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Awhile ago I picked up the tribes of the Vale expansion for Battle of Westeros pretty cheap. Though it wasn't in a scale I used at the time (boy did that change), or even a game I play the price was just too good and I wanted to try a different scale. Upon their arrival I promptly cleaned them, assembled them, and even primed them before other projects took precedence. How many times have I started a project with those words? Finishing what will be the start of my Ion Age armies has renewed my interest in painting these smaller scale figures. So last night after looking through the three sets of troops I chose the swordsmen and finally started painting these almost forgotten miniatures. As I was unsure how exactly I wanted to paint them I started with a test model. After painting it nearly to completion I realized a few things. Firstly I may have used the wrong primer all those years ago as it seems to fight the paint. Second because of the primer and the sculpts themselves these figures are more suited to a quick slop paint approach. Tonight I went ahead and truly started batch painting in earnest. Already they're pretty far along and looking good or at least good enough for me.

After another longer than intended break from painting I've finally started a new project. As the title says this is another chance to clear my desk of miniature clutter that has once again accrued. At least it's not as bad as last time as only a handful of miniatures have built up. Starting off I grabbed two similar miniatures and got to work. Luckily I've known the exact color scheme I've wanted for these two for awhile now, so I was able to just jump back in. I'm definitely out of practice but I'm still pleased with just one night's work. Spur of the moment I decided to switch things up and start another figure. I had only intended to try out my new green but ended up nearly finishing it too.

Lately I've been working on things that have languished for too long and this project is no exception. I bought Cmon's Kick The Board Game over a year ago and immediately cleaned and primed the miniatures. Since then they've simply sat in a box unpainted. Last night however I finally got started. Having bought this game mostly for the hero miniatures I decided to start this project with the generic enemy figures. My thinking is that this will give me a better understanding of the miniatures before moving on to the hero figures I actually care about (and bought the game for). As the generic foot soldiers don't exactly have uniforms apart from their masks I decided a hodge podge color scheme would be best. Starting off though I quickly decided to paint all the coats as leather jackets. That decision called for a bit of reference photo gathering, which had the added benefit of throwing off all my targeted ads as now Google is convinced I need a new jacket. Armed with nice reference photos of the various colored jackets I intend to paint I finally began. The first batch recieved a bright red leather jacket based off the jacket seen in Fight Club. After all of that not much thought went into the rest of their outfits. Honestly I basically just grabbed some of my go to colors and got to work. I think it worked out though and I ended up with some passable miniatures after only one night of work. Tonight I started my second batch. For these guys I also went with a red leather but in a darker shade. I didn't quite finish them in one session but they're close. Choosing to paint two reds may have been a mistake as they look nearly identical. Side by side however the difference can be seen. So after only two nights I've nearly finished two batches of generic criminals with only three more to go before I start on the bosses. I'd call that a good start.

Now that my Ghost Archipelago project is complete it's time to start a new one. Like just about everyone else I have quite a few projects ready and waiting (maybe even too many), but after such a long project containing so many animals and monsters I wanted something different. If you were following my Ghost Archipelago project you may have seen a large assortment of random figures in the background of some of my pictures. That collection is comprised of figures that have been sitting on my desk for far too long, well that and my latest picks from the last box of goodwill. As you can see it's a pretty varied assortment. It's also not a crazy amount either, just a nice (hopefully) quick little project before jumping into something heavy again. Wanting something sci-fi after all those fantasy creatures I grabbed the two identical space soldiers. Unsure what I really wanted to do I played around with the idea of a straight policeman/peacekeeper scheme. Slowly that morphed into a peacekeeper/private security group based around a mining or space operation. With that in mind I thought blue armor with an almost orange jumpsuit would make for an interesting security force where both colors could make sense, even together. Looking at them basecoated I can't help but think of some of the X-men color schemes from the nineties. Certainly odd but not exactly terrible; the colors give them just enough personality that I can see using them for a lot of games/encounters.

Awhile ago I made a list of all my current projects that I'd like to finish and I've slowly been working my way through them. After "finishing" my Big Terrain Project I figured it'd be a nice change of pace to return to actual miniatures. Picking the right project proved very easy this time however, it was time to start my Ghost Archipelago project. When I first planned this project my wife and I had just started a Ghost Archipelago campaign. That campaign never made it past the first game but as I recently started a Rangers of Shadow Deep campaign this seemed like the perfect project. You didn't misread the title, but the two games have an overlap in their respective bestiaries (not surprising as they're written by the same person) so this project could really help me eliminate some of the proxies I've been using. Right off the bat I went through everything I had and pulled anything that could be of use in RoSD. This consisted of giant spiders, bats, ghouls, a "wolf", a vulture, and some bats. Then it was just the simple matter of prioritizing the creatures that are coming up in the campaign. So first up were the bats with the ghouls in a close second. One session of painting actually got them pretty far. Since I still had paint I hit the vulture and ghoul's tombstones too. My second session would have finished the bats had I not spent some time prepping for the next game instead. Again since I had leftover paint on my palette the ghoul's bases got some more attention too.

