It’s been a long road, but I’ve finally painted the first unit of Orcs from the 6th edition boxed set I won way back when that edition was just released. My apartment is sold, my new house purchased, but I still have over 50 days before I move. Meanwhile I’ve managed, along with my wife, to get my daughter on enough of a schedule that I can think about painting again in the evenings. Previously it was such a bother every night to put my daughter to bed that we really didn’t have much time to do anything other than watch tv. Now that she’s usually sleeping around eight o’clock I can wheel my chest of drawers out in the living room and paint while watching tv.

How I imagined I would be painting with the new baby.

Even before my daughter was born I knew she would take over my office. To help things out I purchased a chest of drawers from Ikea that I’ve mentioned on the blog a number of times already, along with a GW painting tray. The painting tray lived on the drawers in the closet. Normally I am strongly against a painting station that must be packed away after each use, but since I also wanted room for my computer it seemed a good plan. It worked well, and I liked how much neater the room was, while the 6 shallow drawers gave me access to all the tools I normally require. The only headache was all my glues and big bottles of gesso were kept in a seperate box, but that’s off point.

Once my daughter was born the reality set in. The only time I’m really free to completely concentrate on painting is when my daughter is sleeping. I just could not regularily escape to my office to paint and leave my wife to watch the baby. The problem was that my office is now the nursery, so I couldn’t paint when she slept.

I really enjoy painting in the living room. It lets me be close to my wife while still indulging in my hobby. To do this I’d have to wheel out the chest of drawers and painting station, unplug the desk lamp from the power bar under my computer desk and carry it out to the living room. It’s a flexible desk lamp that uses a heavy cast iron base instead of clamping onto the table. It’s a pain to move.

The entire finished regiment.

So, time passed and I resigned myself to a life of no painting, at least until we found a bigger place. It wasn’t too hard. There’s a lot of occupy yourself with when you have a new baby. I watched a lot of tv, read some good books and enjoyed watching my daughter grow from newborn to nine month old. Warmachine changed that.

While I am still holding on to my promise of not buying any Warmachine until after the move, the enthusiasm for the project has re-awakened my dormant painting itch. Which leads me to think about the things I was painting before the baby arrived. Certainly I will need to clear those off my painting table, even if I’m not planning any immediate activity on those projects. Which means after all my patient waiting I’ll have to paint something other than Warmachine before I can get to it. Not good.

And so, noticing that there was time in the evening for painting, and that the Ikea floor lamp we bought to brighten the living room while staging our aparment was both bright and able to bend directly over the dining room table I’ve been experimenting with painting. I still have to move a lamp, but not as far and no crawling under a desk to do it. The dining room table isn’t the most comfortable work station in the world, and if I don’t think to take my stuff out of the office/nursery before my daughter goes to bed I miss my chance of painting in the evening.

It’s nice, getting stuff painted. No matter how slow you paint, you always get less painted when you aren’t actually painting. The Orcs that have been sitting on my painting table for ages are done, and I’ve started on the remaining Warlord Games romans I’ve been painting.

I used multiple washes to create depth on the metal

As I mentioned, I’m trying to paint two projects at the same time. One, for The Miniatures Page which I cannot discuss here, and my Warhammer Orc Warriors. I am stretching my abilities with the other project and trying for super-smooth blending. This means I sometimes need to let the figures rest while the paint dries between coats. To fill this time I’ve started painting the Orcs again. It also gives me something to share here.

The metals were painted with Vallejo metallics, starting with a mix of Black and Gunmetal Grey, with successive highlights of straight Gunmetal Grey, then Natural Steel and finally a few highlights of Silver. I just bought the Silver from a local hobby store. I haven’t visited them in over a year, though they are a five minute drive away. The store, Hobby House, sells mostly model kits and train supplies, as well as a good assortment of paints. I found it weird that they didn’t stock Vallejo, but it looks like they do now

In addition to the metallic paint the metal received several washes of black, as well as a spotty wash of brown. There is also a Loomis within a five minute drive of my house where I recently picked up some small plastic containers for holding paint mixes. I have 10 small clear plastic pots with lids that could probably hold 15ml or so. To get a proper mix of paint to water in a wash I find you create a large volume of wash. While I’m not concerned with the waste it is more convenient to have the batch pre-made. The large volume and the fact that I only need a few different colours of wash makes it worth my while.

