Scratch Built Wracks

So... I'm cheap. I'll pay the money for something I feel is worth the cash, but the Privateer Press Wracks are a bit pricy for a glorified stick. So, I raided my old Reaper figs, busted out my pinning set, nippers, files, and went to town.



The figs used are (from left to right):

65002 (or 2749) Jade, Dancing Girl by Werner Klocke

2760 Jalinrix, Female Devil (as bits, this is 2760A) by Tim Kaufman

2741 Nymph (as bits, this is 2741A) by Werner Klocke

I just bent the arms/feet/legs into the position I needed with my fingers (gently). Jalinrix is the easiest to work with (if you don't care if they all look the same, this is the best one to use).

The wracks are just spare bits and pieces of sprue, pinned with brass rod and glued with superglue. The "rope" is just common everyday black thread (black so that you get free "shading" in the recesses).

The bases are Litko Aerosystems 40mm wooden rounds. Then I added a washer and a small nut (the washer and nut provide weight and counterbalance the tall structure). Into the nut, I shoved the bottom of the Wrack post. Then I put on Liquitex Ceramic Stucco (GREAT STUFF FOR BASES I LOVE IT) and smoothed it with my finger.

The rest is paint. The "wood grain" is done with a darker shade of paint (I believe I used the Reaper MSP bone triad - Aged Bone and Bone Shadow). The Hair is Reaper HD Yellow. The Skin is Rosy Flesh Highlight. The Violet Red and Gold is the same as I have been using for Menoth. Then I dipped them in Army Painter Quickshade Soft Tone.

I'm going to add Dullcote and some flags or banners next dangling from the crossbar.

Total cost... zero (well, all this stuff was lying around already not being used so I don't count the price).

Dipped Menoth Choir

So, I took the weekend to be self-indulgent and get some painting done. I bought two blisters of Choir at Area-51 on my way home on Friday and decided to use them as guinea pigs for dipping.

The painting itself was mostly the same as my first test model. The difference is that, Mad Pat observed that the Violet Red was kinda patchy on my light warjacks. So I used Reaper HD series Entrail Pink as a basecoat. Then I put the Violet Red over that. Worked great. I love the HD series for these speedpaint jobs. The skin is Reaper Master Series Rosy Flesh Highlight.

The first one was done with Army Painter Quick Shade Soft Tone, the middle was Strong Tone (same company), and the last one was done with MinWax Polyshades Walnut (Antique Walnut Satin IIRC)*.



* I should note that the MinWax was rubbed down with a Q-Tip to remove the excess dip while it was still wet from the "Skirt" of the mini. Otherwise it would look almost brown instead of how it looks now.

I liked the Army Painter Strong Tone so much, I did the "officer" with it.



Takeaway:

Army Painter Quickshade Soft Tone - For Menoth I think I like this for everything except the skin and the gold. So I think if I stick with Army Painter Soft Shade I'll just quickly hit the skin and gold with Chestnut Wash before the dip.

Army Painter Quickshade Strong Tone - Overall... AWESOME! It just makes the Menoth "white" clothing a bit too dark. A quick drybrush after the dip would probably fix this right up, right before the Dullcote.

MinWax Polyshades Antique Walnut - This was really, really dark. Takes longer to dry than Army Painter but it worked fine. There's more "pigment" in MinWax than Army Painter Quickshade. What I mean by this is that Army Painter Quickshade "lightens" and becomes more transparent as it dries. The MinWax really doesn't do this. If it looks too dark wet, it's too dark. HOWEVER - If you use Army Painter Quickshade Dark Tone, I think the MinWax is probably a cheaper option for you.

Overall: I think Army Painter Strong Shade is actually worth the money... hard as it is to admit.

Menoth Battlegroup Quickpainted

EDIT: I added higher rez crops of my pics.

Well, I've finished with my first ever purchase of Warmachine. Last night I just sat down with a good movie in the background and pushed on through.

These were all painted with "dipping" in mind. The goal was a VERY quick and repeatable paint scheme. The dip was Army Painter Soft Shade.



I'm happy with them. They're painted and fully functional for play.

Paints used: Same as my "Menoth Test 01" except I eliminated several steps: Primer white, paint broad areas (skip the "black work" prior to painting the metallics), then slather on the "dip" with an old crummy brush. Flocked with just basic flock over white "Elmer's" glue.

Takeaway: Army Painter "Soft" is too soft, my Choir will be used as guinea pigs for "Strong" dip and just plain MinMax (I didn't use MinWax on these because I wanted to try the very very light shade, if I'm going with darker dips I start getting back into classic MinWax colors).

The Army Painter - Cygnar

The Army Painter (famous for their line of "dips" and spray primers) did an example trooper of the Cygnar army.

http://www.thearmypainter.com/gallery_presentation.php?GalleryId=3&Gallery=Warmachine%20Sword%20Knight

The money shot is reposted here (all three dips are shown = soft, strong, and dark shade):


Pretty cool for a fast army paint job!

Starting up... again...

So many years ago a small group of us got together to play this cool new skirmish game called... Warmachine... neat steampunk miniatures game. Loved it... had a blast, life happens and fell out of playing it.

Fast forward about 8 years.

With the recent grumblings and catch 22s with GW I decided to get back into Warmachine. Loved playing it all those years ago so why not. Mk 2 is out and there seems to be interest almost everywhere you look. I go digging out my menoth army and my Rhulic Mercenaries.

I sit there and think "I wonder which of these are still valid."

My surprise that they all are. They still look the same as well. Sure the cards are different and the rules are different, but 90% of my "startup" expense is no longer an issue. How cool is that?

So now I have Gorten and his 'Jacks sitting on my Painting table getting redone. I'll post up some pics as I go along to share in my misery/joy. I'm glad Privateer Press is still doing good by it's customers. So much so that I have directed friends towards Warmachine and Hordes over GWs mainstay systems.

I'm also tempted to really look at FoW again... but shhh, don't tell Gorten ;)

Ancient History

Many Many moons ago, when the game was first starting I bought a metal Khador starter set and some Man-O-War shocktroopers.   I got a total of one shocktrooper painted up, and one jack partially painted.  Most everything was sold off long ago, and this poor lone trooper was lost to the winds during some job changes.  He still looks dam cool, and is painted in Reaper Pro Paint : Troll Olive which is perfect for that old Soviet green color.

It begins

Well its offically started.  The first coat of paint has gone down on a warjack.  I started the charger tonight, part of the Cygnar battle box.  The reinforcements arrived in the mail today as well.  On the table is

o Warcaster Commander Coleman Stryker
o Ironclad Heavy Warjack
o Lancer Light Warjack
o Charger Light Warjack
o Hunter Light Warjack
o Sentinel Light Warjack

I've got a Journeyman warcaster on back order at the moment.

I found out something amusing today while painting the charger.  I went to all the trouble of trying zenithal highlighting, which is worthless when you use the fantastic new base coats of the Reaper Master Paint HD line.  The coverage is so fantastic you can't really see the difference where the primers change.  I've chosen the HD Dragon Blue as my base blue, with the P3 Brass Balls as the golden color.  I'll be hitting the blue with a GW blue wash as a final step.