As a spur to get on with the pile of shame(ful ambition), and because I decided to take pictures to work out what I was doing, this documentary of my failures now exists. Maybe somebody might like the stupid things I'm attempting.
As I can't even find what I'd been doing, I'm sticking a master list here of anything that's an actual project and not just a one-off failure or brain fart.
I'm a messy person. Some people have defining traits as clumsy, loud, or even those freaky people who are neat. I'm not neat. Despite my best efforts, crumbs just *happen*, stains occur, and paint gets everywhere. Woe betide anybody with 5 metres of me with a fountain pen.
I'm not especially dirty, just stuff accumulates. Forcing myself to be as paperless as I can helps, but I tend to put things down mid-way through to pick up later, rather than tidy everything up for a fresh start next time. And I don't do maintenance.
This is really in my head, because for the day job I think a lot more about putting things down in a good state for me or somebody else to pick up. I start the day with no applications open, so I can go through the ritual of starting things with a clean slate, even if I'm picking up from exactly where I left off the previous day. And I think, and do, clean-up on things when I touch them, or do backlog crap just to keep on top of it. But outside of that digital space, the same thinking doesn't happen. Too many random models and paints left out, sometimes to keep things together so I don't forget, other times because I just leave them there.
All of thas for a shitpost about some brush soap. Yeah, one of those days.
Most of these brushes date from my early days in the hobby, so not exactly spring chickens. And they get fucking coated. And shit gets in the ferrule because I don't paint consistently enough to improve my brush control. And because I don't maintain, they'll keep soldiering on until they well and truly die. Because while I don't maintain, I won't replace unless absolutely necessary.
So, the soap. Let's use the damn soap, as there's a lot more life I can get out of these brushes and let's try to do maintenance for something.
Well that took a bit longer than I expected, but it was actually quite therapeutic. Just gently, and occasionally not so gently for the rougher/cheaper brushes, swishing them around in turns in the soap, the water, and the kitchen roll. Turns out the inside of the lid's quite good for working the soap in the for the harder brushes.
Oh and this wasn't a shitpost in the end, as it took all of my allocated hobby time to go through all SIXTEEN of the brushes in various states of defoulment. I mean I didn't use the brushes after that to paint, because that would mean I'd have to clean them again and once is enough for now. Hmm, maybe I should have done the other brushes as well.
So today's reasons are mainly weather related, though if I'm honest I could also throw "I'm ill" in. But that's just an excuse, we don't do that here. We just dredge whatever up we can find that's not just a literal repost or, god forbid, a self-reblog with no additional context!
So this week's pile of potential rummage result was a box of things I really don't know why I picked them up. I'm not very big on greenskins, except for a little dabbling in I can't believe they're not orks, nor am I generally gathering things dor D&D scale. As the box says these are 35mm, though I've had my doubts on this before.
We're back in Mammoth Factory territory again (not for the last time if I need something for an emergency), and as again we have solid 3D printed models sans bases. It's not like I don't have bases, or anything to put on them, I just don't know which ones I'll end up using. I mean they need a little clean-up and priming first, but one can dream. Not like I take a long time to do things...
There's a bit of a mixture of poses and accoutrements, though I did spot a few mirrored models, which is fine and not a problem for me. They're also almost all archers, so that's something? Not sure what I think of painting them yet, as they'll either be super fiddly, or do fine with some speedpaint/contrast and some touch-up. Not sure full on drybrushed slapchop will do them any favours.
We've had the showing off, now time for the scribbly notes to document what I actually did so I don't forget in the future. Which I should have done at the time of painting, as I forget what wash I used.
Seriously, could have been any one of three different ones. And none of them Devlan Mud! (or whatever that now is in the Citadel Warhammer range)
Another bit of a closeup on the other couple of Horrors, just to reiterate the final form and try to catch it in a slightly different light. The recipe will be simple, as most basing should really be at its core, just without the however many years in between texture and finished next time.
I have no idea if the texture paints are any good or not. They're probably usable in some shape or form, but at worst I'm sure I can fudge something with some sparse sand and similar paint colours. Pretty sure I have the right green somewhere.
So, a bit of both of the texture paints, in no particular pattern, then slap some bony Wraithbone with a little dry brush. No makeup brushes, not even the small ones, just a classic stubby little short-bristled thing. Finish it with a wash to even it out a bit, though seriously I don't know if it was Strong Tone or not. Probably was? Didn't note, even in a draft here, because as we know I'm an idiot.
Well, would you look at that, almost like I had a plan for the tufts. Nothing too Daemonworldy, as the original intention was something standard rather than hellscape. Mix and match a couple from each and voilà, I can finally not sure entirely at bases or be scared of doing them!
