1 Week - 2 Armies - 80 Models

[TOPC Gallery]

Its Sunday afternoon and im prepping the studio for an onslaught of red and gold !
Tomorrow is a milestone for TOPC Mini, May the 14th marks the first time I go into full time commission painting
and I am damn exited !.

Leading up to this I have spent quite some time redeveloping my painting techniques to decrease time and increase quality so
I can produce high quantity models on the fly with out using airbrushes. ( Although I do use coloured base coats)

As far as structuring work hours go I will be sticking (not strictly) to a 9-5 work regime with short breaks every couple of hours
to stop myself from going stiff and keeping hydrated and fed, this is important !
I have caught myself to many times being lost in the paint zone and not eating for hours on end, fuelling yourself on sugary
products like coffee, energy drinks, soda as well as glue fumes will end in a shaky hand and a bad paint job.
So I'm going to be doing my best to keep off those things to stay focused, maybe just a coffee to wake up

Pre preparation-
All the models have been grouped with any of there loose components and noted with a list of paint scheme details for each model
and client preferences like colours and multiple option kits.

Updates - As this a week length project expect updates every night starting tomorrow detailing progress, hiccups, details and all that stuff.
Photos will show all along the way but it wont really by focused on the painting techniques themselves just the stages and work flow side of things.
If I get time I may even film these updates and put together a video when its all overs explaining the experience and its pros/cons.

What is on the bill ? - TTQ= table top quality. DQ= display quality.

40k Blood Angels Army - all TTQ

• 
  [*=left]1x Astorath the Grim
  
  [*=left]5x Death Company
  
  [*=left]1x Captain with jump pack
  [*=left]5x Assault Marines
  [*=left]10x Tactical Squad
  
  [*=left]1x Dreadnought
  
  [*=left]1x Stormraven Gunship
  
  [*=left]5x Scouts
  
  [*=left]1x Death Company Dreadnought
  
  [*=left]1x Drop Pod
  [*=left]1x Baal Predator

Chaos Fantasy Army - TTQ and DQ
​

• 
  [*=left]37x Chaos infantry
  
  [*=left]10x chaos cav
  
  [*=left]1x DQ Mounted character
  
  [*=left]1x DQ character ( http://www.coolminiornot.com/305398 - this was added to the order later so to lower the work load I tackled it in my spare time)

Work Structure -

Day 1 - Prep, clean, glue, undercoat, (construction of) basing.​

As well as all the preparation I am going to write a painting script to guide my work flow.
This will detail things like painting order of certain models to eliminate wasted time while waiting for things to dry with washes etc.

Day 2 -

Infantry​

If all goes well these models will be already based with their primary colour and ready for blocking.
Using my painting script I will be able to go from one group to another in flow with out wasted time,
knowing exactly what I need to do and where in the quickest order.

​

• 37 x Chaos infantry
• 5x BA Death Company
• 5x Assault
• 10x Tactical
• 5x scouts
  
  

Day 3 -

Mounts and Characters​

In all likely-hood left over infantry will be finished in this day.​

• 10x chaos mounts
• 1x Asteroth the grim
• 1x captain with jump pack
  
  

Day 4 -

Large models

​

• 
  [*=left]1x Dreadnought
  
• 1x Stormraven Gunship
• 1x Death Company Dreadnought
• 1x Drop Pod
• 1x Baal Predator
  
  

Day 5 - DQ models -

finishing touches on all thats needed

​

• 
  [*=left]1x DQ Mounted character
  [*=left]1x DQ character ( http://www.coolminiornot.com/305398 - this was added to the order later so to lower the work load I tackled it in my spare time)

Below is an image of my daunting work load -
View attachment 13085





WAIT !! - Before you comment saying that is too ambitious or even seemingly impossible there a few factors to consider.
My commission rates are on the very line of average in relation to other commission painters who do paint full time, In order to make enough income
to pay bills, buy food and pay for resources etc. This is really the minimum amount of work one would want to do to make ends meet.
This is an experiment to see if its feasible to paint full-time (regardless of available work) so I am only doing this for a week.

I don't really want to throw my income online but I will say I work for just above minimum wage at my day job with no great debts or credit card and no dependants.
If this amount of painting only just reaches above that, then imagine the insane amount of painting you would have to do in order to pay mortgages and support a family.

