X-wing Starter Set

When there are long lapses in updates, it is usually because I have fallen into a video game or am moving across the country. I have been playing a lot of Bethesda games lately as the excitement for Fallout 4 ramps up and once that drops, you might not hear from me again until 2016. I might have to start posting what I am working on and screen caps in lieu of painting posts. 

I also picked up X-wing today. Now I am about 5 years behind the cool kids on this one so I have a lot of catching up to do. There is not really a painting aspect to this game but you know I am going to get a book on Star Wars fighter markings and make each ship unique. 

I have yet to get my first game in and am already looking at building a large force and getting them in foam. There is a pretty good crew out here that plays and I think that I hooked a 40k player into trading portions of a Starter Set with me. I think he is set on playing Imperials so that leaves me with the Rebels. I think that fewer and more forgiving crafts will suit my play style but I sure do like the look of the advances Imperial craft. 

Finished - Badrukk

Holy cow this is deceptive mini. You look at it in the books or even when it is painted and think, "Yeah, no big deal." Painting it is a whole different story. 

I made a few choices when painting it to adapt it to my painting style. The 'eavy Metal kids painted glyphs on all the metal plates and that was way outside of my skill. I dislike freehanding because it is too hard touch up later. What I opted for was painting the plated a solid color and then drawing on glyphs with a 0.05 pen later. 

The Badrukk in the Codex has a treasure map painted on his loin cloth. While that is thematic, fluffy and bad ass, it is outside of my skillset. I just painted it simple and brown. While this is a lot less fancy, it also does not draw attention away from the other detailed areas that I did paint well. 

I chose a simple color scheme for the mini and stuck to red and yellow as accent colors. I did this because I didn't want to turn him in to an Orky rainbow. Also, these are two colors that I am more comfortable with and they contrast well with the green skin. 

Finished - Custom Keeper of Secrets

In return for painting a big ole pile of Khorne Cultists, My buddy Greg over at CrankyOldGamer converted me up a a custom Greater Daemon of Slaanesh, the Keeper of Secrets. I supplied the bits and he did the converting. He also did a bang up job taking my idea and running with it. I was going to use the weapons from the Daemon Prince kit but Greg swapped them for the swords from some weird Dark Elf WFB kit. I sent the trygon tail but Greg wisely changed it to the Hive Tyrant tail. He put together a better conversion than I could have. 

As far as painting, I tried to paint it in the same scheme as the other Daemons of Slaanesh that are already finished and to a lesser extent the Noise Marines. For the Daemon Princess, I swapped the pink skin and black armor for each other because I am better at painting black than the weird pink that the Slaanesh minis have on them. I decided to keep that theme going as this would have been a LOT of pink skin to paint. 

Krylon, I am done with you.

I have been a big fan of Krylon since I got into the hobby. they make a wide range of shades. Paint goes on easy and, as long as you don't get crazy with it, it does not obscure detail. I still love them as a primer but I am done with their clear coat. 

The Necron Tomb Blades fogged and I almost lost my mind. I thought I had it under control when the Battlewagon came up for priming but that fogged too. I thought that maybe it was something I was doing, so when it came time to clear coat the Flash Gits that I have been worming so hard on for such a long time, I was super-careful. I waited until the humidity was under 50%. I did a test model on a mini that I would not mind repainting and everything seemed to go well. I did a light coat on all the minis as a first pass and walked away for an hour to let it dry.

As I was spraying, I could see the clear coat fogging. I tried to fix it by putting it in front of a fan. no good. I tried giving a mini another blast of clear coat because that has worked in the past and still no joy. 

I have started repainting a few of the bits and minis, I am going to try to fix it with Testors dullcoat or another Krylon matt coat that I have used before. 

I could be something I am doing. I do have a habit to get the paint can really close to the minis when spraying, but I feel like I was doing a pretty good job this time. It could be the weather but I was sure that the conditions were prime (pun intended). If this paint is so temperamental that it can not function above 50% humidity then I can't use it. I may be the paint. It could be defective or old. Regardless, I am throwing it away. 

Finished - Kaptain and last of the Flas Gitz

Finally, the Gits are done. This was a monster project. In the time it took me to paint a single git, I could have painted 4 Space Marines. The bodies are the size of Nobz and take the same amount of time to paint, but their guns are huge and have layers of armor over them. Once that is done, then there are the thrice-damned back banners. So much detail everywhere.

I spent a little extra time on the Kaptain as is warranted by his station. I most often see people paint the trench coat model with a black coat but I wanted something ostentatious and nothing is more stone-cold pimpin than a purple coat. I really wish the gun did not cover up the front of the chest so it was more noticeable. 

Finished - Two more Flash Gitz

Only two more and Badrukk to go before all the Gitz get done. 

I got bored (and started to run out of) the interesting back banner bits for the Flash Gitz so I had to start improvising. I used a shield from the Feral Orks and a glyph and gunshield for make shift back banners. 

Other conversions include a scope for a Gitfinda and a terminator shoulder guard. I also experimented with konverting the gunz in decidely non-Chapter Approved ways. In addition to the power plant bits, I added extra muzzle bits to the opposite side of the gun for a exhaust port of sorts. I repositioned some bits to align in odd angles so that nothing on the gun was square. 

On the table now - Badrukk and IPA

 I can remember a time when I would unwind with video games or movies at home. These days, all I want to do with my free time is paint. Nothing is better than throwing on a podcast or Netflix and painting for 6 hours. 

Except maybe having a beer with it. 

I used to like stouts and porters, but have been gravitating toward IPAs lately. While mighty tasty, beer (and IPAs in particular) tend to have a high ABV. That makes it difficult to enjoy more than one and still have the manual dexterity to put paint to plastic. 

BEHOLD! Introvert Session IPA from Left Hand Brewery. Session beers are typically under 5.0% ABV as opposed to the 7.5% or higher for most IPAs. Some can have less flavor to go with the lower ABV, but not this one. This gives me everything that I want from an IPA but a manageable amount of alcohol.

My current project is the King of the Gitz, Badrukk. I got a resin one when I bought the big box of him and his boys, but recently picked up a metal one for a sing on Bartertown. I like metal character over resin ones so decided to paint the metal and sell the resin.