DocPiske
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Reaper already shipped my replacement Mossbeard; they said he should be "lumbering my way".
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So I've been painting a lot of character models and low level monsters lately, so I decided to tackle a large monster. I pulled out the bag with Bones manticore, chimera and sphinx and lost my mind, deciding to paint all three. Then I acquired the Bones Black efreeti and could not resist painting her as well.
First up the chimera 77257. I should have taken another photo of the front of the model from a higher angle so that you could see the eyes of the dragon head but I was too lazy.
I did not notice the blob of white paint until I uploaded the file. Isn't that how it goes? Maybe I'll get around to fixing it, but I'm already plotting what to paint first from Bones 4. I spent all that time painting the striations on the wings and didn't do any highlighting on the belly scales of the dragon, either.
Manticore 77577. I have another, older manticore model (I know, shocking) from Grenadier that I painted with the more traditional dark bat wings. I wanted something different and I have been itching to try an idea I had for bright new copper, like a shiny new penny. I painted the wings and scales with Reaper MSP Coppery Orange and then over painted the webbing on the wings with the old Ral Parta Metallic Red. I like how it turned out, and Iron Wind Metals is again selling this paint, however only at conventions so far. In retrospect brass dragon wings would have been better, but I can always buy another one...
Oh, and this model is the one I used the Culture Hustle Black 2.0 as a primer on the base. No difference in performance from Reaper MSP Black Primer.
Sphinx 77576. Not much to say about her except be careful when trimming the mold lines on the ears; I lopped off half of the left ear and had to do reconstructive surgery.
I really like the sculpting on the wings and the base is a really neat small bit of terrain. The nice thing about Bones is that they are cheap enough to by them for just parts.
And finally the efreeti 44003. My color scheme was heavily inspired by (shameless stolen from) Wren's magnificent work on the store display model. You can't improve on perfection.
If anyone is interested in boring technical details I did something different with the skin tones for this one. I wanted the bright red skin to appear almost like it was glowing, as befits a fire spirit. I primed the model in black and then painted the skin with a burnt sienna color. I then did my first layer of high lights with Reaper MSP Pumpkin Orange (because it was the first orange I found in my bin), and then the second high light with an ocher yellow, and the final high lights with a pale yellow, Ral Partha Blonde as it turned out. Once that had dried I over-painted the entire area with Ral Partha (sorry, IWM) Red. One of the interesting properties of the IWM paints is that they are rather translucent. This gave me fits for years back in the 80's when I first acquired them as RP paints at Gen Con; I paint for table top and prefer my paint to be opaque for quick coverage. However I slowly learned that I could get pretty smooth transitions with the RP paints by applying several layers of the paint in smaller and smaller areas. It also works pretty well out of the pot for glazing over a pre-shaded area. Overall I'm happy with the result.
The cloth was painted with a burnt sienna, high lighted with MSP Runic Purple, edged with MSP BCA Pink and glazed with MSP Clear Magenta.
For the sword blades I was going for obsidian; seemed appropriate for a fire creature. Painted dark gray, edged in white, and glazed with black ink.
I hope you like them and thanks for looking. I wonder if I can call in sick tomorrow to stay home and paint...
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Got my reward yesterday. Mossbeard seems to have escaped the box in transit and is probably living wild and free somewhere between Texas and Michigan. Who really wants to live in the Detroit area anyway?
Email sent to help at reapermini dot com. I do feel a bit ungrateful, though. The discount for backing over the retail price is so good, I feel as though I got my money's worth without the Ent.
Haven't inventoried the core set yet, but man, that barge is large! No, that is not a euphemism...
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Zenithal priming and thin coats of paint.
This Sorastro YouTube video is an example:
Sorastro's The Lord of the Rings Painting Series Ep.1: Orcs, Goblins, & Ruffians
YouTube is a commercial site, so no direct link but that title should get you there.
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Daggers are finesse weapons in 5e. No daggers available? The lower damage dice is offset by the extra d6... and you can use one in each hand and get two opportunities for rolling a 20.
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Picked up on my trip to NOLA:
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Back from my trip to New Orleans. Good food, cool architecture, interesting people. The food and history tour was great, guide was enthusiastic and knowledgeable. Ghost tour guide was neither of those things. I like Royal Street more than Bourbon Street.
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Others will weigh in but the best brush on "primer" for Bones is not a primer at all but rather it is the Reaper MSP brown liner. It is very thin but adheres to the PVC Bones incredibly well. For spray primer I use Army Painter white or black primer; the other colors seem to be a bit glossy.
