A long time in painting...

Well,

Came out in 1995

This may not have been the oldest items waiting to get painted, but was definitely took some time. As some know, I was and still am a avid player of the old school Warhammer Quest game. I have pretty much everything you could purchase for the game except the White Dwafs,Journal magazines and Deathblow magazines. I was lucky enough to get the Catacombs of Terror from a buddy a few years ago but it was all the paper products minus the miniatures. A few years ago I was finally able to track down the complete set of miniatures and had high hopes to get them painted.

So since I am stuck at home, I decided to start painting these guys over the weekend. As I posted before in the past about two years ago my brother threw down the challenge to get all of my Warhammer Quest stuff painted, so besides getting old stuff done, this also fits the bill of my brothers challenge. So first up was the main bad guy, the Dread King himself on his throne.

Dread King

 I added a old GW metal floor tile to the model but its pretty stock and straight forward. As much as I dug the old box art I always thought the red yellow scheme felt a bit cartoonish to me, so went with greens for the colors and more metal feel for the throne, I think it works well together. The words on the page of the book was phoned in, I cheated and use Permanent fine tip markers before I washed them. I tried paining them on but my paint was drying to fast on the brush and was not looking right.

Necromancer and assistant with Dread King

I then moved onto the Necromancer and "Igor" assistant to paint. You may notice that the Necromancer is mounted on a round base, I had gotten him before the rest of the miniatures and I was going to use him for Frostgrave as a Necromancer Wizard. So since I am not doing Frostgrave right now, and I already painted up a Necromancer Wizard so I will be putting a square base on him in the next day or so.

Group Shot with Tomb Guard Models

 Next up were the three Tomb Guard models, these guys were pretty easy to paint and I have painted them before when I used to have an Undead Army for Fantasy Battle many many moons ago. All in all very happy to have these figures completed, the sad part is they will go into the box until the next game.

One last project that I did Tuesday was repainting my game table top. I usually do it every few years but have gotten out of the practice of doing it. It was looking pretty beat up and while cleaning my desk area I found the pint of paint I have used in the past. Good thing too as the paint lid had almost rusted closed and the paint was about to harden up. SO I cleared off the table, patched some of the scratchs my cats had put into the table and busted out the roller and repainted it.

Fresh coat of paint on the table.

 And yes that blue paint job on the walls is a camo style that I did for my son years ago before I took over the room. You may also see the Model railroad in the picture, which is getting some love as well, but that will be for another update.

So stay safe, health and more importantly sane!

TK

A beast approaches...

Why what a lot of teeth you have!

So,

I with having so much time on my hands i went looking through my models to see if there was anything that inspired me to work on it. Well this little fella jumped out to me, I picked him up about 6 years ago while at Adepticon, was going to use him for LotR or LotHS, but never got around to doing it, this seemed to be the perfect time as any.

Here is the model in bare Bones Material before I started on it.

Pretty good size, at least 13" Long

Close up shot

Another angle

So after getting everything put together and the tentacles in a good place that I liked, it all got hand primed in black paint. Bones material only likes certain spray primers, I have had good luck with Army Painter but I was out and everywhere that sells it was closed. So hand priming with a brush was the option taken.

The beast is changing colors

So since I was not going to use this for any projects, I decided to permanently mount it to a display base, once I found one that worked, I sanded it down and painted it flat black and then hit it with a gloss coat finish.

I then started to cut in the main colors. I spent some time looking at real lobsters and squids (as this had both elements in it. I decided that that hard shell plates would be a bluish color while the softer parts would be more along the colors of purple and reds.

Adding more color

WIP on color

Once I had the base colors down I washed the model in Army Painter Strong tone. I had originally tried painting the eys to match a giant squid, using yellow and oranges, but it looked to fake so I repainted them black with a little white dot for reflection. It looked better. Once the wash dried I Dull coated the model and glued it to its base. Then I started picking out details to bring it to life.

Lots of teeth

The backside of Beast

Close up of back plates

Another view from underneath.

So there you go, a project purchased 6 years ago finally see's daylight and gets painted up in a weekend.

TK

Stripping, not the pole dance kind.

Well,

This week I decided to try my hand at stripping factory paint off of the Hot Wheels I use for Gaslands. Up to the other day I just used 150 grit sandpaper to sand and rough up the stock paint before priming. But my buddy Mike from Da Greenskins Blog turned me onto Citrusstrip.

Magic in a bottle!

 Mike had found out about this magic in bottle from the interwebs and was highly recommended for stripping paint from metal (important point here) models. Do not, repeat do not try stripping plastic models, it eats into the plastic and in some cases will turn said plastic into a glob of melted plastic (may be good for Nurgle players!)

So since I will be doing a demo on weathering cars at the AZ Game Fair later this month, I decided to choose a model to strip. The lucky truck below was chosen and after I disassembled the truck, into the stripping fluid it went.

Lucky truck for stripping!

