Sharing work-in-progress (WIP) pics seems good for motivation and sounds fun, so here’s today’s WIP: finishing the Leadbelcher base coat on the last of my Space Hulk Terminators.
I paint batches of minis like this assembly line-style, so 100% of my Termies have been primed (with Armory white spray primer) and base-coated in P3 Khador Red. All of them have metallic weapons and other shiny bits, so I moved on to GW Leadbelcher next.
I realized I’d forgotten to the little vents in the heels of most of them in Leadbelcher, so I fished out the whole squad to hit them all while I still had the pot open.
That was when I discovered Mister Hammer, who’s in the foreground in the pic above. He’d been tucked into a corner of the Plano box where I’ve been keeping (cough cough mostly storing) these guys and I hadn’t noticed that he still needed a Leadbelcher base coat. Ah well, my eyes are tired now and I’m ready for a break; he’ll have to wait until later, or another day.
Sidebar
I’m also noticing a downside of batch painting vs. completing one model at a time: There are no bursts of accomplishment along the way, as a figure gets finished; instead, it’s one big Tunguska Event of accomplishment all at the end, when 100% of them get wrapped up more or less at the same time. They also look like crap for longer, since every base coat produces a measure of spillover that I won’t fix until I do one final touch-up pass before shading. It still feels more efficient to batch paint, though, but it’s making me wonder if I shouldn’t try switching gears when I get to my Deadzone squads.
One more unrelated observation: This is my first time using this Citadel water cup (paid link), and it’s great. It has a brush rest, a wide base for stability, little striations on the bottom and sides for agitating paint off your brush, and “brush tip-pointing slots” in one side. I wasn’t sure all those bells and whistles would be an improvement over using the giant movie theater cup I’ve used for years (or just grabbing a random mug, etc.), but I used 100% of them in this session and appreciated them all.
Whipping it
Incidentally I think I’m going to preface all my WIP post titles with “WIP it good,” because 1) fuck yeah Devo! and 2) the lyrics to “Whip It” are actually pretty apropos for miniatures painting:
Now whip it
Devo, “Whip It!”
Into shape
Shape it up
Get straight
Go forward
Move ahead
Try to detect it
It’s not too late
To whip it
Whip it good
And in closing, one more stray thought: Today, while holding minis about six inches from my face, I realized it might be time to invest in a magnifier lamp. Another time!