Blog Deer Riffs' thinking, inking and skinking.

They look great so far! Can't wait to see you get through that list!

 

These are absolutely beautiful. Wonderful work on that Basti especially.

 

@Bowser & @Aphotic, thank you both.

I'm having a ball. Tried something a little bit different last night. I started painting my saurus knights:




I bought a drill from GW to help me with the resin kits. I ummed and ahhed about the purchase, but I'm so glad I got the drill. It is an absolute game changer for me.

When I was painting the Saurus Warriors I had a hard time getting paint onto their bellies due to their posture. Using the drill I was able to put the Saurus Knights on pins which meant I could approach painting their fronts at a steeper angle because there is no base/legs in the way. This will be so handy for applying my highlights. I'll be able to use the side of the brush to hit all those creases in the skin instead of trying with the tip of the brush.

I think the drill and pin method will really speed up my work flow and help me be neater - less handling the model while painting. I'd highly recommend anyone to buy a drill. I think it will be an essential part of my process going forward from here.

 

Looks awesome! I do enjoy my little drill/Pin Vice. Makes a huge difference in how I mod things.

 

Hello everyone. Pretty quiet one for me hobby wise this week.
I got a few things primed while the sun was shining (which was quite rare) and assembled the palanquin for the Slann. I'm looking forward to painting this ugly little fella. I think I'll do him in a very light almost white pink to make him look like his skin is stretched really tight against his fat body.

This week I made some headway on batch painting my saurus knights' cold ones. It's a fun model to paint, despite my complaining about the derpiness of the model. My process was a base coat of Caliban green and then Elysian Green for the skin followed by a highlight with ogryn camo. Then I did some washes with diluted agrax earthshade and biel-tan green to pull the different shades together.. The scales have a drybush of moot green and then a further highlight drybrush with moot green mixed with yriel yellow.





















Hopefully I can get these guys finished in the next couple of weeks. I am enjoying painting them, but I feel like there is a lot of steps in the process for these models. Lots of straps and different techniques, whereas the carnosaur was done predominantly with drybrushing ,so even though it was a bigger model it was much less time intensive and more forgiving to paint.

What are other peoples thoughts on this?

 

I think it was worth the effort as they look fantastic. Though I always find the larger models easier to paint and more satisfying when finished.

 

Beautiful purple once again

 

Hi everyone. Well, work has gotten the better of me lately and my hobby time last week was pretty limited. I was away for work and out most evenings so, unfortunately, my little oasis of painterly calm had to wait.

Luckily, things have calmed down enough for now that I've been able to spend some quality time with my lizards. My goal after last post was to finish off my Saurus Knights. Unfortunately, I've fallen well short of achieving that. I would say that they are about 75-80% done:















The big things that I need to complete are the bases and the shield arms. Aside from that, there is a lot of small details that still needs some layers of paint on them. As much as I've made fun of the cold one models for being the derpiest derps in all of derp town, there is a great amount of texture and detail on these models to paint. They are a lot of fun to paint though they are time consuming.

Painting them has really made me think about my ideals and standards; what I perceive as "good enough". There were plenty of times while I've been painting these models that I've gotten impatient and and thought, that looks good enough, I can't make that look any better. But I've pushed through these moments and tried to extend myself by going for that extra little detail, or highlight or transition. I don't think they're perfect, but I think I will have finished these models being a better painter than when I started.

Some things that I've tried on the Saurus Knights that I hadn't before:

• Diluting my washes with lahmium medium. This got rid of the shininess that my shadows had on previoud models where the wash collects and dries.
• Blending and transitioning between layers. The feathers, bone materials and claws were great places to practice gradual shade transitions that I'd never really been confident enough to try out before.

Also, while working on these models I started to think that there is only as much detail on any model as you want there to be. I enjoy the process of painting, and so I look different textures and materials on the models to paint, but I think I could very easily have just done base-coat/wash/drybrush on these models and gotten a fine tabletop standard unit. I guess I'm more of a journey than a destination kind of guy.

So, these are still not finished. I didn't achieve my goal of finishing them by now, but I don't really mind. I'm taking it slow with these ones and learning a lot. It's teaching me patience and making me extend myself technically.

 

That being said -

Variety is the spice of life. And so, periodically throughout my hobby time, my eyes would wander to my unpainted, primed models on the shelf. Beckoning me, flaunting their curves and... I couldn't resist. I had to paint them. It pains me to say, but I was unfaithful to my Saurus Knights. I painted some other stuff on the side:

















I had a heap of fun painting the slaan and the blot toad (bloat toad?) both these models are just so ugly and funny looking, I'd just start giggling as I painted them. My wife would pop her head in to ask what I was laughing at and I'd show her the models and she'd laugh too. I don't know what it is. There's something inherently comical in those two models, maybe the dimensions or the sense of fat and wight. I'm not sure but they are so entertaining to look at. I wanted to enhance that disgustingness with my painting.