I’ve always had trouble with metallic paints. If I am painting something with small areas of metal such as bayonets or pistols I use a simple NMM technique. It looks better to me than my TMP. Larger areas of metal are harder to do simply in NMM, so I switch to TMP. I find that the metal doesn’t have enough diffuse areas. It’s either black shade or specular highlight. I don’t know how other people paint metals with good body and depth. I think my biggest mistake is assuming that since metal looks shiny after one coat, multiple coats will create a solid area of colour, rather than one with visible flecks. This is something to try the next time I paint metals.

Tyler

After teasing everyone with a report of painted miniatures I cannot share I’ve started to feel a bit guilty. I hate websites without images and so I am making an effort to get something I can show. I think this will become a fairly regular occurrence of taking a snapshot of my workbench and sharing it. I’ve even created a folder in my images folder for workbench pictures.

While lavishing time and attention of my Dork Tower miniatures I found that I needed to slow down and let things dry. In order to create smooth blends I am using many layers of thin glaze. Applying too many layers at once can have an opposite effect as the surface becomes rough with little balls of half-dried paint ruining the surface. I needed something productive to distract myself with while painting these guys. I decided to return my half-painted Warhammer Orcs to the workbench and slowly work on those while I wait for the paint on the Dork Tower miniatures to dry. This has the added benefit of increasing my productivity and giving me something to show here on the blog.

This is what’s on my workbench today. Yes, the Dork Tower miniatures I wasn’t going to show are there.

One of the advantages of my new update schedule I can talk more about current events. I tended to write a post a few days to a few weeks in advance of its publication. I couldn’t really talk about what I was doing on the day, but now I can. Today I am going to spend the entire day catching up on all my hobby stuff. I want to get some more productive work done painting, take some pictures for the TMP Workbench article I am writing, fix my graphics card problem, print out some Heavy Gear Blitz! datacards for an army I am working on and read — hopefully finish — For Honour’s Sake: The War of 1812 and the Brokering of an Uneasy Peace; a book which I’ve been slowly crawling through due to the desire to take copious notes for a future time-line. I’ve realized I have a detailed time-line in Osprey’s War of 1812 and can just read the book. What a relief.

It’s my wife that I can thank for this day of hobby bliss. She has been keeping an eye on our newborn daughter all day and will be taking her to her Grandparents this afternoon.

Speaking of the blog, so far my practice of posting more often has increase my traffic. I’ve had 806 hits since the beginning of September compared to 367 hits over an equal amount of days in August. The numbers are somewhat inflated as I’ve linked to my site in a few more forums than normal this month.

Looking at other, successful, blogs it seems the best way to attract a loyal following is to focus on one game or period. It is unlikely that there are many other people who are interesting in Heavy Gear, D&D, 28mm 1812, 28mm Romans, Warmaster, Magic: The Gathering and all the other things I talk about on this site. When a site is focused those that are interested in that subject enjoy visiting it regularly. If they happen to have multiple interests they simply find a site for each and get their fix every day. That being said it would be impossible for me to maintain regular updates while sticking to one topic. While I am overly interested in traffic for my own good, I will not sacrifice everything on its alter. Perhaps a solution for me is to make sure I touch on each major project at least once a month, if not once a week.

It’s not that hard, this week I purchased British Napoleonic Infantry Tactics 1792-1815 for my 1812 project. I’ll go into more detail on this book later this week. Needless to say it was something I have been missing for a long time. Most general histories, or even descriptions of specific battles, don’t talk much about tactics and maneuvers.

Check out the new poll on the sidebar to your left. I’ve just discovered I cannot have the same poll twice on the same page, so I can no longer include it in my main blog entry.

Don’t forget to visit the Polls page and vote in the polls. No login or anything required.

