trim.

Now for lazy / efficient:

• Base coat in a can. My choice was for black obsidian weapons, with black handles and gold trim. KSHHHHHHH. That's the weapons painted, now I can do the rest of the model. If my skin colour leaks over onto the weopons, I touch it up with black. Add gold points / trim last.
• Still talking gold? Metalic paints take a few layers to cover the black base coat. So do an intermediate coat of tan / yellow and one layer of gold. Done.
• Let the models texture work for you. Splat skin tone all over, the come back with a not-quite-drybrush to colour the scales and spines.
• Let the texture do more work - use washes. For example - Those shields you hate - paint the scales in a bright primary colour, then heavily dilute some black or (the horror) buy a proper wash and slop that over it so that it pools in the gaps. Leave to dry under your work lamp.
• Fine detail - eyes, teeth, claws and gold trim. I would do everything except the gold BEFORE the washing the head and body. Usually wash with a darker blue (for light blue) or black for dark blue. Home diuted washes run into the recesses more, and citadel washes tend to colour the raised areas more than homemade.
• Gold trim as discussed above. Gold quite likes a sepia wash to raise the texture, but it is ok without.
• Highlights. I aint got time for no highlights.
• Basing. - I leave them black on the edges. no other colour makes much sense to me, and that let me stay with black magnetised movement trays. Super lazy basing is to daub them with glue then press decomposed foam flock onto them (moss?) or sand. My custom scenery has the same mossy flock on the bases.

Below is the only convenient old image of my dudes I could find (From Razordon Happiness). And I can see so many little blemishes, it hurts my eyes. But when my army is on the table they all have similar (simple) bases - or the more complex ones have at least some of the same moss, and similar colours which tie them all together.



Check out the shield - I never got around to painting the feather <face palm> but the scales would be Vallejo Rioja (red) with a dilute black wash. Saurus sheilds have more trim to hit with gold.

 

That was s great read. I'm quite new to the forums here myself and agree, it's a great community. So very motivational. I really hope that it all falls in place for you this time and you get an army you can be proud of as well as play with.

Your work on the Slann is great, don't be too hard on yourself. You've got a nice tone and a good blend from front to back. The colour scheme is just as valid for Seraphon as it is for Khorne so no stress there.

I'm also. Lazy painter, I do my best to make things look cool, but I so often just put on base, layer and wash. It works, and it's achievable. Just do what is good for you.

Catch you around, looking forward to seeing more painting progress from you.

 

Having confessed all of that, I havent painted for a long time - the closest I got recently was not finishing a mod in time for the Skinkapaloosa painting comp 2 years ago. I've learnt a lot on this forum since then and I would do a better (but not faster job) now.

 

Thanks for the tips for sure. I will probably do something a lot like what you're doing there with your skinks when I finally get to painting mine. I want to do a Southlands style army in 8th w/ all skinks – some cohorts and krox and Tetto' - eventually and I have a ton of skinks to paint. I want them to look solid but I don’t plan on taking forever doing them (well…more forever than I normally take to do this stuff). Although the shields I was talking about are the old old saurus shields, the little round ones. I did ok on a batch of those old saurus's but the shields I just pretty much slathered in an off color gold paint and well, I just think the shields could look better is all. Usually when I get ready to paint something I'll hit the internet and try and find lots of different examples of what I'm doing but man, getting good pic's of some of these older models is tough sometimes and I just kind of winged it with the shields.



But I’ll get to them eventually. I actually found a lot of those old shields in a bit’s bin the other day and I got about 25-30 of them for 2 bucks. So I’ll pop those gold one’s off and throw them into my vat of Simple Green and just paint up these new one’s at some-point after I finish this Slann.



I had to do a top down pic because the stegadon horn's looked all crazy in the front view ones. Really they don't look bad when you're looking at it from 3ft away. Which I mean, a friend of mine always tells me my models only have to look good from about 3ft away because that's about as close as most people get to them when you're actually playing.

