Blog So, My Painting Blog, The Journey Starts....

Here’s my paint station set up for the Four Day Skinksapalooza I’ve got planned. I’ve got my brushes, paints for the first step (base coating), and first six of twenty-five models ready to go. At right is a clipboard with my paint scheme notes.

I identified six primary and one to three secondary paint areas for base coating on each Skink. So the six paints in front are Jokaero Orange (for the orange skin), Naggaroth Night (for the purple scales and head crest), Dryad Brown (for Boltspitter shafts), Warplock Bronze (for brass jewelry and Boltspitter bands), Rakarth Flesh (for bone white teeth), and Waaagh! Flesh (for emerald green Star-Bucklers). In the back are three paints to use for various Star-Buckler decorations like feathers and what I guess are ribbons (Mephiston Red, Macragge Blue, and Averland Sunset), and Retributor Armor for their glowy eyes.

My plan is to use my Citadel Medium Base brush to paint the orange and purple areas, then my Citadel Glaze brush to paint the remaining areas, more or less in the order I’ve listed them above.

After that, I’ll move to step 1A, which is layering the purple, bone white, and emerald green areas. Step 2 is shading the whole model in various appropriate colors (and hitting the eyes with Spiritstone Red). Step 3 is more layering and Step 4 is edging.

Finally I’ll do the basing treatment, which is spackling on Stirland Battlemire, painting the rim of the base in Macragge Blue, then waiting and waiting for the texture paint to dry (oh, I’ll glue on some cork “boulders” during this stage). Then, probably the next morning, I’ll hit the ground effects with some shade paint, drybrush it with Underhive Ash, and finally, glue on some tufts of grass.

Tra la, that’s my Skink painting plan.

 

I see. I can understand minute details being extremely important. I do that with my day job. (Currently data entry specialist - trained archivist otherwise)

With Miniatures excepting characters I never saw the point other than completeness. The average gaming table is 3 feet away from the human eyeball when standing in a relaxed posture. From that distance granularity of detail tends to blur, IMO.

Props to you on keeping with it though! I look forward to viewing your progress

 

Thank you! Who's to say whether my need to manage every tiny little detail to the Nth degree stays in play as I paint more models. I already skip edging on some of the tiniest bits sometimes (shhhh! don't tell anybody at my shop!).

 

I occasionally skip belts

 

You're not the only one! Welcome to the club... we are many.

 

Skinksapalooza Day Two begins! I met my Day One goal of completing six models. The Day Two goal is also six models, and will be much tougher to meet because the wife and I have an evening out planned.

The pictures below show the eleven I have completed, then the nineteen I have left. Note that nine of those are yet to be primed, which may be a problem because the weather isn't being cooperative with me temperature and humidity wise (I don't have an indoor spray priming setup yet). Finally, my ace in the hole--Emergency Backup Skinks! These are a unit of nine (there used to be ten, but one of the dogs made off with one of them) that I painted last year sometime before I started getting serious and settling on my methodologies (and before I found this community). As you can see, they're painted in a very similar scheme to those I'm doing this week, but I'm not crazy about them. The painting is muddier than I'm capable of now, and I also had this idea that since Seraphon are magical creatures summoned from the heavens they should "glow" and I drybrushed them all over with Sigmarite, a decision I now regret. If I run out of time, I'll doctor these guys--edge the base with the same color as the new ones and tone down the gold highlights with some purple and orange overbrushing, I guess. And hit the edge of their head crests with purple to match the new ones as well. Hopefully I won't have to go that route, but it's nice to have the option.

 

Can you bring the skinks along?

Congrats on meeting your day 1 goal!

 

Backup skinks are the best skinks

 

Skinksapalooza Day Two was simultaneously a wash and a rousing success. A wash because, owing to time restraints, I painted zero new Skinks. A rousing success--from at least one point of view--because I used what little hobby time I did have to give my older painted Skinks a makeover to get them to looking at least somewhat like my new Skinks. The match is not exact, at least to careful observation, but from tabletop gaming view, I think they look enough alike to do. So I'm going to fold these into my 500 point army and say I only have ten more to go before I'm done! Five a day tomorrow and the next and then on to the 1000 point list!

 

They don't look too dissimilar

 

Five more done this morning, except for basing treatments. Three hours! Which beats my best time on a Skink Set by over an hour. I may do five more tonight and finish my 500 point army a day early! Which means tomorrow I'll be able to start on the 1000 point army for week two of our Escalation League.

 

Or finish the other skinks, seeing as you subbed in refurbished skinks so probably have primed skinks left over

 

You're on fire. That is very impressive progress.

 

My 500 point army (less five Skinks in process) in their ready room in Azyr, awaiting transport to the Mortal Realms for battle.

 

They look great! The one last thing that I think would really bring them together would be if you painted the edges of the bases, but other than that they look awesome!

 

Thank you! Actually, I do paint the edges of the bases, in Macragge Blue, a dark blue edging toward violet. Do you think I should choose a different color?

 

Now, setting aside the five Skinks left to do for Week One (500 points) of our Escalation League--which I will paint tonight--I'm on to thinking about my plan of attack for getting a 1000 point army ready for Week Two. My plan is to field a thousand point version of the Heaven's Watch Starhost, with a Skink Starseer general, a Skink Starpriest, a Troglodon, 2 units of ten Skinks as my Battlelines, a flight of Ripperdactyl Riders, and a Hunting Pack consisting of a Salamander and three Skink Handlers. There's a picture of their current state below.

I really have no idea what the most efficient way to go about this is--I'll probably decide what order to paint in based on whim and what seems like fun at the moment rather than on a strict schedule, but that said, time is a factor. I figure I should build and prime the Skink Starseer first (and prime the remaining two Ripperdactyls). Right now I'm thinking I'll start with the Toad, because I think that model and the effect it has is just about the most hilarious thing in this game. I noticed when I pulled them out of their cases that I failed to Green Stuff in the holes either side of the Skink Handlers' feet, which are inset into their bases, and I'll need to do that, too, now that I think of it. I think this is going to be more of a challenge than the 500 point week was, especially considering that I'll be tackling my first Behemoth. But I'm excited!

 

Attention all lizards, your teleportation device is now docked and ready, please swarm your way through the gateway, and on behalf of the star masters, please have fun killing chaos cultists today.

 

They're your models, so you should go with whatever you like best with them. Personally I think the blue makes it seem like they were sprayed blue and the edges were left, so a different colour might make them look more complete. However, that's probably to do with the fact that I sprayed mine Macragge Blue so it's ingrained in my head, whereas you know you sprayed it black. Just go with whatever you like most.