[unofficial weekender] Friday, my favourite day.

[sundancer 42595xp 2]

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Read all of this before you start as it will save any trouble later.

First thing you must do is make your “pledge”. It can be anything gaming related, big or small, and you don’t even have to finish it. No, in here, happiness is the road. Have fun doing whatever it is, but it is not a race. Accompany your work with pictures or we might think you are do something sinister and just using us for cover.

You are also presented with a few questions. It is to get the conversation started. Try and keep your answers ‘conversational’, no text speak, and certainly no “basically”. This is how we all get to know each other better. While you are here feel free to tell us a story, show a picture, joke, tales of love or woe, or just add your own little bit. This is the whole point…in here it is just us.

If you have never taken part before we may bark and bite, but we also like a cuddle! It is all done in the best possible taste and it is character building. feel free to give as good as you get.

A few other things to note: NO RELIGION & NO POLITICS! Glasgow pub rules are in effect. If you need to make a better point then it is fine, but don’t take the piss. And always keep it civil.

Play plenty of music to go with your work. Loud and through proper speakers. Write us a playlist of things we might not have heard before.

Now, after all of that there is only one ‘real’ rule in here and it cannot be broken: NO DICKS! (Exceptions may be made for little fighting men with little plastic/resin/metal wieners)

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Questions of the week:

• Is there any aspect of the hobby you really want to try but haven’t done yet because you’re somehow afraid of it?
• What was the most daunting/scaring/intimidating thing (of our hobby) that you’ve done that then turned out to be easy as pie?
• What aspect/technique in out hobby caught you off guard? (Thinking it would be easy just to have it bite you in the rear end)

[sundancer 42595xp 2]

• OSL – that shit scares me… could ruin the whole paint job….
• Any kind of XPS terrain. That stuff is “magic”
• Greenstuff. I’ve tried it… I just can’t get it to work for me XD

I’m not thrilled with the lights in the hotel but I do what I can.

@horati0nosebl0wer is getting a single lamp or light bulb a possibility? Some cheap 6500k LED?

[blinky465 17024xp 1]

Is there any aspect of the hobby you really want to try but haven’t done yet because you’re somehow afraid of it?

• I’m with @sundancer on this one – OSL is terrifying. That said, I’ve just printed some cyberpunk guys sat at computer terminals, that would look amazing  with osl painted faces, gazing into the screen…

What was the most daunting/scaring/intimidating thing (of our hobby) that you’ve done that then turned out to be easy as pie?

• Painting eyes. I went from sploshing a face with wash and pretending it was ok to painting ten pairs of eyes in an evening. I paint eyes now. Just paint them first, before *everything* else.

What aspect/technique in out hobby caught you off guard? (Thinking it would be easy just to have it bite you in the rear end)?

• Realistic shading. I discovered quickshade and it really does improve a paintjob by about 1000%. That’s my technique – basecoat, wash, highlight. But all my minis look like cel-shaded flat cartoon characters. They don’t look terrible, but it’s a look I’m a bit tired of. I’d like to get some realism with my shading – I’m trying with zenith highlights etc. but then “old me” kicks in and paints right over it and does the 90s style blacklining and solid primary colours again!

 

Speaking of flat, brightly coloured cartoon characters, here’s this weeks music. I was introduced to it by my eight-year-old nephew and while I hated the characters, I eventually had to admit I quite liked the song. Maybe it’s just because it reminds me of him when I hear it.

 

(these are the guys I’m going to learn OSL on)

(I paint eyes now)

 

[blinky465 17024xp 0]

Shit. Forgot my pledge. To paint my gunner. He’s based and drybrushed and last night I repainted the pilot (the guy controlling a motorised gun is a pilot, right?) base colours. This week is the week he definitely gets finished and I get to complete another project properly and put it to bed.

I’ve got a cyberpunk band to finish off and some trolls, but if we need to keep pledges realistic, I’ll stick with the gunner dude.

[sundancer 42595xp 0]

@blinky465 Staring at a screen in cyberpunk?! What ever happened to plugging a cable in you brain as an interface!

 

Screens… PAH!

[danlee 22390xp 1]

This weeks pledge will be to complete all the Flesh Eater Courts models I’m currently working on. I should also really break out the next board game I’m going to play solo and get started (but the first session is always the hardest).

