Finished - Potpourri

Since very much awesomely fixing the hatchet handle I actually HAVE done some painting. I finished a couple of Black Plague heroes, about half of the Black Ops heroes and an experimental mini that has been sitting half-finished for ages. 

Initially, I got to work on Lady Grimm and Glynda Battlestout with the same 10/0 detail that I approach most minis with. Frustrated at my chunky paints and fraying brushes I reached for new ones of each. While doing so, a corrupted version of an old axiom "don't let the great be the enemy of the finished." I knew it wasn't right but with the years of backlog I have, I can't take a week to paint a single mini. Let's get some colors down, a little detail on the faces and let's get them done. 

I finally have two of the very many Zombicide boxes finished in their entirety and that has me jazzed to finish some other boxes like special guests and Heroes boxes completely. To do that, we gotta get paint on minis. I am far from batch painting but I've stopped doing three stare highlighting and going blind with fine detail brushes. Part of me regrets this because I know I can do better but... but let's get things finished while we have spare time. 

Finished - Invader Core Survivors

These finely detailed miniatures combined with the last post means I have the whole core box done. I learned a lot and now have a killer recipe for bone white armor.

This is historic in that this is the first Zombicide box I have ever finished. Black Plague will be the next once the commission zombies are finished. Currently sourcing a painter for Green Horde and that will be done. 

Then it is all the flipping stretch goals and guest boxes. At the speed I paint, I have years worth of painting to do. The speed painting and contrast paints helped me finish all the aliens from Invader but that won't work on the heroic Survivors. Gotta do detail painting.

Finished - Zombicide: Invader Swarm

So I am an elitist snob when it comes to painting. I know this. I think that people that use airbrushes as a final step are cheating themselves. Army Painter is for people that seem intent on ruining models.  Agrax Earthshade is a tool in your toolbox and not a Swiss Army knife. And Contrast paints are for people that don’t want to learn how to paint properly and are ok with meeting the basics of table top painting.

Then I had 100 aliens to paint and I didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the last two Zombicide games and have to conscript out the bulk of the painting. I ran across so one that was painting the Workers with Contrast paints and got good and fast results. I picked up some contrast paints and was done with my first 5 before I knew it. A few weeks later they were all done. I haven’t completed a base set of Zombicide yet and this one was done in a blink. 

Here are the lessons I learned at my old age for batch painting:

1. No fancy basing. Be basic. Even the 5 step process for the Mars bases is better than the 3 colors with 3 stages each on top of the clay bits for wood and stone. 

2. Three colors is too many. Think big swaths of color. Don’t paint more than 2 materials different colors. Who cares if he is wearing a brown suit and hat. 

3. Learn to love dry brushing. If I ever start edge highlighting a horde again, shoot me.

4. Use washes to make different tones of color. A corollary to point 2 above, I used washes to make shading and add more color to these models rather than painting a different color.

Finished - Zcide Invader Workers

Been painting quite a bit of Zombicide stuff all over the place. Black Plague, Green Horde, Invader. I even outsourced painting of some of the Black Plague zombies to a commissioned painter for money and some printing. I used clay, rollers glue and a lot of time to make textured based for all the flipping zombies. Learning my lesson from that, I just wanted some simple Martian soil for the aliens and save the complex stuff for the survivors.

I found a pretty good tutorial for using the red crackle paint and painting red ground and it worked pretty well. I was skeptical about needing to base things brown, but the crackle pulls up the layer of paint below it and lots of the white primer shows through.

Aside from the bases, I decided to dip into contrast paints in the interest of getting all the Invader enemies painted unlike all the other Zombicides that sit waiting. I based the Workers Grey Seer though I would have liked to use something with a little more color. After that, the whole model gets a wash of Apothecary White. When that dries, the head and hands get a splooshing of Voluptuous Pink. I do a halfhearted blending of the areas by wiping my brush off and stippling around the edge while it is still wet. It is an amature technique with limited results but it is better than hard drying lines. With the base colors done, the bottom nails get painted with the Voluptuous Pink and no fading. The whole model gets a dry brush of Grey Seer to make it pop.

It is not my best work, but I have finished 5 of them in half the time it took me to paint any other mini. Sometimes I have to put quality on the back burner in the interest of getting stuff done.

On The Table - Orc Abomination

I have wanted to paint an albino big monster for probably 2 years now but have not seen a technique that I liked or believed. GW has a recipe in their painting app for Pale Flesh (that looks more like parchment than skin) and Varicose Flesh (that looked a little too pink for me. Initially I wanted to try the Pale Flesh variant as I was trying to paint pale... flesh but it called for being shaded with Reikland Fleshshade. At the last moment I decided that is going to look too natural and I wanted something more pink. Varicose Flesh starts with Rakarth Flesh and to be washed with Carroburg Crimson. I was still skeptical but through I could always strip it if it looked stupid.

After washing I did think I looked stupid but pressed on anyway.

The recipe then called for Flayed One Flesh followed by Pallid Wytch Flesh. I did a test patch and didn't hate it so pressed on.

The more I painted the more I liked it. It has good depth, shading and tone. It is also surprisingly hard to mess up. Everything that is not streaky paint looks great. It fades and feathers nice. Even stippling does not look out of place. I aint even done the next stage of highlights.

If I had to do things over, I might go easier on the red shade. This is going to be my go to when I get around to doing my Ork Warboss.

Update:

I finished the Albino-Abomination and it turned out great. Next time I am going to go a little easier on the shading as it is overly dark for me.

I am especially proud of the eyes. I used solid Wazdakka Red for the pupils.

Further Update:

I tried the "pale flesh" recipe on a spare Abomination for Black Plague and it makes me glad I chose the other style. All told it is pretty solid slightly pale caucazoid flesh. It really lacked a variety in tone so I had to use some Carroburg Crimson in the deep parts. It might be good for speed painting lots of bare chests or bare arms, but it is no good for large patches of bare skin or faces.

It comes off pale but not albino. Now I have this pasty, naked mole rat of an Abomination in my box but at least I know now.