Heavy Geat Blitz – Southern Strike Cadre – Nearly There!

On the weekend I also managed to get this second HGB unit nearly completed. 

Like the Fire Support cadre, all these guys need are finishing touches.  Or touch, as I think I’m only going to add a glowing eye and call it a day.  I don’t think I’m going to paint anything on the shoulder missile packs.  I’m also still debating whether I should add the splash of colour on the shoulder pauldrons, maybe blue, like the other guys have the red.  Hrm.

Perhaps by tomorrow I’ll have this done, and I can shelve the whole lot of them until Rob or Andrew decide to get theirs done and play a game.

Thanks for reading.

Workbench Update – Malifaux, Heavy Gear Blitz, Firestorm Armada

In my effort to keep blogging regularly, as well as increasing my hobby output (I don’t want to jinx it, but so far 2012 is quite productive), I’d like to throw in a “Workbench Update” post every once in a while, to showcase what I’m currently working on.  Hopefully this will help me finish those projects sooner, so the next update isn’t the same.  We shall see.

So today my workbench (or computer desk or pile-o’-stuff-holder, depending which end you’re looking at) has three projects on it:

Malifaux

One of my goals for this year was to get back into Malifaux, which I thoroughly enjoyed in 2009 and 2010, but left on the shelf for all of 2011.  Very sad, indeed!  Especially since I had been demoing the game as a Henchman for Wyrd for a while, including a league at Meeplemart. 

After playing the game the other night with Loy I was eager to play and work on this game some more.  So I looked at the status of my collection, ranging from merely-primed to pretty-much-complete.  I’ll take some pictures of the lot for a future post, but for now I decided to take out the Ortega gang and work on them.  They are white-primed, and that’s all, as they have been for over a year now.  I don’t think I actually ever used them myself, but I’m pretty sure I did demo with them once.

I decided to try a little experiment today.  On one of the blogs I regularly visit, Kevin’s Miniature & Hobby Table, I read a number of times that he gives a black wash to his white-primed models, offering a little shading and bringing out the details to help paint.  I had never tried this before and thought this might be fun.

I’m calling it the Ortega Experiment, but only because I’m silly like that.  Anyway, you can see that I tried three different washes, all of them by Citadel.  Santiago got Devlan Mud, Francisco got Badab Black, and Nino got Ogryn Flesh.  There are two more models from this starter, but I’m going to wait until these are painted.  I also have a Baal Red wash, which I didn’t use, although maybe I should just to see how it comes out.

Nino is shiny, because I washed him just before taking the picture.  The baby is sleeping right now, which is why I can do all this, but he should be up soon (hopefully after I’ve finished this post), so I might not get a chance to continue until tonight.

Heavy Gear Blitz

Nearly completing the Fire Support Cadre the other day got me pumped to work on the Strike Squad.  The other night I laid down the P3 Trollblood Highlight basecoat, and last night I added details with Greatcoat Grey and Cryx Bane Base, also by P3.  I have to admit, I put much fewer details on the last three gears of this squad than I did on all the rest.  I just want to finish this project more than anything else, and substituting quality for speed is okay in my books.  Again, especially for a game that I probably won’t table much (damn you, Rob and Andrew!).  I also think they do end up looking good this way, especially from a few feet away when they’re on the tabletop.

This morning I gave them their Badab Black wash, then later put down the first coat on the groundwork, using Citadel Foundation Tausept Ochre.  I’ll do touch-ups on the gears later, mostly on weaponry, give the bases a wash then highlight, and add black to the sides of the bases.  I might be able to do all that tonight. 

You can also see in the picture two drones that I almost forgot about.  I’ll have to get them painted too, but they won’t be too hard.  I’ll be using the same colour-scheme on them as on the gears, of course.

Firestorm Armada

I’ve all but given up on the ACTA: Noble Armada ships.  I’ve decided that while they looked great in the pictures, they’re not as nice, to me, in person.  Andrew might want to take them off my hands, so he can have the two fleets (he got Decados).  I’ll still play the game, but with Firestorm Armada ships.

