Necromunda Orange

08.17.2024

Back in May I posted that my batch of Necromunda buildings had finally been assembled. And then they fell off the face of the planet, evidently. Glue, gap-filling, sanding, and then more sanding. I knew I needed a little break from it, but I didn't expect it to be this long. And honestly, I haven't been hands-off the buildings for 3 months. I've had lots of little figuring it out moments.

My fairly simple color scheme I last mentioned was a classic US sci-fi of white-ish base color with orange highlights. Think Space:1999, but maybe reverse the base and highlights. I think I last saw this in The Martian and liked it enough it stuck with me and I thought it would be a good alternative to post-apocalyptic grimdark.

Eschewing pure-white, Citadel Wraith Bone seemed a good white, kind of with some built-in age/weathering. But first, instead of just priming everything white like I always do, I finally got a little smarter and started with black. This would give shadows to the nooks and crannies I would invariably miss, and I got try out some zenithal priming with the Wraith Bone because I've never done that on non-people. Step one: a little over 2 cans of Citadel black primer. Ok, that was more cans than I was expecting. And I only gotten 1 can of Wraith Bone. Without going into detail, I then learned of 2 stores locally that carried said Wraith Bone - and both are closer than the Warhammer Store. Step two: a little over 2 cans of Citadel Wraith Bone, zenithalled. To be honest, I should have gotten better coverage with my zenithal layer, there are spots where way too much black still shows through. But after looking at it for a while (off and on for a couple of months, after all), I kind of like it. Maybe that'll be my style?

For Step three, I had to find the right orange for orange highlights. I called upon my close personal friend Charles G. for help here, because I suck at picking shades of a color. I knew I didn't want bright, vibrant orange. I took a couple of the wooden blocks I use for paint handles and used my still-had-paint 3rd can of Wraith Bone to spray all the sides. Then I took samples of various orange and applied here and there - I think there were 21 different colors by the end. The winner ended up being Army Painter Warpaint Molten Lava!

My main idea for adding those orange accents was an identifier for each building - a letter or number - and then an orange stripe around the building that was the height of that identifier. Via Amazon, I picked up ¼" letter stencils. I can add A-E on the buildings. I knew a brush wasn't really going to work with filling in the stencils, so for the 2nd time in.... at least 3 years, I was going to use my airbrush. With ample masking around the stencil and wondering how much to thin Molten Lava, I test sprayed the "A" and it turned out ok. Since I was on a roll, I added the other stencils for B-E and their associated heavy masking, and airbrushed away. By the time I removed all the stencils, the letters took pretty well, There was a little marring here and there from where templates took away a little Wraith Bone when I pulled them off, but overall I was happy.

Here we enter the first really long pause. My idea for the orange stripe was centered vertically on the building wall. The letter for each building is also orange, but I wanted to leave a little white gap between the stripe and letter. The first problem was that my letters weren't centered. They were fairly low if you were looking at the vertical alignment. Looking where that would leave the stripe across the rest of the walls, I would have to mask over a lot of greebly bits on the low side. Masking tape on irregular surfaces doesn't really work well. While testing out some masking approaches, I came across another problem (what number am I on?). There are 8 walls per building thanks to shallow angles. Going with high/low masking, the walls also angle inward. Those straight lines I was attempting to mask - nowhere near straight any more.

I started thinking of other options for the stripe. Maybe only half as high? Offset higher? A thin stripe? 2 thin strips? Vertical stripe where there's no greebly bits? I didn't like any of these ideas. Finally, I took one of the buildings and just asked myself what I could pull off with my skill level? There's some parts I could just use to highlight the orange. Some parts that are always on the top of the wall, and some gear/screw looking things near the bottom. I tried painting one, and the brush strokes afterward were horrible. Looks like another job for the airbrush. Which meant another round of masking. Lots and lots of masking. If I had planned this approach ahead of time, I would have painted the orange bits and then masked them off while I painted everything else Wraith Bone. But no, this is figuring it out on the fly.