Tyler

Here we go, starting in on the new style of blog posts. For the longest time I’ve been using this website less as a blog and more as a regular website with WordPress as my content management system. The other day I complained about lack of traffic. Instead of complaining and doing nothing I’m changing things up. Hopefully the increase in updates will show a similar increase in traffic.

I am sure that there are more than a few of you reading this and saying that traffic shouldn’t be the primary reason for creating this site. While that is true to an extent, if I didn’t care about traffic why spend the time and energy putting this online when I could easily create a project journal in Microsoft Onenote. I do have project journals that I find useful, but I also want to show off and share my hobby with others. All bloggers are in some way exhibitionists with enough of an ego to think other people will care about what they have to say. Most, like myself, were probably inspired by similar sites. We know people want to read this sort of thing because we want to read this sort of thing.

The very tempting Assault on Black Reach Starter Set.

Just a quick note: I am aware that the images on the top-left are skewed. This was part of the site redesign and I need to recreate all of the images. At the same time I’ll add some more. Otherwise, any feedback is much appreciated.

Current Projects

Speaking of projects, I’ve recently been rethinking the projects on my workbench. I’ve written about this before. I’m the kind of wargamer known as the Butterfly. Manly. The butterfly flits from project to project and generally shows the attention span of a gnat. As an example, I picked up a White Dwarf for the first time in forever. A podcast I was listening to mentioned that GW was focusing more on painting and modelling in White Dwarf. The theory was that this is to compete with games like AT43 by promoting the hobby sides of the game as a selling feature. A good idea, and the type of articles I felt I was missing when I stopped reading the magazine. I happened to be at Chapters and decided to take a look at the magazine. When I picked it up my mind was immediately made to give the issue a try. It wasn’t the cover, but the physical feel of the issue. White Dwarf #28 comes with two sample miniatures from the Assault on Black Reach game; a Space Marine Terminator and an Ork Nob. Sold!

I’ve enjoyed reading through it and realized something very important about myself. No-one is ever an ex-GW Fanboy. The recovering process, like that of alcoholism¹, is ongoing. As I read about the new release I thought that it might be fun to pick it up. After all, I am not the wargamer I was when I first played GW games. The last boxed set I purchased was Starship Troopers, and I’ve painted all the miniatures from that box. Perfect rationalization for buying a new boxed set. Nevermind all the other projects I should finish first, nevermind that I’ve decided to avoid GW products in favour of all the other excellent wargames that are much more affordable. I must have it. It must be mine!.

Then reason started to creep into my thought process. I purchased a large set of Space Marines years ago that I never painted. I have a couple of Tactical Squads, an Assault Squad, a Bike Squad, a Captain, Librarian and Chaplain on Bike, a Landspeeder and Predator tank all waiting to be painted. That’s enough for a decent starter army at least.

This boxed set almost ended my relationship with my wife before it even got started. In a fit of oxygen deprivation at a GW Store auction I spent all of my money on it, not realizing it would leave me too broke to even take my wife, then new girlfriend, out for her birthday.

Even this small level of madness passed; a display of awesome wargamer willpower. I already have enough on my plate that thinking of adding something new at this point is a bit premature. However, it’s not like I have so many projects that I can never add anything new. Which got me to think about what projects I do have on the go. Being a wargamer butterfly, this seems to change day by day as new projects grab my interest and old ones are temporarily forgotten. Here are the projects in the order I plan to tackle them. Remember, for me, a project is something like painting a wargaming unit, not a whole army. Right now I don’t get to play much, so painting an army is less of a priority than painting something interesting and different.

