2025 Painting Log

Like the Mandalorians in my last post, these were done primarily in Speedpaints.

This time I primed them in grey rather than black, while still drybrushing in white, and I think it works a little better, at least for these models. The undercoat is lighter overall, which lets the Speedpaint add more of the shading like it’s supposed to do. I did find that lighter Speedpaint colors still aren’t great for this technique — the skin tones in particular looked pretty grey, so for many of the lighter skinned models I went over the faces, arms and legs with traditional paint.

I’m still pretty happy with the results, especially given the relatively short amount of time it took to get these 9 figures done — once again Speedpaint lives up to its name.

This is the last of the Gangs of Rome stuff I bought last year. With these models I have more than enough for the game (and then some), and the Feldherr boxes I’m using to store them are now exactly full. On the other hand, I believe I’m only six models away from having everything Footsore has made for the game, so why wouldn’t I go for a full set?

2025 models painted so far: 60, for 4 different games

Moving on to a completely different technique. I painted these with Speedpaints over a black primer/white drybrush base coat, and then finishing up with a light drybrush of yellowed bone over the color to bring out the highlights. Doing all the different piecemeal armor colors in the triad method would have taken more time than I wanted to spend on these — as it is, I got them done in less than half the time that the Wisdom of the Council set took. I don’t think Speedpaints are a cure-all, but they’re great for some projects.

2025 models painted so far: 51, for 4 different games

This particular collection of Jedi seems intended to evoke the Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars micro-series which came before the later long-running CG-animated Clone Wars series. Both “volumes” of the micro-series ended with General Grievous standing off against a desperate group of Jedi — first Ki-Adi-Mundi, Shaak Ti, and a collection of knights and padawans (one of whom looks suspiciously like Shaggy from Scooby Doo), and then Shaak Ti and a very memorable Ithorian.

The Wisdom of the Council squad pack includes a fair number of these characters. We get Ki-Adi-Mundi and Shaak Ti, along with the Ithorian and a padawan with four different head options, one of which bears a passing resemblance to that nervous-looking human (although the gender appears to have been swapped, at least according to the assembly instructions).

I wanted to paint these with a flat, 2D animated look, which would give me a chance to put the Kevin Dallimore triad techniques I’ve been reading about recently into practice. I thought it would be interesting to try to paint a few models without falling back on washes and drybrushing (well, not too much, anyway).

I painted these with a combination of Army Painter and Reaper paints. I’ve been slowly switching my paints over from Reaper to Army Painter, which has me a little torn. The new Warpaint Fanatics line has impressed me with its opacity and coverage; Reaper has a better range of colors, but they tend to go on a little watery and transparent, requiring multiple coats even with dark colors. Additionally, none of my local shops carry Reaper, so I have to order online every time I need something, which adds an extra level of hassle.

In any case, I had a lot of fun with these, although the triad technique is definitely a lot slower than I’m used to. I think I’ll use speedpaints on my next few batches of models, just to catch up…

2025 models painted so far: 47, for 4 different games

I was very happy to see that Graeme Dawson has reactivated Beast in the Broch and appears to be producing new rules and miniatures — as soon as I found out, I quickly picked up everything he’s got that I didn’t already have. Graeme’s Future Freedom Fighters range has a special place in my heart for a few reasons.

I grew up watching British science fiction shows on American public television in the late ’70s and early ’80s, especially Doctor Who and Blake’s 7. The Future Freedom Fighters Programme Guide for 7TV was what got me into “proper” miniatures gaming after years of painting models for roleplaying games or just for fun, and playing prepainted games like (don’t laugh) Heroclix and WOTC’s Star Wars Miniatures Game.

I’ll probably use these models as an excuse to get back to playing some 7TV, since I already have the FFF programme guide which includes stat cards and scenarios in the vein of Blake’s 7, but I’m also thinking they would be a great fit for Star Schlock, maybe as stand-ins for the Privateer Captain and his Star Vultures…

2025 models painted so far: 43, for 4 different games

These 8 Insectoid Coalition miniatures represent the last of my Star Schlock purchases to date. I’ve got my eye on more, but for now I’ve got four factions worth, plus some mercenaries to fill in the gaps, so I can field a fair variety of different forces.

For these I went with the game’s official artwork. I like the teal armor on the troops, but I’m not sure about the Monarch and Viceroys — their red and yellow color scheme is a bit Ronald McDonald for my tastes. We’ll see if it bothers me enough to attempt a repaint, but honestly these aren’t my favorite Star Schlock models anyway so I doubt I’ll bother. Better to just move forward.

The crouching Viceroy just looked ridiculous with his feet hanging over the supplied 20mm base, so I moved him to a larger 25mm one. It shouldn’t make any difference to the game, it doesn’t get hung up on details like that (and besides, all the Space Apes come with 25mm bases anyway).

