Tag: work in progress

After mulling it over I decided to try what I’d been toying with after my first WIP it good post: getting off the assembly line and just base-coating one Terminator to completion.

I figured I’d pick one of the miscellaneous pieces in Space Hulk, the dead Terminator on the throne — who is used in exactly one mission, I believe — rather than a mainline squaddie so that if my experiment in shading went wrong I wouldn’t have destroyed one of the primary models.

There was one small problem . . .

I have Gehenna’s Gold on hand, which I think I bought as a replacement for some GW or P3 gold that had dried out — whatever I used on the gold accents on my Genestealers (decking bolts, etc.). But it looked coppery, so I tested it on throne boy and yep, that’s copper.

So I made a quick trip to Mox Boarding House, which has a full selection of Citadel paints, to pick up a replacement. You know where this is going, right?

I wound up with the gold I figured would be the right one, Auric Armor Gold, but just in case I also picked up Liberator Gold and an Army Painter option, Bright Gold. Plus Golden Griffon for drybrushing . . . and AP Toxic Mist in case whatever I’d used for my Genestealers had dried out, and a painting handle because it looked useful and I wished I’d had one earlier today, and two very fine brushes (something I don’t have in my arsenal).

Then I got properly tucked in and wrapped this guy right up.

For Future Martin’s benefit I sat him atop his five base coat colors: P3 Khadar Red, P3 Morrow White, and the GW pots of Auric Armor Gold, Leadbelcher, and Lothern Blue.

I’m pretty sure his wax seals and the gems on the throne aren’t supposed to be blue, but red seemed redundant, yellow seemed too likely to conflict with gold, and I don’t have a light green at the moment. I dig the bright blue.

Next I do some reading up on brush shading, pick a couple washes from my Citadel Shade set, and take throne boy to the next level!

Digging Yore? Check out my book!

The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is available in print and PDF.

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
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

Devo, “Whip It!”

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!

Digging Yore? Check out my book!

The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is available in print and PDF.