WISH ME LUCK !
please email me with any questions at zacandrews@topcgallery.com or visit my FB page - http://www.facebook.com/topcmini

Enjoy !

Zac Andrews

 

[PegaZus]

Good luck! Use the breaks to take pictures and post! (Yeah, being selfish here!)

 

[TOPC Gallery]

Good luck! Use the breaks to take pictures and post! (Yeah, being selfish here!)

Haha Thanks !, and all good mate
Ill be filming and taking pictures as much as I can.
This article will be updated through out the week, but the video will just be put together at the end with a summery etc.

 

[TOPC Gallery]

1 Week - 2 Armies - 80 Models (pt 2)

DAY 1 -

Prep, clean, glue, undercoat, (construction of) ​

basing
​

View attachment 13133

Wow what a day !
I honestly think that the only time its okay to wear a respirator for 10 hours is when you either doing this or
you're a really enthusiastic industrial metal singer, because after just a few hours you grow tired of the novelty rather fast.
So buy yourself a comfortable respirator !
Below is the write up of stage one.




Sunday 9:45pm - 11:55pm, Storm Raven
​

Okay so after writing up Pt1 I decided to get a head start (and so damn glad I did) and tackle the Storm Raven Gunship.
This did just take over 2 hours but having said that I did not make the gun turrets on the sides of the hull, I imagine that would of added
another 25-35 minutes.

Pros -

Beautiful model ! Lots of large awesome pieces like the wings, exhausts etc.. that fit together easily and just look powerful.
​

This was my favourite construction of the whole project.

Cons -

Firstly the back door has a really weak clip design on the hinge and will fall off if you try to open it, front door is fine
and uses a more traditional swing system.

The pilot was a pain, Try gluing his joystick to the control panel before gluing in the panel and arms. This will avoid it
from falling off all the time as you can hold it in place in a such a small area.

Do Not glue the cock pit cover in if you want to be able to paint the interior. the cock pit also has a glass window as
well as the roof weapon so do not glue in those cover.
There is an exhaust on the roof of the Storm Raven rite behind the rood weapon, make sure you have your weapon in place
before gluing in the exhaust as the instructions tell you , thought I could get away with doing it backwards but nope.

One more thing, there is a bar that runs through the roof weapon that is used to make the guns pivot. DO NOT GLUE IT !
You would expect the instructions to tell you not to glue things like that but they don't, they actually forgot that one in the print. so I made that mistake.

View attachment 13134




Monday 8:15am - 9:45am, Drop Pod
First model of the day and its a tricky one. This thing will tease you with a really easy segment and then throw you on your head with a segment that is
infuriating and just plain unpleasent. But as i said with the storm raven it is a great looking model and feels very "space marineee".

Points -

In the centre of the pod's interior there is a navigation tower that GW has made all efforts to make really crappy to put together.
I recommend putting the stand together before attaching the dome or attaching it to the pod.

Unless it is construction to absolute perfection the doors will not work properly. They are supposed to rise up and click into place.
1 out 5 of my doors did this and I did make a pretty good build out of the kit, Some of the doors wouldn't click and just fell back down
or they wouldn't mesh with the pod properly when closed. How to fix ? magnets !, one in the tip of the door and one where the door meets the
pod turbine.

The Chair type people holders also get in the way when attaching the fins onto the base. You can trim them a little so they don't get in the way or
I used a knife to lift them up so they would snap into place but it was a pain.
Monday 10:05am - 11:30am, Baal Predator Tank
The Baal tank shared the same trait as the drop pod but with less enjoyable bits and more DAMN YOU moments.
I actually lose the instructions to this and panicked for a bit, but I recently brought my own so snatched the sheet from there

Points -

The entire top canopy is tough to get on smoothly with fast drying glue. You will need some time to make sure its all flush and even
so do yourself a favour and use a slower drying glue like PVA etc. because with my build I tested it and it was fine, then gluing it on
using super glue it may of fixed itself one tiny measurement in the wrong direction on one end making a disaster on the other side.

The side weapons use pegs in holes to pivot and turn. These pegs are almost exactly if not bigger than the holes themselves so
you will need to sand them down a bit to reduce their diameter or you they will be to tough to turn and that means broken pegs as
I ended up with on one side. They are almost not worth fixing they are that fiddly so make sure you take the time to do it right the first time.