Wunkay very generously sent me a Sleazoid Queen model, which thus far hasn’t been available at retail. This one hit that sweet spot between being really fun to paint but not taking up a huge amount of time, and I’m very happy with the results. Now to get some more games in…

2025 models painted so far: 36, for 3 different games

One squad of three Snowtroopers is an interesting choice, and the fact that they’ll be running around on gantries in the desert helps to illustrate the fundamental absurdity of Star Wars: Shatterpoint with its mix-and-match team building. At the end of the day, it’s just an excuse for grown adults to spend time playing with Star Wars toys, and I’m okay with it.

I did the Snowtroopers as you might expect, with grey primer and a few layers of successively lighter drybrushing, with a final glaze of off-white on the armored parts. Just for my own sanity I painted the “sand” areas of the bases to be snow, and added a bit of texture to make it look like the snow had blown onto some of the metal floor areas.

General Veers was bog-standard base coat/wash/drybrush, but the green Army Painter wash I used on his armor is very old and went on very glossy. I had just received a bottle of AK Ultra Matte varnish, and this seemed the perfect model to try it out on.

That stuff is MATTE. Light just falls into it. It’s almost too matte — I was afraid to use it on the Snowtroopers, fearing that they would end up looking like chalk. I think it’ll be good in certain circumstances, and since I brush on my varnishes, I can start playing around with having different finishes on different parts of the model.

2025 models painted so far: 27, for 2 different games

Here we have the four most interesting characters in the history of Star Wars, if you factor in actual screen time against sheer amount of merchandise and spin-off fiction.

Some of these were simpler than others, as you might imagine. IG-88 took all of an hour to do, while I spent several days each on Boba Fett and Bossk.

Bossk in particular required a lot of course correction thanks to that most uncooperative of all colors, yellow. I started him out with a white drybrush over Army Painter grey primer. Initially I did the yellow using Speedpaint Zealot Yellow, but the shadow areas were far too orange. So I essentially repainted all the yellow areas using something more akin to the triad/Kev Dallimore method, building up from mid-brown to yellow. In comparison, the flight suit details and skin were a breeze.

I am finding myself steering away from Speedpaints as an end-all painting solutions, although I do like a few of the greys and browns as a sort of heavy, highly pigmented wash. Grim Black is especially good for black clothing and boots.

Oddly, I found Dengar to be the most enjoyable to paint. The limited palette was easy but not as uninteresting as IG-88’s two shades of metallic, and the caged lizard monkey (or is it monkey lizard?) added an extra dash of color.

2025 models painted so far: 23, for 2 different games

My first Shatterpoint models for the year come in the form of that ol’ smoothie, Lando Calrissian and his Cloud City support staff. But we all know that Lobot is the power behind the throne, and my recent game of Shatterpoint certainly bears that out.

Between the Savage Core Atlanteans, Lando and his guards here, and some upcoming Insect Coalition Guards for Star Schlock, I am going through an awful lot of blue…

These were done in my usual mix of techniques. The Cloud City Guards were the easiest, just a blue drybrush over black primer, then fill in faces, hands, weapons, and uniform trim. For Lando and Lobot I primed them in grey and used a mix of traditional paints and speedpaints, with a lot of glazes and layering to course-correct, especially Lando’s shirt — it was surprisingly difficult to get just the right shade of blue.

Instead of my usual silver and tan bases I decided to try something different and actually put them in Cloud City, with gleaming white floors for Lando and Lobot, and the carbon freezing chamber’s black and orange for the guards.

2025 models painted so far: 19, for 2 different games

The second batch of Savage Core models I ordered back in April (I’m sad to say they’re not my oldest “pile of opportunity” occupants). I love Lucid Eye’s miniatures, they’re very characterful and sit in that sweet spot between cartoony and realistic. I’ve got another order of their stuff from November that I’m hoping to start on soon.

These were done using the standard basecoat-wash-highlight method.

For some reason, I got it into my head a long time ago that miniature bows should always have strings, but I’ve started to get a little lazy about how I do them — these bowstrings were made from staples that I bent straight and clipped to fit.

As with the Atlanteans, the basing is a lot more elaborate than I usually do. These characters are from the Age of Ice expansion for Savage Core, so I did them with snowy bases. Now I’m thinking I need some terrain and a mat for a snow-covered battlefield…

2025 models painted so far: 15, still all for Savage Core

Next up: we return to a galaxy far, far away.

In Savage Core, Atlantis is a lost colony of Romans (or maybe Greeks?), but I didn’t want to go with the usual brown, gold and red – I’ve done plenty of that for Gangs of Rome. Even though these guys aren’t from the undersea Atlantis of Aquaman or Namor, I thought a blue and silver scheme might look nice.

These were done using a mix of techniques. I started out wanting to use the Kev Dallimore method of layering blobs of color from dark to light, but in many places I ended up falling back on my tried and true base color/wash/highlight method. I think the finished product looks pretty good though, and more or less what I had in mind.

I normally like a plain, simple base, but since this game takes place in the jungle I added a few tufts here and there. I don’t know if it was entirely necessary, but I think the green and brown contrasts nicely with the blue and silver.

2024 models painted so far: 8, all for Savage Core (but of course we know that won’t last)