I placed the truck in the Citrustrip overnight and the next day I could tell the paint was coming off. I carefully used a toothbrush to scrub the body but the paint just came off without much scrubbing. I rinsed the body off (out side into my rocks) and this is what I had below.

perfectly stripped

Add caption

After I rinsed the body down, I took it inside and washed it down with warm soap and water to remove any residue that may have been left on the body. I then used a Krylon Camo beige for the car as the weathering effects I will use will show up nicely on the model. I did some basic painting on the bed, grill and rear bumper, but the rest is the beige paint and finally reassembled the truck.

New paint

Looks very clean

Some big wheels you have there!

After putting the truck back together and looking at it, I thought that a flat beige color for a real truck would look awesome, I know the current Rat Rod look is to use flat black, but man, I could see using flat beige and blacked out chrome would look nice on the real thing.

So next up is going to be rust and weathering effects from various manufacturers for the demo class, I will post after the class. But I think I found a new stripping fluid for metal models in the future. Now time to strip more cars!

TK

How do you paint so fast???

So,

This past Saturday I painted up 50 Ghouls for my AoS Flesh Eaters army and I had a couple of friends ask me how I did it? Well the trick is to just do it!

Now, as some know, I did commission painting with my own company for about 9 years up until I decided to take a break this year from the business. I would always take large commissions in and it would not be unheard of to have at least three paint commissions on the desk at one time. I would always hit my 4-6 week mark that I promised my clients. Many of my customers were very impressed in the turn around time and that's what kept them coming back.

So what was my secret? Well much like the Nike commercial, you need to just Do It! Meaning that you just have to sit down and do the work, that's it, just put your head down and paint! I would spend at least three hours a day painting, and hour before I went to work and two hours in the evening after getting home from work. But I always painted! I stayed on track by not letting other things get in between my painting time, like Facebook, Twitter, video games, binge watching Netflix or other time sinks. I also only worked on those commissions that I had deadlines for. So if I got tired of painting, I prepped other commissions for paint or got them assembled. But I always stay focused on the project at hand and just put forth the effort to finishing up the current project.

Now, as a commission painter, there are tricks that I have used for painting, here are a few things I do which are not in order.

• Know what and how you are going to paint. If your doing a Space marine army, and you know its going to be blue, then why not use a blue primer for them to start? 
• Work on one section of the model at a time, if you have a hundred 15mm models to paint, do all the boots at once and don't think about painting now 200 boots, that will drive you insane! 
• Set your self some goals, say after painting 200 tiny boots, you get up to grab something to drink from the fridge, then go back to the paint desk to start on the next thing. 
• Make sure you have everything you need before you start, if you know you are going to need two bottles of Strong Tone wash, make sure you have them before you start, nothing worse than having to stop to run to the store!
• Have a good chair to sit in, your going to be sitting for a while, might as well have a good comfortable chair to sit in.
• Have a dedicated space to work, nothing kills the urge to paint then having to get everything out and put it all away.
• Listen to music, TV, Podcasts or what ever. I find music and pod casts are the best for me, I used to have a TV in my area, but I found I would just start watching it and did less painting, so now its music or podcasts.
• Enjoy what you are working on, as a commission painter, I had to work on a few commissions that I was not super excited about, that kills the mood and turns painting into a chore. So enjoy what your working on.
• If painting a certain project starts to become a chore, then paint up one miniature out of the blue for no reason. I found that doing a figure at random for nothing I am working on helps me to stay focused on the job at hand.
• Last but not least, keep the end goal in mind, at the end of this, your going to have a painted model, unit or army to show for it!

So there you go, there are a few of my secrets and tips to painting large amounts of models. I find it very satisfying to get my painted  armies onto the table and it is a feeling of accomplishment. Every weekend I go into my local game shop and I see the same tired looking armies that have not had anything done to them in weeks or years. Part of this hobby is all about painting and it really is not that hard to do, but you just have to Do IT!

TK

Video Games are bad...

For me anyway,

Here is why, they sometimes inspire me to paint things I haven't painted in years! So a little back story may be needed, so as some know, I have for the past 9 years I have run Saguaro Painting Service. Well after painting countless miniatures for others, I decided to retire my brush and get back to painting for myself.

But now with nothing pressing on my bench for the first time in 9 years, what would I paint? So I did what I think most painters do, I flopped down in front of my TV and started playing some good old fashion video games on my PS3 (Don't judge, I love my PS3!) One game that I got a few Christmas's ago was Shadow of Mordor.

Now when you run a successful painting business, you do not have time for such luxuries as playing video games, there is always a commission that has to be painted (or something for the house, or wife or...). So while looking through my games, I decided to drop in Shadow of Mordor and spend some quality time hunting Orcs!

Well first off I have to say this is an awesome game and I am enjoying it very much. (Makes me want to go buy a PS4 for the new game in the series). But something foul started to take seed, I didn't realize it at first and I should have seen it sooner. But after the first night, of playing, I went and dugout and old Reaper Dragon that I have had lying around waiting to be assembled and painted.

