A Ghostly Experiment

 

Doubtful that I'll ever grow up - I laughed and had to download this one (I believe it's actually been taken off Makers as my downloads has a listing of "The print profile is no longer public"). 

I'm sure that I'll find a creative way to use these in a D&D session, rofl.

In the meantime, I used my little ghost friends as an experiment with Vallejo's Xpress Color paints. These ghosts presented a nice surface area to try and use the paints to cover something large like a cape. While I really really really want to like these paints and the concept of quickly throwing paint around, they're frustrating to me for a couple reasons.

1. I use high quality brushes yet brush strokes are everywhere

2. The way the highlighting and the shading works is based essentially on gravity and results in blotches

3. It dries fast, so you have to work quickly - else you tear the previous paint when it's in its drying state - you essentially can't start in the middle - work left, then work right - when you go back to work right you'll tear the paint you've previously laid down - so you have to work left to right, top to bottom or vice versa depending upon your model

4. Air bubbles - I have no idea why, but when I put the paint on my palette it looks like a drop of good paint - when loading the brush it bubbles into the brush which then results in tiny air bubbles - regular paint from Vallejo, Reaper, Games Workshop, etc. doesn't do this - I use sable brushes, I'll need to come back to this experiment with synthetic brushes - additionally some colors are way more vulnerable to bubble attack - my previous use of brown had no issue - red was minimal - white moderate - blue was very challenging as I had to work the bubbles out and there still ended being some - more examples of those colors which are more likely to generate bubbles can be seen on my Xpress Colors model swatch.

The best luck I've had with the Xpress paints is to use the slapchop method as done with the Frost Devil. Using slapchop gives control of highlight and shadow and makes it easier to paint with the Xpress paints.

As I noted the first time I used Xpress paints - they're not for beginners.

One last experiment performed on these ghosts was using a clear coat - I've tried using Testor's dullcote which is awesome on all miniatures except those painted with Xpress Colors as I found out with this troll and then confirmed with the barkeep. 

This time I used Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch 2x Ultracover Matte Clear which I find at my local Home Depot. I use this spray the majority of the time I paint a miniature that's going to be used on the tabletop - the protection against dings and scratches is top notch. However, even though it says Matte, it's not - not like the Testor's anyways (but you can respray with the Testor's on top and the result is really close to Testor's only but much more protected). 

Judging from the pictures above, there's no re-activation and washing away the paint using the Rust-Oleum product. Which is perfect - if I'm using the Xpress Color paints it's because I need the model asap for an upcoming tabletop game and my players literally have no respect for painted monsters.  They have a habit of tossing them in piles as they clear out the dungeons or worse, flicking them with their fingers to shoot them off the board - and I don't even want to describe the behavior they enact on my beautifully painted boss monster after an epic fight.

Vallejo Xpress Color Reverse Layering

 

I did a bit of an experiment here with Vallejo Xpress colors and a freebie model I received from an Etsy supplier of 3d prints that's a bigger surprise for later. Also, the photography is way more saturated than in real life - I'm currently shooting pics with my Google Pixel 6 and it obviously has a thing for yellows and reds without any other colors in the scene.

The point of this experiment was to reverse the layering process with Xpress Color paints (any contrast types paints will behave the same). Normally I paint a miniature with the darkest colors first and one color layers over another with subsequent colors getting lighter until the final highlight. As I noted in my very first attempt, the xpress/contrast paints don't allow one color overlapping another --- or do they?

My thought was they would if you started with the lightest color first and then work towards the darkest - so instead of shadows to highlights the idea would be highlights to shadows.

The model was undercoated in black primer - and then a heavy drybrush of white primer.

Then the model was painted in the Xpress Color Imperial Yellow. I left the top of the head and the ears, neck, face and remainder of the body was painted in Nuclear Yellow. Shoulders downward painted in Martian Orange. Back and chest downwards with Plasma Red. Buttocks to feet with Velvet Red.

As mentioned, the pic is oversaturated, but the model on the tabletop looks like a lot of fun and this technique of reverse layering definitely worked. Also, I could have just done an area with the first color and then blend in the next area with another color instead of doing less and less of the entire model because part of the experiment was to see how a darker Xpress Color overlaps a lighter Xpress Color.

D'Artisan Shoppe - WetnDri

I can't recall ever doing a product review but I'm quite pleased with a recent purchase of a wet palette but this also includes a dry (dri) palette.  I came across D'Artisan Shoppe once before on Amazon for some brushes and they were okay but not really my style.  From that initial purchase I occasionally receive product info they send out and I received an advert for their WetnDri palette - I normally just use a paper plate, a folded paper towel, and my own cut out parchment paper that I steal from the kitchen.  It works - but palette was reasonably priced on Amazon so I thought it worth the try - works pretty well!

