Blog Gau'roth - Cult of Tzunki

[Gaur'oth]

About a year ago I made an account and made an introduction post, then proceeded to fall off the face of the earth... well I'm back now!

About a week ago I bought a decently sized army someone was selling on eBay. After thinking about what I wanted to do with them I decided to start a Tzunki themed army since I haven't seen much love for the Old One of Water and his aquatic saurus.

Some are primed already, some are still bare plastic, but they're all assembled and based. The only exception being Lord Kroak who is still new in the box. I hope to have the entire army painted up in this green/blue color scheme, the army being:

Old Blood on Carnosaur x 1
The Venerable Lord Kroak x 1
The Star Blood Stalkers x 1
Bastiladon with Solar Engine x 1
Saurus Knights x 8
Saurus Guards x 15
Saurus Warriors x 8
Chameleon Skinks x 10
Salamander Hunting Pack x 1
Skinks x 36

I do plan on adding to the army as I go, but I want to see if I can make it work with these guys before buying more lizards.

Now, I've never painted anything at all before this army, so any advice and criticism is welcomed! I have one saurus mostly done so you can see what I'm going for before diving into the whole army!

 

[JTSleep]

Welcome back then.

Looking forward to see your work. As for advice for someome who never painted before, don't beat yourself if your minis don't look perfect. First ones never do. I see you are doing them on round bases, so probably for AOS, I would suggest to take spares (like those 6 skinks and 3 knights) and use them to try things out. You have colors figured out, but sometimes it might be helpful to try which surfaces to paint first, so you mess less later and also if it would be better to paint in subassemblies (for example: knight separate from mount and without shield).

 

[Lizards of Renown]

Great to have you back with us! Looking forwards to seeing more of your work!

 

[Gaur'oth]

Welcome back then.

Thank you! And yeah, my hobby shop mostly plays AOS and Warcry so it was easy to choose the bases haha. I got halfway through two skinks when I realized it'd have been easy to maybe paint some parts before complete assembly... but ya got to learn somehow right?

Great to have you back with us! Looking forwards to seeing more of your work!

Thanks! I'll try to update this blog every few days to show my progress on the army!

 

[BurningBee]

Hmmm, advice... What colors do you use? Army painter, citadel, vallejo .... Different colors behave different. I personally stick to one manufacturer in the hope the products are coordinated for each other. But sometimes this leads to the use of some bad products. In my case jungle green from army painter

 

[JTSleep]

Hmmm, advice... What colors do you use? Army painter, citadel, vallejo .... Different colors behave different. I personally stick to one manufacturer in the hope the products are coordinated for each other. But sometimes this leads to the use of some bad products. In my case jungle green from army painter

For normal painting I use Vallejo model colors and I am satisfied for couple of years now (more than 80 bottles).

For seraphon specifically, I decided to give AP speedpaints a go. I use only speedpaints and 2 vallejo colors (pale sand for corrections as base for more speedpaints and silver for metal bits to be covered by speedpaints) as my personal challenge. Take a look at my painting blog here at Lustria.

 

[Imrahil]

Welcome back to the jungle!

Decent armysize to start with. The colorscheme is a nice one.
Are you working with the contrast paints or the regular base, layer, highlight and shades?

Grrr, Imrahil

 

[Gaur'oth]

Hmmm, advice... What colors do you use? Army painter, citadel, vallejo ....

Welcome back to the jungle!

Decent armysize to start with. The colorscheme is a nice one.
Are you working with the contrast paints or the regular base, layer, highlight and shades?

Grrr, Imrahil

I'm using Testors Enamel paints at the moment, my wife does clay modeling and she got me a whole box of these paints. So far I really like how they work on the models, a little shiny + sticky but overall I like how they're turning out.

 

[BurningBee]

little shiny + sticky

Honestly I don't know this paints. But there are 1000+ manufactures so.... Are they water based?

Regarding sticky: often quoted but still one of the best advices. Thin your paints with water. But only if they water based.

Regarding shiny: a quick dry brushing often helps.

Look for painting tutorials on YouTube. Mostly they recommend the same .

 

[JTSleep]

Shiny + sticky with enamels means they are not properly dry yet. Those paints dry for longer periods than acrylics (matter of hours to full day).
That is why I like acrylics, dry in 10 minutes or less when you use hairdryer.

 

[Gaur'oth]

Honestly I don't know this paints. But there are 1000+ manufactures so.... Are they water based?

Regarding sticky: often quoted but still one of the best advices. Thin your paints with water. But only if they water based.

Regarding shiny: a quick dry brushing often helps.

Look for painting tutorials on YouTube. Mostly they recommend the same .

They're oil based paints, they came with some paint thinner that I've been doing 50/50 with. When I get home from work I'm going to see about dry brushing one just a little to see if it helps out.

Shiny + sticky with enamels means they are not properly dry yet. Those paints dry for longer periods than acrylics (matter of hours to full day).
That is why I like acrylics, dry in 10 minutes or less when you use hairdryer.

Is there any particular brand you recommend over another? I have two friends who paint their 40k models with citadel paints exclusively but they seem to be rather pricey. Any info helps!

 

[JTSleep]

Is there any particular brand you recommend over another? I have two friends who paint their 40k models with citadel paints exclusively but they seem to be rather pricey. Any info helps!

As I´ve said here:

For normal painting I use Vallejo model colors and I am satisfied for couple of years now (more than 80 bottles).
For seraphon specifically, I decided to give AP speedpaints a go. I use only speedpaints and 2 vallejo colors (pale sand for corrections as base for more speedpaints and silver for metal bits to be covered by speedpaints) as my personal challenge. Take a look at my painting blog here at Lustria.

But it is strongly personal opinion and citadels are great too. I have few pots, but dismissed them for same reason... price.
Those speedpaints are great, but have their own disadvantages too (I am taking about reactivation).
For standard painting (base, layer, highlight), vallejo are great and they come in dropper bottles, so they are not prone to drying out as citadel pots are.

 

[Gaur'oth]

As I´ve said here:

I completely skipped over that section, I'm looking at a listing for Vallejo + Citadel on ebay at the moment. So hopefully if the prove stays reasonable I can snipe it. But until then I'll keep trying things out with the Testors.

 

[BurningBee]

Try also army painter. It's often the the cheapest brand.

 

[Lord-Marcus]

Get Vallejo game color and model color.

Citadel/GW - stick with washes, shades etc. Experiment and research with anything else.

Army painter is the cheapest because generally it's pigmentation and coverage is subpar.

Spray primer:

These 3 cans from wal-mart are my mainstays. $6 a can, generally 100-150 models per can.

Green and blue contrast go extremely well over camo-tan.