galladril

Hey there, Reaperites. It's been a while since I've been here. Because of the quarantine, I find myself with time on my hands, and so I have been painting stuff from various brands of manufacturers. When I get everything finished and clear coated, Ill post some pics in Show Off - I'm an ok tabletop painter at best. Anyway, I have never painted ANYTHING "large," and in the 20+ years I have been off and on painting, I have *never* painted a dragon. So I went into my enormous box of Bones I purchased from the 2nd kickstarter, and pulled out Narthax. I washed him with a toothbrush and soap in warm water. I didnt need to do any real clean up on him in terms of mold lines. I use thinned paints, and knowing Bones are hydrophobic, I applied grey Krylon primer to the figure. The primer looked like it held great. Now, I typically use a mini holder. This was the very first thing I have actually kinda needed to hold in my hand. However, Narthax is too big for this holder. I held onto the base as best as I could, but found primer coming off of it. Worse, when I spun the mini over, I discovered a line of spines that were just...white. I had literally rubbed the paint directly off the bones material, along with the primer I am going to try some brush on primer to the areas to do fix ups, but this really sucks. Does anyone know of anything that might help this go away? In addition, does anyone have any suggestions on who a decent free picture host is now? Dropbox? Google Drive? Thanks, all, Its appreciated. -Galladril

As always, I am LOVING this. I get a chibi-like grin whenever you mess with KD. Keep going, Cash - this stuff is superb.

Was able to place an order, got the goodie bag + pink, and did NOT get a rock - I got a skelly and a townsfolk woman, both in Bones. Thanks, Reaper!!!

Thanks, everyone. Just seeing this now. I was on vacation for my birthday, and then the plane ride got me sick as a dog, but getting better day by day and I have now grown accutomed to having an additional year under my belt... :)

I think we all run into that from time to time. I KNOW that I do. My thing is: When I compare myself to "some of the greats," of course it is going to make "a normal person" look "bad." I've said this before - I play guitar, and one of the guys who inspired me the most is Eddie Van Halen. I've played for 15 years, here and there. I sound NOTHING like EVH. I will NEVER be able to play as well as EVH, so when I compare myself to EVH? Of course, "I suck." What I forget to consider a lot of the time is that EVH probably plays roughly 12-16 hours a day. He has been playing for over 45 years. If I stopped writing, and taking pictures, and playing guitar, and video games, and hanging with friends? I might be a better guitar player. They say that when you dedicate 10,000 hours to something, you become a pro at it. There are 8,736 hours in a year. Every second, non stop...and you still aren't there. Lets break this down into sections of 40 hour weeks (average work week.) Thats still 2080 hours a year. So, to get to 10,000 hours, you would need to hone your craft for roughly 40 hours a week for 5 years. Assuming you can spend 2 hours a night, that is still 14 years you would need to dedicate to it. When I look at my own stuff and don't compare it to anything? It looks fine. It's great for tabletop. I get compliments on it from my friends who can't paint. I get compliments here in Show Off. People seem to like what I am doing, and I am pleased with the result. That is what matters. If you are trying to be "the next great painter," and are already dedicating this much time to learning, then continue on your way. If you are just a normal person, then take each miniature, each brushstroke as one more to your way to greatness. Grats on picking back up the brush. It missed you, and you missed it - ultimately, if you are happy painting, then just keep going. :)

