2023 Week Five Painting Blog

Monday

Hobbystreak day 30.

Vallejo Surface Primer is really annoying. It just isn’t curing at the moment and I can rub paint off with my finger. Ordered a dark brown spray can to do Necrons with, but until that arrives (and I find one that I like) I think the rest of those Necrons are on hold.

This means it’s a Malifaux week, he says ignoring the Kroot killteam that is in danger of becoming a running joke. Might as well knock a bit more off the Witness todo list and crack open the Untold Tales box. Which has a massive smoke effect on Damian Ravencroft. Bollocks. I hate those.

Something that the pictures I’m taking is forcing me to address is that my shadows aren’t very deep when I paint. The skin needs more contrast and although I’m getting a bit better with bringing highlights up they’re still not bold enough either.

The heavy destroyer is done.

My method for the rust is to base in dark brown and then sponge lighter browns on until I think I’ve gone too far and it’s yellow. I also don’t pick up all the details that you might traditionally think should be glowing on the weapons because I think I prefer the more “this statue in the museum has come to life and wants to kill us” feel than something that’s more obvious.

Tuesday

Hobbystreak day 31

End of the month and looking back at my progress I’m really happy. Having barely pained for years my brush control is coming back quite quickly and I’m using paints (Pro-Acryl) that behave in a way I quite like. Taking photos of each model is really paying off and just having this site to see what I’ve been up to is a real advantage to my motivation too.

I’ve started on Unbound Damian Ravencroft and I think I’m happy with the effect I’m getting with the cloak/smoke thing. I’m also starting the skin at a darker colour and working up so I hope that shows up on camera.

So that’s the end of January and I managed to paint 11 models. Not too bad.

Wednesday

Hobbystreak day 32

More work on Damian Ravencroft, not sure if I’m messing up the skin or it’s going to be good but I can always point out that he’s not exactly in peak physical condition at this point. Right?

Thursday

Hobbystreak day 33

Finished Damian today. I’m a lot happier with his skin and I’ve just got some highlighting to do. I’ve been painting him as two parts (red swirl and him) and I’ve glued then together before getting properly started on that so I don’t get distracted by bits that you’ll never see. When taking the photos the lighting really showed up the gap under his chest where the model is built so I might go back and clean that up.

Did some Malifaux scenery painting too, in so far as “painted the floor of the abandoned shop model brown” can be considered meaningful painting. One of the nice things about the model is that it doesn’t actually need to be glued together fully and so all the walls and floor can stay separate pieces. That means the interior can actually be painted. Not sure how fast I’ll get it done, but I figure if I take one part and pick away at it when I have a moment then before long I’ll have a whole building painted.

Friday

Hobbystreak day 34

Got fed up trying to find a nice dark brown spray can and did what I should have done in the first place and ordered an Army Painter one. It came today and it’s the perfect colour (Oak Brown). Screw your airbrush. Back in your box. So that’s 5 Necron Immortals with browns being sponged on. I think they’ll maybe finished tomorrow at this rate. I should do a whole Necron army.

I also started assemling the Sonnia Criid Core Box for Malifaux. I’ll paint the smaller version of her iconic sculpt at the same time. Now do I do something daft and get the Other Side starter so I have her other model as well so that I don’t have to think about it? I’ll paint these after the necrons.

Saturday

Hobbystreak day 35

Onto the metals on the Necrons, and the white undercoat for the orbs. I didn’t get a clean enough white on the destroyer so these I’m doing more coats. Then after that it’s touch up a few bits and basing them before calling them done. I’ll have painted over half of the number of miniatures I did last month in less than a week. It’s only slightly cheating by them being one of the easiest Necron schemes.

Assembly continues for the Sonnia Criid core box and you can tell these are early Malifaux plastics. Not as bad as some, but very fiddly. They’ll need base inserts so some time today will have to be spent on that too.

Sunday

Hobbystreak day 36

I think I might be getting somewhere with all this because the fact that my painting handles are all empty feels wrong now.

I’ve started on the walls for the abandoned store. It’s going to be a quick-ish paint job for most of it, but I want to establish some scenery norms I think. Small things like what colour are bricks? Are they bright red? Or are they the more sandy clay colour of London bricks? What colours are the stones? These are all things I’m not very good at painting right now so need to get some practice in.