Holiday Update

So, I’ve set some (hopefully) realistic goals for the holiday.  I’m basically trying to get the ‘jacks and solo done this week, and then tackle my two units next week.

I picked up some spray paint at Meijer (a department store), and didn’t realize I had picked up an enamel paint.  It didn’t do so hot on the first coat, and the second coat went ok, but my second can was mis-labeled and was a gloss.  So, I made a run to Menards (a hardware store), and found a big can of flat black sandable primer.  Oh, so much better.

Here’s the primed result.  Sadly, with essentially four coats of paint, some fine detail was lost.  Ah well.  Eventually these will be stripped and painted again.

Once they had a chance to cure (they stop smelling like spray paint when they’re done – typically 24 hours), I started basecoating.  I’m attempting to adhere to the speedpainting rules:

1. Do everything of one color at the same time, don’t go back and “repair” any mistakes.
2. While on each color, do everything with your biggest brush first, then switch to the smaller brush for detail.  Don’t swap brushes on every model.
3. Watch movies while you paint and take lots of small breaks.

With that in mind, I started with the metallics.  I don’t have a particular reason, other than I know I want lots of blue, and so I figured if I did my metallics first, then anything that was left could be blue!  I did anything that would be iron or brass in Boltgun Metal.  Then, I did two coats of Dwarf Brass for anything that would be bronze.  Lastly, all my blues got two coats of Enchanted Blue.  There are a few parts I haven’t decided on yet, but the lion’s share of the basecoating is finally done!  Yay!

You’ll notice that the faces and hair on the two human models are done. I wanted to get them done to see how they would come out. I like the idea that if you mess up the face, you can always just re-spray the model and start again. That only works though, if you haven’t painted anything else on the model. I think they turned out pretty darn well for how little work went into them:

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The faces were a basecoat of Elf Flesh, a Gryphonne Sepia wash, and then a highlight of Elf Flesh. How easy!

There’s lots of work to do yet, but this is how I prefer to get models done.  Get paint on everything, and they tidy up the mistakes.

Happy Holidays!