A progress report

So it is the start of a new month and I thought I would take some time to check my progress over the last while. I posted about this before here and it is interesting to compare what I have managed since, well at least for me! Its exactly six months ago that I updated this last and there are some big differences. First up is the fact that my Khador collection has almost tripled in size and is still totally unpainted. I had better make a start on them soon! I have made a lot of progress on my menites. Thirteen more models bought and yet I managed to get them to 91% done. I really need to sit and finish them off too. It would be really nice to have them at 100% done. Aat least then I have a good excuse to buy some more. My mercenaries have also tripled in size but at least they have also been painted with 97% of them done. I also managed to avoid buying more Circle models and to paint some of the backlog. It would be really awesome to get these close to 100% but there are just too many nice models and I will be investing more in them over the coming months, especially considering the arrival of Domination. Minions have stayed the same so thats good!

So all this boils down to the fact that I bought fifty nine new models just for Warmachine and Hordes over the last six months. I also managed to increase the average number of completed models from 60% to 66%. That is a pretty decent increase in my mind as I have continued to buy miniatures, especially Mercs and Khador. Also interesting to note is the fact that I have managed to start a new system, Dystopian Wars. I have a small fleet thats close to being completed. I have only seven models to paint and they shouldn't take long. The problems is that nobody here really plays the game and so I have no motivation to paint them.

I am wondering a little what is going to happen over the next six months. I have started a Beastman army for warhammer Fantasy. Thats going to be over a hundred miniatures I am guessing. I am intending to paint them to a high enough standard so thats really going to effect the amount of time I have to spend on Warmachine and Hordes. I still want to make progress with them but I have to resign myself to doing single models rather than units. Thats okay as I do have my eyes on a few solos. I do think that Dystopian Wars will get squeezed out. There is only so much time and I can't dedicate that to a system I am just not playing. Its a pity but I really don't see any hope for my Prussians.

SMS Rache - Prussian Dreadnought

So I finally got the Dreadnought done. Well actually I just noticed that I missed out on doing the portholes. I will get them done next time I sit down with a Dystopian Model. On detailed and large models like this it is pretty easy to miss stuff. I have lost a little of my enthusiasim about painting these as I haven't managed a game yet. The models are fun to do but when there is nothing other than the painting to enjoy well then it starts to become a chore. I still have a few models to paint that I will get done over the coming weeks but I don#t see myself investing much more until I can be sure of getting some regular games in.

Red Leader, this is Gold Leader

I pulled these super tiny flyers out of the packet last week and I thought they were going to be simple to paint. They really are not despite the fact that they really are tiny. I am impressed by the sheer level of detail on these models. I really didn't do them justice but it gets annoying everytime you go to paint something and you find more details. I didn't even realise these had a cockpit until I was painting the engines. Thankfully the obligatory six are done... While they were not difficult to paint they are a little time consuming. My Prussian fleet is growing steadily and maybe soon I can get a game in...

Dystopian Popsicle

As a break from Warmachine I pulled out some Dystopian Wars stuff to paint. I had ordered this Dreadnought quite a while ago but it took ages for Maelstrom Games to send it out. By the time it arrived my impetus to play was pretty much gone. Anyway the only way I have found to paint the Dystopian Wars stuff is to mount it on something else, hence my nice Prussian Popsicle. The Dreadnought is rather heavy for a resin miniature so it took two coffee stirrers (donated kindly by the Cafe near work) to get something stable.

I did some of the detail work first as I wanted to experiment. The Iron Cross you see here is out of proportion, but only when viewed directly. When viewed from the normal angle of about 45° it is actually looks fine. I wanted to paint the ships name on also but I can't figure out where and I cant figure out if it is worth the trouble. I would have to paint it exceedingly small and then it wouldn't really be noticable. I wonder did ships of this time have names emblazoned on them at all?

Freehand: Iron Cross

It's a busy week for Dystopian Wars here. Today I want to show you the method I use to paint the Iron Cross on my models. It is a pretty simple design to paint as it is basically geometric. However these designs become much more difficult once you scale them up. On my frigates they were hard enough though no bigger than 5mm across. My battle ship was easier as it was tiny more like 3mm. On the Pflichts though I was dealing with about 1cm of space to have to fill. While there are great decals available for these designs I am too lazy to go look for them. Instead I get to practise something I am usually terrible at: freehand. This technique is dreaded by most, including me. However when you see a model with a nice effective freehand design they really are stunning. The shots below are all thumbnailed so click on them to blow them up larger.