On the storm raven the top weapon placement had a nifty little hook that held the turret on yet still allowed it to pivot in place. The Baal
Predator tank does not, meaning as soon as you tip the tank a little the top weapon comes flying of, Luckily the client allowed me to glue it on
to save both ourselves the pain of the gun falling off at will when you knock it slightly.

Monday 11:30am - 12:30pm, LUNCH
Self explanatory went shopping and got more glue as well.

Monday 12:30pm - 6:30pm, Infantry Assembly and Base Coating
Not much to say here as I am sure you have all done your fare share of infantry assembling.
I will say that this second half of the day was the most stressful and draining part.

Had a 5 minute break between the marine assembly and the Chaos worriers.

To be honest I am very great full to the clients or who ever pre assembled half of the infantry because if I was
removing them directly from the sprue's then this would of been a much longer day.


Painting -

Okay, last effort of the day apart from writing these articles was base coating the lot.

Storm Raven
Dreadnought
Baal Tank
5 assault marines
10 tactical
10 scouts
Blood angels special characters
Based Red - Being a blood angels army its obvious that the main colour is going to be red
so I used Army painter "pure red" to base these over a a black base coat.
Spraying down on an angle helps create nice lighting effects to help with highlighting.

View attachment 13137

Death company Drop Pod
5 Death company
Death company Dreadnought
Back of Chaos infantry ( the cloaks are dark grey )
Chaos horses ( ark greyish armour with bronze trim)
Based Black - Im going to highlight the black armour and surfaces using an off black colour like dark grey/brown to achieve gradients and highlights.

Fronts of the Chaos infantry
Based Flesh - When painting my gold I use a method that requires starting off with the brightest gold (VGC polished gold)
You could base it with white or black but you will get issues where a thin layer of gold paint will allow the base layer to show through
and can look ugly. Flesh is really great base for bronze and gold colours because even if it shows through it can add a matting effect
and turn brown to flow with the gold after using washes. This is hard to explain so when it comes to it I will show photos.

View attachment 13138

Assault marine Heads
36 Chaos Infantry shields
Based White - the shields are going to be a vibrant blue so to bring out the colour I
based them white as well as the assault marine heads which are yellow.


So that concludes day 1 !
Tomorrow is painting up the infantry.
Also sorry about the shitty pictures. As its just construction and base pain there isn't much to show anyway.
I will take good ones through out the painting process tomorrow for you.

Thanks
See ya'll tomorrow

 

[PegaZus]

Keeripes! I said post but you wrote a book! Not that I'll complain. Looks like you are off to a good start tho!

 

[TOPC Gallery]

Keeripes! I said post but you wrote a book! Not that I'll complain. Looks like you are off to a good start tho!

hehehe. well if people just want an update they have the photos. For all interested in the process I am throwing in all the details
Today is going to be a big one ! but breakfast first

 

[uglybug]

Impressive so far. How much effort do you put into cleaning mold lines on the infantry.

 

[TOPC Gallery]

DAY 2 -

Infantry painting.

Hello again !
here is today's result, these are all half done but to be honest it was a mission getting to this point so I'm pretty happy.
Depending on tomorrow I will lengthen this project to 6 days (Mon-sat) as my original structure was based on having the
infantry finished today. Here are some pics from the end of the day, please read below for details on all the steps
(it wont let me take this text off bold, any ideas ?)

Chaos Worriers
View attachment 13159

Blood Angels

View attachment 13170






Tuesday 8:30am - 9am Clean up / set up
I really wouldn't recommend doing a project of this size with out making sure you have all the gear you need
a comfortable set up and complete knowledge of how to use your tools with ease.
Here is a shot of my set up.

I use
- a mixture of GW and Vallejo Game Colour paints.
- wet pallets made from Tupperware containers with Non-wax baking paper on top.
- kolinsky sable brushes
- over my table space I have some brown paper that you can buy in rolls, its a great back
drop for painting. Its not to dark or to bright and is good for using as a pallet when dry brushing etc.
- 2 separate water containers, 1 for regular paints and 1 for metallic paints.

View attachment 13160




Tuesday 9am - 10:30. Chaos Capes and Armour
First I painted the cloaks Charadon Granite (GW) and then after doing all 36


I painted the armour with Glorious gold (VGC).

