How come I can crap out a post of this sort like it's nothing, yet if I had to write a paper of a similar length it would take the better part of an afternoon? Mysteries abound. No pictures or anything in this post, just rambling, but I figure something is better than nothing. Pictures next time, pinky swear.
I'm a big podcast fan. It started a couple years ago when I found Fear the Boot and since then it is the rare day that I don't listen to a podcast of some flavor. With the recent resurgence of GW interest, it's only natural that I would look for GW podcasts. I found plenty, but I have one big beef with them: they're too long. Even the shortest run over two hours, which is a bit past my usual limit (1.5 hours for The Instance for those keeping score). The majority of the podcasts I listen to, whether they're about hockey or Warmachine, run about an hour. I wish I knew why the GW-centric podcasts are so much longer. I'd guess it's because lots of folks listen to them while modeling or painting, but then there are lots of Warmachine podcasts that are in the 1-1.5 hour range. Some things will just be a mystery I guess.
I have an ancient plastic Predator from Rogue Trader/second edition 40k, with various bits of crap glued on to make it chaos-y, that I decided to reclaim a while ago. I took all the stuff off and dropped it in a vat of Simple Green, mostly to test out the stripping properties that I hear so much about, but also to be able to use the Predator for my Blood Angels. The tank floats so I've been rotating it every couple of days, which may have something to do with my results, but so far I'm rather disappointed. I found endless anecdotal evidence of people soaking plastic, metal, and/or resin for hours and having the paint fairly slough off. My tank has been steeping for better than a week now and while I've made good progress on it, it's far from clean and ready for new paint. It looks like I primed it with an enamel spray, and I remember putting endless coats of black ink on it because I didn't have black paint at the time, and again maybe this affected my results, but there's still a lot of work to be done. I'll try some metal and foot soldier sized plastics in the future, so the jury is still out, but it's looking grim at this point.
Since school has loosened its grip on me somewhat in the last few days, I've had more time to roam the internet at random. One of the things I ran across was Vallejo Black Lava. Apparently it's black paint (imagine that) with bits of pumice in it (imagine that again). It looks pretty handy for basing, as shown in a couple articles I found, so I may have to look into it. Basing is easily my least favorite part of painting, so anything to make it less onerous is a winner.
I've been distracted by orks lately, and I narrowly avoided stopping by the FLGS to get more minis today. EV offered a Assault on Black Reach trade that I'm considering which would add a bunch more boys, plus some Deffkoptas, to the pile of inassembled, let alone painted, orks that I have sitting around. What I would really like to lay hands on is a mess of power klawed Nobz, but it looks like the ones in AoBR are klawless and I have a bad feeling the Nobz box set has perhaps 2 to cover 5 Nobz. This may be a blessing in disguise though. In doing some noodling with army lists the other night I wrote up a kitted out Nobz unit where every member had a power klaw, along with other bits of fanciness. The price tag? North of 500 points. Maybe dropping some of the 25-points-per klaws will make that unit a bit more reasonable. In actual modeling news, I stuck an ancient Rogue Trader era power klaw on an almost as ancient ork biker to make a Nob. It's ghetto fabulous. I'll have a picture sometime.
As if the ork menace isn't bad enough, I've also been collecting links about Tyranid schemes. These particular schemes are much like what I was doing, or intending to do, when I was painting Tyranids way back when. What I really need to do is put some blinders on so I can make progress on one project instead of quarter-assing it across a bunch of things, but when I've done that in the past I quickly lose the fire. It appears my choices are a) pick on project, do not deviate, lose interest quickly or b) follow the muse, enjoy highlighting a single chainsword tooth, then drop that marine and pick up a Warmachine jack. There has to be a happy medium.
Hah! There is no happy medium. I try to time box my projects by the week. This week, for example, its the Hungarian army for Flames of War. In a couple weeks it might be my Age of Sail 1:1200 Micronauts (fat chance). Then maybe after that my Khador Kommando army I have been itching to paint. Who knows!
