A journal entry to chronicle my journey through miniature painting.
The last time I painted a team was for a Blood Bowl game more than a year ago. Since painting that team I’ve mainly focused on small miniatures doing one at a time for Frostgrave, Cyberpunk Combat Zone – Edgerunners, Dungeons and Dragons Minis. The Blood Bowl team was the Lizardmen Blood Bowl Team. I did not know picking that team would lead to a long running joke with my best friend that I was a huge fan of lizards and dinosaurs. She recently gifted me a Seraphon Spearhead box from Games Workshop’s Warhammer Age of Sigmar. It has been a while since I’ve painted a cohesive team. Even my Edgerunners, I’ve painted them to be all different from each other and stand out since I wanted them to be used in a Cyberpunk Red game someday. I picked a scheme I like and started painting my new lizard friends. Along the way here’s a few things I’ve learned and noted for the future me.
1. FUTURE ME, THIN YOUR PAINTS FFS!
This was probably the biggest thing I noticed. The thing that grinded my gears the most. The Warhammer minis have plenty of cool details. I noticed several times that I had use way too many thick coats on the model, covering up such details. More for a note fore future me, thin your paints.
2. I don’t need all the paints out and I should record the ones I do
A part of me delights in trying techniques, new paints, or even just trying to mix my own paints. For the Seraphons I wanted to do a purple scheme with a bit of green to contrast. However, I don’t enjoy just doing a single color for every model. I like making each model pop on their own. I thought it would be a fantastic idea to have the base coat a different shade of purple to give variety on the scales. I tried several different paints, there were some I loved how they looked on the mini, while others not so much. That’s when the trouble started. I looked over to see a new tiny army of purple paints had appeared near my paint station. I had no idea which purple attacked my Seraphons let alone which model. I had to carefully examine the wounds on the model to match their respective paint, and kind of guess.
I also didn’t test my paints beforehand to see the strength or hue of purple and how it would have turned out on the model. In November I’ll be working on a new team for the month. I’m going to make an effort to write down which paints I use, mark the models, and test the paints.
3. I don’t need all my brushes out
This point is similar to one above. I tend to have all my brushes out for my painting sessions. While it seems great for my ADHD and efficient to have them all at a moment notice. I tend to keep them all together, used and unused which confuses me on which to clean. This is just a reminder to self that I can leave my brushes in their tin bin and only pull them out when I need them. Otherwise I’m going to clean a lot of brushes.
4. Remember when you set a goal, account for build time
My goal for the Seraphon was to get them play ready in a month. I did not achieve that goal. The painting portion of the project bled into the start of October. The main reason, was build time. Despite the fun time playing with the fancy Lego1, I spent a good week or two building them. I had other obligations and routines I was trying to build as well. Lesson learned, I’ve already built my new team, and they are ready to paint.
5. I should play with oil paints more
One of the last big pieces was a big Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur, basically a big lizard on an even bigger lizard. It looks awesome. Instead of base-coating with a brush, I relied on my airbrush to do the heavy lifting. Applying several coats to give a nice gradient from the bottom to the top. For shading this guy, I decided to bust out the oil paints and creating oil washes. I had fun and loved the end results that turn out of the Carnosaur. I also love how forgiving the oil is. I’ve decided with some small minis, that I would try to paint them with Oil paints. Learn how those work by themselves, and someday try to mix both Acrylics and oil paint again. I’ve got tutorials lined up and ready to go.
- Some call Warhammer Adult Legos, I was close to agreeing however I’ve seen some Lego kits recently such as the $459, at the time of writing, The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr™ set with 5471 pieces or the Tuxedo Cat that has 650 pieces, the age rating is 18+ and that both cost adult money. Point being, Lego is also adult Lego and everyone reading this should get more Legos ↩︎
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