Step One: The picture is a little bit hard to make out but it shows the first step. I take some very watered down black paint and I put a dot in the centre of the space where I want the Iron Cross to go. I then define the outer parts also with a dot. So nine dots in all evenly spaced. This is an important step to get right and it is very easily corrcted as you are only placing small dots of black on the model. So if you take your time with this then everything else should be easy.

Step Two: A steady hand helps a little with this step but again it is easily correctable. You are now simply joining the dots up with a thin black line. Using watered down black paint helps. just join everything to the dot in the middle. It is rather simple! Don't worry too much about a wobble on the line. You can correct that in the last step with some white paint if you are feeling lazy.

Step Three:So here is an easy part. All you need to do is to fill in the four triangles you have made. It is much easier to see the shapes if you outline them before you fill them in. Oftern I would have attempted to paint the triangles without outlining them first. This usually leads, at least in my attempts, to a very non symetrical design.

Step Four: So having gotten this far you are pretty much finished. The last thing to do is to get the white lines in. Once upon a time I would have painted the white first and then filled in the black afterwards. However I find that this method means I make better looking designs. So working always from the center out draw even white lines to the outer edges of the cross. This helps keep a point where two lines meet in the center and it means you don't overdo it there either. It is very easy to paint towards the center and go too far making corrections difficult.

So if you follow the steps above you should come up with a design like this one. It was far easier to do than I thought. I was quite nervouse to put this there but really the models need it. The Airships are missing some detail as the baloon area is rather boring. The Iron Cross really breaks this up and makes the model far more interesting. I have also been practising with the Imperial Eagle but I am still not happy that it would look good on this model. Its very much a rushed attempt but I will practise and hopefully I can perfect this design enough to get it onto one of the larger Airships. I can imagine it would look nice on the landing platform of the Imperial Sky Fortress! Though the wooden texture might make it difficult... hmmmm.

Tutorial: Airships for Dystopian Wars

So following on from yesterdays shots of the Pflicht Airships I thought I would show a step by step of how I did them. They were easy enough in the end as they are not too intricate. Most of the shots below are thumbnails so just click on them to bring them up much larger

The bases on the Dystopian Wars flyers are a pain. While nice looking with the arcs marked out they don't fit together at all. After a long long while simply trying to force the stems into the bases I gave up and grabbed my drill. I was lucky enough to have a drill bit the exact size of the stem. However I was unlucky enough that this one was blunt. It still did the trick but it really needed more force than I was comfortable with. The bases are robust enough to take this thankfully. I was a little confused by the white backing the bases had. I took this off straight away but I guess it can be left on to save getting fingerprints everywhere. I can't see that it serves any other purpose. Getting the stems into the model was also a little tricky. One of them really didn't want to cooperate. Eventually I coerced it in. One word of caution however! Don't press the stem too far into the base. I did this and now it is raised ever so slightly off the surface. This causes the model to rotate around the stem easily and I guess it will be annoying when it comes to actually playing. Even with the drill I needed some force to get the stem in and this is why I pushed it too far. So you are warned!

The most important step in my mind is getting the base colours on correctly. Once you have a nice even coat on the model it is practically playable. For these models I copied the scheme I used for my Ships. German Field Grey(vajello) is the base colour for everything. Its got great coverage which is good as I didn't undercoat these models. I was worried about the spray filling up too much of the detail. However the mould release agent will stop the paint adhering to the surface so it is important to wash the models down with some soapy water. A soft scrub gets the residue off. I then pick out the metals in a bronze colour. I dislike the idea of bare iron on sea going vessels and I thought I should follow it through on the fliers. For a little bit of variance I picked out the Prussian flag on the tails. The edges of the panelling helps keep the lines straight.

Of course I forgot to take a photograph of the next steps but this shot will help explain. I washed the whole model down with a light black wash. This brings out the fine detail of the resin models. It also gives some nie texture to the generally flat area of the baloon itself. Without a wash this would look terribly boring. I then go back with german field green, the base colour, and pick out all the raised areas such as the ribs and gun ports. Finally I mix a drop of bleached bone in and highlight these areas. It's pretty simple. That finishes the green ehough so that it looks great on the table top. Getting more detailed in terms of highlights is really not worth all the effort. I did highlight the edges of the baloon ridges with some of the base colour though so that they stood out a little better.

The metals were picked out in lighter shades of gold. I washed them first with Ogryn Flesh (GW). This gives a nice purple base to the metal without darkening the raised areas too much. I also put some patina on the tesla coils to the front but my eyes are not seeing it on the pictures. It is Hawk Turquiose mixed with Thraka Green and some water (both GW). I just let it run into the cracks. Thats basically how I painted the models. Freehanding the Iron Cross is annoying but I will cover that separetly later in the week. So I hope this is helpful in getting your airships to the table quickly and effectively.

