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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I only used 90% Isopropyl Alcohol for better and worse! I do wonder if that weakened the resin at all, though truthfully, the piece I broke off is the exact piece you would expect to accidentally break off so I was far from surprised when it finally happened.
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I’m not sure if the alcohol would interact, it’s probably pretty ok seeing as it’s used to clean 3D prints but that’s a completely different resin so who knows. To get around the scrubbing breaking models I use a cheap ultrasonic cleaner to get most of the paint off and only scrub minimally, that’s worked pretty well for me recently.
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I’ll have to remember that on the ultrasonic cleaner. If nothing else, brushing the miniature 3-4 times was very tedious. In fact my main takeaway was to try not to make mistakes in the future so I don’t have to do any of this again. Easier said than done, of course! 🙂
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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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It absolutely is, John! 😀 I think going with the darker shades has the great advantage of covering up any missed spots much better than white primer. That is one of the big reasons why I think I’ll be sticking with black for the foreseeable future.
It is a shame but we will always make mistakes from time to time. I’m starting to squeeze some gaming time in now that my relatives are gone 🙂
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You are so right about black hiding things! 🙂 My dad used to say “If you can see it, paint it; if you can’t see it, flood it with black”! Glad to hear you’re getting some gaming in! 🙂
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Those are words of wisdom! 😀
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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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That is my hope as well. Sometimes things just don’t work out and that was the case here.
I think black is a solid choice. The Zenithal highlighting might save you a bit of time but I’ve never used it myself either so I can’t say for sure!
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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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Haha, I like that! There are quite a lot of starter boxes that come with colored plastic so that one side is one color and the other is another so there is some wisdom in that scheme.
Patience and a level head do go a long way. I thought I was pretty patient and kept a level head until the very end but it wasn’t enough in this case. I do the same thing and tend to have two things going at once if I need to wait for things to dry. It definitely helps prevent tedium and cut down on downtime.
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Good luck Jeff. For what its worth, all of these look great – but what is Henry?
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I might need a bit of luck! Henry is the bust that is smoking a cigarette. That is what the manufacturer calls him so I follow suit.
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Oh man, that’s really lame about that bust I really liked the pic of Rashida and I’m relieved to hear that you will try to take that one again. Harry looks great so far (as does the Raider). I like the purplish shading you have on his skin.
The online teacher I had mentioned used black primer. But did a bit of Zenithal to make it show up better on camera. So apparently black is not dead. I think I’m still more partial to grey, as I can get much more vibrant highlights that way. I think it’s more a matter of personal preference though, so go with what you like best! 😃
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It was certainly deflating to mess up like that. I’ll have to try and do better in the future. Glad to hear you like how Henry is starting off. I’ve run into some challenges with him as well but I should have some great progress next update.
I like black primer because you can point your lights whatever direction you want where if you do zenithal, that is all you’re going to get. For most gamers though, Zenithal is all they care about so I can see why the teacher recommended it. More so than in the past, you can prime stuff in whatever way you want and what works for you which can only be a good thing in my opinion!
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Ah ok, I think that makes more sense. If you lay down the black primer, you’ll get your darkest shadows and then (without Zenithal) can create light where you like. I mean, I do like that it’s easier to hide the hard to reach places with black primer, but I’m still a bit biased toward grey. But your comment certainly gave me some good for thought.
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I probably could have explained it better so let me try to fill in the details better. GW’s black primer is a bit shiny and by making the miniature black, its really easy to hold the miniature up to light (preferably a desk lamp) and see where the light hits it. You can put the light above for zenithal or any other direction as desired. That is basically my go to strategy for painting over the last year or so which was when I learned of it. So if you’re somebody who’s concerned about lighting or want to get better with it, I’d recommend this strategy.
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Oh that’s nice. It’s been awhile, but il pretty sure the stynylrez black primer is matte. So it probably won’t work unless I pick up another brand.
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A satin one of any brand is probably good but I can certainly vouch for Citadel’s black primer. Its worked nicely for me since I picked it up a month or two ago.
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