There's never a limit though, as there's always more Horrors to be had. Well, painted, as there's still a box worth in a tray. Well, constructed, as said tray doesn't have much that's glued together. But there's more! Always more.
So, Pink Horrors are the reason I started with the plastic crack. It wasn't immediate, but the pink gribblies in Relic's masterpiece (though maybe less masterpiecely for the lore…) Dawn Of War. Chaos Marines were cool, because they were just psychologically broken. And Pink Horrors? Just so aligned with my brain. While the first models I painted were something else, it was Horrors that I wanted to paint lots of and made the most progress. They're still what I'm most proud of. Every time I look at them, I smile and thinking "that's what I want to achieve".
And then I look closely. Or at the base. And I feel bad again. Imperfections, bad choices and just WTFery of the ugly bases. But no more! As I let the paint-shit bug bite, I wanted to come back to these gentle, docile little creatures. Also, I have all of this basing material to actually fucking use one day. So I did.
After noticing imperfections last time I looked closely, I thought I'd poke around a little bit with some touch-ups. Gone is the horrible black smudge on the cheek, teeth have been cleaned up and all around they've just had a little polish.
And I just love the end result for the bases too much. Fixing, rather than starting from scratch, as there was at least some texture there. A bit of drybrush, a bit of wash, then the magical grass. A few attempts at sorting out the base rim colour, which is still a tiny bit rough but good enough. Can't really see the progress well though.
Should have thought of this at the same time as doing the other media here, but whatever it's here now. Now I look at them side by side, the original base work makes me shudder a bit. No depth, not much thought, texture crap all along the rim. It'll take a bit of time to sort all of them, but the important thing is that I want to sort them.
Quite politely and effectively, apparently. We're in the world of hypotheticals, missed heartbeats and adrenaline. No, wait, that was the Third Space ad campaign. No, hang on, that was later and had a duck. Ah, Double Life was the ad campaign name, according to the crowdsourced oracle. Ads were clever in those days.
ANYWAY, BASING SHIT. You know me, not one to flaunt some random acquisitions and then do absolutely nothing with them for a short time. Stop giggle at the back.
I mean I still haven't done anything with that box, nor the disturbing collection of bottle corks growing in the drawer. But there's still the intention. And intention's what matters. Especially if there's more interesting stuff to fluff the mental mastications.
So, lazy grass tufts. Yup, that's the pseudo-revelation. I know things have moved on a lot from basic static grass, not that there's anything wrong with that, but the sheer range available rather boggles my mind. And gives me ideas, which is good, or bad depending on the day.
Oh, I even went sideways a bit with the ideas. Rather than just one type, let's have lots so there's a possibility of mixing and matching. Not going to have a monoculture in this fantastical plastic land!
So, maybe this year is the year I finish a model? Maybe even start and finish a model? Maybe more than one? We'll see, but horrors are giving me the actually-paint-shit bug back, and this can only be a good thing. Probably. Yes, it's a good thing.
I may not have multiple boxes, unlike their larger brethren who represent the 4th largest count of Warhammer models in my collection (fuck I have too many Dryads), but just getting through a single box this year might do me some good. We're going for baby steps at the moment, with the usual small and targeted hobby sessions. This time we covered some tongues, nails and teeth. Not much, true, but something that makes a big difference in my eyes.
I'm taking the same approach as with the Pinkies of old: simple base-coat with some built-in shading magic, pick out enamel and ivory with some bone and wash, lovely tongue shade, then do the jewellery lightly. Still half of that to do, but they're at least taking shape. And I want to continue and do more, even if it's bit by bit.
See, even just a little paint on the teeth for these guys makes a huge difference. To be fair they're going to be harder, as I need to work out how to get some variation in their fiery bodies, and there's no jangly accessories on them, but they will get further, somehow.
First was yellow, then some blue, so many colours of Horrors, what next might we do? Red Pink. I know, how original. I'm still not happy with what I've done so far. Maybe one day I'll find the mythical unicorn of a tone. Is today the day?
Well not with this fucking one. The sibling of Dark Red tone. I guess it's a bit richer, but it's still not getting the right kind of pink going. As always, lovely for some kind of pale fleshy skin tone, and probably appropriate for these models, but just urgh. Maybe I just paint one horror with this and see how much I recoil?
The final attempt for now, and the one supposedly closest from various colour matching tables I've found. Salmon. That's what this makes me think of. Again, it's more flesh than skin going on here, but it's at least somewhat pinky?
