I swear I've painted over the past few months...

... here's the proof:



I've got to practice the macro shots with the new camera, and get around to creating a booth for taking these shots.

I attempted OSL with this mini, it came out so-so...

Wow... long time.. I need to pick this up again

My painting has been on hiatus, but Gencon is just a few weeks away. I have classes with both Marike Reimer (http://www.destroyerminis.com/) and Todd Arrington (www.brushthralls.com) so I need to find time to paint a bit soon.

Distractions

Many distractions in the past two months. Hopefully they're resolved. At the very least I'd like to make some progress at least once a week.

George Sealy left a nice comment on my last entry, I'll pimp his blog here:
http://wargamersprogress.blogspot.com . He's doing some of the same stuff I am, which inspired the pic for this post.

Wire twist trees aren't necessarily the most cost or time efficient way to make trees... nor are they the most durable generally. They sure look good though. There are several resources for making your own trees, the blog I linked to earlier of course, Antenociti's Workshop has a guide: http://www.barrule.com/Workshop/extras%20tree%20making%201.htm, and the two terrain books from Osprey are good too (if you pick one I would go with the earlier one first, save the advanced for later, not because it's really advanced, just because the first one is a tad bit better).

I covered these trees with spackle right out of the container. It's a bit gloopy, but it works really well. George mentions mixing white glue into the mix in his blog, I'll give that a try as well and see what happens. Even straight from the pot though spackle works fantastic.

I use an old brush to apply the spackle, one who's bristles are so stiff it might as well just be a stick. It works well for the purpose though. I glob on the spackle and then start working it around until I have the texture I want. It's very soft and malleable. You could wait until it hardens a bit and texture then as well. I also keep an extra brush around that I use to smooth the top layer out if I want something a little less gnarly. A damp brush and a light touch gives you another way to arrive at the texture you desire.

I plan on writing up a full tutorial on tree making at some point. That will probably remain on the back burner for the time being though.

I'm playing at a closer store now, though I still intend to get to the other LGS occasionally. My wife won't be using her Circle army so I may be picking that up as my primary force. If for no other reason than there seems to not be a Circle player at this store right now.

Bad Lancer

The static pose Lancer is done, no pics. Not the best paint job in the world. Just need the Centurion done now for the Mangled Metal tournament for Sunday. Technically only enough so I can glue his shield on without blocking access to the rest for painting. Looks like just the right arm and I'll be fine. I can definitely at least get that done prior to Sunday. I may get the whole thing done, we'll see. This brings me to 331 points worth of painted Cygnar.

Hunter Done

Well not exactly done... technically I have to paint black around the edge of the base but close enough. I'm really happy with this model. It's definitely only tabletop quality but in the process I got better at the two brush blend. I used a mixture of two-brush blending and my standard layering though for this mini I went from Cygnar Base to Cygnar Highlight in one
step, then an edging step with some white
mixed in. Quick and easy. Also I need to mess with the formatting on this blog... but right now I'm too lazy.

Hunter WIP

The back pain kept me away from the painting desk but yesterday and today I sat down again. Did a little on my wife's Kaya but started playing with my new Hunter and just ran with it. Thanks to the article from BrushThralls I freehanded the Cygnar symbol on it. I'm pretty darn proud of that. Most of the base coat is on, I'm about to go clean it up then start shading and highlighting.

The Pain

Lack of motivation driven by suspicion of kidney stones. I did manage to assemble my wife's Tharn Wolf Riders and prime them as well as the other models I put together on Friday... but that's about it.

Due to the pain I missed out on a 50-ish mile bike ride, painted nothing,... I didn't even get to play. Hopefully the wife and I will get a game in this week and I'll make it to the store on Sunday to practice with my new 'jacks prior to the Mangled Metal Tourney at the end of the month....