Masking the building took a while, as I was applying tape to pretty much the whole building, and then covering up anything in the interior where some pray might seep in. Additionally, there were parts glued in, sticking outward from where I was going to spray. These had some extra masking added on, which I tried to tape to where it wouldn't block the spray from all angles. Finally, I did a test spray on the building and hit all the parts to highlight orange!

And it was pretty much crap (which I'm going to lay a lot of blame on my novice airbrush skills). The coverage was such that even after 2 coats with the airbrush, it still needed another coat - at least. My masking wasn't straight in places. My masking covered parts that should have been painted in places. Those parts sticking out were I tried not to block the spray... blocked the spray.

The time masking + quality of airbrushing wasn't where I wanted. Again, it was time to revisit what my skill level could do. Not thinning the paint as much would cut down on brush streaks. I could just mask around the bits that need painting to help keep my lines straight. Even then, it'll still probably take 2 coats. Maybe more. Using the airbrushed building as my moving forward test - as even the airbrushed spots needed another coat of touching up, I re-masked just the areas needed and tweaked my mixture of thinner and orange.

This time, not crap. After 1 coat over the airbrush, it looked like this might work. And masking really helped in a couple of awkward angles where the tape blocked an errant stroke of orange. What followed was meant to be a sequence of masking a building, then painting it while taking breaks to mask the next so that when Building A was painted, Building B would be masked and ready to paint. What ended up happened was that I got on a roll of enjoying masking (that makes no sense, but it happened). I would mask the top row bits of all the buildings, which would get me used to any quirks. Then when all of those were done, I moved to the bottom row and got used to those quirks. Before I knew it, the 4 remaining buildings were masked.

And masked they sat for a week or two. I don't know why I was putting painting off. Then Friday night, around 8:00, I had the table set up and started to paint with Def Leppard in the background. Eventually Prince was in the background. I found myself in the zone with a brush tip that was holding it's shape and a paint-thinner ratio that was just working. All the masked bits were painted with 2 coats. There were other bits I wanted a little orange on which I hadn't masked but were free-hand capable, so I continued on. A little after midnight, everything I wanted orange was orange.

There's still more to do, and honestly probably a couple more orange pieces per building, but the standard/uniform parts to be orange are. Along the way, I'm no longer scared of the airbrush. At one point, even after ultrasonic cleaning, the brush was clogged. I took the airbrush more apart than I had since taking the class where I learned how to take it apart and put it back together. It took a while to get rid of the clog as I was missing some handy tools I've since ordered from Amazon, but the highlight was noticing how the airbrush action didn't feel right with the clog, and then once I had everything back together and unclogged, I could tell the difference in the smoothness of the action. More importantly, I knew why/where the difference was caused. This type of thing is common knowledge for anyone that's used an airbrush after cleaning up a clog, but secretly it's a weird quirk or phobia that lends to why I buy so much stuff that stays in the shrinkwrap.

The next hurdles to figure out are how to clean up the little mistakes atop the Wraith Bone, and just how much weathering am I going to do?

Permalink Necromunda scenery

Zombie Soldiers

06.05.2024

While waiting for the humidity to reach sub-75% for a weekend so as to not make spray priming/painting the Necromunda buildings more fo a challenge than it'll surely turn out to be, I opened up a set of Zombicide soldiers that I've had a mere 2 and a half months. It was an impulse purchase from a flash sale of some type. Zombicide is a game I don't like (after playing twice), but I like the variety of minis for the game so I still find myself supporting said game.

Zombie soldiers was a box of 6 minis cast from 2 poses. I'm not sure of the game backstory for these muscular gun-wielding zombies, but that's part of why I don't play the game. They look cool and look fun to paint. I'm in. A quick priming on a humidity friendly 10 minute window one day, and from there I was good to paint at my leisure.

And leisure I took it, as I dawdled over the course of 2 weeks to get in about 4 hours of painting/basing. This was my first use of the new rolling rack of paint to make use of the dining table setup. There was a wee transport error which occurred right after I decided it would be safer to roll the rack into/out of the hobby closet in the other (180°) direction. Said error was just an inconvenience for about an hour and resulting in no lasting damage, so that's all we'll say about that here.

