Update - Junk Town and NKE

I've been busy painting up figures for my Dark Heresy campaign as well as being out of town so I haven't had a chance for an update. Hopefully this weekend I will take some pictures of the miniatures that have appeared so far.

Junk Town

As I said in a previous Junk Town log, I need to make some bigger buildings. Well, I've got some bigger buildings in the works and maybe get some pictures of those today. I have two sets of connected market stalls in the works, plus a row of housing, a large modular bar, and a tower building. The row of housing is intended a table side while the tower building is a multistory building that would could be used as a security station for police or maybe some kind of market authority.

I’ve been holding off on painting structures I’ve already built as I plan on adding additional detail to them. And I need to find items for that. Detail is needed to make any building look good. Even sterile buildings of the Tau and Eldar benefit from detail – small things that tell the viewer someone uses these. I think the key to having ramshackle buildings look well is an overload of detail - things that show the hard use, quick fixes, and lack of planning. Plus the owner of a ramshackle building most likely would find value in things otherwise would just toss. So having a collection of stuff in and around the ramshackle building would also add to the look of the building.

In addition to buildings, I will have some permanent denizens of the Junk Town. These are miniatures in my collection for which I have no other use. Things I failed to sell. Currently they are ugly monsters from the 80’s TSR miniatures line. I may put some on bases to move around, but most will be store keepers and what not that will be attached to a building.

NKE

I finally found the spears for these guys and now I need to find my pine-vise. In the meantime, I have cleaned up some archers and I have primed them. I will painted these in the same manner as my spearmen.

Painting an Egyptian Part 2

After leaving off with Part 1, I still had weapons, shields, head gear, and bases to finish. Well, some sneaky Hittites must have stolen all my spears. (I can't find them, hopefully they are in my Hittite box) Still, I was able to finish the shields and head gear so I will stick the spears in part 3.

Step 1a: Shields Back

To make life easier I normally paint the backs of the shields before I put them on. For this I used GW Bestial Brown. When dry, I inked it with GW Devlan Mud.

Step 1b: Shields Front

For these shields I decide to go with a cow hide pattern. I used brown for this batch as I didn't have any black ink. There were more phases to painting the shields then any other single item for these Egyptians. Painting time for each of the phases was fairly quick though some extra time was needed for some of the phases to dry. The images go from left to right.

Stages of Shields

1. Base coat shield with Vallejo Bonewhite. (5 minutes)
2. Dab Devlan Mud for cow spots. (2 minutes)
3. When dry, dab Bestial brown over ink spots. Leave a bit on ink uncovered by brown. (2 minutes)
4. Dab Reaper Woodland brown in middle of ink spots. Then quickly go back over cow spots with Devlan Mud. Use it to blend browns. (5 minutes)
5. Prepare brush for a dry-brush of white. Then dab white over cream areas. (3 minutes)
6. Paint boss in middle of shield black. ( 2 minutes)
7. Paint bronze over black, leave a bit of black for black lining. (2 minutes)

Step 2: Head Gear

Highlight and Head Gear

Next to do was the head gear. But before I could do that I needed to do the final highlight on the linen. The images go from left to right.

1. Figure from last step.
2. Highlight the linen with white. (4 minutes)
3. Paint red stripes on head gear with a brick red. (9 minutes)

Shields and Head Gear Finished

Part 2 Wrap-up:

These guys are almosted finished. I just need to attach and paint the spears, put on the basing material and spray the protective coat. I will cover that in part 3.

Acknowledgements:

My friend Chad came up with this cow hide technique though I adapted it a bit for my own style.

Painting an Egyptian Part I

Right now I'm in the middle of a big project involving ancients and currently I am painting up Old Glory New Kingdom Egyptians. After I read a post on the TMP about mass painting ancients I wondered exactly how fast (or slow) my method was going to be. So I decided to time myself. Now I’ve not bothering to time priming, basing, assembly, or protective coating. But I will time painting. I’m not being overly accurate here. I look at the clock when I start and finish for 10 figures.

Now to make this actually a useful posting and give me a reference if I ever have to duplicate this effort in a year or so, I will include a list of the paints I used and the steps I took.

Step 1: Priming

Primed white with Krylon white primer

Step 2: Linen

Linen painted with Graveyard Earth

Normally I paint 'inside' to out. I start on the flesh and work my way to the weapons. But here, since I was going to be using dry brushing on the linen only, that is where I started. Basically I did the messy bit first.

Stages of Linen

Moving from left to Right: 

1. I base coated the linen with GW Graveyard Earth. (15 minutes)
2. I dry-brush the line with an off-white. Here I use Vallejo Bone White.
3. (5 minutes)After letting that dry (time not counted), I ink the linen with GW Devlan mud. (5 minutes)
4. After letting the ink dry (time not counted), I dry-brush the linen again with the bone mixed with white. ( 5 minutes)

The linen will be finished with a final highlight at the end. This will let me cover any mistakes.

Step 3: Flesh

Moving from left to right:

1. From last step.
2. I base coat the flesh with GW Tallarn Flesh. (18 minutes)
3. After letting that dry (time not counted), I ink the linen with GW Devlan mud. (4 minutes)
4. After letting the ink dry (time not counted), I highlight the flesh again with Tallarn Flesh. ( 8 minutes)

Flesh Finished.

Part 1 Wrap-up:

Not bad progress for one hour. Of course, I can't sit for an hour straight painting. I have to get up and move around. So that makes this a day project. In the next part, I will paint the weapons, shields, and head gear. And I hope to finish up in part 3 with basing and protective coating for the whole unit. This will include the previous 10 I had painted up.

Acknowledgements:

The painting scheme used here is based on one from my friend Adam. It is the scheme he used to paint my Hebrews for me minus an extra flesh highlight. I skipped that highlight to make my Egyptians a shade darker then my Hebrews. The Hebrews Adam painted can be seen elsewhere in this blog.

New Kingdom Egyptians

Even though my Hittites are not finished, I thought I would work on some Old Glory NKE. Here is a shot of some 75% finished Egyptians. I need to add spears and shields. I also need to flock the bases. Oh, and add some stripes to their headgear.

The guy with the blue shield in back is not one I painted.