Hmm, yeah maybe the closest of all of them so far, but still not right. I'm not sure if it's a consistency issue, or the sharper edges on the Reaper than the Horror. Again, maybe it's worth just trying this one on a horror? Or maybe it's back to the comparison tables again. This is the problem with early success: I found a spot on recipe and now can't get the same ingredients any more.
So, some kind of Horror again. This time, medium-sized, either cold or depressed ones. There's fire hands, so maybe not cold. I guess blue, because they used to be all chunky and pink and now they're just half of themselves? Fractured, never to be whole again? Like a broken sausage roll...
Or something else. I dunno, something on the other screen distracted me. Shame it wasn't blue, otherwise I might have hit some sort of conclusion on that thought.
Yeah, no, fuck making any sense in these witterings. Today, the comedic Tzeentchian gribblies that I'm finally doing something with. I mean, not much, but paint! Some paint! Something!
Fairly standard priming yawn for starters. Coverage was good enough, and as we're leaning on speedpaint rather than washes it'll be fine.
Well it fucking would be had I not ballsed up the gap filling again. I'm still not keen on how these were sliced to fit on the sprue, especially as the standard Pink Horrors work nicely with their modular design. Oh well, they're only troops, not exactly centrepieces.
Magic Blue, Magic Blue, never a bad time to be using you. So rich you be, filling my heart with glee. Could any other tone give such delight, with subtle warmth and a touch so light?
Hmm. HMMM. Not sure if it's the photo, or my application was a little less smooth for Highlord Blue, but it looks a little rough. The final colour looks good though. Hmm. Good?
Absolute sacrilegious, heretical thinking here, but the more I look at them the more I prefer Highlord Blue. I think the slightly darker tone itches something in my brain a tiny bit more. Maybe I'll end up doing half-and-half for some variety.
Small and mighty little burny things. Well, maybe not mighty as I don't remember their current stats in either game system, but it's the thought that counts. Also, shouldn't flamers split into these, rather than blue horrors, as neither pink nor blue are actually on fire.
So, yes, priming things again, but as you can see already not just that (for once). As mentioned previously, basing may be amusing. But as I'm super-fast at that, we won't worry about that right now.
Pondering number one: a standardish yellow speed paint, somewhat liberally applied. Interestingly, recesses/blotches are orange rather than a muddier yellow, so it ends up with a slightly weird effect for something mimicking flame. Probably fixable, I guess.
Supposedly orange, but unlike on... wait, do I not have something on the last time I used this paint? Oh, apparently I failed at tagging. There we go. Right, where were we? Ah, last time was slapped on grey underneath the orange, for a bit of a brown result. On white, we're a bit more peach?
I can work with this, somehow, ish. Not sure. I know the idea was to drybrush some red or orange on top, but I might need to rethink it a bit.
We're rather philosophical today. Not just because the weather has kyboshed an idea. Nor the usual excuses. Well, I mean there is that, as always, but there's a lot of contemplation and reflection at the moment due to goings on at the day job, the wider industry, and the effects those things are having on the interwebs as a whole.
That and I'm consuming too much media from people seemingly going through existential crises and maybe not realising it fully.
Friction is a term I'm hearing banded about quite a bit at the moment. I could regurgitate all the things I've watched or read, writing far too many words, but suffice to say there's a feeling that things online are too easy. Easy in that everything's just jabbing dopamine directly into your brain, without you having to work at it.
There's a competing, or maybe it's just complimentary, thought that our brains are really good at distilling or truncating complicated motivation down to simple metric based motivation. Make thing as want share -> people like -> thing becomes measured by people like -> thing now becomes for the numbers, original desire to share something of meaning to you be damned.
Ugh, going a little too deep on the thinking already, and I've not even said what the point of this post is, what I want to share with the world.
Jokes on you, there's never a point.
And that is the point.
Tumblr is great. And it sucks. But it doesn't shove engagement related metrics down my throat. I throw shit up here because I like sound of my own voice, but also because it gives me some structure for doing something, anything, "hobby" related. It's nice that people seem to engage with some of the frankly stupid, pointless and downright lazy dumps from my brain.
Yes I get a little sad when there's no or little engagement on something I post here, trying to think if I could somehow get more visibility if I tagged better, or try to work out what topics do better. But fuck it, this is my fucking holiday picture slideshow and it makes me feel good that I (don't think?) missed a week.
So, for anybody that made it this far, or you just skimmed the words to see the professional level photography, WELL DONE HERE'S THE POINT.
The Deuslair kit has no instructions in the box. So far, so eco-conscious. The digital instructions are just about readable on a standard phone, but not ideal. I needed something bigger. So instead of using one of the older smaller tablets around somewhere, or "borrowing" a less old larger tablet, or even buying a cheap large tablet, I decided to do something more stupid.
