Sunday, March 8, 2015

Heavy Metal Ink Washing

For those one or two of you who actually read my early posts back at the beginning of this blog, you'll know that I used to spend the majority of my time doing commission painting for a client on the other side of the U.S. And while I gave up painting other people's minis about a year ago because it took way too much time away from attacking my own lead pile, one thing I do miss about commission work is the stupendous sense of accomplishment from painting large quantities of minis in a relatively short time. Most of the stuff I painted for my client was stuff that begged for speed painting techniques to be employed- furniture, dungeon decor, large monster forces, etc. And while I tend to pick and choose from my own collection, following whatever whim strikes me at the time, spending considerable time experimenting with new techniques and occasionally lavishing highlight layers, details, and basing techniques, my commission work was all very. . . workman in nature. Basecoat-ink wash-thinned highlight layer-varnish. Done.

Today I decided I wanted to use those techniques again, if only for a day. I recently backed Tre Manor's Red Box Games "Heroic Miniatures" Kickstarter, and I assembled and prepped the minis right after I got them. I hadn't started painting them until today, though. For whatever stupid reason, I decided I wanted to try to finish an entire warband worth of them in a single afternoon's session, so I pulled out the "Njorn" group of five warriors and went to town.

Red Box Games Njorn by Tre Manor
Usually when speed painting, I would use one color at a time and paint all the figures with that color. Today, though, I tried something new- I put all the colors that I planned to use (I limited the palette to 10 colors total), got them good and thinned on my wet palette, and then did one full step on each mini at a time. So, I completely basecoated one mini, then moved onto basecoating the next. By the time I finished all the block colors on the fifth model, the first was dry enough to apply the ink washes, so I did them for each mini in turn. Then the bases got done, and finally I finished with varnishing. All in all, these five minis took about three hours total, which is a rare big block of time for me to devote to the hobby.

I am feeling lucky indeed today.

One of my absolute favorite bloggers, Alexis Smolensk of The Tao of D&D published another book earlier this week entitled The Dungeon's Front Door. Once I get the book in my hands, I plan on doing a review here. If it is anywhere near as good as Alexis' first two books on the subject, I should be in for a treat. If you've never read Alexis' blog and are at all interested in a very well-written treatise on the art of Dungeon Mastering, I recommend checking him out pronto.

I am rambling now, so I should stop. Whiskey Sunday beckons. Good evening, lead brethren.


7 comments:

  1. It's fortunate Whiskey Sunday follows Painting Sunday rather than preceding it. Were this not the case these minis might not look as good as they do. Great job.

    The Tao of D&D. My first impression was quite favorable (and one never gets a second chance to make a first impression, I'm told). Look forward to your review.

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    1. I have painted a few minis following Whiskey Sunday in the past. Those guys ended up in the "to be eBay'ed" pile shortly thereafter.

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  2. 3 hours of apinting and you get to this ? In 3 hours I'd have basecoated the with only 2 or 3 colours and would have prepped another model, stripped 2, would have tried dry fits for future conversions and spent the rest managing my tune playlist...

    Impressive.

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    1. A couple of years ago, I too would have spent too much of my painting time managing my songs playlist. Now, I just put "Electric Wizard" into Pandora and let that take me where it may.

      Stripping minis is a strictly first-thing-in-the-morning job for me. I don't have the patience to work the toothbrush (or suffer the Pine Sol fumes) at any other time.

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    2. Funny thing , I got into Electric Wizard while painting thanks to http://mdarrow.blogspot.fr/.

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  3. Great job. It's always fun to see these guys painted up. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. No problem. My pleasure. Thanks for stopping by!

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