Here’s just a quick look at what I’ve done so far two a few of the ships from the Terran starter, a Cruiser and two Frigates.

They were primed white (with gesso, actually), washed with Badab Black, then painted with P3 Cygnar Base Blue.  One of the Frigates was painted then washed.  This makes them look kind of dirty, which I might keep (i.e. not painting on the white areas) as I like the battle-worn look.  I still need to thow in some metals on the turrets and some other areas.  I think I like how they look. 

Once again the group is going to look a little different, as I’m trying out different variations as I go along. No big deal, though, as long as they look good from afar.  I’m going to throw in a few different things again, like accent colours, changing Cygnar Base to Cygnar Highlight to get a brighter look, etc.  Thankfully there are six Frigates to play around with.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve got on the table right now.  I’d like to at least finish the HGB models, so I can get some of the C&C Ancients miniatures on the workbench.  The Terran ships don’t need much work, and I don’t have any others primed yet.  The Malifaux stuff will take a bit longer, but I might try and do a good job on these guys.  As usual, we shall see.

Thanks for reading.

Heavy Gear Blitz – Southern Fire Support Cadre – Nearly There!

So I am all but finished this unit, which comes out to about half of the Southern starter box.

I’m happy with how they look from a few feet away.  Definitely at tabletop quality at this point.  Look too close and you see the imperfections, so we’ll try and stay away

I know I’ve got to do some of the details, like some sort of glow for the ‘eye,’ and maybe something on the rocket circles on the shoulders.  But I don’t want to do too much more. 

I’m going to try and finish these guys and the rest of the other cadre this week, then I can shelve them all until they get used again.  We haven’t played in months.  I’m not sure when the next game will be.  But hopefully my progress will encourage Rob and Andrew to work on theirs.  Here’s hoping!

Thanks for reading.

2012 Off to a Productive Start!

Well, last night’s post really did encourage me to get some hobby work done.

Firestorm Armada/Noble Armada

The first thing I did was prime a couple of ships for each game, testing out the bit of Gesso that Andrew let me borrow.  This product looks to be the hobbyist’s answer to winter/poor weather that would otherwise foil plans to prime. 

It worked out well, so far, and today I started work on one of the Firestorm Armada Terran Frigates, as seen in the picture.  For my first test model, I washed the gesso-white-primed model with some GW Badab Black, then painted some areas with P3 Cygnar Base Blue.  The next step will be to throw in some P3 Pig Iron, and any other accent/detail colours I have yet to determine.  I don’t mind how it’s looking so far, but I think I’ll change it up a touch for my next test model, as I’m not sure if I prefer the ‘carbon-scoring’ look of the washed white over actual white.  We’ll see in the next few days, I guess.

Heavy Gear Blitz

As surprising to myself as anyone else, the other project I worked on was my HGB squads.  After just a couple of test games a few months ago, we (Rob, Andrew and I) pretty much dropped the ball on this project.  I figured this was something that a few nights’ worth of actual hobbytime could lead to completion, so I brought them off the shelf and did some work.

First I added the remaining details on the big guys, the Fire Support Cadre.  Then I washed them with GW Devlan Mud, giving them a warmer feel than the other unit, who got Badab Black.

I also base-coated the remaining three models in the Strike Cadre, using P3 Trollblood Highlight, which everyone got.

Both units use a lot of the same colours, but for the most part are not otherwise uniform.  For instance, the backpacks of some were kept Trollblood Highlight, while others have Ironhull Grey packs.  Etc.  Etc.  This arose from testing out different looks between different models, which I just kept in the end.  And, sadly I have to admit that I’ve done a pretty sloppy job on them.  Meh, I figure these guys are not going to see much action on the tabletop any time soon, so does it really matter? 

Well, that’s the work I’ve done so far this year.  In the long run it’s minimal, but it’s more than I’ve done over the past few weeks, so it’ll count for something.  Plus, it’s a good omen for 2012 if by Day 2 I’ve already got two posts, and some work to post about.