As I attempted to finish my wife's Orks before the new year (a task I failed at) I started planning the "first" project I'd start afterwards. As usually happens, at least with me, I decided upon and subsequently changed my mind about numerous projects. Eventually my first project ended up being Reaper's Layer Up kit. There was of course another project that was a really close contender, especially considering how much prep work I'd already put in. Coming in second place I give you my fairly cheap armada. Many months ago my wife and I came across these neat little two packs of "spaceships" at the Dollar Tree. Needless to say I picked some up. Looking at the packaging they're not actually spaceships, they're just weapons for spaceships but I think you'll agree they make cool spaceships. So I did say I bought a few. After using poster putty to cover the crystals on a few of the ships I attached them to slats and primed them. Sitting down tonight I thought I'd begin painting until I realized I had forgotten to greenstuff over all the screws in the plastic. So I spent about an hour doing that instead. I did however get to paint a bit, the eagle eyed may have noticed there was a figure amongst all those primed ships. Turns out this particular toy line also has a few Captains, though I've only ever found one. I think it doesn't even look that bad and I really considered just rebasing it as is. As you've already seen it primed however you know I fought that instinct. In less than an hour I ended the night with this. There is still a lot to be done but I think it's off to a good start. With any luck I can finish this tomorrow and begin painting the spaceships.

As a beginner painter, the concept of doing an army (or even just an army unit) feels both logical and like way too much work. Nevertheless, here it is, my first army unit! Read more about the process (and see a few more photos) over at Pocket-Sized Adventurers. Comments and thoughts are of course welcome! /Cpt Tweet

As requested, new thread, and a WIP! For anyone interested in seeing my first 10 months of painting, my noob thread is here: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/51059-helping-noobs-good-karma-painting-kickstarter-bones/?p=756353 This thread is going to be about my wacky next project, which is to paint 15 NPCs for my gaming group's Kingmaker campaign. Plus 5 PCs, but maybe those won't be in this thread. We'll see. My experiment this time around is to try to take my painting to the next level by painting the same thing on all 15 minis before moving onto the next thing. For example, all the faces, then all the skin, then all cloth, then all the leather, etc. To the extend practical. So kind of batch painting, but on really different minis and not using the same colors, although I'm going to use some core colors across the minis. I think. I'm hoping this will help me improve my technique on each type of material. Beyond that strategy, some things I'll be doing differently than before: - priming with gesso. heard from a couple people at ReaperCon that this may be more durable on metal minis than the brush on Reaper primer I've been using. And all these minis are intended for gaming, so durable is really important. - mixing Reaper brush-on sealer into more of my colors, for durability and cuz peeps on this board say it's nice to mix into glazes, which I use a lot. - base-coating all or most of each mini before I start highlighting/shadowing. Usually I "finish" each area of the mini as I go, so this is going to feel weird. But I want to get an overall feel for the color scheme of each mini, and some of the techniques I learned at ReaperCon require knowing this. For example, one tip I got to improve my minis was to blend some of the primary color of the mini into the skin tones of the mini, because that is more realistic than pure skin tone. - Mixing more of my own shadows and highlights, rather than using trios. I've done some of this before, I but it's a specific goal here. This will also let me do more interesting color variations in the shadows and highlights. So here are the 15 minis assembled, prepped, and roughly based. I'll refine the bases later, but I have a weird habit of liking to paint my mini on its base, so the basic idea is there. No you aren't imagining the random gray blobs on two of them. That's poster tack holding bits together while epoxy putty dries. And here are most of them with the gesso: So holy crap - 15!! Prep took forever, even with a friend's help, and just getting them primed was no mean task. In my experience the gesso works better on the thicker side. When diluted, it tended to form bubbles that stuck around when dry, while the thickness seems to not be a problem when the gesso shrinks and dries. I've read a lot of arguments about whether it actually shrinks or not, but whatever you call it, it looks like shrinking and does a nice job of revealing detail. I should have gotten the gesso done yesterday so I could brownslobber today but alas the good weather and my newly planted container garden distracted me. I think it's a good idea to let the gesso cure 24 hrs, so this is all I have for now. Thanks for looking! Heidi