 

1. Is there any aspect of the hobby you really want to try but haven’t done yet because you’re somehow afraid of it? – Airbrushing, mainly because it is unpractical to do in my house so will need a special setup establishing in my garage.
2. What was the most daunting/scaring/intimidating thing (of our hobby) that you’ve done that then turned out to be easy as pie? – 3D printing didn’t turn out too bad once I’d got my first successful print. Not done a lot of it though.
3. What aspect/technique in out hobby caught you off guard? (Thinking it would be easy just to have it bite you in the rear end) – Nothing springs to mind.

[blinky465 17024xp 1]

Yeah screens. Maybe it’s the early days of cyberpunk. Like in the 90s when the internet was “cyberspace” and a 3d virtual reality place you went and hung out as an avatar, rather than a series of forums where you sit and… well, type, basically. Cyberspace never *really* happened but a niche few still strap on headsets and pretend it’s cool (I’m looking at you, Oculus users). In the same way, I reckon plugging straight into the matrix will only be for the kinds of people who currently do everything from the command line in Unix.

I think there’d still be screens. After all, we’re supposed to have flying cars by now but setting fire to putrified dionsaurs and leaving rubber particals on tarmac, just like we did 100 years ago isn’t just the norm, it’s also the blueprint for the future. Even if you plugged straight into your brain, I reckon you’d still need a screen, if only for debugging purposes!

I’m looking forward to the future when we ditch flat screen monitors and go back to great big hulking CRT tubes like we did in Total Recall 😉

[blinky465 17024xp 1]

@danlee – I’m still struggling with airbrushing. It frightens me still too. One day….

[m30wm1x 2318xp 2]

Hello all, happy weekend(ish). Not just going to lurk this week, my hermit impression is getting all too convincing at the moment.

Pledge, minimum to varnish some 15mm tanks. Hopefully, get some more FoW British painting done.

Questions of the week:

Is there any aspect of the hobby you really want to try but haven’t done yet because you’re somehow afraid of it?

Not really. I try to keep the mindset if I broke it I can fix it as well. I still can’t get decals right 100% of the time.

What was the most daunting/scaring/intimidating thing (of our hobby) that you’ve done that then turned out to be easy as pie?

Proper layer painting. Yes being able to either blend wet paint on the mini itself or know the perfect watered downness for a semi-transparent glaze is very impressive and useful when you nail it. If you have two paints to blend then just have them next to each other to mix on a pallette, you need a mid-tone then just mix it. Most of my painting now is chosing one colour I like then adding either ivory or charcoal paint to make shades/saturations of it.

What aspect/technique in out hobby caught you off guard? (Thinking it would be easy just to have it bite you in the rear end)

Weathering, chipping especially. It’s so disheartening when a painting step near the end of the process takes a mini from great to mistake.

Maybe a little close to the bone, but for some music

[horati0nosebl0wer 19533xp 0]

• OSL with hard lighting. I’ve got some idea of what I want to do with a bust I got from Shapeways a while ago and have tried to use the cues from comic books in order to visualize underlighting.

• The thing that I’ve thought was daunting but found easy so far has been NMM. Its just finding the right combo of paints. Taking painting classes, for a degree I will not complete, and learning with oils made it interesting to bring the knowledge over.

• Kitbashing!!! Oh, its just take this part and add it over there, right? Wrong! Oh so many times over that isn’t the case. When you sit to resculpt the hands of a Werner Klocke mini and find, through much irritation, that the bastard works about in the arena of 28 ga. wire for his hands. I’ve done three separate rebuilds of the Reaper figure Brigitte (50084) [NSFW] where I’ve resculpted hands carrying different firearms (while packing her feather duster in the other). Choice expletives for making such small details but I do love them. Modification of limbs with different accessories is always a challenge when you first need to develop an appreciation of space, weight and the elements in motion. Trial and error is your only means of learning.

This also has been the same issue with doing small random details for basing. I found sculpted sprues of skeletons from Secret Weapon and have had to do hands (reasonable for scale, won’t complain) and feet bones. Scarabs for Egyptian themed bases weren’t too bad. Building jungle/swamp bases and adding deadfall as well as vines and snakes has been a bit of a chore. Its all getting easier for the 3D sculptors while the at home hobbyist building by hand continue to toil.

Pledge: finish my commission pieces and get back to the OTT figures… there’s a future package in the works.

@sundancer Nothing to worry about for now. I’ll be moving out of the hotel and the light problem will be solved. I already have a portable Ott desk lamp that does a good job.