With the kitchen table paint setup ready to go, I pondered how to make 3 copies of the same sculpt different. I wasn't in the mood to add greebly bits, so I just went with classic military colors - basically a khaki and 2 shades of green as the bases. While pondering I though of going full-camo with 1 set, but I just wasn't feeling the camo this time.

After adding washes and picking out details with some other colors, those 2 shades of green didn't end up as far apart as they started. And that's ok. This painting session(s) was just for some between-projects relaxation. I wasn't trying to learn something new or tweak some style I've not done in a while. Just slather on some paint and don't fret about it.

I had a little fun with the bases, once again going back to my favorite texture paint of Citadel (Something) Badlands. I just really like the way it cracks. Instead of covering the whole base for all the minis, I added dirt-sploches mixed in with some static grass.

Permalink gaming miniatures zombicide

Necromunda Assembled

05.11.2024

2024 has not been shown to be a busy year for me in the usual post-topic work of gaming miniatures and related items and the painting thereof. Barely 1 update per month, and even then there's not much to show for it. While my excuse - do I need an excuse - has been that I'm trying to improve on my technique and not rush through painting minis, a side-truth is that I needed something a little different.

A few years ago I went to a HobbyTown in Georgia and stocked up on some models that looked fun to build. I built one that never saw the light of a camera or blog post, because it absolutely sucked. When I was 10 years old I would crank out a model in 3 hrs that I was perfectly happy with. 45 years later I spend 3 weeks on a model car and nothing lines up, gaps are everywhere, and extra nubs from the plastic sprue are everywhere. I've read a big problem with modern model kits like the car I can never prove I made, are that the kits are cast from molds that are the same as 10 year me used. Or even worse, recasts of those molds, potentially many times over.

Disgruntled old man me decided that it's time to re-learn how to make a plastic model. Model car #2 was a little better, but still crap. Those old molds are not conducive to modern-me learning. So I pivoted to known modern-molded plastic. In this case, some Games Workshop Necromunda (plastic) scenery.

A while back, as I never buy something and immediately crack open a box, I started getting Necromunda Thatos Pattern buildings - Hab Modules and walkways, with Ash Wastes being the set that came with more stuff/rules than I will use, but the price was cheaper than the individual scenery pieces.

I had a fairly simple color scheme picked out (more on that in a later post) which will work better trying to paint everything at once. Which leads to making everything at once. I did say I wanted to practice on plastic models. Two months ago, I started putting together the first Hab Module kit, and then kept on gluing, snipping, and sanding until everything was built.

I had no idea I had gotten so much of this stuff.

Along the way, most things lined up, or at least lined up better than the model cars I've been trying to make. Old man me uses nippers to cut the parts off the sprue, instead of twisting them off like 10 year old me would do. A long time ago, it was twist part off and then glue together. Now, there is snip, and then a long and involved sanding process. I've got a variety of sanding strips to try and clear the mar on the plastic left from separating from the sprue - this was the big new-to-me thing learned from the model car kits. After lots of sanding is good old glue/plastic cement. There's then potential for more sanding, as that's when I look for places that need some gaps filled, and post-filled sanding.

That's where we are now. Glued, sanded, ready for primer. Once the humidity is down to being spray-paint friendly. Plus, I'm not in a rush. I may need a zombie painting fix next.

Permalink gaming miniatures models Necromunda

Paint Racks

04.30.2024

I have paint. A lot of paint. The main reason for my lofty oversupply of paint is that I can't really tell shades or hues that are close, so when a paint scheme spells out the colors to use then those are the colors I have to use. I also like any paint that brands itself as making painting easier - I'm looking at you shades, washes, contrast, and speed paints. It's only natural that when Army Painter came out with a new.., well, line of paint that I would wonder how I could live without it. I mean, their last Speed Paint line made painting soooo much easier, just imagine what this new line would do. Plus, it's made for hue and shade matching impaired folks like myself as there are tips on the label for what paints match for highlights and tones.