First - whoever is doing the packaging at the D'Artisan Shoppe is a genius.  The packaging is as good as any coming from Apple, Samsung or Google for a high end electronic product.

The palette comes in this lovely box that when you open, it has this nice Thank You message with a QR code to their website to sign up for more information or to send a message about your product.  Fully opening the package gets you to the palette which has a great strap with their logo holding the three sections together with another note explaining the various features of the palette.  Even the sponge pad has their logo stamped into it...

So how did it work...

Well as you would expect - it's science - the moisture from the pad seeps through the parchment paper  into the paint at about the same rate that evaporation occurs which keeps the paint at a pretty constant  to work with while painting your model.  The parchment paper is included and cut to the dimensions of the pad - I think there's 50 pieces which should last me a long time and I could use my own but quite honestly their prices for the pre-cut on Amazon were reasonable and saves me the labor and effort to do it myself.

Some of the other niceties are the various pieces - there's a bottom piece which holds the water, pad, and parchment paper.  Then there's the middle section which has a dozen or so wells for inks or paint you want to mix - I used one of the wells to setup my drybrush with just the right amount of paint.  Finally there's a top piece which works with a paintbrush holder to keep your brushes organized while you paint.  The entire setup is rather nifty.

Here's a picture of the next day after an evening of painting (you can see the primered model in the earlier pictures and the finished model below) - the paint remains decently usable even though I left it all open overnight (probably would be perfect if I put the middle section on the bottom to keep it sealed) because I was done with the model and didn't actually need the paint anymore.

This ends up being the product I didn't know I actually needed - two thumbs way up!

Shout Out to The Painting Clinic (aka: Doctor Faust)

When I started this crazy hobby of ours back in 1999, there wasn't much in the way of resources outside of Games Workshop published material, but the internet was starting to take off and a local group formed which we called dcareaminipainters.  While monthly meets were at a local game store we also used an internet group messaging service (bought out by Yahoo) to communicate.  Eventually there became a larger national and then international internet group on Yahoo and that's where I bumped into Dr. Faust and his minipainting website called the PaintingClinic.

The PaintingClinic quickly became a go to resource for me and over the years I've referenced back numerous times.  Eventually he started a YouTube channel and has now abandoned the website altogether which he explains why in this video here (an excellent little history lesson by the way on the beginnings of using the internet for group collaboration as well as a bit of a tirade on internet trolls and life lessons - I found it all interesting).

Every now and then I get an update of the latest videos from channels which I've set as a favorite - I've viewed a few of PaintingClinics videos but those viewings have been few and far between as they've been mostly sci-fi material or armies - neither of which I'm much interested in.  However, within the last month he's been on a Dungeons and Dragons kick and painting singular minis for his gaming sessions - that's awesome!

While I explain my style of painting as a "layering" approach and I write up the steps/paint in each layer within my blog posts; the PaintingClinic videos SHOW you exactly what it means to use the layering method as well as a glaze to blend the layers together.  These are some fantastic videos and I want to give a shout out to some really cool stuff - the benefits of layering is you get 90% of a fully blended look with 20% of the effort - most of his work is within a 2 hour time period.

As of this blog post - here are the videos...

Reaper Ranger Part One
Reaper Ranger Part Two
Reaper Dr. Orontius Part One
Reaper Dr. Orontius Part Two
Reaper Bones Ogre Part One
Reaper Bones Ogre Part Two
Reaper Bones Hell Hound
Ral Partha Copper Dragon Part One
Ral Partha Copper Dragon Part Two

I highly recommend taking the time to watch these videos.  They're all very nicely done (even have a professional feel to them) and last about fifteen minutes each on average.

Setup and Undercoat a Model

During the summer months I'm typically very busy with the kids sports and therefore don't have a big block of time to paint. So I've been working on prepping and undercoating a whole bunch of miniatures. I have something like 30 ready to go. Another 20 on my desk which have been assembled and cleaned (from mold lines, flash, etc.), but not based and undercoated.

I've been wanting to try a hand at producing a how to video - therefore why not start at undercoating a model. I had a bit of time today and had a great time making a video on how to setup a miniature on a spool and then undercoat with black spray paint. Here's my first mini-painting tutorial...



Well that was a lot of fun! It took a bit of time but I had fun putting the video together. You have to think through all the scenes and the dialog for each. I had a basic idea but did a lot of winging it with the dialog. As always, let me know what you think and I'll try doing this again - maybe something on making the stone base effect - good for an rpg session as most take place in medieval town, castle, dungeon, or cave.