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.

Busy Days

The last few weeks have been a wonderful flurry of hobby activity for me. I feel like I have my mojo going very strong again, for the first real time since I stopped painting for other people.

Right after my last post, I started in on DM prep work for the family's upcoming delve into Greg Gillespie's Barrowmaze. After studying Greg's maps and keys for the dungeon, I knew that it was going to be a challenge to adapt it to a miniatures-based dungeon crawl. Greg's maps are very well designed and layed-out . . . but building them as a floor-tile dungeon would be next to impossible because they are so cramped. I took Greg's designs, cut a whole bunch of floor tiles downloaded from the Skulldred site and mounted them on foam core, and then re-laid out and re-keyed the "major" encounters to match the rooms and passages that I could easily build. It will make for a slightly less realistic dungeon lay out, for sure- but I think that it will be a lot more playable as a tabletop game. I plan on posting pictures of the games, as I know some of you have expressed an interest in Barrowmaze.

After studying the random monster tables for the various environments, I decided I was a little light in the dungeon vermin department, so I picked up a couple packages each of Fire Beetles and Giant Scorpions from Reaper and painted them up one evening last week. Again, since they are destined to die in droves, the paint jobs are quick and basic, but I was pleasantly surprised at how decent they look. Especially considering that these are Bones minis, and barely broke the $10 mark for the whole group of twelve. Definitely a good value.

Everyone's favorite gland donators

Roll save v. poison or die

About the same time that I ordered these guys, the Red Box Games kickstarter was wrapping up, and I was a pretty big backer of that project. The minis that Tre sculpted during the last few days of the campaign as stretch goals were so good that they drove me to search around the inter webs looking for older minis he had sculpted. I came across this great Not-So-Little-John priest type from Reaper, and fell in love. Readers of this blog will certainly know of my weakness for beer guts on minis.

Gotta love scale differences

He is joined here by a Dwarf from WOTC's Chainmail range. This guy is way too big to use in my WHFB Dwarf army, so I mounted him on one of the flagstone bases from Fenris and he will ultimately be a PC in Barrowmaze. I think the rest of the family will be rolling up new characters fairly frequently, as the dungeon is pretty deadly. The color scheme for his armor (yellow and black) was inspired by my older son's favorite soccer club, Borussia Dortmund (he happened to walk into my painting room wearing his jersey just as I was gazing at the mini trying to figure out how to paint him up). It was a nice excuse to use my favorite yellow painting technique again- a dark ochre base shaded with a heavy flesh wash and then highlighted up by adding in bone white. The cleric will make guest appearances as an NPC. I have an inkling he may be drunk fairly often. But just look at that whoopin' stick!

Hope you are well, wherever you might be- enjoy the last of your turkey sandwiches if you're on this side of the pond. Cheers, all.