ReplyDeleteUltimately if painting is filling the niche and its keeping you happy, you are doing it right. Even if it just means highlighting a chainsword or looking for new paint schemes for an army you may never get around to painting.
Hey, to sweeten the deal I'll even throw in the Tactical Squad from Assault on Black Reach. They're kind of useless to a guy who's building an all-Terminator/Dreadnought/Land Raider army.
ReplyDeleteI've never had a problem with Simple Green myself. It may be that you used enamel as a base. I just stripped a failed attempt at painting a Rat Ogre about a month or so ago, and it ate through the automotive primer I use with no issue at all.
As far as painting goes, you either enslave yourself to it (as I am doing with my Skaven army) and deal with the fact that it WILL become a chore to do, or you just flit from one project to another and keep the hobby a hobby (you should see my collection of semi-painted Anima: Tactics minis).
The enslaving approach has the merit of seeing a fully painted army- your fully painted army on the board. The sense of accomplishment alone is worth the labor. Of course, having two fully-painted armies battling it out over a fully terrained and painted board is about as cool as it gets in wargaming.
The flit from place to place method keeps it from becoming a chore to paint. I have exactly 40 Clanrat Slaves, 6 Packmasters, 3 Rat Swarms, and 14 Giant Rats to paint. I know this because it is my countdown to freedom from Skaven (until the January second wave of releases any way). I would love to be painting up some Death Guard Dreadnoughts or a couple of Anima minis right now, but I MUST finish my Skaven. I promised myself I wouldn't play a game with them unpainted, and that's the carrot on the end of the stick for me. I want to try out the army.
As far as you are concerned, I'd say to go with the "bit here, bit there" approach. You paint to relax, and the last thing you want is for this to become a chore. Just my opinion, take it for what it's worth.
While I do paint for enjoyment primarily, I also want to get something accomplished. If I just go completely with whimsy, nothing will ever get done. I guess for now I have to content myself with what I can and look towards getting things done on a larger scale when I have a more forgiving schedule.
ReplyDelete@EV: I meant to mention this the other day, but I have some clanrats in a box somewhere if you're interested. I got them when we were doing Mordheim, so they've got some age on them, but individuals probably don't stand out a whole lot in a Skaven army. They're on the sprue still and I probably have bases. As for AoBR, I'm going to see if the Warstore runs a Black Friday sale and if they are I'll put an order in then.
Actually, unless they're Night Runners (which would be my guess), they'd clash with the new style Clanrats pretty dramatically. The newer rats stand much more upright.
ReplyDeleteThat and I've already painted 160 Clanrats...
What I'm really looking for are Deathwing transfers (the red ones with broken swords) as AoBR only comes with Ultramarine transfers.
As far as painting goes, you could try the approach where you paint the base colors on all your models and come back later and highlight.
...Or there's always coming over to the dark side and dipping!
I'll root around for Deathwing transfers. I got a box of them from way back when (which would clash more than old/new clanrats I imagine) that may have had a sheet that I may still have.
ReplyDeleteRe: new painting approach, I found a couple articles (like this: http://www.the-waaagh.com/forums/?showtopic=47209 ) about "painting" orks with washes. I got some Thrakka Green this morning that I'm going to try out. I'm skeptical, but we'll see how it goes. Extensive washing is the closest I'll come to dip.
Painting with washes? I find that to be an... unlikely solution. Be sure to try it on a model you'd otherwise chuck first. My other suggestion is to just prime all the models green (Army Painter makes a Goblin Green-ish primer)and then wash them with super-thin Dark Angels Green before touching up the highlights on the muscles and painting the clothing. Let me tell you, there's very little more mind-numbing than painting a horde army, and I've painted Orks, Imperial Guard, Night Goblins, and Skaven, so I should know. Assembly-line painting is your friend, as is treating yourself to a reward after every mob (something like a Trukk, Battlewagon, or even a Warboss) in order to break up the monotiny. Having said that, a fully painted horde is a wondeful thing to behold. You'll have to check out my Skaven when you next stop by. Only 40 Skavenslaves and a Packmaster to go until I reach my 2,500 point army goal!
ReplyDelete