I wanted the slaan to keep the same pinkish/purple as my skinks and saurus warriors, but I wanted his skin to look so tight and stretched that it is almost white, I think the green warts add a level of grossness to him too. This was a super easy model to paint and was predominantly done with washes and dry brushing.

I tried to make the toad as obnoxiously bright as possible - a sign of danger in nature. I'm still experimenting with the orange stripe on his back. I might just make his back one big swatch of orange instead of the stripe.

Lastly, the ripperdactyl. It's in the early stages at the moment, and I can't say I'm super happy with the colour at the moment. I really wanted it to be very bright, but instead the light green "edge paint" I got from GW has gone on kind of chalky white/pastel. I'll have to try this one again I think.

And I think that's about it for me at the moment. I do have some projects coming up that I'm looking forward to - the slaan's floating stone mobility scooter, the rippers, a gladiator from Arena Rex and a sculpt of Frank Miller's Batman from the Batman tabletop game which is made out of the heaviest chunk of pewter I've ever felt.

 

Beautifully painted. I really enjoy the amount of detail you put into the cold-one, especially his golden collar.

 

The knight is gorgeous! These are all looking so amazing!

 

Thanks for all the kind words!
Today I primed the shields for the Saurus warriors and knights. This will be my first time painting a piece still on the sprue. It's not a technique I've been a fan of in the past, but I think it'll make it much quicker and more manageable to paint these twenty odd shields.
I also primed my Slann's mobility throne.

Now, I know this next model isn't a lizard, but I'm pretty proud of the paint work.







It's still a work in progress, and I don't think these photos really do some of the colour transitions and highlighting justice.

I think that painting the base first definitely upped the standard of the model considerably compared to my lizards. Doing the base first meant that I didn't need to worry about getting paint on the figures feet and I could freely dry brush where I wanted. I'd recommend paining the model and the base seperately to anyone now.

The other thing I did quite differently to my usual painting was to prime the model black first and then do a second priming from above in white to get an idea of where the highlights should go. I then built the skin tones up on top of this with a series of glazes, instead of solid colours. This meant that some of the black and white primed highlights came through the glazes as I worked doing a lot of the work for me. It was surprisingly quick working like this.

 

Well painted, he looks like a gladiator

 

This looks so good! You've done an amazing job here.

 

Well I've had a productive little spell of painting and I've finally finished up the saurus knights. Painting the shields on the sprue was a mixed success. It did make the pieces easier to handle in the painting stage, but cutting them off left some ugly marks on the model. It also was problematic to fit the shields to the models. Many of the knights I'd positioned with twisted torsos so the shields had to be manipulated around the saurus' bodies to accommodate this.



















I had a lot of fun painting the feathers - there were enough of them so I feel like I've gotten quite good at them now!

 

I also finally did the shields for my Saurus warriors from the start collecting box. Again I did these on the sprue. I'm not sure if I'll use this method again in the future. Does anyone have any other methods?

Painting so many shields in one batch did mean that I had very good consistency across the models, which is great, though batch painting can be a little mind numbing after a point.

 

My Slann is almost done now too! This was a really fun model to paint. I used lots of dry brushing and got to use the weathering effect I used on the solar engine of the bastiladon again:























There were a few breakages as I painted this model. A lot of the hanging ornaments on the totem pole broke off as I drybrushed - and accidentally dropped it one time -_- I don't really mind too much - I think it adds to the aged and weathered look, at least that's what I'm telling myself.

Whilst the model was fun to paint - the user-friendliness of the resin models leaves a lot to be desired. I've had so many breakages with this model and the Eternity Warden that I've grown to really dislike it. I have a few more resin kits to assemble and paint - namely chameleon Skinks and some Wood Elves for my wife, but I'm resolved to only buy plastic from now on.

That being said, I would like to paint up Lord Kroak, so I might just buy him and magnetize the Slann's palanquin and the figures. I've never done magnets before - New Challenge! Any tips?

 

Awesome models! Really well painted!

The most important thing is to get the polarity the right way round. If you mess this up you´ll have to go back and carve around the glued magnet to remove it. Use a metallic tool like a scalpel or a file to place the magnet. And also, if you are going to magnetize weapons, make sure the polarities all across your army are consistent, so you can swap weapons between units