Finished - Ork Wrecker Epic Post

I started this project almost a year ago. After a flurry of initial activity, I encountered difficulty in converting this 1:32 scale Army truck into a sufficiently Orky Speed Freak Wrecker. I started cutting up bits of plasticard into interesting shapes and gluing them on. I quickly found that this did not really make things look Orks and rather just kinda made it look like I had glued a bunch of crap onto the model. It was a mess. It like the more I did, the worse it looked. I initially tried to fix it by adding more armor plates, bits and gubbins but that really made it worse. Getting frustrated by converting it to an Orky Trukk, I set that project aside and tried to focus on other aspects of the conversion.

I wanted to magnetize the crap out of this vehicle to the point that as it became damaged, parts would come off of it. I wanted all the doors to work and the top of the cab to come off. I wanted the windshield to fold up and down. As the assembly went forward, I had to stop assembling the cab and paint the interior. The doors were held in by the top of the dashboard. To assemble it further, I would need to have the inside painted. Before I could finish painting the interior, I needed to get the driver and gunner assembled.

Finished - Gretchens

I also finished these in the Summer of 2014 and am just now getting to post about them. there was a lot of painting in that time period that never got documented. Recently, I took out the photo studio and tried to take some good pictures. 

I think I took some adequate pictures. I am still getting the hang of taking picks of colorful and detailed minis and making them look as good in pictures as I think they look in front of me. Part of the is getting my light right. 

My painting studio has two halogen lights and three natural lights. My photo studio has just two halogen lights and whatever else I can grab. I end up with kinda washed out and orange photos if I am not paying attention. I've gotten some photo editing software to try to fix this.

Step by Step - Blood Angles

"My other arm is over THERE!"

My other two step-by-step articles seem to be pretty popular, so I decided to try another one. This time around, I am going to tackle something that I am a bit of an expert on, painting red Marines. Blood Angles were my second army that I started in about 2007. I ruined about 50 Marines before I began to figure out how to paint red in a way that I thought looked good. Since then, I have finished a Battle Company plus more  of angry, red, armored killing machines. 

I've made a lot of mistakes and had to learn some hard lessons. What follows is worth about 4 years of worth of painting experience. My way may not be for everyone, but it works for me and produced results that get me compliments every time I take my minis out. 

The basics of how I paint are 1. Basecoat, 2. Wash, 3. Touch up, 4. Hard edge highlighting. There are a few departures from this, but that is essentially it. It sounds really easy but the skill comes in what washes to use and applying them with finesse. If you can't tell from my rants, I am not a fan of dipping or overusing liquid talent like Dev Mud. I prefer skill and precision in my painting. I feel that gives a better result. I am only going to paint these minis once, and to not do my best on each one does a disservice to the minis and my skills. 

Brace yourself, because this is going to be a long long ride. I have a lot to say on the subject of painting so there are going to be a lot of words to read. Don't be daunted! There are some great pearls of wisdom tucked in those walls of text. 

Step by Step: Modeling Combi-Plasma and Terminator Captain

This is a step-by-step tutorial on how to turn a Storm Bolter to a combi-plasma weapon. I am going to focus on the side-by-side combi-plasma that comes with the Terminator Librarian rather than the over-under that comes with the new Tactical Squad box or Sternguard box.

Bits you will need:
1. Terminator Storm Bolter
2. Plasma Pistol
3. Bolter

Rate This Mini 1-10

I made my first post over at Cool Mini Or Not.

It is an Emperor's Children aspiring champion that I've yet to post about here. It is pretty representative of my work. It's my typical black, gold and silver. It's my first shot at pink and the green on the sword in kind of phoned in. It's about average quality for me. It's an interesting conversion what with me mixing parts from 3 kits, but only an average paint job (for me).

Currently it has a rating of 5.7 which I think is a little low. Their rating system says that a 5 is "tabletop quality." Maybe there are a lot of people out there that over rate their skills and call what is a mediocre paint job "table top" quality. It's a term that gets tossed around a lot along with "Pro-painted." Those have become red flags for crappy paint jobs in my book.

I feel that it is worth a solid 6. I feel that I paint to a higher than table top quality. Every color on there is shaded and highlighted at least once. It wasn't dipped or hastily painted. Ok, so the basing leaves a little to be desired (just paint, sand then grass) but it is an intentional laziness.