So, this first picture is going to look remarkably similar to the last one.....because I was painting black over black. :) There are some really deep recesses in this figure, so I wanted to make sure I got everything first. The primer actually gave the figure a pretty neat matted black and I actually thought of leaving it as it was for a little while, before deciding against it, because I knew I was going to mess up, need to cover over it, and would then have 2 shades of black to contend with. Painting onto black is an interesting experience. I was reminded of the quote, "The statue was always there, I just removed the bits of rock surrounding it." When you paint on black primer, its almost as though you expose bits and details a piece at a time, rather than having them "always shown" to you. I have a feeling I may delve into this more as my painting continues. So, after the black on black, I began my "tried and true" bone recipe steps, though I did make a slight adjustment.... My typical bone recipe is a basecoat, followed by a sepia *ink* wash, followed by cleanup and highlights. This time I decided to give a bottle of premixed Umber Wash a go at it, and it didn't turn out badly at all.I then re-applied the base color to "clean up" anything that was slightly out of place.I'm going to make a note of this step and keep it in my back pocket as an alternative. I would be willing to bet the sepia wash I have would give similar results as well. (This is the part where I have to give a nod to a good product. The Vallejo Washes are really nice to use, right out of the bottle, and their flesh wash, specifically, is absolutely stellar. I am trying to step away from using washes in general to begin with, but I'll go with a premixed from SWW or Vallejo over an Ink Wash 9/10 times now.) Now, the highlights.... ...and let's get some work done on his scythe.... And that is where he currently sits. So far, so good. I have to admit, this little guy is really pretty fun to paint. Maybe it's because he is my first "chibi-style" mini, but there is something about this dude that is......cute. :) Up next: I really need to do a lot of research on doing wood grains. When you have the textures already in the mini, I can do things pretty easily, but mine never turn out the way I want them to on flat surfaces. After that, I have to make some choices regarding how I want to highlight the black....could do grey, could do blue, or could do nothing - the light bounces off this already pretty well, but that seems like a HUGE cop out. Comments, questions, and suggestions appreciated, as always! Happy Painting, All!

Just getting started but, I want a document of this whole process. Man, I have missed metal. Bonesylvanians : Morty As previously mentioned, this is a halloween gift for someone, and I will need to get it done by October 16th. Unlike Bones, I actually will take a little time cleaning stuff off in metal, espcecially because this is a gift. Mold lines and general cleanup weren't too bad on him, actually, but I think I may have taken a little bit more off the pointing finger than I wanted to. Now, I don't know if this is intelligence on my part, or if I am setting myself up for a huge failure, but I am doing something on this mini i typically do not do: It just kinda makes sense for this guy. I have wanted to test priming a mini in black for a while now, actually, so this will be interesting. Should see some more progress after the weekend. Happy Painting, All!!

I've met Larry a few times at Gencon, have his sig on a few prints, and my name is in his book as one of his Kickstarter backers. Class act, all the way. VERY cool painting area. You did just remind me that I need more stands for figures. :) Are those prescription bottles that you are using for them??

Man, that brings back a LOT of memories. I miss those, a lot. I'm sure you are going to get a ton of suggestions on the ones you can keep, but I would suggest converting those to dropper bottles ASAP! :)

I knew exactly what it was just by seeing it. REALLY nice tribute.

Just put up 2 posts (due to picture constraints) in my WIP thread regarding my beginning tests with the F&G line and the Inktensity set. You can find it beginning here. It might be slightly long, but I tried to give as much info as I could given the circumstances..... Let me know if you have any specific questions and I hope this helps. Cheers!

The bad thing about this little experiment, and because of how heavily I soaked the figure - it created tide marks ALL over it, which I wasn't even thinking about.....so I basically had to rebasecoat the entire figure. Now, here is where things got REALLY interesting, and leads me to my final thought on these paints (which will be revealed at the end of this post.) I didn't want to relayer a basecoat. I knew how much paint it was going to chew up and how long it was going to take. This stuff really is pretty thin...so I didn't even bother thinning it. I basically applied it direct. It is thin enough to not obscure detail, but thick enough to cover in one or 2 coats. Now that the skin was re-basecoated, I did my typical layer of brown before the golden sections. This brown is NOT F&G....and I had coverage problems, again. Look at the hair in this picture - you can clearly see how it gets "rubbed off," .....and that is where the figure currently sits. So, what did I learn, and what do I think from this *unfinished* experiment? 1) The Inktensity ink set really is pretty cool. I want to see how well it punches up color when added to paint, but I really love that it dries as matte as the paint does. 2) F&G IS "brighter" than the normal scalecolor line. I compared the 2 whites I had. 3) As everyone knows, it is MUCH thinner than the existing line. So what are my opinions on F&G? I actually believe it is designed to be used like GW stuff, for painters "right out of the bottle," who aren't going to bother thinning it. S75 claims that is a more durable formula as well, I am assuming similar to VMC, where it is slightly tougher, and more resistant to damage. if that is the goal, then I can say it covers really well. However, when I used it thinned, it still rubbed right off. I also think (but have not yet tested) that F&G will probably work amazingly well for glazes. As I mentioned before in the Scale 75 forum, the brighter colors seem like they would lend themselves more to highlighting, and seeing that I had to put down SO many layers to get it to fully cover once thinned, to me, it only helps to put credence to that theory. More tests are coming, all, I promise. I will be working with this stuff for a while....however... I am about to begin a third project, a Bonesylvanian, to be given as a Halloween gift before Halloween, which means I have a little bit over a month to get it done...expect to see him soon..... :) Let me know if there are ANY questions, or ANY specific tests you would like to see done, and I will try to accomodate. Happy Painting, All!!!