• TMP Article: This is a short project. I am painting some miniatures for The Miniatures Page. I’ll link to the workbench article when it is finished.
• Warlord Games Romans: I painted 16 Warlord Games Romans for a Battlesgames article. I haven’t heard if it’s been accepted yet, but I still have the remainder of the box remaining. Instead of packing them away I am going to finish painting them to create a complete unit. Unfortunately I won’t be able to describe how they were painted for a while, if ever, because of the magazine article.
• Warhammer Fantasy Orcs: Remember when I was painting these guys? I stopped before they were finished in order to paint the above Romans for a deadline. Once I start painting them I’ll actually be able to get some more WIP images on the site. I started painting this to encourage a friend to paint his Tomb Kings. He hasn’t even started so I doubt I’ll be playing with him. Meanwhile, one of my Magic and D&D players, an ex-Assistant Manager of a local GW store, has started painting again after a hiatus. He’s doing up some Warhammer Chaos figures, giving me a reason to continue and perhaps expand this fun project.
• Heavy Gear Blitz! Army: While the army is complete, I still have plenty of Gears to paint to increase the size and give me more options. Now that my current job means I’ll always have weekends off I can consider playing this game regularly. Actually playing a game is a great incentive for painting.
• 1812 Project: This project has been on the backburner for a long while. I need to take some pictures of my miniatures in terrain and paint some new figures. It’s something that I’m interested in, but it is a long-term project and not something I expect to be able to play anytime soon. Sometimes I get the urge to move faster on it and painting up a unit will scratch that itch.
• Field of Glory: Although I’ll have a unit of Early Imperial Romans based for Field of Glory soon, I’m still undecided on what army I want to collect. Although I started with a lot of enthusiasm, much like my 1812 project, I despair of ever finishing it.
• Warhammer 40K Space Marines: Will this become a project, or will the urge fade by the time I clear my workbench? I certainly plan to paint the Terminator and Nob as soon as possible.
• Necromunda: Some of my friends still idly talkk of starting a new Necromunda campaign. They’ve been away from wargames for a long while and I wonder how much is nostalgia, and how much serious plans.
• Warmaster Ancients: Another Ancients wargame where I’m not set on which army I want to paint. I’m not sure if I’m going to ever return to this.
• Warmaster: I’ve painted two armies, not sure if I’ll ever add to them.
• Battlefleet Gothic: Another old friend is talking about returning to this game. While I have fond memories of playing it, I sometimes think I’d rather find a similar game and use some of the awesome Ninja Magic miniatures. They have their own rule system too, hmm. Oh no, another project!

Well, so much for more frequent, quick blog posts. This one has turned into a monster. Once again, feedback is much appreciated. Please do me a favour and take the time to leave a comment. It’s simple and easy, no login required.

Tyler

1) I am not seriously comparing purchasing hobby products to the disease of alcoholism. Buying GW products is never romanticized in movies or tv. Seriously though, I’m just goofing.

Every rank and file orc has exactly the same pants. (Mouseover for back view)

I got a little excited and started painting the belts and whatnot before I took pictures of the pants. On the upside, a week for just the belts would be boring, so I will probably be compressing some steps into multiple posts. Off the top of my head, I have the metal, wood, pouches, bandages, teeth and nails, boots and severed heads. This is the part where things start bogging down for me, as the details start building up without seeing much progress.

I especially dislike horde miniatures where the urge is to paint every little bit different. This is my personal reminder to fight the urge. Details like belt pouches and shoes aren’t noticed in units. So far, every orc in this batch is wearing the same coloured belt, wrist bands and leg tie things. I don’t think it’s that noticeable. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

My attempt at Imrie style is working better with the pants than it did with the shirts. The contrast is perhaps a bit off. The middle tone could have been closer to the highlight, creating more contrast between it and the shade while reducing the contrast between it and the highlight. However, from a distance the effect is pleasant to my eye and I hope to further refine it as I get more practice. One thing that I found helpful is that the legs have a defined shape helping me place highlights in a logical area. With a large surface such as the shirts, I was just randomly making squiggles to give the surface texture. There are a few sections wherre I felt I could have done a better job.

The more I paint and think about painting, the more I understand the concepts behind what I am doing. For example, in the past I would look at a miniature and see the highlighting and how it defines shape. This is the most basic level. From there, I begin to practice and understand layering and contrast.
The standard bearer gave me a chance to do practice a different pattern of highlighting on the pants. (Mouseover for back view)After many years, I’m seeing why certain highlights look best. However, all of this information was contained in the miniature I initially looked at, I just wasn’t capable of seeing the more advanced stuff until I spent time mastering the basics.