Take a spare Raspberry Pi 3. Oh, wait, not a spare, as that one's in a nice case that I can't really remove it from. And the Pi 4 has its own touchscreen, but is too small. Fine, take a Pi 3 and get a cheap-ish lower resolution resistive touchscreen. Yup, low-res resistive was intentional. Distractions are a thing, so we need something that can display the instructions well enough, but not be able to do anything else well enough like showing YouTube videos. Intentional friction here; not enough to make it a reason to not do things, but enough to be irritating if I try to abuse it.
Ideally it needs some sort of case, even if only for the Pi itself, to keep out dust and to make it a little easier to prop up in portrait.
Oh yeah, another thing, this is version 2 of the project. Version 1 used a nice higher resolution capacitive screen, that could be used as a desktop screen, and even came with a case. That ended up being sent back as the screen was night on useless, even when calibrated.
Fine, not that many, but more than one! See, even two on one base, for the lowest effort slap'n'post.
Oh, wait, I didn't even bother gluing sometimes.
Or even tack.
But Horrors!!
I believe it could be said, that it is known that I like Pink Horrors. Frankly, a lot more could be said, which is likely unprintable. But liking Pink Horrors is a solid truth. So why not have more Horrors, this time with different colours? For starters, tiny little ones that could easily be hidden by some grass if their panting gets fucked. Hope it doesn't come to that. But they're tiny, gribbly, and just a bit dorky.
The next ones up, shockingly enough, are Blue. Now, I've had the box for a while, but after finally doing something with it, I can say I'm a little disappointed in their variety. As in, there isn't any. I don't see any options or spares. Now, yes, of course, I could butcher some variety as is my want, but that's not feeling high on the priority list. Maybe if I picked up another box, or if GW decide to do a big Tzeentch box that's not 90% Tzaangors. Hmm, yeah, that's not happening.
So, a pinky for scale. Oh yes, I have more that haven't been done yet. I just need to go through all of the arms so I don't end up with duplicates with what's already done. Design-wise, they all complement each other nicely, but I'm tempted to go a step further and go for the same painting paradigm. I just hope I have less problems than I've had (so far) finding red.
Magic blue, magic blue, whatever would I do without you? Probably nothing different, as I *have* you and still don't paint more. So we have Mr Blue, in his poorly thinned hue to ponder. To be fair I do have a straight from the bottle comparison, but that'll just cause focus issues with the photo and frankly that's too much effort for now.
Though the idea of drybrushing orange, then red on the Brimstone horrors just came to me while writing. Hmmmm...
Another week, another excuse. Wait, I've used that intro before. Or have I? Am I now just at the point where I start repeating myself, like some fading rock band "going back to their roots"? Oh, yeah, this place is a shitshow; there's never been a heyday here.
We're back in the world of Archon Studio and their magical big box of plastic. Last time we had tack, now we're cleaned up and (almost) ready to prime! Hammer guy's one of three guard types, but this one looked the most interesting. The cape's super flowy, which means painting it will drive me up the wall.
Just as a little comparison, here's one of the Spencer Traceys, though I feel like hammer and stone wouldn't be the best of friends. Who knows, maybe there's some lore to read that tells me they're perfect buddy film material.
Let's just work through this stupid idea. Oh wait, that applies to the day job too. Disillusionment and despair, questioning whether anything will work. Oh wait, ditto. Anyway, A DUMB IDEA GAINS TRACTION.
Yeah, we're still on the train of that dumb idea. I made it as far as kludging the back-branch-bit in to the back-fan-space before my heart started sinking. As mentioned last time, legs are a problem. I've also glued them on two bodies so far, so I might have to just put that part of the plan on the back burner for now.
But arms! We like doing stupid things with arms in these parts. So the muttering to myself started, and I off I compared. Revenant is just a no, way too short as expected, and even if I did like the arm that sword can fuck off. Too many holes. Dryad, while spindly, sort of has the elbow in the right spot. Hmm, the finders could be chopped off, but it needs to be clean. Hello again, not so old friend.
As always, saw does the job. The result is spindly, yes, but then again that appears to be how I roll. Slight jank on the left wrist, but the right one's solid. Probably need to go heavy with some pinning; oh no, how will I cope?
This is gruesome. This is getting stupid. But it was too stupid not to try. I don't think I'll try to hack the original shoulder pads off, but I think I can do something with the hacked off claw fingers. Makes it look a bit more feral I suppose.
I'll need to come back to the legs, though that's going to be a lot harder. Assuming I try to keep whole legs...
What a motley crew of partial paint and naked plastic. Only a tiny bit of naked elf flesh though, can't be overdoing the mature flagged posts. Well, it's that or the frankly potty-mouthed level of "writing" here.