Airships!

I was getting pretty annoyed with the slow pogress of my painting reently. Every evening I seem to have something to do and at the weekends I am always obliged to go somewhere. I haven't had a productive painting session in weeks. However I do think I identified another cause of the problem - lack of motivation. Recently I haven't been that enthusiastic about painting. Generally this comes from being bored or overwhelmed. I find that if I have a crowded desk I just don't like sitting there. At the moment mine is on the edge of being overly filled! There is a Bloodbowl Team, a lot of Warmachine, some lurking Warhammer miniatures and finally some Battletech stuff. However what was really getting me down was simply being bored. Everything thats on my desk I have tried my hand at painting recently. There is just nothing new and maybe more imporatnly nothing challenging.

So with that in mind I picked up some Dystopian Wars stuff last week. As always seems to happen I was listening to the d6 generation and they started talking about the game. Then I started thinking about it. I then annoyed some of my club mates to see if they were coming along with their fleets. So in the end I picked up some Airships. Not only were they adding a third to the points of my small fleet but they were something different to paint. I had tried the ships before but not the airships. I have to say they were great to paint. The textures on the canvas of the airship meant it was very hard to build up any form of highlights and that washes would look strange. I am still not sure how to make this less apparent. It would seem that the excellent moulding process picks up too much detail. Whereas the less sensitive moulds used for metals would have given a flatter surface these picked up some of the 3D printing process I think. Its fine in the end, not too noticable, but it does make some of the advanced painting techniques a little more difficult!

So I am hoping to have about five hundred point finished for the next meeting of the games club so I can finally have a game. That depends on some of the other guys getting their stuff done too... It would seem that everyone wants to get their fleet finished before using it which is nice.

Getting an Island on the board!

I once again picked up some Dystopian Wars stuff last night. I was supposed to be doing the grocery shopping but I happened by the gamestore and as a reward for all the housework I thought a few miniatures would be fine.

As I get more and more into this game, depite attempting not to, a project has cropped up in the back of my mind. I really would like to play over a nice game board and what could be better than a real island scaled down to 1:1200. The island I am talking about is Helgoland, one of Germany's most important naval assets. The rough dimensions of the island are 135cm x 42cm x 105cm whic fits on a single 6' x 4' board (180cm x 120cm). However it probably doesn't leave enough room for much action around the island which would be the main point of having the board in the first place. Okay it is nice to have the island for ground forces but really everyone here wants to play the naval game foremost.

So what to do? Well I have been thinking on this a little and the best i can come up with is to split the island right down the middle and mount the two halves on separate boards. At least this way we have the island for larger games when the two boards are placed together. We can also then play along one of the coasts without too much difficulty. We could even use the boards as modular pieces and simply arrange them in any configuration that suits. Its not the aim of the project but it provides a lot of better playing opportunities this way.

One problem remains... storage. There is no chance in hell that I can manage to get this to reside within my apartment. Well I could but then I would have to move out! Especially if I ever wanted to play on them. So maybe I need another plan. There are not so many islands in the North Sea that can be scaled down and I don't really see my Prussian Fleet operating in the South China Sea. Anyway I will see what I can come up with.

The Battlecruiser sails

Seemingly everywhere is now sold out of Dystopian Wars stuff. Well the cheaper places are. I picked this Battle Cruiser up at one of the more expensive shops here in Hamburg, Spieleland. I have to admit I am really enjoying painting these. It is nice to have a break from the Warmachine stuff finally. While I look forward to getting back to them once Wrath looms closer for now I am concenrating on getting my Prussian Fleet ready.

Islands in the Sun...

So I can't just play Dystopian Wars on the open sea. Nope that would be boring so I deciede to make some island terrain. I still haven't fully committed to playing the game so i am not really sure why I am making terrain. I guess I just like to do it!

How to make your own dream island:
Islands are not hard to make. They are hard to get to look correct though. Unlike terrain at other scales here you are creating an entire geographical feature and for it to look its best it has to look natural. I am far from an expert but I know there are only certain ways in which an island will form and the best looking islands will keep this consideration in mind. For this island I decided for an outlying rock with a small and slightly eroded bay. I collected up a few blank cd's recently and these make excellent if a little restrictive bases. I would love something a little larger but finding something like these thats cheap and durable isn't easy. Also I don't have to cut the cd's to shape they are fine as they are!

