Errants Are "Done"

Remember this guy?    

A tasty bit of apocrypha tells us that a young Colonel Sanders once dropped a profound couplet on the world at large: know when to hold 'em/know when to fold 'em.  (Suspect pundits, quoting unvalidated sources, attribute this differently.  They're wrong.)

While napping through the Come to Jebus meeting at my local Waffle Barn I made a hard choice: put in some work making them look nice, then declare victory on the Errant front.  I've put plenty of time and effort into them, and I'm telling myself I'll go back and finish them properly later, but if I want to get my army even close to painted for the Journeyman league (and I do) then it's time for some triage.  The time-hemorrhage that is that unit had to stop, so I got my kit out today and made it so.

Turns out that Bush pic is really long, so I need a text buffer to make things look less like a puddle of vomit.  Hopefully this gets the job done.

Screw these guys.  I'm super seriously.

I felt like a heel while doing this since there wasn't a whole lot left to do.  It didn't take too long to get the black down (not highlighting saves a lot of time), which led nicely into finishing the bases.  All that was left after was a bit of silver here and there and then "victory."  To be fair to myself they look fine, especially on the table.

The big win here is that I can now plow ahead into the mountain of other models waiting for love.  Keeping with the triage theme the plan now is to base coat the lot so everything has the (beginnings of the) right color in the right place.  Then I can pull out whatever and finish it properly.  Will I get approximately 20 infantry and 4 jacks done in the next 2.5 weeks?  Doubtful.  Can I get base coats on that same group in that time?  Sure can.

Why stop there though?  Let's shoot for the moon.  I'm gonna base coat and wash those models.

Journeyman Update 2

Looks nice, takes years.  

To borrow a phrase from one of my favorites, we've always been painting Errants.  These little bastards are the gifts that keep on giving...an unending list of things to paint.  After a decent Tuesday of painting I thought I was on the last leg.  The whites and reds were done, leaving only the golds and blacks (and yes, also the inevitable overlooked bits and basing).  I rolled into Thursday feeling good about my chances of finishing the unit in advance of today's Paint the Target due date.  This confidence was misplaced.  Much suffering ensued.

Full disclosure: I was trying something new.  More fuller disclosure: the new thing was a different shade of brown.  I've been using the brown undercoat for bronze/gold approach for a while, but until yesterday the brown has been the VGC equivalent of Snakebite Leather.  This has served me well, but I wondered if a darker (some might say Beastial) brown would look better.  Fast forward some four hours of laying down brown so I could paint over it with bronze (and then highlight...) and something had to give.  I had an emergency backup plan in my pocket in case I ran into this very scenario consisting of one step: abandon the group and finish a single model.  Somehow the bronze and gold went on quicker than the brown, there wasn't much black to do, the base went as bases do, and I was able to get a model close enough to call it finished without any major psychotic episodes.

The bad news, of course, is there are nine more of these guys to do.  Plus the UA.  And a solo.  Ugh.

Journeyman Update 1

They paint soooo sloooooooooooooooooooooow.

The journeyman league started up this week and I'm already behind.  Not in the league standings, where I'm doing well, but on the painting table.  You might recall my grand ambition to have the Errants (perhaps the UA and solo as well) finished before the league began.  That hasn't quite worked out (thanks Olympics!) and now here we are in week two and I've just had my first good, meaty session with them.  Things are going, if slower than hoped for, but I have managed to learn one vital lesson: painting Errants sucks.  All the detail, all the cross-body arms, all the mans, everything is bad bad bad.  Things are surely exaggerated by the relative lateness of the takeoff and that I'm in the part of the process that takes the most time while yielding little visible progress (love basecoats and layering up), but it's still painful.  The good news is that I'm doing my penance now for running the Errant boat, so when my opponent's tears inevitably begin to flow I can say "Hey man, it could be worse.  I had to paint these bastards."  There's only (only!) another two or three layers for the armor, so hopefully things speed up soon, though I know all the gold will be a slog.  My only solace in these troubling times is that each layer I do is one less to do in the future.  The plan now is to finish the Errants this week.

On the gaming front the picture is much rosier.  Thanks to a case of mistaken identity and some poor dice I went 3-0 in the first week.  The list worked more or less as expected, and I even managed my first scenario win in forever.  I ran Reckoner/Vanquisher last week and now I'm not sure about making the move to double Reckoner.  The 4" of auto-fire is real nice, even if it is shorter ranged on a slower chassis.  I might press my luck this week and stick with the list as is.

Journeyman Photo Hoster

Really just need a place to put a picture, but we'll do a tiny post at the same time.  The Journeyman league starts in a week, which means it's past time to get everything put together.  I'm close with just the Errant UA, Repenter, and Wracks left to assemble.  I've even got a start on the Wracks.  There's also a second Reckoner, but that can and probably will wait until the rest is together.  The Errants are about to hit the painting table, a bit behind schedule but still on pace.  Still waiting and hoping for spraying weather.

Finished Models, New Adventures

Behold my mighty works and despair!  

The first two members of the newly formed Northern Crusade are finished.  At least I think they're mostly finished.  I'm in the midst of a fierce internal debate over whether to add some static grass to the bases.  The grey cobblestones are the victory I hoped they would be, and the bases are pleasing overall, but I think a little something extra (like static grass) would really kick them over the line I was shooting for.  Are they worth the extra steps, and vast amount of drying time, for the results?  I'm not convinced just yet, but they do look nice.  Granted they're going quicker as I do more and get to know the process better, but it's still a couple extra hurdles to getting models assembled, let alone painted.  I'm already invested for this army, and they'll be a nice touch for character/showcase models, but I don't know that I'll want to do another whole army this way.

Painting With Actual Colors

The end of session one.  

With a couple painting deadlines just over the horizon, and with my the plague that knocked me on my ass for a week or so finally (hopefully) behind me, it's time to get the painting machine going.  This process has been underway for a couple days, so there will be more pictures than usual.  I'm sure you'll find a way to push through.

I've talked a couple times about how I want to push my limits a bit with this new project.  Some chances have already fallen short, notably jack construction, while others have yet to be given the chance to be pushed aside.  Of particular note for this post is painting approach.  I'm trying out a few things: following a studio scheme (more or less), painting with a reference, and trying out the PP style of shading and highlighting.  Basics remain unchanged, so my first session was still blocking in colors and applying a wash (even if the wash didn't go down until session two).

More Prime Puns

Old shot, now they're primed.  

Now I'm going meta with titles.  Look upon my works and despair.

That whole tournament thing I was going on about?  Didn't happen for me.  Illness stepped in and said "No, you will not be playing games this weekend."  Fortunately I was still able to make good use of my time by assembling a unit of Errants and a Vigilant.  The Vigiliant went together quick and easy.  The Errants, not so much.  Each model was at least 8 pieces, not counting the base, which takes some time even in plastic.  The metal models must have been a nightmare, one I'll get a taste of when I do the UA and solo.  Now I have a reasonable collection assembled and the biggest remaining hurdles from my initial batch are the TFG and Cinerators.  Everything else is single models or small groups.  Granted some of those are Wracks, which look frustrating, and most are metal, but it's easier to get an Errant solo and UA together than those plus the unit.

All this force congealing is coming at a good time, more or less as planned, because there's now a lot of Journeyman chatter going on the local email group.  The plan all along has been to gather Menites, assemble and prime them, then initiate a painting orgy when the league starts.  While I'm on the hook to paint a couple before the league starts (thanks in large part to local Ron's attempt to reboot Paint the Target) I'll still be in a good place.