So, I have a ton of pics to show, as this was a relatively busy weekend for me, and may need to divide into 2 posts. Minotaur had a small bit of work done to his base, but I am not happy with it, and I still need to apply the final touches to his horns, the axe handle, and a few other things. He is not yet ready for show off. He would have been if I had focused on him, but I didn't, cause I got excited over something else. "Oooo, shiny!" It was interesting to me how many different colors I had used on this fellow: After receiving my Fantasy and Games paints from Scale 75, as promised, I said I would try to use them, and do some initial tests with them. I have only used 2 paints in total so I do not feel these to be conclusive, but they may be helpful. More to come as I continue to use them, and I do have some opinions already. The first thing I did in order to test was shook all bottles of paint for at least 2 minutes, and then put a single drop on my pallate. These were unthinned, straight from the dropper bottles, and I tried to use similar colors so that pigmentation wasn't a factor in terms of flow. I know it is not exact, but, I am not claiming this to be an official scientific test, either. :) After applying the drops, one right after another, you can see how they began to spread on the pallate. I let these drops sit there, exposed to air for one minute, before applying 1 drop of water to each, stirring with the end of my paintbrush, and then tilting the pallate to about 85 degrees. I then had to rush to get my camera to get the picture. I will make no "official" statements about this picture, but I do think that there is a lot of information that can be seen. Again, this is one test with one line of similar colors. Now, we begin to get very technical, very quickly. I have wanted to paint something "larger" for a long time now. I truly believed it would be easier in a lot of aspects, and I was not exactly ready for the potential pitalls and frustrations that came with it. 77163: Male Storm Giant (Bones) This is primered in Army Painter primer, the same as all of my Bones will be. I thin my paints, and as we all already know, bones are hydrophobic. This is from the F&G line, thinned about 1:1 with water. Great color, smooth application, right? It SEEMS that way, until you realize, this was probably coat 8 or 9, and there were STILL some problems with white seeping through. Now, I know this could be attributed to a ton of different factors, but I am, at this point, wondering if my primer is screwed up, or, if AP just doesn't work as well with Bones as I thought it did. I always seem to have issues like this. Now, I mentioned problems and frustrations that I had, right? Beyond coverage issues, what you do not see is that the figure fell off the base about 600 times, and EVERY single time it did, a section of it got "chipped." It has been previously stated that Vallejo MC and Scale 75 are quite fragile until you seal them. I could not have been more reminded of this, especially when it took multiple coats to fix the damaged areas every single time it fell. Now, I know the color I have used is dark, but I wanted to make the recesses even darker, and figured, this would be a perfect time to experiment with the washes. **I know how sloppy this is. I did this intentionally. Read on!!!** I have felt for a long time that my painting is actually being hindered by using washes.If I can achieve the effect of darkened recesses by actually painting them in, I would rather do that, than use a product which, in my experience, has a tendancy to add a satin or gloss finish that I really don't want. So, I loaded up an ink wash and drowned the figure in it, so I would be able to see, clearly, if the S75 inks left that residue. The good news - it did not look like they did. I might actually use these. Continued in next post.....

My browns did for me, but in fairness, I had watered them down **severely** for layering, and the problem "melded" to correct itself 2 layers later. You can't see the remnants of it at all - was the easiest "fix" I've ever needed to do. I swear, these things act like the T-1000 when I use them - they just "fix and correct" themselves. My 4 F&G sets came in today - I'll give them a go on something over the extended weekend and report back.

Thanks for the heads up. I have to tell you, I play 1st and 2nd ed, the MM is one of my most commonly used books for gaming, and I simply don't see it, with the one GLARING exception being the Demon Idol they have available (PHB cover.) I guess I have always just lived in this world where I figured anything like that would have agreements ahead of time, and proper liscencing in order to even produce stuff like that. I don't really think about "the dark side" where artists aren't getting paid for their stuff, but I know that WotC has lawyers up the yin yang in order to protect their IP.