My apologies for yet another belated update. The last week and a half hasn’t gone as well as I would like hobby wise so I more or less had to delay from the usual weekly cadence. I was working on Rashida, a bust from Big Child Creatives and while I was quite proud of the skin tones I more or less improvised, I made a dumb mistake that I couldn’t fix.
When you glaze, you have to be careful with one thing. Always let the paint dry before you apply another layer. If you “play” around with it using your brush before its dry, it makes the surface of your mini uneven and leads to what’s often called “staining” where the paint color you applied does not look nice. To prevent this, I try to verify that the paint is indeed dry before I apply another layer because I’ve made this mistake before and it can cost you hours to fix. Well, I made that very mistake in spite of my usual care and I spent a couple hours trying to fix what looked like a dimple on her cheek but in the end, I couldn’t. Unfortunately, I’d applied so many thin layers trying to fix it that the one cheek looked swollen as if she’d been in a fight. Not ideal. I decided I would try and strip away the paint on that cheek which led to the paint being uneven on the mini. In for a penny, in for a pound as they say, I then tried to strip all of the paint and start over and I ended up breaking her long fingernail at the very end of that process. It was that annoying scenario where one mistake led to more mistakes. Needless to say, I won’t be painting this copy of Rashida which is a shame. I should be able to source another copy fairly easily and I look forward to trying again. You’ll have to take my word for it, but the skin looked really nice and I was quite proud of it until I wasn’t.
Messing that up made me have to scramble to find something else to work on. Possibly against my better judgement, I started up on Henry from Neko Galaxy. I say that because I didn’t have a base for him when I started and I wanted to get one beforehand because you need to drill a hole in the bottom of busts. That way you can impale him on the display base as you do with busts. I will try and get that sorted out as soon as I can because I wouldn’t want to damage paint on him because I was impatient and didn’t things out of order. This is incredibly early days but here’s a little sneak peek to hopefully wet your appetite.
Henry and Rashida are the first minis I’ve primed in black in years and I have to say that while I was priming in a light gray for several years there, its nice to be back to black. It makes it easy to see where the highlights should go. Its also funny to muse on trends or “best practices” in our hobby. When I started about twenty years ago, everything was supposed to be primed in black and then lighter colors were the go to, especially once Contrast paints came out. It isn’t cool or hip to prime in black again as far as I know, I just think it helps me deliver higher quality paint jobs but still its interesting to think about. No word on when Goblin Green bases are coming back in style either!
I could have gotten more done on Henry but I also wanted to get some Fallout stuff done that has been sitting on my desk for a while. That meant working on another Raider. Before I picked up this one, there were three unpainted Raiders which isn’t many at all, but most of them are so filled with straps and belts that I find them a bit tedious to work on. This one was no exception. Thank goodness I only have one more Raider with lots of straps left to paint in the box! As is often the case, this is the mini before any rust is applied and I’ll probably add some tufts to his base as well.
Its not the greatest picture you’ve ever seen but you get the idea anyway. I’d love to finish the other two Raiders this year and get them out of my queue. I’m sure they’ll be interesting to try out in the game as well so that is hopefully the carrot on a stick.
I will be away for a few days most likely since I have family visiting currently. I’m lucky enough to be off work next week and I’m thinking it might be a great time to play Fallout Wasteland Warfare again so we’ll see if I can’t whip up some kind of battle report in the near future. I think I’ll also give Kingdom Rush another go if I can find the time as well. I have a feeling a little more time with that game should give me a sense of whether its something I will keep playing for months to come or if I’m getting closer to giving up on it.
Kuribo's Painting 
Sorry to hear about your woes with Rashida, but the skin tones you’ve got going on the Henry model, are already looking fantastic, have a close look at some old masters paintings (Michael Angelo, type) as it would be a good example of using green on skin tone, as I think it would be a great glaze to use in shadows on this model.
Really like the raider so far, and look forward to seeing it with your weathering on it. Hope you find time for the games in the coming week.
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I’d like to say I learn from these mistakes, but I’m not entirely sure I do or at least it feels that way some days. At least its easy to get a replacement.
Its funny you mention that about Henry. I gave some real thought to making him look like a Van Saar from Necromunda which have that look from what I can tell. I have something special in mind for Henry that is a bit different but hopefully you like how it looks in the end.
My family just left this evening so I can definitively say that I’m very much looking forward to sleep and doing some gaming this week.
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Priming in Black, I still do a lot of black and greys, and really with 100% white primer. I like the work you’ve done thus far.
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I don’t know why I tend to only prime everything in one color because its as easy as ever to have several different primers at your disposal. Thank you and I look forward to seeing what you do with the bust you’ve started as well.
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That’s unfortunate for the Rashida bust, sounds like stripping the whole thing was the right call but stripping resin is tricky at best as it’s so fragile. Nice job on the new bust and the raider! Good to get stuck back in after a disappointment.
I’ve been undercoating black again also for the past few months and I do have to say I do like it and have missed it.
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I neglected to mention it but that was the first time I had ever tried to strip a mini. I really don’t do it much at all and I was surprised how well the primer stuck to the resin. There was quite a bit that would not come off, no matter how hard I scrubbed it. You live and you learn!
The big upside to black priming is that if you miss a spot in the cracks or crevices of the mini, its no sweat! I really didn’t like that about priming in the lighter colors and so I wouldn’t be surprised if I stick with black primers for the foreseeable future.
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The best way to strip is with a bit of chemical assistance but solvents often also interact with resin which makes it really tricky. I don’t have much experience at all stripping resin, I’ve tried to stay away as much as possible!
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The raider looks excellent (as always) but I know what you mean about tedious belts and straps. Infinity minis from Corvus Belli are the same; every surface is another pouch or clip of something.
I’m very much looking forward to seeing where you go with Henry, the bust looks interesting. It’s a shame that you had to bail out on Rashida but hopefully you got to learn from the experience first.
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Those Infinity minis have a lot of fine details to be sure. Some Fallout minis are quite straightforward but the Raiders and Institute are not. They test my patience but I am thankful the game has a low model count at the same time.
I’m not sure I ever learn from my modeling mistakes but I do try! I’m glad that I had Henry on deck so I could transition into something else pretty easily.
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Well, it’s my hobby so I’ll damn well prime in whatever colour I want to! 😉 It’s usually a colour close to the darkest shade on the largest area of a model for me, but I just slap it on with a brush and hope for the best!
Shame about the painting upsets, Jeff, but you are making some progress! Here’s hoping you can get some game time in! 🙂
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sorry about that the bust got busted. Lame. Better luck with the next one.
I’ve always primed in black. I’m tempted to try the zenathal prime method but I never seem to remember while doing it. 😀
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For awhile I would prime bad guys in black and good guys in white 😂 Then I was priming everything in grey until I couldn’t find the grey paint I was happy with. Now I tend to use white for everything, or I will prime a batch of figures with whatever the prominent color is going to be. My uruk-hai I primed with army painter plate metal!
The hardest lesson to learn in any craft is patience, I’ve lost track of how many mistakes I’ve had to correct just because I’m impatient to finish something. I have learned to have several items going at once so I can do something while something else dries.
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Good luck Jeff. For what its worth, all of these look great – but what is Henry?
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