Once upon a time I got through so many brushes! I'd be buying about 3 a week in peak painting times. Acrylic is just a killer of brushes: it works up the bristles and dries in there forcing them apart. Metalics are even worse.
Bearing in mind you need all your disposable income to spend on your plastic crack, this was a serious drag.
In steps my lady. Hero of the scrapbook. Scion of the craft shop owner. Brainbox of ink and paper.
Her technique for resurrecting brushes is the business.
Obviously the best thing is to clean them regularly, but if you are on a big project, the paint is drying in there as you paint. I'm on a Deff Dread right now and I might be using one colour for 30 minutes.
Washing up liquid at the end of every session of painting is also good. Even if the paint is dry, its not totally dry,and the washing up liquid breaks up nearly all of it. But eventually your brush will succumb to that "bad hair day" look, at which point I used to bin them. But my Kate showed me the true path: boiling water.
It sounds brutal but it works. When the brush will no longer hold a point, clean it first as best you can with the washing up liquid, but then boil the kettle and rinse the brush out with freshly boiling water. Then shape it back to a point and let it dry and it is very nearly good as new.
Sunday, 31 March 2013
Style
My friend Henry got chatting to me today. He's nearly exactly 10 years younger than me, and is very much a different generation of Warhammerer. He's got a lovely painting style, nice tone, and a really delicate technique. Its all about the airbrush and the top notch inks. His comments about my technique often revolve around "you have a lot of patience". But truth be told, I'm a bit of a dinosaur.
It seems a lot has happened in my 15 years away from the hobby. The new miniatures are so good, perhaps almost good enough to justify the price! And a lot of ideas have clearly bounced around the internet, something we didn't have back in the day. Back when I last played, my painting tips were gleaned from the pages of White Dwarf and my local hobby store - the sadly now defunct Fun Fact and Fantasy. I'd never heard of airbrushing being used on miniatures, and heat guns to dry the paint? Where have you been all my life?
It seems my style of painting is very much upside down to the current vogue. I do my nice clean base coat of colour - several very thin coats to get a really smooth finish - and then get nice and dark with an appropriate ink. From there its about bringing the tone up to a high contrast, I lazily call it highlighting, but its more accurate to call it Defining. I don't really think about a light source, I'm trying to define the shapes with a view to making an illusion with the scale - trying to make a small miniature look big. The result is quite cartoonish I think.
It seems a lot has happened in my 15 years away from the hobby. The new miniatures are so good, perhaps almost good enough to justify the price! And a lot of ideas have clearly bounced around the internet, something we didn't have back in the day. Back when I last played, my painting tips were gleaned from the pages of White Dwarf and my local hobby store - the sadly now defunct Fun Fact and Fantasy. I'd never heard of airbrushing being used on miniatures, and heat guns to dry the paint? Where have you been all my life?
It seems my style of painting is very much upside down to the current vogue. I do my nice clean base coat of colour - several very thin coats to get a really smooth finish - and then get nice and dark with an appropriate ink. From there its about bringing the tone up to a high contrast, I lazily call it highlighting, but its more accurate to call it Defining. I don't really think about a light source, I'm trying to define the shapes with a view to making an illusion with the scale - trying to make a small miniature look big. The result is quite cartoonish I think.
My love for Grotz
I'm all about the grots. I will have to get cracking with more. Ammo Runtz, Painboy Orderlies. Some Big Gunz will have to happen soon. I really like sculpting them as they are pretty quick and easy. For me orks without Grotz are just lame, and Ork world should be swarming with them.
For £10, a pack of Grotz is a nice little pick me up. I live 30 seconds walk from my nearest stockist, and I just love painting them. In game terms, they may have their limitations, but you just have to have them really.
For £10, a pack of Grotz is a nice little pick me up. I live 30 seconds walk from my nearest stockist, and I just love painting them. In game terms, they may have their limitations, but you just have to have them really.
A special "Kustom" piece
This was an interesting piece I completed recently. I accidentally bought this off ebay.
The plan was to get a KFF Mek, and I think I must have skimmed the description and perhaps the photo. Careless really, but when I opened the package I had a small moment of raeg, feeling that I'd been gipped. What I had was a Lead warboss miniature with a scratch build collection of gubbinz on the back: something someone had cobbled together from their bitz box.
I went back to the listing, and realised my mistake. The photo was similar in general impression to the proper KFF mek, and the description had the word Kustom in it. I'd looked at the cheap price and hit bid without much more thought. But everything was in the description plain as day,so it was my fault.