As an example, I’ve read about lines of stress in fabric before, both from the viewpoint of artists and miniature painters. However, I’m only now starting to really understand it. Lines of stress determine where folds appear in fabric. When something pushes against the fabric, commonly elbows and knees, folds will radiate outwards from that point of stress. This was the basic knowledge I started with when I first read about this concept. Not every miniature I’ve painted has sharply bent arms and legs. When this happened, I wasn’t sure what to do. I was looking at some miniatures and noticed a pattern of highlighting on the legs. Basically, the painted had highlighted the legs in horizontal bands on the thighs to represent the stress of walking. Aha, I said. I starting looking around at people walking around and noticed that they often showed the same horizontal pattern on their legs.

Sometimes I wonder why I’ve enjoyed this hobby so much. Unlike so much in my life, I don’t seem to grasp these concepts as quickly and easily as others. I’ve been amazed and inspired by people who have just picked up the brush. They seem to understand just where to push the paint to get the look they want. Thinking about it, many of these painters were also artistic prior to painting miniatures. Still, I sometimes feel as if I should probably paint better by now. It is dangerous to compare yourself to other painters, though sometimes hard to resist. I’m not in any rush or competition, so it doesn’t bother me right now. I just find it a bit strange, since other games, technology, etc. all comes pretty easy for me.

Next week I’ll probably take a break from miniatures to talk about the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons. So far I’ve picked up the PHB and DMG, as well as Keep on the Shadowfell. When I originally announced my intention to run a 4th Ed game to my Magic group I was met nearly universally with a negative response. My compromise was to get players to commit only to a single adventure. Now, people seem to be getting more excited and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few players wish to extend the campaign.

Tyler

A view from the back.

After talking about painting more like David Imrie over at the League of Augsburg, then immediately starting a painting session, I’ve put my brush where my mouth was. Midway through painting the shirts on my orcs, I started to apply my highlights Imrie-style.

The main feature of David’s work that appeals to me is the impressionistic placement of highlights. He doesn’t strictly follow the sculpting when highlighting, but seems to place random highlights over a surface, creating a pleasing organic texture. For the most part the shade is where one would expect it, the miniature still needs depth. However, he breaks up his large surfaces with this pattern to create more visual interest.

I’m using the Dallimore three-step highlight to create the effect. It’s not clear in the picture because I started using the technique spontaneously in the middle of a painting session. There needs to be a bit more contrast between the various layers. It will show up a little stronger after varnishing as the slight gloss of the paint detracts from the effect.

Here are some rough ideas I am using to reach this effect:

It’s barely visible in this picture. Proper contrast is key to the technique.

One of the interesting things about trying to copy someone else’s technique is that you can rarely match it exactly. Often you make incorrect assumptions about how something is done, or disagree with part of the technique. This is better than perfectly aping someone, as it helps you define your own style. I believe that the Imrie technique is an extension of the Dallimore technique. My guess is that over the years it has evolved into something different.

If someone has really followed this blog from the beginning they will notice that I’m always trying some new technique. It’s true, I’m never happy for very long with the work I am currently producing and always seek to match what I see from other painters. Trying to break down techniques from pictures is a good exercise, though, and I think I am a better painter for it. Painting is my primary participation in this hobby for a variety of reasons. Painting, and thinking about painting, is important to me, and I hope you, my few readers, are able to get something out of it. Next week I will spend some time discussing some of my theories behind highlighting. Writing this article has crystallized some concepts for me, which I’d like to share.

Until then.

Tyler

I am still developing my Dallimore style.

My wife complains that the green is too grey. I agree, and will probably fix it with a warm green glaze. I’m still trying to work on perfecting the Dallimore style. Next time I’m painting flesh, I’m going to have my copy of Anatomy for the Artist handy next time I paint flesh. I feel I’m still not getting that random, organic look that I like so much in David Imrie’s work. His still is similar to Dallimore’s with what looks like three layers applied in nearly a hap-hazard way. There are some great natural painters out there, David is one of them. For anyone that reads my blog regularly, or hell, is visiting for the first time: I’ve had to work really hard at my painting. It didn’t come naturally for me, so I hope I can serve as an example for people who are just starting out by saying it is possible to improve. Just love the process and don’t worry too much about the results.