As for the Reaper MSP brush on primers, they work well too but are a bit thicker than the brown liner, and as Bones are a bit hydrophobic thinning the primer with water can have mixed results. I have mixed brown liner and white primer to good effect; strangely the resulting paint is slightly violet in hue. The brush on primers have been around since long before Bones and work well on metal and most other materials.
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Got my shippong notice from UPS yesterday evening, but I was down with a migraine until this AM. Only 13 lbs but in-transit to Fort Worth on the way to Detroit. I don't think there would tracking and weight if it were just a system test. Seems like the Reaper tracker was broken in the move to the new warehouse?
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Ram headed Sphinx.
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I was hoping to pick a book of bones at Origins, but alas Reaper is not attending this year. .
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Did I hear correctly during the last Reaper live that they will not be attending Origins this year?
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Pingo, your points on matte paint are well taken as always. My only quibble with Culture Hustle is that they state (or stated, before Black 3.0) that with this paint "With just one coat almost any object (even really shiny ones) become super-black and reflect next to no light, giving a Vantastic black hole type effect." I don't agree with the "super-black" or "Vantastic black hole type effect".
Gadgetman, how did Black 2.0 compare to the Vallejo black primer?
I agree this will see special use for deep shadows and such, just not as a main body color. But that's my take on it, others might see it differently.
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I've always been a bit frustrated with painting black. How do you shade black? How do you highlight it without the area looking grey instead? When I heard about Vantablack I was intrigued until I found out it was crazy expensive and required heat treating; not really practical for hobby painting.
When Culture Hustle came out with "Black, the world’s mattest, flattest, black art material by Stuart Semple" I was interested but skeptical. I never got around to buying any, but recently with the Black 3.0 Kickstarter I decided to buy a bottle of Black 2.0 for half the price and try it out.
First up is a comparison of Black 2.0 and how I normally paint black. I start with black primer (duh) and then paint over that with the darkest black paint on hand, in this case it was GW Abaddon Black. I then highlight the area with a dark grey, here Eshin Grey, followed by an edge highlight of Administratum Grey. The Reaper MSP Dragon Black, Stone Grey and Weathered Stone would also work. I then apply a glaze of black acrylic ink to bring it all back down to a more uniform dark color. The highlights are very subtle but look more like black cloth to me. The models here are GW wraiths; like many older GW sculpts they don't seem to be available currently, which is sad. I quickly washed the previously painted model with just water and light brushing before over-painting the robes with the Black 2.0. The model on the left is the Black 2.0.
As you can see the Black 2.0 is indeed darker than my method, and seems to provide shading of it's own. Of course my light box set up has some fairly intense lights so that might be an artifact of the set up. This is after one coat and it went on very smoothly. It is rather thick compared to Reaper MSP, and you can see a few areas that the paint did not get in to. According to Stuart's video on YouTube you can thin Black 2.0 with water without loosing much of it's coverage and matte-ness. In the video it is stated that the paint will continue to darken over 24 hours; I did not see this effect. The paint did dry to the touch very quickly. I have not clear coated the area over-painted with Black 2.0 and I might not for this model; it is well protected by the original layers of paint and sealer.
Next up I have a Bones Sphinx model that I washed and cleaned up the mold lines on, 77577 Manticore. I primed the stones of base with Black 2.0, the rest of the base with Reaper MSP Black Primer, and the manticore itself with Reaper MSP Brown Liner.
As you can see the large stone blocks are more matte, but to my eye the Reaper MSP Black Primer on the rest of the base actually looks darker than the stones painted with Black 2.0. The difference is more apparent in person, but even looking at the photos Black 2.0 doesn't look any darker than the Black Primer, and not much darker than the Brown Liner. The Black Primer is definitely glossier than the Black 2.0.
In the first photo the stone in the upper right shows the effect of me rubbing my thumb vigorously across the paint, and even bearing down and scratching at it with my thumb nail. It stood up fairly well but definitely turned more grey, and on the corner the paint scraped off just a little bit. You can also clearly see places where the thick paint did not flow down into the detail. Of course you can also see spots I missed with the Black Primer and Brown Liner, so keep in mind that the error is probably mine. A second, thinner coat of Black 2.0 would probably fix the issue, but who wants to do a second coat of primer?
This last image is of the base for manticore compared to the base for the Bones Sphinx, 77576. I spray primed the sphinx with Army Painter Black Primer.
Again, the primer is glossier but darker no my eye. I personally have not had any tackiness issues with Army Painter spray primers on Bones, but I tend to only give light coats of the primer as evidenced here; Army Painter primers can be not only glossy but a bit hydrophobic when applied too thickly so I go for just "good enough" coverage.
