Starting out part XII

So a couple of posts ago I wrote that I would be basing the warjacks(tm) and then move on to Sorcha. This was not meant to be, as I mentioned earlier in Post 6. I have decided that it would be best to finish the base painting and base highlights on Sorcha before moving on to the finishing touches. So without much ado lets begin.
For tonight's post I would like to introduce you to a new color.

Great Coat Grey. It has a bluish tint to it and it gives a heavy felt appearance to any clothing that you paint it on. Then again that could be just my imagination. All the same I picked it because it is part of the color scheme that Privateer Press uses for their Winter Guard models. That and I haven't had the chance to play with it yet. I might even paint it on the Juggernaut and Destroyer to give them a better tie in with Sorcha. Sorcha's in game fluff should answer any questions as to why I would want to match her to her infantry units. (was that a spoiler? maybe.)
Now for the rest of this post I will be using my trusty base brush. It's a size 00 that I had lying around and it is still in decent enough condition.
I will also use Khador Red Base:

In the middle

So now we move on. Here is Sorcha. She is primed and ready for painting. I believe that I covered the cleaning and primer process in earlier posts.

You will notice that her weapon is already base coated with Coal Black. I did this at the same time as her robot friends and for the same reason.
So to get started I load up my brush with Great Coat gray, spread it on my palette and then thin it down to a two parts water and one part paint ratio. Then I begin to apply it to the model.

Like all colors, paints etc. I prefer to apply about two to three thin coats instead of one thick coat of paint.

It takes longer, but at the same time gives you more control where the paint goes and how much coverage you get. Plus its also easier on your brushes as well.

You don't have to start with the Great coat gray. Though the same applies for whichever color you choose to start with. For the Starter box I opted to paint her cloak, coat and sleeves gray.

Although the sleeves are a little hard to see.

As I add the red you will be better able to differentiate between the Great coat Gray and the rest of the model. I would like to mention that it is better to apply 3 to 4 coats of thinned paint to a model than to do a massive cover all coat. This way you can keep all of the detail and not wear out your brushes too soon.
Now let's move on to the red.

I will apply the Khador Red Base to her armor plates to tie her in with her robots. Err 'Jaks(tm). Since red paint isn't very opaque it will take several coats to accomplish this task.

This is just the first coat. The color becomes brighter with each successive coat of paint.

She looks much better doesn't she?

This one was taken after the third and fourth coat.

Well, I will leave you now as I need some sleep. I will post and cover the rest of the base colors for the leather straps, hat and fir trim as well as the weapon.

Starting out Part VIII b

  And we are back. I apologize for the delay, however I did experience some technical difficulties. I needed to take apart my computer and clean all manner of dirt including several dust bunnies.

Last post I ended rather abruptly as I really needed to get some sleep and was expecting a big rainstorm for the evening. I am one of maybe three people in the world that loses internet connectivity when it rains. Any way, if you have read last post you will have seen this:

Paint like you have the above.

I posted this picture in the hopes of inspiring you not to be too timid in painting and gaming. And hopefully in other aspects of your life. Incidentally I suspect that the staff at PP would not mind it one bit if some of you are inspired to get a pair in order to paint. hehehe. Ok I am terrible with verbal humor. Moving on.

So now you are looking at a fully assembled Destroyer and Juggernaut all base coated and waiting for a touch of metal. Lets do that. just a heads up, the pictures here were taken during the painting party that I hosted.
Some times it's better to paint with other people around.

I suppose I ought to show you the table.

The ceramic cups actually contain coffee. One of those useless bits of information at no extra charge.
I had brought back a bound of Paupa New Guinea and I was asked to prepare a pot for my friends. It's
always important to have some thing to eat and drink at a painting party or during a painting session.

Fried Potato product is always popular.

  Now that we have established the whereabouts of food and coffee lets move on to some painting. It would be easy for me to move on to the application of metallic paint, however there is a little prep work that I need to do first. Seems like that is most of what I do. The whole painting takes a few hours for all three models in real time without taking pictures and writing about it. Ces't la vie. My French needs an little work. Moving on.

