Gamgan's WIP ( Or what not to do!)

[Gamgan]

Hello! Originally posted this elsewhere but I got hooked on seeing all the other WIP here and wanted to try it out ( loved the feed back I saw on the other active threads)

I recently purchased a copy of Arcadia Quest and decided before I tried it out I would try doing a quick table top quality paint job on them.

I decided to try warming up with the goblin archers. I have not painted in years and most of my paints have dried up. So I am finding out what I am missing as I go along. I saw some nicely painted armies online and when I asked the author he suggested I try using Army Painter Quickshade Strong and Soft. I just happened to have an unopened cant of Strong shade here on a shelf and not sure If I have the soft shade some where.


Goblin Archers

Cleaned them up with a scalpel( Instead of using my Xacto knife I had a spare box of scalpel blades). After I cleaned up the minimal flash lines I washed them and took them outside to prime. I wanted to try Rustoleum X2 Off White paint + Primer. I shook the can for a few minutes, started to prime, they seemed to be coming out ok then the can started to sputter and spit globs of paint. All of my goblins got hit with the splatter before I knew it and they just got messed up. I didn't take a picture as I quickly tossed them into a cup with brake fluid. Few hours later I scrubbed them, and put them back in. Did this maybe 5 times every 4-6 hours for the next day or so. Most of it cleaned up but it was definitely a false start.

This is what they looked like after a lot of brushing, I got maybe 80%-90% of the primer off.



I didn't want to try my chances with the spray primer a second time, and tossed in a corner I found a very old dropper bottle of Masters Paints Brush on White Primer. So I gave it a shot. Did a some what very light coat.




I'm guessing a thick coat was not needed, so I didn't bother doing 2-3 coats until it was completely white as I'm not sure if that it would help. I did not water down or thin this primer, that's just how it applied with 1 coat.


I had seen some one else post on the Arcadia Quest gallery some Goblins with the non standard pin point eyes. They had painted Anime style big round eyes for their goblins and they looked pretty neat and even posted a step by step on how to do it. I did not copy down the name of who shared it and if I find it again I will give credit to its author.

Here is my first try at doing the eyes ( before anything else just in case I ended up doing a new coat of primer. I did the eyes first then did the green skin.



Next time I will do the skin first and make sure I leave a little black around the eyes to give more depth. I hope the strong shade can correct this. ( I ended up re-doing this goblins eyes and painted the eye sockets black first to give it some black edges).






Next day I was going to do a double shift at work so I took a few figures with me and had my partner clean up a few of the orcs, and other monsters while I worked on the goblins. He was bored enough so he did





My 2 beastmen, they had both their spears a little bent so I sent them into the just almost boiling water bowl.



I left them there for about 40 seconds but that was way to much, when I pulled them out they where really soft and jiggly. They could have used a lot less time. I held the spears straight and held them under the cold tap water. Left them outside to dry, primed them and then discovered I had bent both of their bases in a odd shape and had to redo this process.

My friend explained that it was my nozzle in the rattle can spray paint that got clogged and messed up my priming. I switched out the nozzle, and I tried again a second time on a rock, then a stick, then a leaf and then finally I primed all the orcs, the troll, and the 2 beastmen and the minotaur. They felt tacky still 6 hours later but today almost 20 hours later they feel normal.

I chose 2 shades of green, Master Painter Core colors Grass green and Army Painter green. I did 3 goblins in each color. As I was doing my first 2-3 thin base coats I played around with the eyes. Just to see if I would like something else better.

Snake Eyes


No Pupils



Few side by side attempts



Tried to see if he would look ok looking to the left or the right



I took waaaay to long to paint these guys. I spent maybe 5 hours painting them while listening to music and talking to my co-worker. I know I lost a lot of time testing things out and playing around with the colors. I kept cleaning up my lines too. I'm sure I could have been a little more sloppy and let the army painter quickshade clean it up, but I kept going back and cleaning up every tiny bit of paint that slipped out of its line/edge. I will not be able to do this on the other minis if I plan on ever getting them done.

I only brought maybe 5 colors with me so I was also playing around mix and matching colors to see how they would look.



I choose to stick to the anime style eyes instead of the standard pin point eyes. Here is another unfinished side by side;



Not sure if its because of how I was holding them or my primer is old, or I didn't use enough, but its a little too easy to rub the paint off these guys when I was holding them by their ears. I will make sure to give them a double coat of Vallejo mat varnish after the shading is dry.

Here is another WIP, finished up the battle paint, still missing the quick shade.




I have never been really good painting minis and I would paint for a while then stop for a year or so, paint again for a few months then stop again. Each time I have to relearn how to do things. I know I'll get faster, I just need to stop messing around. Any suggestions and advice are more then welcome.