I try not to take this as a slight on my painting skills. Anyone that sees my minis in person can't shut up about them. I'm surely an above average painter (and don't call you Shirley). I feel more that it is a function of my neophyte photographing skills. The model look more orange than it is, there is detail missing, it is grainy, it is cropped poorly, etc. 

In looking at other people's pictures, I'm noticing that the less you show, the better you get rated. There are some crappy paint jobs where the pictures are not cropped and the model is a tiny speck in the background. These, I feel, get rated better than they are. Also pictures that are of a group tend to get rated higher. 

I'm going to work on the photography skills and use this model (and hopefully others) as test subjects. My plan is to use the same model  and try to get better photographs and thus higher rating. In my next photo, I'll try to get colors that better reflect my paint job, change the cropping and make the picture a little less awkward to view. I'll see what that does to the rating. After that, I'll see what mixing the champion with the rest of his squad does.

EDIT: After some thought, I think I am mostly OK with the 5.7 rating. I think I did a damn good job on the mini but that is a damn good job only compared to the local kids and most of the pics out there. Next to some of the work on CMON, it is mediocre but not as bad as it looks in that picture. I think it'll jump up to a 6.5 or more if I can get some better pics.

Painting before you assemble

I promised you more on how I paint and I aims to please.

I'm a little unusual in terms of miniature wargamers and perhaps a bit of an abomination. See, I prime before I assemble. I know, I know. Freakish. I prime my sprues after a light washing. I then paint each piece (head, body, legs, arms, weapons, should pads, backpack, accessory, etc) separately. After each piece if fully painted, it is then assembled.

This bites me in the butt at times. I lack the ability to pre-pose the models before the final assembly. Also, the super glue I use can sometime fog the models and mess up the paint. I work around this by using very little glue and always setting the modle in a well-ventelated area. Speaking of super glue, when painting before assembling, you have to scrape off the paint of each surface before you glue.

Despite all this, ALL THIS, I still choose to paint then assemble. Why, you might ask? Because it lets me paint every surface as easily as the front of the model. That might seem like a small thing, but it is important to me. I've had people tell me that they do not care if the inside of a bolter is unpainted but that aint my bag. It drives me nuts to try to paint under something or around corners. Having any primer showing in out of the way areas makes me feel like I'm phoning it in.

Another minor advantage (that some might not see as an advantage) is that I can assembly line and stockpile certain bits like shoulder pads, heads and arms. At any moment, I can assemble 2-5 models of almost any army with very little effort.

I'm on pins and needles

Here you can see some of the 1k Sons I mentioned in the previous post. This photo is pre-studio. I only used a bent piece of paper and the normal lights/flash to take this picture.

The legs, torso, arms and weapons are all finished and assembled after painting. I am working on the heads now and you can see my technique. I use my pin vice to drill a small hole in the bit. Then I use lineman's pliers to insert a sewing needs into the hole after applying a little super glue. I have to be careful at how hard I push as, the needle can sometimes come out the other side if I drilled too deep or press to hard.

If I have to do something that leaves the paint wet like washing or working with slow-drying metallic paints, I stick the needle in yellow tac to keep it from falling down.

Yellow tac is also useful for attaching shoulder pads to tiny sticks (de-fuzzed q-tips work well) for easy painting.

The first TMM post

Welcome!

This is the first in what I hope is a long series of posts all about your friends and mine, the Tiny Metal Men. In these first few posts, I hope to give a brief history of The Hobby, a summary of what I am working on right now and my plans for the future. As things go on, I plan for this blog to be both an account of my Hobby and a learning resource for others.

There is no real good way to start this so my plan is to start from the present and work my way backwards and forwards. There is 6+ years worth  of history to catch up on and it is growing all the time.

I've been involved in the Hobby since 2004 or so. Briefly, I collect Tau, Blood Angles, CSM, Grey Knights, Tyranids, and Orks. I have also started a Cygnar army. My largest army by far is Blood Angles at roughly 6k points.

My current project is a CSM army with lots of cult troops. I've recently finished standard bearers for each type.

Hail, hail, the gang is all here.

The current project is 6 1k sons that will finish that particular cult troop (or at least the bit I have for them).  Over the weekend, I managed to get the legs, arms and torsos done. I tend to paint (more on How I Paint later). Left to do are the shoulder pads, heads and backpacks. I plan to add some muzzle flashes to some of the guys for variety but that can be done at any time.

In the interest of getting better pictures for this blog (specifically not taken with the phone), tonight I bought a portable TMM photography studio on Amazon.