Jon's Bad Moons - They Tried To Make Me Go To Rehab (180 points)

Rank & File month #1

OK, so.

This was going to be a long drawn out whinge of a post about how much I dislike the actual act of smearing liquid plastic onto solid plastic, and It's been eighteen months since I picked up a paintbrush, apathy has led to atrophy, and oh god I'm letting the side down already.

But then I found the single model that the previous owner of my Orks had painted when he was a pre-teen, and... well, that's what I have to beat here.

With that in mind I've decided to approach the OWAC as a kind of Reluctant Painter's Rehab, getting my hand and eye and above all my mindset back into the hobby zone. There's no point in comparing what I do to what the others do because some of the others are doing this as collectors, photographers, diorama fanciers - people who paint for the sake of painting, or to have something that looks good in a studio-style photo. Me? I paint to play. Proper gamer's models that look fine under harsh artificial light from three or four feet away against a busy background, because that is how wargaming pieces are viewed. And if they're good enough under those conditions, they're done.

I decided to start with the most basic models, the plainest skin-clothes-guns-go jobs on the slate. Any teething troubles would thus be worked out on the lowest stakes models in the army and I'd have it all figured out by the time I got to the Warboss.

Everything went pretty well at first: skin and clothes looked decent, metals were a bit bright but that's what you get with a white undercoat. It was the black trim that destroyed me. Normally I avoid high contrast colourschemes, especially on simple models without the eyeblinding level of detail that hides messy brushwork. Messy brushwork like the kind I always sink to when I'm working on more than a couple of models at a time. I couldn't get away with it here and at this stage I was feeling a bit grim.

Fortunately, Ork Flesh Wash hides a multitude of sins. Once everything had a good layer of ink on it I liked the figures much more. It's darker than I remember, though (or it might be that I'm using the tail end of a pot I bought in 1996). I have a whole bunch of different greens to play around with and I might introduce another stage to the process on the next unit, or start with a bolder basecoat.

Detail work, such as it is, involves teeth, eyes, and glowy bits. I'm a great believer in the "bases, faces and blades" approach to figure painting: the eye is drawn to those areas, so if they look all right the rest can afford to be a bit chod. The Ork Flesh Wash really worked against me here and it took a few coats of brown to get the mouths properly basecoated. That might be another argument in favour of a base/wash/light drybrush approach on the next unit. I'll try it out and if it looks good I'll go back and redo these.

Classic Goblin Moot Green bases and flock to finish, of course. I don't normally do this sort of thing, but with a project like this it'd be rude not to. I am going to have to work on that skin recipe though, I have a nasty feeling I've used exactly the same green as the bases and not realised. Heigh ho: I shall take a pop at the 'Moons with mohawks next month and see what can be done about that, assuming I don't get distracted painting... new figures. You know. Still in production.

Bad Moon Boyz Mob

10 Boyz: 8 with bolters, 2 with heavy plasma guns. 180 points. A decent start.