Monday 16 November 2015

And then there were 10

I've decided that if I don't push myself to split the army into "chunks" then I'm going to end up line painting the entire force; I suppose it is a lesson learned from my fantasy army. 
With a great deal of the army (30 of 32 infantry thus far) already basecoated in Tamiya olive drab, metal areas in citadel (boo hiss) leadbelcher and weapons and ammo pouches in Vallejo model color black grey and then laden with an army painter dark tone wash I've decided to stop and concentrate on getting 10 figures, all but 1 carrying a shuriken catapult finished. 
The catapult variant are actually standard bearers but that's a moot point. I gave their helms an army painter strong tone wash and I must say I'm digging the effect. If it turns out as I hope I may just decal the helms and leave tiger striping back in the 80's.
I'm still under a month in on the project with a chance of having 10 finished (up to the basing stage) by December.
My original goal was 5 figures but line painting just makes things so much easier IMHO, but it is a double edged sword, too much you get bored in the repetitive, too little you feel less determined starting from scratch.
That is just my opinion, there are those of us (oldhammer painters) which are perfectly content to paint a single figure at a time; to them I say bravo, but it's not for me. I hope to find a bottled colour to highlight the olive drab otherwise custom paint will be a pain. 
Thanks for reading; comments always welcome.

10 comments:

  1. Nice! I tend to concur, line painting has proven better for my health, hehe. For mass numbers of troops it's the only way I've found to see actual progress without losing my mind...

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    1. i can't imagine painting any rank and file in batches less than 10 strong, I couldn't bring myself to fully paint a test figure before moving on, once I saw the base colours I knew I was going in the right direction; much more militant than the examples found in the book of the astronomican (who would paint their cod piece bright yellow? Why not a bullseye right on your crotch?) but with the flavour of the originals plainly there to see.

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  2. These are looking really, really good mate! I'm loving the colour scheme...but I gotta say 'do the tiger stripes!!!!'

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    1. I hear you, they must be done but it will be awhile and after a few dozen sheets of practice paper, I would hate to ruin a decent paintjob with shitty line work.

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  3. You're making great progress! But I have to agree with LC -- Tiger Stripes all the way.

    I think you're right to do line painting... when I'm doing a big unit like that, I usually do 3-5 at a time. The number depends on how fast my globes of paint dry.
    Once again, your bases are looking good. I've finally taken a page from your book and am using cork on my bases.

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    1. The cork basing really adds a lot of detail; these bases will need it as there will be very little tuft or foliage work on them, maybe some dead grass but even then I am hesitant.
      I used a combo of shredded cork sheeting and ground up wine/tequila corks to break up the monotony and hopefully distinguish different rock formations.
      I'm sure your cork formations will far outstrip the quality and detail of mine!

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  4. Loving them ! I feel th eexact same way as you about line painting, I'm always amazed by people managing to pick one model at a time. Even if I'm painting stand alones, I group them to do the same colours on many models at once. Nothing more irritating than opening a paint pot for a single brush stroke ^^'
    Are bases keeping that light colour ? I like it as it makes the armour look darker and richer, definitely a good combo with the yellow hemets.

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  5. The bases are going to be done in a Mars(esque) finish; red brown highlighted up with burnt oranges.
    If that fails I'll go back to the old khaki brown and black wash.

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  6. They look good, mate. :)

    Regarding the olive drab, try this article http://www.militarymodelling.com/news/article/olive-drab/4536/

    There are some colour matches if you scroll down to the bottom, which should allow you to pick a suitable near(ish) match from the Vallejo range to highlight the olive drab.

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    1. Thanks for sharing cl40k
      I was originally going to add beige but looks as though I'll be slowly adding Vallejo dark yellow to the tamiya olive drab, interestingly enough the helmets are in Japanese uniform yellow which is only a shade lighter than dark yellow, what are the odds?

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