Big ass Dragon from Reaper, that's a 6"x 6" tile he is sitting on!

So out came this dragon and after hunting orcs, I spent about an hour cleaning it up and assembling it. It felt very good to go and dig this model out and start working on it, I had no plan, but it just felt right. This should have been the first clue to me that evil was taking root inside of me, but I thought nothing of it.

Well a few more nights of hunting orcs with Shadow of Mordor and I had this idea of painting up some orcs. Why? I can not tell you, but that is how evil works my friends, there is no rhyme or reason to it, it just happens! So yesterday I went into to my game closet and grabbed a box of miscellaneous Lord of the Rings models that were waiting to be assembled and painted. This should have been my second clue that something evil was afoot, but alas I did not see it.

It smells like orcs around here!

So I happily dug threw the large collection to find bags of plastic orcs that I had assembled and a few were primed awaiting paint. So I dumped out a few models and started to paint while listening to some Rush! Well after a few hours of painting, I found that I had a small army sitting on my table. It seems that I was really excited to paint up orcs, it is that evil seed I am telling you!

We are ready for war now boss!

So after the painting, what started out as a few turned into 38 orcs painted! As I sat thee looking at what I painted, the real world realization hit me like a ton of bricks, what would I use these for??? Well the oblivious answer was Lord of the Rings, I sent my buddy Drunkensamurai a FB message, but he cleverly saw thru the evilness and didn't respond about playing. The evil magic did not effect him it seems. So with that, I came to realization that I painted these just for the heck of it and I am okay with that. It feels great to be able to paint what I want, when I want. It has been a long time since I have been able to do that.

Now lets see, now I need to figure out how to get these onto the table...

TK

Arizona Game Fair Recap

Well Arizona Game Fair has come and gone and I have survived! This was my first time attending this event which is normally a all Board/Card convention, this year I was the first actual miniature game to be hosted (Yes X wing was there, but I look at that as more of a board game than miniature game), which was CAVSO. I also was brought in to run the Paint & Take for the event, which was sponsored by Talon Games. 

I ran about 20 people through the CAVSO demos, which all but one had never played a true miniature game. All that played this weekend had a blast and loved the game,  so I would say that it was a hit!

CAVSO Demo Table, thanks to Robert for lending the terrain!

A packed table for CAVSO!

Besides the demos, as I mentioned I ran three Paint & Takes with CAVSO models. Talon Games sent a bunch models to use as well as Reaper paints. My friend Richard who recruited me to AZGF, bought the brushes to use for the event.

CAVSO models on display to inspire painting!

Two full packed tables for the Paint & Take

Each session had 12 folks signed up and all but a few had never actually painted anything before. As I said before, this is primarily a board and card show, so not many painters there. Now with more board games having cool miniatures, more folks are looking to paint there miniatures in their board games. So this was a great excuse to pick up a brush and test out their skill with out having to invest in paints and brushes. Once again folks had a blast painting and for most, these were the first miniatures that they ever painted.

So how was the rest of the event? Well from what I saw of it in between my demos or classes, tit looked like it was pretty well handled. There were lots of board games and when I went over to the RPG room, it was packed! The vendor area had a good selection of shops, including Imperial Outpost. All of the shops present had good selections of items, although not to surprising, none of them had any miniatures. All the folks that played in the demos or went to the Paint & Take were asking me if they could buy any of this there, which sadly I had to point them to the Reaper website. I imagine that with more miniature games, the vendors will respond by bringing more minis next time.

And because of the success of the events I ran, it looks like i will be going back next year to host more games. In fact I will be running a few Fistful of Lead games next year at the event. How do I know that, well I went and did a bad thing the other day, I ordered two bundles of Sarissa Precision of Old West terrain!

So next year, we will have some Old West Action going on at Arizona game Fair. I am also meeting with Richard to discuss just what sort of miniature games should be show cased at future events. Now, I need to wait to get my new toys, so stay tuned for some new terrain.

TK

Desperados for Thunder Mesa Mining Co.

Quick little update today.

Painted up a few old west figures for a friend up in Camp Verde for his On30 layout called Thunder Mesa Mining Company which is a model railroad blog that I follow. You will notice that the model railroad layout is based on the Big Thunder Mine train rollercoaster at Disneyland and the Calico Mine Train at Knott's Berry Farm. Dave Meek is an outstanding modeler and I love looking at his layout.

A few weeks ago he did a post on an expansion of the layout and I thought I would send him a few extra old west figures I had lying around to populate the layout. Now these are Foundry miniatures and are 25mm ( or 1/56 scale) and will be pretty close to 1/48th scale figures. So a few hours of work and off went these four desperados to join the Thunder Mesa Mining Co (or rob their trains!). So go check out his awesome blog and once the figures arrive I am sure they will make an appearance somewhere on the layout.

TK