But the problem this begat was... were to store this stuff? Currently (well, at the time) all my paints and paint related tools are in the closet. Mainly on 2 wire shelving racks on casters, each rack is 14" x 16" footprint and about 6 feet tall. 1 rack is all paint in shoe boxes, which I've sorted into boxes in categories that make sense to me. The other shelf has some scenery, bases, and cast-off test minis that will never get finished. I've wanted to use some proper paint racks for a while, but I just haven't had the desk (or wall) space. But maybe I could make something utilizing the shelf racks I have?

Well, not the actual shelf racks, but the footprint they take up. The Litko paint racks are 22" wide. That's too wide for a 14x16 shelf. I did a quick test, using the center handle on the paint rack. I quickly found that is not a spot of structural integrity to support all the weight at 1 point. The paint rack has holes for screws/mounting on the outer corners to take proper weight distribution into account. So I need something wider. And everything still needs to fit in the same space and through the closet door. With the door open, that doorway is just under 22" wide. The paint racks will have to go into the closet length-wise... The paint racks are roughly 5" deep, which gives me a shelf that needs to be at least 22" long to support the paint rack, and no more than 17" deep for everything to fit through the door. It's a shame I can't just merge the 2 shelf racks I have now. But I can do the next best thing and order the 14x30 shelf rack on Amazon!

The new shelf came in and I assembled it, all while not telling anyone my plan since it started out so half-assed I had no idea if it would work. Thanks to a recent liberal use of zip-ties, I wanted to try using them to secure the paint racks to the wire shelves. But (vertical) spacing was also key here, as I wanted to maximize my usage of what's available. What's something cheap, yet relatively sturdy and straight, to help with that? Yard sticks. Yard sticks with holes drilled in them. And yard sticks have built in measuring for any spacing! And thus I decided to attach yard sticks to the wire shelves, and then paint racks to the yard sticks. All using zip ties.

The damndest thing is, it seems to work.

I now have paint racks with space for 502 pots of paint, all neatly organized and accessible. On the other side, where shelves live, I still have show boxes sorted by categories I'll look for. Along with that are things I can wheel around that come in handy when painting, gluing, whatever. Wheeling is a little more important now as I've moved my hobby space from my office desk (4 ft from the closet all of this stays stored away in) to the never eaten at dining table (2 rooms away).

For the 14x16 shelves, the 2 5-shelf units have been combined into 1 9-shelf unit and moved to a different closet to see if it's going to work for some more dedicated scenery storage (with wheels!). That was kind of a last minute decision, so we'll see if that sticks long term.

Permalink feng shui random renovation/remodelling

Johnny Rambo

03.27.2024

At some point in the last couple of years I picked up the complete Rambo boardgame + expansions during a really good sale. The game looks like it's fun for solo play and follows the plot of the first 3 Rambo movies close enough to be fun, yet no so close you just copy whatever's done in the movies. Of course, I got the games and promptly put them on the shelf, as is my way. One of the extras for a different game is an unneeded mini of Rambo. I also have this Rambo game, sitting on a shelf. I suddenly don't know why I'm even mentioning these 2 games, as neither are particularly relevant to the mini. But, once you start typing why not just go with it and see what happens - or delete it?

Little mini Johnny Rambo arrived and he wasn't quite as nice as the image shown for purchase. Arms and head has visible seam/gaps that I didn't bother to mess with before priming, and after priming I didn't think would be too obvious. I was wrong. Especially on the arms. Very, very wrong.

Damn the gaps, Johann Rambo would be painted! And painted he became. It's been a while since I played around with a camo pattern, and his britches reminded me it had been a while. Thus, Jojo got some camo pants. I went heavy on the skin wash to try and bring out the musculature on the body, and even lightened the tone on the pecs the way I see other people do... and I'm not quite there yet. A little too light on the pecs, I think.

A little static grass for the base and sealed everything up to be done. For something that was sitting on my desk primed for at least 2 months, roughly 2 hrs of paint-dry-paint-repeat was all that I spent on this one (yeah, sure, maybe it does show). I've been doing more plastic model building over the past month, without anything in the end phase enough to show here, so a quick many to show I'm still alive was a nice snack.

Wow, the lighting in the pics below really make a difference in showing the exact same skin tone...

Permalink gaming miniatures