... cup of tea... bit of a think...
Had another look at the miniature and realised it was a pretty nice job actually. Had a look at the listing, and you could see there were some personal details that were quite cute. The seller had even named the attack squig "Billy". Looked at that, looked back at the miniature, you could see some love had gone into it.
...hmm...
He sat on my painting desk for about a month looking at me. I did quite a few other projects, and had a nasty bout of flu which had my hands shaking so much I had to give painting a rest for about 3 weeks. But when I was finally ready, I realised that our mek's time had come.
There were some classic ebay miniature features: not for the first time, his equipment configuration was not in line with the Codex. He had both the KFF and the Kustom Mega Blaster, naughty naughty. The Blaster had to be chopped and replaced with something game legal. I'd had some metal Killa Kans, and one was equipped with a skorcha - again a senseless configuration: one of the only BS3 miniatures available to the orks with a short range template weapon? - so the swap was made. I nearly had my eye out when the dremel blade came off while trying to chop the metal, but it ended up as a nice job, and the miniature was one of those "it painted itself" moments, I had him done in two evenings.
The plan was to get a KFF Mek, and I think I must have skimmed the description and perhaps the photo. Careless really, but when I opened the package I had a small moment of raeg, feeling that I'd been gipped. What I had was a Lead warboss miniature with a scratch build collection of gubbinz on the back: something someone had cobbled together from their bitz box.
I went back to the listing, and realised my mistake. The photo was similar in general impression to the proper KFF mek, and the description had the word Kustom in it. I'd looked at the cheap price and hit bid without much more thought. But everything was in the description plain as day,so it was my fault.
... cup of tea... bit of a think...
Had another look at the miniature and realised it was a pretty nice job actually. Had a look at the listing, and you could see there were some personal details that were quite cute. The seller had even named the attack squig "Billy". Looked at that, looked back at the miniature, you could see some love had gone into it.
...hmm...
He sat on my painting desk for about a month looking at me. I did quite a few other projects, and had a nasty bout of flu which had my hands shaking so much I had to give painting a rest for about 3 weeks. But when I was finally ready, I realised that our mek's time had come.
There were some classic ebay miniature features: not for the first time, his equipment configuration was not in line with the Codex. He had both the KFF and the Kustom Mega Blaster, naughty naughty. The Blaster had to be chopped and replaced with something game legal. I'd had some metal Killa Kans, and one was equipped with a skorcha - again a senseless configuration: one of the only BS3 miniatures available to the orks with a short range template weapon? - so the swap was made. I nearly had my eye out when the dremel blade came off while trying to chop the metal, but it ended up as a nice job, and the miniature was one of those "it painted itself" moments, I had him done in two evenings.
A couple of burna boys with him too. At some point I'll get the rest of their mob completed.
Back at last!
Well, its been a fair old while. Life gets in the way sometimes, and sometimes a project has to sit in your mind a while before you've truly settled on what you want to achieve.
Life got in the way for me with a fairly tempestuous relationship breakdown, and then picked up massively some months later when I met my lovely Kate. She is exceptionally supportive of the hobby,as she has crafting hobbies of her own. So while Warhammer isn't something she is ever likely to get into, she understands many of the satisfactions of a well turned out piece of work, and has a lot of constructive feedback and fresh perspectives that have been brilliant for me.
The first piece I want to showcase is my first finished sculpture. Inspired by Kaptin Bluddfalgg from the DOW2 game, but as he progressed a lot of interpretation and colouring outside of the lines happened.
Life got in the way for me with a fairly tempestuous relationship breakdown, and then picked up massively some months later when I met my lovely Kate. She is exceptionally supportive of the hobby,as she has crafting hobbies of her own. So while Warhammer isn't something she is ever likely to get into, she understands many of the satisfactions of a well turned out piece of work, and has a lot of constructive feedback and fresh perspectives that have been brilliant for me.
The first piece I want to showcase is my first finished sculpture. Inspired by Kaptin Bluddfalgg from the DOW2 game, but as he progressed a lot of interpretation and colouring outside of the lines happened.
The sculpting was my first effort and a finished piece, and actually since then I've done very little more sculpting. I had a lot of fun painting him,and it was very satisfying to have a piece that is entirely my own work. But how hard it was,the time, and my desire to have a gameable army quickly has actually let me to get buying a lot of miniatures on ebay. My hope is now to get a painted game army together, and then get back to sculpting pieces after this to slot into and eventually replace the bought miniatures.
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