Here I clean up one of the leg pistons with Coal Black. I am also hoping to get a Cola black too.( though that color does not exist.)

Most of the areas that I need to touch up are the metal parts like the pistons, some joints and screws.

I tend to turn the model over and over to get a good look as to what parts need to be . I also add an initial shadow coat of thinned down Coal black, about three parts water to one part paint ratio. This creates the best visually appealing shadow effect even though it doesn't actually look like a real shadow. A result of an experiment I did three years ago when I first got a pot of Coal Black. Fret not, we will be playing with shadows much much later.

The first thing I did was to thin down some Pig Iron to a one to one ratio of water to paint. I wanted to get a good flow and coverage without the paint drying to soon. One of the oddest properties of metallic paints is that they dry a little faster than regular paints.
Next I picked up the Juggernaut and began to paint his axe.

I did the same for the Destroyer's axe.

Here is a better view of Pig Iron with a Coal Black undercoat.

Now that the axes are covered I move on to the hands.The first thing that I do is paint the muzzle of the Bombard arm on the Destroyer, since I already have it in my hand. Mind you at this point I thin down more Pig Iron at a one to one ratio.


I then move on to the hand.

I even took the time to paint the elbow cap as well. In the preceding pictures you can see that I had to turn the model over several times as I wanted to get the base metal coat All over the visible areas of the hand. I also painted the bombard's magazine as well as the front reinforcement band.

 

 Don't worry if you track some paint on the black areas. We can always paint over with black. Thamar Black.
Then I mix up some more Pig Iron and grab the Juggernaut..

Here is a brief pause and what the two look like:

Next, We add a little something to the rest of the axes, I paint the handles and the spikes opposite of the blades with Pig Iron. This is probably the Pig Iron entry, but there is a lot to do and I don't want to skip anything. Well not here.

 I am desperately fighting the urge to end this post and split off the rest in another post. I shall however persevere. How are those comments coming along? Any thoughts? Questions?

So now that the hands are done I decide to add paint to the rest of the axe. And what paint do i choose? Pig Iron. This is making want to eat pork....

And to finish off the Destroyer too.

While I am at it, I will paint the second band on the bombard too.

Ok. So by now I am a little bored of Pig Iron. I am sure you are too. so lets change things a little bit and open that pot of Brass Balls. This is a bright and shiny metallic paint which I use to highlight bronze at times, but on its own it does have a nice yellowish shine. With that in mind I open up the paint pot and shake it up..

And then proceed to mix it 2 parts water to 1 part paint. Then I apply it to the par to f the axe that has the holes in it. On both sides mind you.

And since the paint is not dry yet I paint the spikes on the arms and the face plate.

While I set this down for Cat to take pictures. I take the Destroyer and begin to put brass on the trim of his axe.

 And while I am at it. I will brass up the boiler. In ages past, before the invention low cost steel, brass was used for all manner of steam technology. Brass doesn't rust as rapidly when exposed to water and is stronger. So in honor of the Steampunk genre the boiler is made of brass as are some of the pipe fittings ( to be painted later). I also decided that the smoke stacks will need to be made of brass as well. this helps break up the color pattern and looks nice and shiny. I like shiny, not too much, but I like it. And while I am at it I paint up the shoulder spikes in brass as well. This ties it in with the spikes on the Juggernaut.

 If this looks a bit too dark. it is because I had mixed one part Brass Balls (sounds naughty) with two parts water. Once again I did this because metallic paint dries a little faster than regular paint. I am not sure why though. Then again that is my experience.

Here is another shot of the Juggernaut.

Well that is it for this post. I will take a short break and compose the next section. We took a lot of pictures that still need editing. Though not as many as we would have liked. I think that we need a dedicated photographer. And those require bribes and stuff, like loot and exp and the like. Well I hope that I have provided some insight into painting today or night. I will continue with the metal paints in the next post and if it doesn't take too long I will get to the highlights and some light shading.
In the meantime..

Here is one more picture from the painting party. Enjoy.

Starting out.