OH and I started using a wet pallet today, and loved it.

 

[Gamgan]

Trying to post new pictures today. They need to be approved first.

Is it post with pictures that need approval only and text are instant?

 

[stlm]

Looks good, keep up the good work!
And those minis look really fun to paint.

edit*
You could avoid rubbing too much against the minis, if you put them on top of an empty paint bottle or something else while painting.

 

[Sicks]

Trying to post new pictures today. They need to be approved first.

Is it post with pictures that need approval only and text are instant?

I think it's only for your first post or two, I think once they realise you aren't a sales bot or spammer etc you don't need approval anymore

The minis look good, I like the different war paints to make them look a bit different

 

[KruleBear]

Liking the eyes.

As for the paint rubbing off; assuming you washed the mini with soap and water to remove mold lubrication, it is not unusual for paint to rub off where you are handling it while painting.

 

[bgcdazzler]

This is already a great thread - love the sometimes overly brutal honesty.

i think you've made a good start on these. I know just what you mean about being indecisive at first, but it'll come the more you practice (or so they tell me!).

 

[Gamgan]

Update #2
I am not going to win any speed painting competitions with these guys. They are really simple but I am so rusty and my paints are all messed up from years of not being used, or replaced, I keep finding globby almost dried up paints, and my attempts at making a wet pallet have failed as I have not yet found a semi-permeable parchment paper ( baking paper) that works as the 4 brands I purchased didn't work. I just ordered official wet pallet replacement sheets on ebay.

I used two different shades of green on these guys so I made a mark to let me know who was who. A line pointing straight out was Olive Green and side ways was Grass green. In hindsight from now on Ill use brighter shades of green as the Army Painter strong tone I used really dulled the colors down a ton.



The best part about these goblins was being able to go wild on their warpaint. I had to stop myself from doing tiger stripes down most of them and going crazy on their arms legs and ears.



I bought a can of Army Painter strong tone a few years ago and never opened it up until I was going to paint a couple of dozen minis as once. I read a bunch of online threads about using Minwax from home depot but once thread made sense. Why spend hundreds on minis to then try save $15 bucks using a product that might end up being sub-standard. And besides I will only be doing about a 100 minis so this can will be more than enough.
I never used it before but had a more or less idea, I brushed a little on top of my first victim and noticed that it felt like painting with pancake syrup. It had started to dry inside the can it seems even though it was never used. My first goblin got the pancake treatment and turned out REALLY REALLY Brown. Like a very bad spray on tan.



I added a few caps of Mineral spirits to my can of army painter to thin it down a little bit and my second gobby didn't get such a thick coat. Goblin with the X war paint got a thinned out coat of army painter.


Next two guys same thing, just a lighter coat.


Cleaning up a base really makes a huge difference. After about 24 hours to allow the Army painter quickshade to dry I gave the bases 2 coats of Game Colors Codex Grey / Cold Grey. Just this one step made them look a lot less messy.



I saw some one had posted this with their heroes. I can rebase my minis easy but I would have to order new bases and just the thought that that will be about a 100 bases, I decided to do a quick paint job instead and I can always go back and rebase them even though they are painted. I tried doing this paint scheme ( I can link the original from the gallery if any one wants to see it) and I pretty much failed. My lines are two straight and way to thick. It doesn't sell the idea at all.


Didn't stop me from trying. I did the lines with a standard brush, I should have used a detail brush to make them thinner.
I first did the lighter grey then the back on top of that. My lines where to big so I painted the edges of both black and light grey with the darker grey color to thin out my lines more. It helped. Still does not look ANYTHING like the original in the gallery, but I can always go back when I get better at it.




My warpaint got too dark, next time Ill use much lighter colors, so I did a quick once over on them. When I took a picture I can see the contrast so I will give them a very very thin watered down coat of the original color to blend in the 2 different tones on the warpaint. Also on these pictures they already received 3 coats of Vallejo Paint on Matte Varnish






And while they dried up I did a vanity shot on a statue that was a gift from my wife. ( She got it for $5 at a flea market, I think it will look great with a Reaper Bones Undead dragon on it)



If I plan on finishing the rest of these figures I really need to figure out how to do a very simple base coat and let the quickshade do its work. I spent too much time on these, but I am sure its from having been years with out painting. Any suggestions and advice is always welcome.

 

[Gamgan]

3am and instead of sleeping decided to work on my orcs.
I had started to paint them the same colors as the goblins but this was before I learned how much the quickshade army painter STRONG tone darkened them. I decided to give my very old pot of Citadel Goblin Green a try. Looks sort of a lime green.
Also, the rustoleum off white can of primer I used, it was SATIN. I had not noticed. It gave the paint a sort of slick texture. The result is that my acrylic paint just rubs off if I breath on it too hard. As a base coat its actually counter productive. I don't think I want to re-prime them with my paint on primer or new can of Matte white spray paint but I will give them the Army dip plus 2-3 coats of Vallejo Matte Varnish to protect them.
Instead of just plowing through all 8 orcs like I did my goblins I decided to sort of finish one first then get an idea how to go about the other 7. I know my captain's will have a different color then the normal grunts.