Of course, if I focused more on painting, I’d probably be even better. I’ve discovered I’m just not the type who will paint seven days a week, week in and week out. Even when I am being relatively prolific, there are days between painting sessions. Even worse, I seem to be slowing down. I think my Back of Beyond and First Nations miniatures were the high water mark for me. At that time, I was painting a set of 10 miniatures in a week. Perhaps not as prolific as Der Alte Fritz, who seems to paint 30 miniatures a week, but right now I’m looking at a month for these eight Warhammer Orcs, with some boxes of Romans (hopefully) in the mail that I’ll need to paint quickly for an article I want to write. Thankfully I have my blog. It does keep my mind to what I am doing, without it I am sure I would have painted even less than I have been. In fact while writing this I’m encouraged to get in a quick painting session right after I finish. Of course, that maybe the Venti Bold I just finished speaking.

I try to break apart my painting into sections. So, I paint all the flesh, from base to highlight. That used to take me a 1-2 hour session. I no longer have the stamina to paint that long, it seems. Plus, I only manage one coat in the hour and a half I am able to manage. My Back of Beyond had 2 basecoats before highlighting. The only way to paint faster is to paint more. It’s going to be hard, as Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition was released this past Friday, and I know I want to run a campaign. Oh well, we’ll see how it goes. For now, I’m going to sign off so I can paint before it gets too late. Next week will be a review of the Rise of Rome: Republican Rome at War by Osprey/Slitherine. I notice most of their books are “Catchline: Nation at War.” I wonder, do they need to specify the books are about the nation at war? Are we going to pick up a sourcebook for a wargame containing army lists and say: “Hmm, why do they focus so much on warfare?”

Quick poll before I go:

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Tyler

Almost looks like a GW Orc.

I finally did it, I finally sat down at my painting table and got some work done. Looks like it was my last chance soon, in a week that table will be gone and my painting station will be sharing a space with my computer. Oh well, maybe that’ll work better for me, as I found it annoying to have to unpack and pack every time I wanted to paint. It’s still not a dedicated desk, but hopefully I’ll be able to leave something setup over a couple of days. I’m considering getting one of those GW painting stations to make moving around the house easier.

The ears and cheeks were the last bits of sculpting finished. I even managed to work in some detail on the right cheek, visible in the picture. I’ve already primed the miniatures and I think it was a good first try, all things considered. I hope to get some more painting done by next week. By then I’ll have a better idea of what the sculpt really looks like. As for my buddy, I don’t think he’s gotten anything done on his side, good thing I didn’t buy anything.

Tyler

Update:

Due to my site being down for nearly a week, I’ve decided to keep this post up for an extra week so that people have time to read it.

The Washington. Yes, this is my chair.

As is traditional, let’s avoid the subject of this post for a little bit and talk about something unrelated. I’m very excited, because after months of waiting, I’ve finally ordered my new notebook. I’m getting a nice Dell XPS 1530 so that I’m no longer tied to my office. People often think that, working on a computer all day would make me not want to touch a computer when I get home. Not true, I still enjoy being on the computer, especially after a day of thinking about all the hobby websites I want to check out, like the Field of Glory website, but more on that next week. No, what I want a break from is not sitting at a computer, but a computer desk. Instead, sitting in a leather recliner, typing on a notebook is much more comfortable.

The head is almost finished. I need to add the cheeks and it’ll be done. One thing I haven’t had a chance to practice with so far is roughing in a shape, allowing the putty to cure, and then working on it in a stage that doesn’t resemble chewing gum quite so much. I’ve been looking around for sculpting articles, with the 1 List Sculpting yahoo group being the primary resource for most beginning sculptors. There are very few sculpting articles that I’ve found elsewhere that don’t also appear in the file section of this group. However, while the different working properties of greenstuff at different stages of being cured are mention, no real detail on what type of sculpting would be done at each stage.