Anyway, there's reasons (not that kind) that they're gathered here today.
As is my want, I see an idea and think I could do something similar, or just batshit over-the-top, never-gonna-work level of reimplementation of the idea. The latest "inspiration" was a frankly gorgeous Exodite Wraithguard that smooshed some Sylvaneth bits. Can I find that inspiration again as a proper reference? No, of course not. But some further rummaging uncovered some interesting, and some very lore-reasoned, takes on the concept.
Probably the most common mashup I've seen has been with Kurnoth Hunters, generally using the body of the hunters and slapping on arms, weapons, and head from the Wraith kit. Now, while I think some of those are executed very well, I have a couple of issues in trying to replicate them.
Firstly, size. As you can see, the hunter has a few vertical measures over the wraith. True, the Wraith has a rather short and stubby torso, but even the legs just have a different scale to them. Plus there's the whole base size difference as a simple marker.
Secondly, Wraiths are in boxes of 5, Hunters in boxes of 3. While we're not exactly as money-is-no-object stage, we are looking to lean more on spares, so that leaves alternatives open. At the very least, get a better ratio out. Not a flier this one.
The next one I've seen some example of is using the Tree/Spite Revenants. I've seen mixes of approaches, one that pulled a 50/50 body split of the two kits, one that used the non-elf part of the revenant and fudged the wraith in to it. I don't hate this one, but I feel there's still a scale issue. Yes, bases again, but also the legs again. Dunno if I can make this one work, though I have enough revenants to try.
Lastly, my original spares-based thought: Dryads. You can see where the thought originated, what with the big sticky outy bits on their backs, bit lump of stuff at the back of the head. I have plenty of spares for this, but the initial piecing together didn't really look right to my eye.
Just to reinforce the point about the height difference, I found the graph paper again. The main thing here is the height of the hips, even with bent legs. It's noticeably higher with the wraith.
Chicken-bug-living-quiver. I know a lot's said about how wacky some of the AoS stuff is these days, with shark-elves, zepplin jumppack dwarves, and whatever you want to say about Chaos Dwarves, but sometimes it's the little touches that get me. I mean, why would you have the above as a quiver? True, why not, but even so it's just ever so slightly bonkers.
Not skelebobs today, for once, but things just as if nor more fucking spindly. Though spindles aren't the biggest problem, despite the pattern of the other things in the same box. No, today we're back to the age-old problem of gaps. We're still trying to work the sprue-goo, after a modicum of success recently. I can't say I'm sure it's been working as well as I might have wanted on flatter joins that I really want to be smooth.
They were still wet when these photos were taken, as I tried to have a second pass at smoothing considering the first pass dried a lot worse. Some of these bits will be partially hidden by the arms, but not enough to not be annoying. They'll probably have to be good enough now, but it might require some rethinking when the other ones are constructed. Which won't be quick, as fucking mould lines.
So arms done! Of course bows, because there's not much other ranged choices in the army, and they're apparently quite strong. Quiver squire isn't going to be stuck to the base yet, as frankly I have no idea how I'll even base just the main model itself. I need a consistent theme for all of the treepeeps, but I don't even have a feel for the painting scheme yet, let alone selecting from using the vast array of unopened basing materials I have.
Motivation is a curious thing, often like inertia; it takes a lot to get it moving, but once it's moving it's hard to stop. No, wait, that's not what's happening here. Oil tankers. That's what's happening. A huge amount of time and energy to get it moving, even more to turn it in another direction, and sometimes it'll just crash and spill a load of nightmare fuel in every direction.
This subtle foreshadowing is for these artifacts of shame.
The intention, road/hell/good-intentions etc, was to take some of the many, MANY skelebobs that are all ready and primed, and try to slap some simple bone shades on them. This would be a good idea, if we used paint in good condition. Why do that, when we can try to resurrect some maybe decade old paint!?!
Because, as well established, I'm an idiot. Now, this wasn't done in the last day, so I can't recall exactly how it went. I recall a thin layer of whatever paint I used didn't really work, so I tried another thinnish layer. Then another. There's still detail, but the end is just so disheartening.
Oathmark gent didn't fare much better. Maybe the solution's another thinnish layer, but at this point a large part of me wants to just strip it back and wipe the failure from my memory. CAN'T DO THAT IF I PUT THE "EFFORT" IN TO DOCUMENT IT HERE THOUGH, CAN I?
Maybe I could smooth it over a little with a shade or wash, though last time I did that I rather killed the OK base coating job. There's still options for the others, mainly consisting of some fluffing because I was so good at that.
