Spring Cleaning Military Orders
Milestone reached.
I wanted to be at this point a couple of days ago, but things have not went as smoothly as I had hoped. Things are looking up and changes have been made. A couple of things done behind the scenes namely one that I wont show which was to recut all my bases. no point in showing that again.
Time to move on and paint some sandstone!
I started by priming in black two coats, letting that dry and sanding off the stone texture I spend 2 days applying. If you have never sanded acrylic, it can sand but wants to tare instead. Those tares want to roll up and crate horrible rolls of paint. If this happens press more lightly are take your time and they reduce and stop. I was careful not to remove all the texture.
This is the texture I was missing before. Flat with broken texture. around and in each brick at random.
I used needle files, sanding blocks and nail files to get inside the windows but I couldn't use these on the steps inside the arches. I had to make my down smaller sanding pegs out of scrap and cut up nail files. Not the best sanding position but it worked. the key to sanding like this is you do not want curves where there shouldn't be any. I have sanded for many days in my lifetime. I cant trust myself to use loose sandpaper and not round an edge of a project. 
I then gave this another prime of black and a slight zenith with bone then my first main coat of paint which is a tan colour. this was the last airbrush step.
Bit of a Gerry shot here but you can get the gist. This was an over brush with a golden brown colour. key for me here is to keep the paint thick but spread it out a lot. This is a step that makes it seem like you have made incorrect choices in life. It actually looks crap. Don't forget to go in the direction of light, in this case top to bottom and not attack it from all angles
The next step makes you feel crazy again, you got to have faith, like George Michael said. You get pale flesh colour and go over it. This is more like a heavy drybrush layer but applying it in a couple of coats. rather than one thick one. again from top to bottom. 
After the main paint I thin down some terracotta, orange and black to a glaze consistency and pick out some bricks at random. After this step I did give a quick drybrush of ivory as the orange came out very strong. The aim here was to give some variation on the bricks but not change the overall tone.
I then went and got my pastels and pigment powders out. I am not classing this as weathering as I am varnishing after this is again to give variation in tone and colour and to unify the wall again. I used a fan brush to grab pigments and lightly coat a random camo pattern on it. I then used a harder brush to rub in the pigment. I used some north africka dust pigment that was perhaps a little thin and strong. I also used a yellow ochre and black chalk pastel, shaving the powder off it. After everything was rubbed in and my desk a mess I went ahead and sealed it. Giving it it's finished un-weathered look. I will go in later after I have models and do a light weathering pass to bring to base and wall together and correct anything that looks horrible on camera under proper lighting. 
I also drew and cut out the window frames as I done on the sample and used the transparent glass paints on them. I have only attached these using tape for the moment. Mixing these requires much more experience than I have and while it wasn't a disaster it's far from perfect. I also sort of like that though. Fits the old style theme.
One of the nights during this weeks episode I caved. You may have seen a spoiler in the photo's leading up to this. I have all my stuff out to strip models. I just can't strip wee Joany. It's bad enough she was burned at the stake for being a witch. Plunging her future Maid of Orleans self into a vat of Dettol seems harsh. This is also a milestone model for me. I started to paint individual models and not armies (lol, says the guy with how many infinity factions now?). This made painting so much more enjoyable and I am still riding that wave. it also helped me look deeper into painting even if this didn't look like Angel himself painted it. In short I am keeping this milestone. I tried to find the same model again to paint, It couldn't be bought now so I bought the non limited sculpt so should still be comparable. Sadly I didn't notice the cut up umbra on the base so I guess I will need to paint two, I opted for the longer haried version so the pointy arm had two points of contact and is less likely to break. I also liked how the sculpt on the face is slightly different. Almost looking older. Still feels like a cop out.So that’s it for this update. I took a half day yesterday and the same today. I will start painting Joany and finishing rebasing tomorrow. then start to look at adding details to the older models. Again the faster I can get this done the more time I get with defiance and my other infinity projects before the rest of the military orders arrive at the end of this month but I may also just take my time and see how well I can document and paint what I have already. Who knows!
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