Actually – I think I could just put it on a flying base now and it’d be done. They don’t really use the Temple Guard to carry them around anymore it’s just I hate leaving them off honestly. I mean, those four Temple Guard were spawned pretty much to just carry this guy around. So most likely I’ll go ahead and just put the model together like it’s supposed to be. Maybe at some-point I'll mod em all up with shields since they don't get their attacks anymore.

 

Yay! Saurus with trash can lids!
They actually look good on film, but they are quite industrial compared to the rest of the model. How did @ZaGreekie paint his? I'll need to do some research

 

It's the sort of research that makes you give up painting for good, but

http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/greek-themed-lizardmen-dual-carno-gen-and-bsb-update.10481/

Some "simple" metallic shields are on post #1. You could fill the recesses of yours with army theme colour then black wash them. You might be able to use a a green wash to add verdigris to the exposed metal - I'm not sure because I haven't tried any metal effects other than gold. If I was doing it, I would probaly weather the metal with a sepia wash and then give up.

 

Ha, I know what you mean about giving up on painting when you see stuff like this. Oohhh yea, I've went back and looked at these Greek one's a lot before. I always loved the lion shields and the robed Krox.

As far as my shields go, I thought about doing them in metal again because well, I've gotten a little bit better at metal since I started but I wonder if I'm missing an opportunity to add color to the army that I should take. Whatever I end up doing I'm definitely not doing all 30 at once until I'm sure I like it.

 

Hmm, you might be onto something. Maybe it is time again to try and put my work-space in a little big more order.



I just get so distracted when I go through my models and I find stuff I forgot I had that I know I'll want later. Or I cant make up my mind what paint I want to use or whatever. Honestly about every week or two it really is clean, it just doesn't take very long for it to get this way.

 

I know this feeling!

 

Finally got this thing done enough. I'll figure out a proper base for it later. I think I have some actual resin temple themed bases stashed somewhere in a box I got with some other mini's, I just have to find em. Well, and I'm not sure if I actually have a 50x50 one for this guy, but if I do that's what he'll go on eventually. Until then I'm not moving him for awhile. Glue-ing the palanquin bearers handle things, and arms and stuff together was what nightmares are made of. As much as I like these old models sometimes I sure am glad they improved on how well the pieces actually fit together on the newer ones.



Now that it's done though I am glad I decided to not just throw it on a flying base. I think this old guy would have looked a little out of place without his posse to carry him around. The shields turned out ok too. I was going to do Temple Guard next, but I think I want to do something a little easier and probably more forgiving painting wise, so tomorrow I'm going to dig out all my skinks and see what I have. I'll have some decisions to make eventually, just because I've had the opportunity more lately to play AoS and skinks in AoS can have a shield and a blowpipe which I think is probably the best way to run them it's just well...I want to use them for 8th too and blowpipe + shield isnt an option in 8th if I remember correctly. I can maybe just put shields on their backs or something like that. I'll have to sleep on it.

 

People on this form need to stop reading my mind Im thought the same thing when I got that model but I was going to try and use the temple guard shields at if I can figure out how to reverse the arms and look bad...I might just do it for one side... great work BTWs

 

Thanks! I was gonna try and use the temple guard shields too but the arms threw me off. I'll still probably go through my bits when I get more of the actual army done and find some leftovers that I can glue to the outside of the shields and make them more ornate - like the temple guard shields. If I remember right the saurus cavalry come with a bunch of different decor stuff. I think the Temple Guard come with some stuff like that too. I'll just have to see if I can make any of it work.

Yeah, I'm going to have to do something like that I think at least for skinks and TG. I'd like to get 30 TG done and maybe 40 skinks done asap. I still have a lot of odd's and ends to get together before our league starts but if I can get at least the stuff done I'm going to be using regularly I dont mind fielding some primed models for a little while. I mean, it's not even really a big deal where I play if your stuff's not painted. I think if I got even half my army fully painted it would be more than half the other players we play with. Grey plastic and black primer is a pretty popular color scheme sometimes.

 

Your works space looks not entirely unfamiliar.

 

I guess I have to see it as something positive, that I have to pack my stuff after every painting or green stuff session...
Thanks to my wife for complaining about a blocked dinner table!