I started off with the rocks. I can't really call these cliffs as they are according to scale only six meters high on average. I used some torn pieces from a cork placemat. These make the best rocks for terrain in general. They take paint well and they are really nicely textured. I framed the island with these building up some height in places so that the piece is a little more visually interesting. I left the bay area free from rocks.I then filled in the gap with some air drying modelling clay. I made sure to wet the top of the piece down a good but and to smooth the individual chunks together while doing this. I find it cuts down a little on the surface cracking. It won't help with shrinkage but thats not to big of a problem on this smaller scale. When I am doing pieces like this I tend ot use lots of small chunks of clay. When these dry they separate and can leave cracks in the surfec which are annoying to fill. Wetting the top and smoothing it down with your finger, while messy, manages to stop this a lot.

Once all this is dry I start flocking the piece. I use a fine sand with a few small stones thrown in. I think it is similar if not the same as what GW sell. I do this in sections to minimise any possibility of warping. Thats the fastest way to ruin a terrain piece in my opinion. Once the flock is dry I gave everything a black spray as undercoat and to seal the piece. I manage to spray paint the window at this point so I was in a lot of trouble once that got noticed! I guess thats one of the dangers of spraying out a window. For painting I used grey on the rocks, pretty simple with some Badab Black in the end to wash it down and make if look different from the sea. The land was Scorched Brown with a Bestial Brown drybrush over the top. The sea was painted grey with a lighter grey closer to the cliffs. Some green was added further towards the rim. Over all this I gave the base a blue wash. This gave a nice light blue tint to everything. Finally I added the waves with an old brush I had. Its just straight white over everything.

So thats how I made my island. I am not sure what I should do with it now but maybe some others will pick the game up too?

And now for Something Completely Different!

So I have been busy... and not with either Warmachine or Warhammer. The Miniwar Hamburg club have been talking about starting with Dystopian Wars and so last week when I was in the games store I decided to take the plunge and see what all the fuss was about. I had heard the D6 Generation's review and it raised my interest. So rather than buy everything at once as my collectible habits have conditioned me to do I decided to get something small and see how it paints up. So I ended up with a packet of Arminius Class Frigates and the sudden urge to paint. Thankfully the urge to paint lasted until I got home!

How to Paint Dystopian Wars Ships:
These models are resin and that means problems. I haven't really worked with resin before other than some very small jobs and I certainly haven't painted it before. Plastic and metal are really easy to paint and don't really need any special considerations. Resin does and it is nasty stuff to get in your lungs. So wear a mask... you have been warned! Examining the models closely I noced very little problems with flash. The models seem to be sculpted and cast in a very simple manner. I am assuming a one sided mould is used with the top open. This means that the only flash you should get is along the bottom of the model which would sit at the top of the mould. The fact that there are no other mould lines anywhere on the model supports this. That meant very little clean up. I basically broke off the flakes that you can see in the picture above. Simple, just the way I like it! I was worried a little about the mould release agent that is usually used for resin. It can bubble the paint you put over by producing a gas. I have seen a lot of Forgeworld models ruined by this. So these ships went into some warm soapy water for a few minutes to ensure that none remained. I didn't scrub them as I am not sure how strong the resin is. The warm soapy water seemed to have done the trick however as there was no bubbling.

So the first thing I noted as being a problem is the lack of a base. I have seen these models based but I didn't have the material to do so and seemingly it can cause a problem in the game when ships get up close. So to paint these I needed to glue them onto cocktail sticks. Two to a stick made it pretty easy to handle them and paint at the same time.Having the ships mounted on the sticks also gave me the benefit of having something else to hold them by. Three pieces of foam from old blisters held the ships while I was doing the detail work. As a basecoat I used German Field Green from Vajello. I am slowly phasing out my GW paints so needing this colour gave me an excuse to buy other Vajello paints to shore up my dwindling supplies. When I painted the basecoat on I noticed that the models don't have many flat surfaces. The armoured plates on the side of the models are heavily textured. I assume this is intentional on behalf of the designers. I at first thought it was a reaction between the paint and the resin. This will be annoying on larger models but for now it is fine on these small ones. I picked out the wooden sections with Snakebite Leather.A black wash over this picked up all the texture on the model nicely. I then added some details like the Imperial Flag and the Iron Cross. These took a little time to figure out but I was able to manage them easily enough after some trial and error. I highlighted everything that seemed to need it. The wooden sections on the ships got some Snakebite Leather mixed with Bleached bone. This brightened them up a lot and gave a good contrast to the darker green of the ship. The metal plates got a selective highlight of German Field Grey and Sea Green. This just picked out the raised struts and armoured areas. I got fancy then and numbered the ships too... I don't know if this is needed in the game but it can't hurt.