Tom's Sisters of Battle: Month Two - Troopers (280points)

Now that I have settled in a bit with the painting, there are a couple of changes that have happened with the colour scheme. The main Things being that:

 

• the red is very slightly brighter. It's definitely noticeable side by side, but not so much if the model is separate from the unit. I think this is due to cutting out some steps in the drybrushing layers
• the weapon casings are dark green, rather than the red I painted on Canoness Veridyan
• pouches are dark blue
• lower cables are purple - to add a bit more colour 
• upper cables are dark blue (so the face is more the focus of the top half)
• white cheques on the right shoulder, below a black fleur-de-lys. Added these as a homage to those old cheques I remember seeing on some RT marines. Also the extra freehand is also inspired by Benamon - CopperOracle - Tame's wonderful Fire Hawks army from last years OWAC
• hazard striping on the left calf, to break up all that red
• black flames on the right shin, breaking up the red and adding some lower interest
• energy weapon coils are turquoise - the colour seemed to fit

All this is great, as painting has now become a little quicker, and it far less draining as the colour choices have now all been pretty much made. If I struggle to start a model, at least I have a "mechanical safety net" of being able to switch off and paint what colours I know, and then  other colour choices much later in the painting process. A tactic I developed last year with the Ork  g r i n d .

My paint station now has a few models all in various stages of paint. (Although I always try to keep the maximum number of 'begun' models to around 7 or 8, otherwise I find feelings of being overwhelmed creeping in). I tend to paint three models to a certain stage - maybe up to doing the metals, and all the base colours on, then focus more on one model. When there's a point where that one model needs a little longer drying time, I might start on the bases for the next three and do all the white undercoat. Maybe I accidently splurge out a larger quantity of paint, so the only option is to try and use it up on the other models too. You know how it goes!

Here's roughly how the paint falls on a model anyhow:

Spray black all over, then spray white just on top from 45 degrees

You can see how this looks in the Intro post

Apologies in advance for these following photos, snapped quickly in amongst the paint and spatters.

First colour is Army Painter Pure Red spray all over. Truth be told I think I was a little heavy handed with this application... I sprayed all the Sisters in one day, outside, balancing them on a metal ruler. Usually I would pop a magnet in the bas, which helps immeasurably with this, but for some reason or other I've not done it this year.👇

Grant's Wood Elf Host - Month 2 (Rank and File) (313 points)

This month’s post starts with a sense of Déjà vu. The nature of my project meant that there’s a lot of repetition. I’m starting from scratch, so my goal to create a legal and functional Wood Elf Army means that I’m going to have to paint an awful lot of archers over the course of the project. As I’d mentioned previously, my goal was to put as many of these as possible at the front of the challenge, to leave myself with as much of the fun stuff for the back end as possible.

I’d also mentioned my plans to paint a single hair colour a month, with a schedule that would result in me finishing the challenge with a painted, legal 2000 point 3^rd Edition Wood Elf army. I’m happy to report that is going very well, and that I’ve ended February, the shortest month, at slightly more than double my projections. I am where I'd expected to be at the end of April! This is great news, and not just because it means that I don’t have to paint bows for all that much longer. No, it also means that I’ll need to look at things to add from my box of shame/pride. I’ve a whole bunch of Wardancers, some standard sword and shield Warrior Kinband, and my finger slipped last night, and I bought an Elven Attack Chariot. Look for some combination of those to be painted later in the challenge.

On to this month’s output -

1 Beastmaster –13 pts

2 Boars – 12pts

Beastmaster and his Boar buddies

8 Archers – 88pts (Brown)

8 Archers – 88pts (Blonde)

6 Warrior Kinband, Spears – 60pts

                                        

                                        

2 Wood Riders, Longbows – 52pts

                                                                                                                                                                                                      

For a month 2 total of  313pts, and a combined total of 731pts including the month 1 models.

On the subject of the month 1 figures, I got them back out and took some photos to show the state of the project as a whole.

Cavalry

All the Archers

The Warrior Kinband

Beastmaster and Animal Pals

And this Lightbox filling shot of the 2 months of work below.

We're gonna need a bigger box...

                                        
                                        

My main takeaway from this month is that I absolutely hate painting square bases. As much as I’m enjoying the rest of the project, the bases just feel wrong, and I’m finding myself craving the more familiar rounds. While it’s certainly true that massed infantry looks fantastic on the squares, they’re just really not resonating with me. I’m going to leave it another month, and see if the addition of movement trays helps me enjoy them more, but it’s definitely possible that I’ll be rebasing the army before project’s end.

Next month’s goal is to finish off this wave of infantry, and to do something fun from the list. Not sure if that’ll be a Treeman, or the Forest Spirit, or something that I don’t know yet, but it’ll definitely be nice to do something different!

Last time I posted, I’d mentioned how pleased I was with the bases in the army, and a number of comments echoed that. I thought I’d be helpful, and share how I do it. It’s not particularly hard to do, but there are a lot of steps, many of which require long drying times. Be warned – if you’re on a deadline, it’s not possible to do this technique without 48hrs to make sure it’s comfortably dried in between stages. For example, if you’ve a deadline for a blog post to be published…

Step 1 - Paint a miniature. Preferably an old one, and ideally a Wood Elf. 

Step 2 - Coat the base in PVA, and dip it in your ballast of choice. This is a home made combo of sand and small rocks.

Step 3 - When the glue is dry, give the base a single coat of Agrax Earthshade. You're looking to keep the differences in colour, so don't worry if it looks inconsistent. That's a feature, not a bug.

Step 4 - Pick out some of the larger rocks in Mechanicus Standard Grey. No pattern to this, just anywhere you like, any number you like. For a 20mm Square, I'd pick out 6-10, depending on how the ballast had ended up sitting.

Step 5 - Highlight the rocks you've picked out with Dawnstone.

Step 6 - The next two steps are a doubler. Pick out some random patches on the base with PVA glue. You're going to be adding grass on top of this. I find around 50-60% of the exposed base works well. Sprinkle some Forest Floor scatter on the base - a really light dusting is all you need.

Step 7 - Using the same glue, sprinkle on your Static Grass. This should be a little thicker, but you're not coating it in the stuff. Just enough to give the impression of grass. You've still got enough interesting colours and shapes coming through from the previous stages, and don't be afraid to glue over anything that you did in steps 4 and 5!

Step 8 - Get the PVA glue out again, and add some leaf scatter to the base. I find 2-3 pieces is plenty on a 20mm square. I find these sit well in the middle of a patch of grass, to break up the consistency, and add a little variation. They look fine on the dirt ground as well.

Step 9 - Using Superglue, attach a grass tuft or two somewhere on the base. I've added a single medium sized one here - you could use 2 smaller ones to a similar effect.

Step 10 - Paint the rim of the base. Goblin Green if you're a purist, Black if you're a person of style and means. Biggest tip I'd offer with this style of basing is to not be afraid to cover all or part of the steps you've done previously. You're trying to cram quite a lot of things into a small space, and it helps with the variation if some of the details are obscured or even absent from some of the bases.