Bison's Tales of Hobby Crafting

[Bison]

Judging by the pictures your sunblock lotion was not working. 

Factual statement. I am molting quite nicely however.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Mmmmmm ...Bison jerky....

[Bison]

I finished my Rohan horses tonight in the first step of cleaning up the projects on the hobby table. The goal is to finish and glue the 12 riders to the horses by end of the weekend. I need to pick up some alligator clips or wooden skewers to paint the riders. I painted the horses and riders separately which in theory is a good thing but it did create a good amount of extra preparation work.

I also need to break out the airbrush to paint the fell beast and troll.

[Bison]

I started to paint some very, very tiny civil war miniatures. The scale is very challenging compared to 28mm. I really need to relook how I am going about painting them.

[Undercovergeek]

Airbrush 😂

Regiments done in seconds

[Bison]

Airbrush 😂

Regiments done in seconds

I seriously considered airbrushing the union blue as I was priming the sprues. I am pretty sure I could at least have a couple of brigades with blue pants.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

My friend who's plugging away at his 15mm ACW stuff says he has had very good results using the following method.

Black primer on all the minis.  Heavy, general highlight with off-white paint using a drybrush.  Slight zenethal highlight with white ink using airbrush.  Wash with heavily diluted black wash (Not sure if he was using Nuln oil or Army painter dark tone).

Paint figs using Citadel Contrast Paints.  One light coat to let shading show through.


From what I've seen, they look pretty good for tabletop standard.  Some are a bit too dark because he didn't do enough white drybrushing at the start but those minis end up in the middle of the stands and actually look better there because of the increased shadow effect.

[Bison]

I considered using contrast paints but I am not sure I have the brush control to keep it only in the right area. I really need to just stop over-focusing on the details. I only primed grey but should have gone black with a zenithal highlight. I see now how having the base black layer helps cover the little tiny spots of missed paint coverage.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Painting outside the lines with contrast paints is no big deal.  You can always go patch things up with some more primer.  The biggest issue I have with them is applying an even coat.  You can't dab away or you'll end up with easily visible brush stroke lines and uneven coverage.  I find the best approach is to keep the brush in constant contact with the mini and try to paint an area in one even motion.

[Bison]

I bought Army Painter to try out to use on this project. I do not like them at all. I need to put the bottles on the paint shaker and see if that helps. But they are very inconsistent with the paint thickness. Either the paint is water-thin even after shaking for several minutes or it's (very rarely) super thick. I do not mind the thicker consistency at all. I actually prefer it because then it can be thin as normal. But the water consistency stuff is so very frustrating. So far only 2 colors out of 6 or 7 I have tried have been decent - monster brown and electric blue. I really should have gone with my gut instinct and gone with Vallejo Model Color or experiment with Contrast paints.

Fortunately, I am not very far into the process and can course correct and try out new paint techniques. I have one strip done to put a strong tone on to see if the Army Painter experiment needs to just be ended.

[Undercovergeek]

Oh no - here hoping the shaker works out

[Undercovergeek]

Oh no - here’s hoping the shaker works out

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Yeah, regular Army Painter paints are pretty crap.

Squidmar just did a ranking of most if the major paint brands available a d ended up declaring Vallejo the best.

[Bison]

Oh no - here hoping the shaker works out

Me too. I also think I can do a heavier prime than I did. I was overly worried about covering up detail but a base black coat with either a grey zenithal highlight or a heavy dry brush will make the process much easier too.

[Bison]

Yeah, regular Army Painter paints are pretty crap.

Squidmar just did a rankinh of most if the major paint brands available a d ended up declaring Vallejo the best.

I had never used it and wanted to give it a try. It's hot garbage so far in my experience. I have always used Vallejo and some Citadel paints.