A close up of the head.

This process has been a little trying so far, as trying as a relaxing hobby can or should be, but I am happy to say I’m already thinking about my next bit of sculpting. Whatever my next project, I will find a way to do a little sculpting. The more practice I get, the better. I don’t think I’ll ever be sculpting full miniatures with regularity. I’m still more of a painter. However, having the ability to change a head, re-position an arm, or add some bit of detail to break up a monotonous block of troops is a tool I will enjoy having at hand.

All I’ve really done was finish the mouth by adding lips, then add a smooth surface to the head. When I had originally been sculpting the face I had cut a center line to try to keep things somewhat symmetrical. A gave him a little bald pate and smoothed it out. I’ve seen a lot of advice for lubricating tools. I started with water, but I find you constantly have to re-load your tools, since water doesn’t tend to cling very well to smooth surfaces. I’ve switch to Mineral Oil. I had a bottle for oiling my butcher-block counter and pored some over a sponge taken from a blister pack. I’ve also got another, large, sponge stuffed in a mug of water. I use this to lubricate my fingers. The friction ridges hold the water on. When I tried the mineral oil I found there was too much on my fingers.

The problem with anything other than clean water is the residue left behind. In the case of mineral oil, or the petroleum jelly other people use, this can make it very hard for the next layer of green stuff to stick, not to mention making it impossible to get a decent picture. My solution is to wash the sculpt with some alcohol. I use a brush for this task, as well as for smoothing the surface. It isn’t an old brush, fairly new. Not cheap either, it says Kolinsky sable. It was one of the worst brushes I’d ever used. Fortunately, I’ve got some Windson & Newton Series 7 for painting miniatures. I had to say, the mineral oil seems to have conditioned the brush nicely and it may even be fit for painting someday, who knows.

I finished them, but never got a chance to play.

My friend, as far as I know, has yet to buy any paints for his miniatures. I still plan to paint my forces. If nothing else, it will be a few miniatures less in my unpainted pile and more practice with a painting style I’m still learning before I paint something I really care about. I just have the resist the urge to dive head first into the world of Games Workshop again. I’ve spent a bit of time on their website, looking at their Lord of the Rings miniatures, as well as thinking of the various armies I could paint for Warhammer. I’ve always liked the Skaven, and the Ogre Kingdoms looks like a fun bunch of miniatures to paint.

I need to pause for a deep breath and take stock of my hobby. This is something I’ll be doing over the next week. There are many projects; Starship Troopers, The Battle of Five Armies, Heavy Gear, WWII, Warmaster, 1700′s Native Americans, which are basically complete. Some, such as Heavy Gear, have room to grow. For now though, they are done and no longer take any work if I wanted to play them. In the case of Heavy Gear I can easily return to it by painting some miniatures I already own. Others, such as my Warhammer 40,000 Space Marines, will probably see no work unless the urge to paint some Marines grows too strong. This is a possibility, but there would be no plans to build an army, just scratch the itch.

This little Project project is obviously taking up a large amount of head-space and I’ll have to make sure I take advantage of my enthusiasm before it wanes. I think this sort of exercise is good for all wargamers. One’s head gets turned by so many new games and different miniatures that it’s hard to tell if one is coming or going. I am sure a few readers can remember a time when they’ve looked back and wish they’d spent their energy differently. My first eight years as a wargamer were characterized by buying too much and painting little. If I had been just a little more focused how much happier would I have been? When I met my wife I did become more focused and consequentially painted more miniatures in the first year of our association than I had in the previous eight.

Ok, I really need to wrap this up, or I’ll have nothing to talk about next week. I look forward to writing this post and may even surprise myself by finishing early.

Tyler

PS: In case you are wondering, I did finish those Heavy Gear Blitz! Northern Infantry a few weeks ago. I really should take the time to photograph some and throw the pictures up here. They look much better with the matt varnish applied.

It’s like an optical illusion for un-observant people.