View attachment 13161

Every step I took with these was applied over every unit before moving to the next step
This is how I approached all miniatures today. Even though its tedious, when you
finish the last on and look back its a good feeling.
View attachment 13162



Tuesday 10:30am - 12:00. Silvers and browns

Next I applied a dark silver to the chain mail and weapons/spikes.
I started off using a VGC paint but it was a little to thin so I did the rest with
the new GW silver base paint.
The boots and gloves where based with Charred Brown (VGC)
View attachment 13163

Now its time for the first wash using GW Nulin Oil.
I was painting these in rotation one tray at a time but it seems I was going to fast.
I washed the first tray but the second one still had wet boots so it was time for a lunch break.
I only took 20 minutes as there was still heaps to do.
After my Break I got back and washed the lot, while waiting for these to dry I begun the Space marines.
Just took a picture now to show you the end product after the wash.

View attachment 13164

This is mini with the shield is the prototype I did to test this system.
This is how they will look after I finish them up tomorrow

View attachment 13165





Marines !
okay so while those washes where drying it was 40k time.

First thing I did was paint in all the silvers using the same GW base paint I used on the Chaos mini's
Notice the blotchy holes on the bases ? This is on purpose, I want the metal on the floor to have some variants
in colour and after a few washes these will blend in nicely and turn to more a rust-spot effect.

View attachment 13166

I then blocked in the black weapons and Aquilas using a mix of Negro black (VGC) and Granite (GW)
Though with the death company I dry brushed their armour with pure granite.
After that it was Glorious gold (VGC) on all necessary parts.

black/granite
View attachment 13167
gold
View attachment 13168



Mending the blending

I Based these with red spray so the gradients to the black undercoat are very rough.
Using GW red gore (very old paint) I dry brushed over the black areas to create the shadows.

View attachment 13169

Next I washed these heavily with Agrax Earth-shade.
And the Death company were washed with Nulin Oil

Here is a photo of the end result next to the current stage.
View attachment 13171

So that is as far as I got today, going to finish these up tomorrow and get stuck into the next batch.


Thanks all
zac


​

 

[TOPC Gallery]

Impressive so far. How much effort do you put into cleaning mold lines on the infantry.

I don't go over board. clean up all that's visible and sticks out allot.

 

[TOPC Gallery]

1 Week - 2 Armies - 80 Models pt 4

DAY 3

Bleghhhh will I ever get through this infantry !? Although there is 61 units.
Okay despite being 2 days behind it was an awesome day !
Really felt like the mini's where coming together and I'm not far off finishing these.
I had to finish up at 4:30 today as I have band prac at 6 so I needed enough time to work on the update.

So here is the current state of the Chaos Worriers (still no shields yet).
Only the first regiment here is completely finished, the others still need final highlights and finishing touches....and shields.

View attachment 13203


And marines. These are the slow guys. all the mini's have something different so I keep finding myself double checking things
and back tacking. None of the units are finished yet but close.. soo clossssse.

View attachment 13204



Okay you know the drill. below is the full story
I'm not going to stick time stamps in this time, not sure why I did before But today I did 8:30-4:30 with 20 min break.


First thing of the day was painting the skulls, bones, horns with VGC Kahki
and the belts, banner stands, ropes and necklaces with VGC Earth

View attachment 13205

Then a light coat of diluted GW Agrax Earthshade wash to darken the gold more and blend the kahki and eath in

View attachment 13206


While that was drying I went back to the marines and started on the details.

I used GW astronomican grey to base the white badges, some trimming and the
scouts shirt and pants.
Also I used a 50\50 mix of VGC terracotta and GW blood red to base the blood drop
badges on all mini's.

View attachment 13207

The scouts cloak's where based with GW Denib stone and washed with a diluted agrax (forgot to get a picture of the washed version.)

View attachment 13208


Highlighting the worriers.
After they dried out of their second wash I highlighted just one regiment today as I was running out of time.
First of I used VGC Polished gold on the armour and rehighlighted the leathers and bone with their original base colour.
(VGC kahki and Earth)
Then VGC silver was used on belt buckles, spikes and weapons.

View attachment 13209


Time to highlight the marines some more now.
I used a fine brush and applied GW blood red to the thing and small areas, staying clear of the shins, shoulders and backpack exhausts.
Then on those larger areas I missed i dry brushed the blood red on so it was smoother as red doesn't blend very well.
1
View attachment 13210
2
View attachment 13211


Apart from highlighting all the white badges that was as far as today went, really hope to wrap up these infantry tomorrow.
Think I will start with some long forgotten shields
And then Vehicles !



zac