I know this is supposed to be speed painting, and I am wasting time on details I shouldn't be doing but I was curious how it would look with the army painter. I took the time and first painted black all the metal parts then did a coat of Warpaint Armour color over it leaving the edges black. Same thing I did the horns and teeth first a bone white then a second smaller coat of normal white.
The white and off white was lost in the dip, the black lining I did on the armor you can just barely tell its there. So pretty much both those details where un-needed. Good to know I wont do them on the next monsters.



Not sure yet what to do with the eyes. I didn't want to do the small dot in the middle yet. I saw a few evil eyes for chibi's online and it was a white eyeball with a tiny red triangle in the middle. This was supposed to be an "evil" look so I tried it out. It still looks sort of a like a dot from table top height but close up you can see its a triangle.
I exaggerated on the drybrush for the fur. Its so light a color I was wondering if it would be absorbed in the dip ( It was) and it sort of worked. I found 3 tiny rings on the fur cloak connecting it to the belt. I couldn't unplug my Silver paint dropper because I left my paper clips at home so Ill do the silver details after the dip. ( nose ring, 3 rings on belt, sword edges, ear rings)

There is a tiny gap in the paint on his chin between that horn looking thing and his skin. I didn't clean it up as I wanted to see if the dip would cover it ( It did). That means I can be sloppier with the next 7 orcs as the edges will be cleaned up by the dip allowing a little more sloppier paint job.


I used some thinned out black paint and gave him dark circles under his eyes and this came out nicely after the dip. I used a lot less then I did on the goblins and didn't have to do much as it pretty much gathered in the areas I wanted. ( I forgot to check back a short while later to avoid pooling but it didn't happen so I was lucky)
The skulls look messy so I will touch those up before my Vallejo clear coat. ( and the silver bits)


Still cant make up my mind on the eyes. Either the red triangles or the chibi style big round eyes I used on the goblins. Not sure what works for this cartoony look.


Another pick of 2 versions of the eyes. Not sure yet.
7 more to go but will do a lot less painting, no black lining, no black base coat for the armor, and wont worry so much of perfectly clean edges.
I need to go find a paperclip.....

 

[Gamgan]

Round 4

After I had done 1 Orc all the way to the quickshade I had an idea what to do with the other 7.
First painted their nose, eyes, and mouth black.



Although I kept playing around with the round chibi eyeball I ended up doing Red triangle's for the rest of the orcs


It has to be because I was taking so long to do these but they felt like 20 orcs instead of 7. I kept staring at them in line wishing I was done and doing a hero character or anything else that's not in multiples..

On each orc I would do a single item like the nose ring, or the wrist band or belt then move to the next until I had done 7 nose rings or 7 arm bands.

Felt like they kept multiplying!!

This is what they looked like before the wash. The weapon isn't don't yet as its missing its highlights. I also used black ink to give my orcs dark rings under their eyes. The quickshade will smooth it out but it will give them deeper sunken eyes ( I hope).


This Orc captian suffered a terrible papercut..

Also known as .. this is why I take so long ...

And this is the squad just before their dip in a very diluted army quickshade strong dip


And since tomorrow Ill be doing these guys I saw a tip for white primed models and it was to use black wash to give them shadows and when I paint them I wont have to take all my colors to the very edge as there will be shadows there to help speed up the process by not having to paint on all the edges ( or something like that. will see what happens)

 

[KruleBear]

Congrats on speedily getting some decent looking tabletop minis pumped out.

 

[Gamgan]

Round 5 is it?
I wanted bright colors so everything was primed white ( this is still from the batch of wrongly primed minis.) On this batch I screwed up and used Off -white colored SATIN primer. The semi gloss on it helps the paint just slide off, totally the opposite of what I wanted in a primer.
First thing I will do on any future orcs will be to start them differently on how I did these. This batch I primed white, painted nose , mouth and eyes black, did eyes first then teeth then did skin colors and weapons and armor.

Next time I will prime white, paint skin then do the dark areas like eyes and mouth. Less work to paint skin then do tiny eye sockets and nostrils then to paint tiny black areas then have to carefully paint skin around them, end up messing up a line and having to redo the black any way.
These guys are 95% don't, need to give them another coat of matte varnish and finish their bases.


Elysia
I really would like to get my hands on a official Elysia but since I cant I ordered a Impact Miniatures Medusa. Looked pretty neat online and its only $5.