So my final thoughts on Black 2.0?
Price wise I think it compares favorably to hobby paints; I got my 150 ml bottle for $20 USD inclusive of shipping from Amazon Prime; a 12 ml bottle of GW paint runs $4.55 USD, and Reaper MSP is $3.69 USD for half an ounce (~15ml).
As for matteness, it is the most matte black paint I've used.
As for the darkness (or blackness), I think there are darker paints available, but they are glossier.
Durability is fair, but remember that if you seal or top coat your models, the result will be a glossier finish than straight Black 2.0 without the top coat.
I don't see me using it very much for models, but it will have it's special case uses. I see more applications in terrain or scenery than on monster or character models.
I'll try to remember to update this thread after I paint the manticore and let you know how the areas coated with Black 2.0 turn out, and maybe I'll hit that GW wraith with some Testor's Dull Coat too.
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Purple is an oddball color when it comes to color temperature. I would call that one cool. You could try shading it with a dark blue ink to really push it toward cool. Also white makes a good contrasting color for that hue and shade of purple. Maybe shade the white with a cream color like Reaper linen white to really bump up the contrast. Or shade the white with a very pale slate color if you want to unify the model. Of course you could go for something radical like a pale green maggot white...
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Yellow is actually the complimentary color for purple. I would go with a pale yellow if you have a dark purple.
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I would mix the plaster to the desired thickness and then add the paper. You might use more plaster than necessary, but rather that than ruin the project. Of course I haven't used anything like that in decades; pretty much use dental plaster to cast molds these days.
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You are correct Vega, they don't need money up front. However by running a KS they can get a large number of figures tooled up and into production years before they would if they were financing the tooling themselves. I have worked in plastic injection molding in the automotive industry and these cut steel tools cost tens of thousands of dollars each. I'm not privy to Reaper's finances, but I know from experience even large automotive suppliers need to borrow money to get the tools made and run prototype parts for testing. Using KS allows Reaper to avoid getting loans (and paying interest); analysis of which sets or add-ons are ordered helps to provide insight into which models might sell well at retail, too. Both of these seem like sound business decisions to me.
You are also correct about the difficulties working with overseas suppliers. But I can also tell you that the actual production of parts here in the USA isn't just "a bit more", it's a lot more; on the order of double the cost, even taking into account shipping.
We are all a little frustrated by delays, but I expect a company as customer focused as Reaper is stressing more than we are. I just visited the KS page for Bones 4; there were 16,200 backers. That's a lot of orders for a company of 2d12 or 3d12 employees to manage. I would say they are victim of their own success.
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3 hours ago, Wren said:
I didn't realize how large those figures were either until Ron sent me copies to paint. And I was very wowed!
Figures? Copies? Does that mean we will be seeing the djinni soon?
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Played Tiny Epic Defenders for the first time on Saturday. It was fun but not as good as Tiny Epic Quest. I want to try Tiny Epic Galaxies next.
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I just used CA glue (super glue) to attach and green stuff (putty epoxy) to gap fill. Been over a year on no problems (yet). I second the suggestion to not fully assemble the model before painting. I assembled the lower legs and tail, and each head to the associate neck before painting, the rest after doing the bulk of the work. I picked up some cheap, tiny bar clamps from the hardware store to hold the sub-assemblies while painting to avoid rubbing off the paint.
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Nice experience with GW customer service. I ordered some plastic models for a friend's birthday (Skullcrushers) and the USPS decided they couldn't find my house. It's only been in the same place for 76 years.
So I called GW customer service and they verified the package was tagged "return to sender", and Fedex'd me a new set which arrived on Thursday. On Friday the original package showed up; I guess my house "re-appeared". Anyway I called GW back on how to return the extra box and they told me to just keep it. My Chaos general friend is very pleased. My only concern now is having to face those troops on the table.
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6 hours ago, Unruly said:
And to make it worse, something has been irritating the skin of my nether regions all night long. It's infuriating and I don't know what it is. I haven't changed soaps, laundry detergents, fabric softeners, or anything like that. So I'm just all itchy in a very tender area...
Where do you carry your pepper spray? Could there have been an... accidental discharge?
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Origins will be a little less fun now.
But congratulations! I'm a little jealous...
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Department of Acquisitions and Enablement, the Second
in Off-Topic Rampancy
Posted
I just acquired the Humble Bundle 3d printer file bundle. Yikes, that's a lot of files! And the charity is the Navy/Marine Corps Relief Society, how could I not? I don't even own a 3d printer (yet).