So here you are looking at the second post in about a week. Well as this is a blog about painting miniatures I had to step away and take some pictures. Then edit them in photoshop. ( it's what i have on my machine. I use what i have.) But, I digress. So you are reading this and possibly thinking that this had better be a good blog. I can tell you that there is better. though not as often updated. Go to www.brushthralls.com. they have some really nice tutorials. Really. I looked at them myself.
Before I begin please allow me to introduce some friends.
Sam, A Hordes palyer. Prefers the Legion of Everblight.

And Cat, a Warmachine player. Prefers the Cygnaran army.

And of course there is me. I am a member of the Khadoran party. he he he he

Now then. Lets begin.
This blog however is actually geared to people that are in fact just starting out with this new thing called miniatures games. Actually its been around for quite some time, but, once again I digress. Needless to say: Lets start at the beginning.
So what will you need? Well a good lamp to see by and a nice table that you can be comfortable at. I assume you have those as well as the chair. Remember I assume that you are just getting started and don't want to spend on the fancy tools that pros use. Well not yet anyway. I mean, we are talking about $30 + brushes and full spectrum lamps etc. I will talk about those, but lets get started with the basics first. That way you can get the most out of your $30-60 dollar brushes later on in time. (I'm not kidding about the brushes, I looked up the prices and asked my friends in the industry)
So back to the things that you will need. Table, chair, lamp ( you can use sunlight if you have it. I live in the Pacific Northwest so I don't have it available all year.)
Above are the tools I commonly use to clean, assemble and paint my miniatures. They are as follows and in to particular order. Two Cups, one for clean water to dilute paint with and one for cleaning brushes with. Honestly you need any container that can hold water. Then there are the brushes. These usually steal the show, for our purposes I will cover two sizes initially. Just to get you started. Then there is the pin vice. Think of this handy little tool as a hand drill. Actually that is exactly what it is. Its makes assemblyn some models a lot easier, and I will cover its use in a later tutorial. Next up we have the files. The ones pictured above are cut steel files. You can also get diamond files as well, I prefer to have both available. For now, I will cover the cut steel ones as they are more versatile. Well at least in my opinion. The files are followed by the pen knife commonly referred to as an X-acto or scalpel and a pair of clippers. Both of these tools are indispensable when it comes to cleaning your models. Not to mention converting them. Speaking of converting and assembly is included, two part epoxy putty is always handy to have. Its useful when you need to add a little extra detail or to fill in gaps. Then i also recommend Sticky tack, it helps in pre-assembling and posing your model before gluing it together. Speaking of which a good glue is important. For the vast majority of projects I use a cyanoacrylide glue. Err its commonly called super glue, just be careful as it was originally formulated to bond human skin.
And that brings us to the primer and paints. There are numerous opinions as to what primer to use as well as paints, for the sake of brevity I recommend Duplicolor or the P3 brand as the formula is identical (or so I hear) and bonds to metal really well. that and it shrinks quite well and is very durable. As for paints I will be using the P3 range. why not anyone else's? Well again its for brevity's sake and i really really like the P3 line. They come out nice, are reasonably priced and with the exception of the metallic set, are liquid pigment. This is very handy when you want to mix or thin them down.
I can hear you asking about the shiny metal rods and the laptop. Well the rods are used for putting a model together. I will cover them in depth later. And the laptop, well its useful to be able to look up a reference picture online for effects purposes.
Now then. You have your table, lamp and comfy chair all set up. Maybe you have some music in playing. Computers are handy that way.
What are you going to paint?
Well I for one got my hands on the Warmachine Khador Box set by Privateer Press.

And here are the contents:

Starter boxes are a great way to start any army. It Just so happens that Privateer doesn't limit new players to two factions, hence my bias. In case you were wondering.
As I proceed to type I assume that you are reading this for the second time. After you happened to purchase a Starter box of the faction of your choice.

There seems to be some question as to what to get. I recommend the faction that you think looks the best. Hey they are your models after all.

Well that's it for this post.

In my next post we will begin with the robot to the right, commonly referred to as a Juggernaut. We will then proceed to the Destroyer next to it and finally finish the set with the warcaster on the left.