In a class-less display of self-promotion, I’m going to use my descriptive post titles from now on, especially with such traffic gathering keywords as Warhammer. Work continues on my Orc skirmish force for Warhammer Skirmish. My friend is planning to pick up some paints from the GW store this weekend. I was supposed to go over to his place to give him some pointers for painting. Due to staying up late with my Friday Night Magic group, which I couldn’t join due to a family meal, and then sleeping in until 3pm, which I couldn’t do because I had to work at 8am, he didn’t manage to get out to the store.

Oh well, I consoled myself with pounding him and his buddy at Magic. It was good fun, with the first game coming down to the wire, and the second being a straight beat-down. I had an Elvish Eulogist, a Wolf-Skull Shaman, a couple of 2/2 Wolfs, an Imperious Perfect, a Jagged-Scar Archers with a Mosswort Bridge hiding away a Vigor. I like Vigor, he’s a good way to draw out answers and removal from an opponent. I’d rather have my opponent go hell-bent for a Vigor or a planes-walker than for things that are going to win me the game.

For the Luches out there: If you don’t have the things to win the game out, don’t draw the heat with a Vigor or a planes-walker. However, I still think Vigor looks like a dude in a helmet with weird handle-bar mustache horns. It was weeks before I noticed the face in what I though was Vigor’s strange buck-toothed grin. In my defense, I wasn’t the only one. It was like when I got excited when I thought I had a misprinted Horde of Nations.

But I digress, a lot, for two full paragraphs. I hope at least a few of my readers know enough Magic to make sense of that. This post, as the title states, is about sculpting a Warhammer Orc head. As I mentioned last week, I’m sculpting a replacement head for one of the Orcs from the Warhammer 6th Ed. boxed set I won way-back-when. I didn’t take pictures of all the stages as I had planned. I’d say I made a conscious decision to not let the blog interfere with the hobby, but must admit that when I sat down to sculpt, that was all that I thought about.

Half-way finished.

On one hand, I am happy with the sculpt. It looks like something and I’m definitely learning from the process. The head doesn’t resemble a GW Orc, but it isn’t really human. Depending on how the mouth turns out, I may slice off the top of the head and re-do that area. On a real GW Orc, the eyes are smaller and closer together, with very little skull afterwards. This looks more like an Ogre’s head. When painted, I don’t think it will stand-out too much. I don’t want to spend too much time perfecting this. Get in, get the experience, get it finished. Without the completion you never finalize your lession and never move on. Ask my non-started writing career about that.

One thing that is frustrating is that I really want to paint the rest of his crew, but don’t feel like making a separate painting pass just for him. Each layer of putty must cure before the next, especially for a beginner like me. This means I spend maybe 15 minutes pushing putty where I probably could go for an hour or more. The urge to buy something came in really strong while I was struggling with that desire to paint something. I resisted, and instead, while I wait for the putty to cure, I’ve started cleaning and assembling the Arrer Boys that came from the same box.

I probably won’t even use all my Orcs at first, and having some bowmen will really be helpful in giving me a bit of diversity. I don’t know if it’s important against hordes of Skeletons. Perhaps it’d be better to smash through quickly with a large mass of Orcs, rather than spreading myself out to be destroyed in detail. Since I’m up against a single opponent, someone new to the hobby that I’m trying to encourage, perhaps a less-efficient force is better. This will help me fight my natural competitiveness that keeps me from letting off when I’m winning.

Those that have gamed against me know how funny that last statement is. I am definitely not the scourge of the wargame table. For from it, I frequently lose to even the greenest players. I once mocked a player for not pummeling me enough in a game. I felt he’d definitely let himself down by merely destroying my forces convincingly, rather than spectacularly.

Well, that’s enough rambling. It’s time for bed and I have work tomorrow. Not Tuesday, which will be tomorrow Monday when this goes up, but tomorrow Sunday. Working weekends suck. At least I have left-over pizza for lunch. Yum.

Tyler

PS: Anyone know the Pizza Ode that Drew Carey sang on an episode of The Drew Carey Show. It was something like: I love you pizza, I love you when you’re hot, I love you when you’re cold. I even love you when you’re two days old.