I'll do side by side pictures later, the body is really tiny and very tiny brittle arms.
I did notice that the casting has a lot of bubbles. I can fix this easy but wonder if I just got a bad cast or are they all like this?
Again, a lot of details for just a $5 figure.

I read a tip online about doing a black wash on a white primed mini. It not only makes the details stand out ( not really needed on this exaggerated features of a chibi) but the best part it gives shadows and depth to areas harder to paint like under cloaks or between the legs if there is a loincloth in the way. Also I don't have to bring the paint all the way to the edge of the armor or skin as the dark color works as a nice transition. It might seem silly but at least for me it felt like it helped speed things up a bit.

Just like the orc captian, I wanted to give this guy a nice scar like his card has. I used a scalpel and carved a groove then messed it up a little so it didn't look like a clean cut. I used a darker red first inside the scar then a very thin line of bright red in the middle and then some darker skin tones around the wound to look like scar tissue.
Here are the first few base coats


I really wish, I had a working wet pallet. My paper hasn't arrived yet from my online order so for now I am just mixing drops of water into my paint and using a disposable dish. Here are the mixes of colors I have used on the Mino so far.

I am using headset that has lenses on it to magnify the miniature. Each time I bring the brush up to focus on the miniature that is only about 3 inches from my nose I see the brush has too much paint on it. Instead of looking down and brushing the extra paint on a paper towel I brush it off on my hand. I know its lazy but it works fine and I can wash my hands afterwards. Also great way to check for drybrushing...

I painted this guy slowly in about an hour and a half. I didn't worry about getting the paint perfect on the edges of the armor and skin as I figured the Army painter Strong quickshade would hide that. And after the dip ( brushed on) I could touch up anything I missed. It was hard to see so many white spots sticking out in the corners and ignored it but I really wanted to see if this would work. My OCD was killing me each time I ignored a slip of the paint that touched areas it shouldn't.
I might have spent another hour trying to clean up all my errors. I just want table top pretty miniatures especially if there is going to be another hundred on the way in a few months. I need to learn how to do a happy medium.

Plus each time I do a touch up I keep adding layers of paint that start to become noticeable. That's happened on my bases as I try to learn how to do cracks. I might in the future buy or make a ton of bases and just swap them out with textured bases.
This mini is missing a few details but after the wash almost all of the tiny mistakes where hidden.




Wood, bracers and inner ears can use a little more shading, might touch them up with some brown wash and a little highlight. Plus the Vallejo matte varnish to hide that gloss.

 

[Sicks]

For the cracked stone look on the bases have you tried painting them black first and then using the mid grey to make them thinner? It can sometimes be easier to do it that way round than trying to paint thin black lines

 

[Gamgan]

Thank you @Sicks. Will post a pic when I do.

I will give it a shot when I do the mino, and post my results, thanks for the tip

 

[Gamgan]

I have seen a few pictures of these with thier weapons painted in non metalic metals? The non shiny metals and they look so much better. Will see if I can read up on how to do it.

 

[Dr. Bob]

Geez! That is some impressive speed painting! Thanks for sharing your tips and false starts. Very helpful!

 

[Gamgan]

Thank you Dr. B.

Been skimming through other peoples WIP and now I want to learn how to do how to do non metalic metals for the heroes. Especialy the swords.

 

[SkelettetS]

those archers are sinister!

 

[Gamgan]

@SkelettetS thank you!

I took a peek at your facebook page, and I know I will be going back later tonight there was just so much to see. Your crossbowmen.. wow... That armor looked amazing. Did you do non metallic for that or are those metallic colors?? And your white/grey Space Marine .....


After I get things done I am going back for a closer view...

 

[Gamgan]

I want to finish painting the monsters in my arcadia quest game before I start on the 12 heroes. The last 5 seem easy enough and I will just take the colors I plan on using and paint them at work this week after duty hours.


But there are 2 figures that I know I want to try and change up. There are 2 Kickstarter reward "heroes" that are recycled Orc and Goblin figures turned into heroes with a new color scheme to distinguish them.

The Goblin, called Bowie, has a sneaky ability where he can attack then he can move away before the victim can retaliate.



This is the goblin model unpainted




I would like to try my first cloak and hood with this guy. I saw a lot of really cool green stuff modifications on Space marines and decided why not.

I am thinking of removing his lower jaw to make room for a bandit mask like this.


Then removing most of his hair to make sure the hood has that neat assassin look.





I would like to give his front side some leather armor, since the original is naked except a lion cloth. ( Only the front will show as I want to try a draping cloak that covers most of him)









So for now these are the changes I will try to do on him

 

[stlm]

Sounds like a cool project, and I think it will look really nice.
I have next to none experience when it comes to converting, so I can't contribute with any tips.