Blog Cageyblood's big ol paint blog - Chaos Knights

A simple wash can help a lot...

 

Hey yo! I'm not dead!
Sorry for being inactive over the summer, but just because I wasn't posting doesn't mean I wasn't doing anything!

I did a bit of commission stuff as a favor to my friend, painting a bunch of 28mm D&D stuff from one of the box games. Learned a lot from doing that, chiefly that I don't like painting 28mm stuff! It was a good learning experience to work with a different type of plastic, priming style, human eyes (never had to do that before) so I do feel it was in the end helpful.

I did a bit of terrain building as well! Most projects were failures, but I did manage to make a dice tower out of styrofoam brick! Sorry for potato quality.

Warhammer wise, I finished my first box of skinks, my carno (sans rider for the moment), a few saurus warriors, and got a bunch more stuff assembled and primed, but the past few weeks I've been putting a lot of time into my bases. I took a lot of the great feedback I got in this thread and made a batch of bases I'm very happy with. I also took my modified skink priest off that awful looking green mess and re-based them on one of the new ones.

Biggest change I would say is that I realized that instead of just flocking with foliage as a first layer, things would look more varied and interesting if I did a layer of rock and dirt and then heavily flocked with vegetation instead. I think this ends up looking more like a harsh jungle floor than just having nothing but green underfoot. I also invested in the Citadel skull box, highly recommended, its fun to have so many skulls that I don't feel even a little guilty about popping down 2-3 per base. I also added a bunch of punji sticks and topped them with "Blood for the Blood God" and I look forward to doing scenery with the punji sticks to bring this whole "lost world hellhole jungle" theme all together. Knowing what I know now, I would probably re-base my Basti / Carno, but whats done is done. Perhaps a project for another day.

PICTURES!!!

Bunch of WIP shots of my new basing style.

 

So whats next then?
Well I recently came into a unexpected bit of money. Never having been a frugal sort, I thought of a good use for it...


...my painting schedule just filled up in a big way.

 

Fantastic bases, and I like the dice tower!

 

One of the other things I'm excited about ATM is getting a new paint station set up. I made a deal with my roommates that if I cleaned out a junk / storage room I could use it as a studio so I did. I've been using it for about a week now and it is so much nicer than my old setup. Also since it isn't in the same room as my desktop I'm less tempted to just swivel my office chair around and check twitter / reddit / forums whatever. I have noticed a sizable increase in productivity from this move.

For context: Before I just had one small table in a room with no overhead lighting, just a bunch of lamps, which further took up space on the table. All my supplies were stashed in random corners of my room, with no organization to it.

Now: I added a second table, got a few wire racks to keep my crafting supplies organized, have overhead lighting, have a place to put the desk lamps above and not on my work tables, and re-purposed a bookcase to hold my completed and assembled but unpainted miniatures.

PICTURES!!!!


One of the nicest things about this new setup is that ridge along the edge of the room which I put all the desk lamps on. So much more real estate on the desks now and I get a way better angle for the light on my workstation.


The last few saurus of the previous batch painting, the next ones mid assembly. I use a mixture of dry and wet pallets (I have a system, okay?!) on the right and use a paper plate as my painting surface.



Storage containers. Big terrain stuff in the first one, small crafting / basing materials in the second pic.


All my minis, both painted and yet to be painted. This definitely beats the old system I had where I just overcrowded the top of a dresser in my bedroom. First two shelves are Seraphon, then Chaos, then random big mins.

 

Double update time!

Did some painting and assembly work on saurus warriors today, but couldn't be bothered to take pics. Still have about 30 of those to paint, so a long road yet.

However I did also paint a saurus hero unit made from a combo of warrior pieces and S.C. pieces following @Crowsfoot 's excellent guide. Will probably use this as a Sunblood most of the time and an Oldblood occasionally. Really took my time with this, did a lot more edge highlighting than I usually do, especially on the shield. I know I am not the best at photographing my work, but would still welcome feedback and criticism.

 

Thanks for the tip! I definitely see your point regarding more highlights on the scales, I think one thing I need to get over is my fear of "over-highlighting" my miniatures.

Currently I'm basecoating and then drybrushing something lighter, then drybrushing again with something even lighter before doing a wash. I think maybe for models going forward I should be picking out a few places with the lightest color using a layer brush after the wash, hopefully that should achieve that contrast you mention.

 

Spent the past week pecking away at the icon bearers for my saurus warriors, and finished off 2 today. I think I improved quite a bit on the second, but as you'll see I still have room to improve across the last two of the set I'm doing. Did find a method of painting jade that I like, as I had struggled thus far to find a way to do anything aside from spears in a way I was happy with.

I tried to do a lot more edge highlighting post wash, especially on the skin, so feedback on that is appreciated. Execution and brush control can always be better, but feedback on whether I went too far or not far enough with the effect is helpful, as I always second guess myself.

I also was watching a tutorial and they used silver as a final highlight on bright gold bits, so I did the same here. Would love opinions on whether it works or not.

I am not satisfied with how the gem "eyes" came out on this one and will aim to do better in that area, but as always would love criticism on what else can be done better.

 

Double posting just to say goddamn do I need to invest in a better photo setup because the above pictures are trash.

 

I can't be asked to take more pictures 'til I upgrade my setup, but for the first Icon bearer I actually did the "glaze over metallic paint" method and it is the one thing about that first model that is better than the second one. Ah well, these first units of everything are about throwing everything at a wall and seeing what sticks.

 

I spent some time constructing a makeshift lightbox today and snapped a few photos. I think I still need to mess around with light location and intensity and I also think I am still limited by the lack of quality of my phone's camera, but I think this is an improvement.