@blinky465 for your OSL on your cyberpunk computer operators just paint your guys like normal, seal and then do the lightest of white ink blasts with an airbrush from the direction of the terminals and then wash with your monitor color. You could just do a few passes with a light glaze over the faces with the monitor color if you don’t trust your trigger finger for airbrushing.
By the by is that a space flight stewardess figure you’ve gone and painted?

 

Now this tube thing… I’m thinking Fallout might have some clues to what the future holds…. Uranium Fever!!!!

@m30wm1x Weathering and damage can be quite fun. I recommend looking into Damaged magazine as a good source of regular info on what people do in order to make things look used. A simple gloss varnish before putting on chip medium and a layer of paint sets you up for rust in no time.

Beautiful rust

Done with economical materials

Great info and watching makes me feel dumb

[blinky465 17024xp 0]

@horati0nosebl0wer  – I can see how it looks like that just from the head, but no, it’s one of the vampire/gothic minis from last month’s Vae Victis Patreon. The mini is wearing a full bustle (? is that the right name?) with a massive bow on the back and lots of drapes and ribbon; it’s more 18th century than 23rd 😉

Nice weathering vids.

[m30wm1x 2318xp 1]

@horati0nosebl0wer I only just feel I’m beggining to get to grips with it. NightShift’s youtube has been a great help, but I’ll need to have a look Damaged magazine as the 502 weathering oils are a god send. I still find it very easy to just block all the work done with a thick mud or oil effect.

About the best I’ll get the tanks to, Giving a couple of days to be sure oils and pigments dry before final varnish. Done earlier this week.

Carriers, artillery and the PBI next.

[crazyredcoatParticipant 13642xp 1]

1. Is there any aspect of the hobby you really want to try but haven’t done yet because you’re somehow afraid of it?

Non metallic metals. I feel like I’d never be happy with it and be constantly adding layers or stripping minis. Though OSL is also a no from me. 😛 Best I will do is let a little glaze seep over onto the edges…

2. What was the most daunting/scaring/intimidating thing (of our hobby) that you’ve done that then turned out to be easy as pie?

Painting faces of Witch Elves (or the Dark Elves of that aesthetic). It took me a while to do it, but once I finally got my Sorceress finished with the make up and such it wasn’t so bad…just time consuming a bit.

3. What aspect/technique in out hobby caught you off guard? (Thinking it would be easy just to have it bite you in the rear end)

Several times I’ve made errors in the number of sub-assemblies… Too often I build a model thinking ‘this is good enough’ then realise there are so many areas that are next to impossible to reach with paint. 😛 Not quite a fixed technique, but still.

 

As for pledge, work continues on my Aggressors. It’s taking me a LONG time, but the inspiration and inclination just isn’t 100% there at the moment. I really want them to be done soon just to put another update on my project log… I may have to do something that isn’t Ultramarines next to break up the system a bit, methinks.

In other news I recently re-found this gem that I thought I’d share.

[sundancer 42595xp 1]

That song is so fitting for Fallout XD

[horati0nosebl0wer 19533xp 1]

@blinky465 Bustle gowns… I see you’re a man of culture. Unfortunately I cannot find the ecard for “Bustle gowns… business in front party in back”. I duly agree to the sentiment.

@m30wm1x Good work. I can say that playing with Vallejo mediums and slapping on Secret Weapon pigments has been my bag and works so far. The details of doing details really means that you’re in the hobby.
I think that weathering and texture painting is a skill set developed at a certain competence level when “gritty realism” becomes something you look for

@crazyredcoat NMM is easy once you see the metal as just swathes of color. Imagine the monochrome black/white value scale as all other colors. Add blue to the spectrum and you have silver/steel. Take gold the same way through an umber, sepia, light brown/beige, yellowed bone/sand and then white. Brass/copper is tricky because of the orange/green undertones. It all sounds off when you think pure pigment from the bottle but if you’re glazing the hints of color blend well.
The harsh transition in where light hits is the key for textures. Think about the edge highlights to space marine armor and you’ve got good footing for the glint of metal weapons.
I’ve read numerous interviews in Juxtapoz magazine with ultra-realist painters and their chrome is phenomenal when showing off cars. The mirror finish is not something I plan on doing with my own work any time soon.

Ahh Tom Lehrer.. he had a great one for Wehrner von Braun regarding rockets. I’ll leave it there as it cuts close to the line on politics. I laughed at the end where he talks about the Chinese and it ties in nicely with the Fallout story arc.

Now all I can think of is Six String Samurai

Now some music after the movie

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