Back to the Drawing Board...

So, this is the Piranha as it stood yesterday with the main colour areas blocked out. As you can see, I've gone for a large amount of white (currently grey here) so as not to overwhelm the model with the Electric Blue look. and i was pretty happy with it.

And last night I got some time to work on building up the white areas and the bloody thing looks dreadful. It may be the quality of the paint, as i try to run down my GW paints before opening my newer Vallejo set, but more i think its the technique - painting light grey and then layering up to white works great for small areas on battlesuits and helmets but here it just emphasises the grey and the whole thing looks, well, tatty.

blah.

so, new plan - bring on a heavier blue on the wings, keep the white striping on the hull and and add white stripe markings on the wings. We'll have to see how that goes, but i'm pretty disgruntled with it at the moment!

The Kan Can!

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I spent a bit of the weekend building Orks with the eldest offspring, which included a group of Killa Kans. Now, I've had a big exam this week, and as part of the "between revision" panic cycle I've been painting to relax, because, well, i find it relaxing. And just for the hell of it I grabbed one of the Kans and did that in the style that eldest offspring is aiming at.

As mentioned, he likes the metallic paints and envisions his Orks covered in shiny metal plates, rather than painted up a primary colour like most standard clan schemes. So that was the starting point. I was also a little wary of the orks as i didn't get on with the AoBR Deffkoptas; I just couldn't my head around what I wanted to do with them and the couple I painted are a mess. That said, I think this guy has turned out OK - pictures and comments after the cut.

Boyz for Da Boy!

One of the bonuses of Parenthood is the ability to inflict your obsessions on your kids. I mean, they seem to have an in built filter of some kind that lets them know that their parents are inherently uncool, and anything they recommend is either rubbish, or some sort of trick that's secretly good for them, but generally speaking if you show enough enthusiasm for what you like doing, some of it will wear off on them. 

And so it seems to be with the "painting of tiny mans". Sure, his attention span isn't great, and his technique is mostly about chucking some green paint on here and some metal paint on there, and then liberally covering the boyz in blood spatter, but he enjoys it, it passes a wet weekend afternoon, and I've got the chance to actually play some 40k for the first time in over a decade.

And it's given me an interesting perspective on the game - firstly that its not always the most intuitive system in the world and could do with a couple less tables, because we are constantly looking things up as fights get messy and its not always easy to see how the statistics play out. Whats weird is that is in many ways it's not that complicated - its just that not as smooth as it could be. Secondly, it's lots of fun - "we" like the big buckets of dice and the fact that even a bad round often sees lots of casualties.

We're definitely playing for laughs - we don't have enough figures for balanced sides and we're often swapping in figures for other figures, especially by poor Chimera which seems to have been permanently stolen by Da Orks. But who cares, right? because we can make war over the lounge carpet, and thats what its all about...

Painting Table Update May 2012

Well, its that time again when I run out of immediate projects and cast around for what to do next. Since finishing up my second XV8 i've been back to the one i painted up last year and re-emphasised it's highlights so it matches with its newer, shinier comrade. It's not as good a job, I'm afraid, after a bit of a fight with the paint-mixing-process but still an improvement, and as ever, I've probably learned more from the mess than if it had just worked out OK.

Now with Blur-O-Vision! The really observant will note that I've also swapped his shoulder gun for a Missile Pod to keep him consistent.

Anyway, this leaves me without anything actually built up to paint, but this morning I picked up a parcel from the mail containing both a Tau Piranha and a set of Ork Killa Kans to reinforce my sons horde. The former is to try out the blue-and-white scheme on a vehicle frame, in case I want to stick with Tau, and the out of the latter I'll probably swipe at least one of the Kans for my own amusement as I've not really had a go at anything Orky yet.

After that, well taking a break from Blood Ravens has been fun, but I may be heading back to those bad boys again...possibly for a Force Commander and Command Squad.

Tau XV8 Crisis Suit COMPLETED

Right then, done.

Bit of a change of style on this guy, actually. With the Marines I've been painting I've gone for deliberately muted highlights; enough to bring out the detail but nothing to strong, with the intent to give them a worn, slightly tired effect to represent the old, but well-cared-for equipment they possess. The Tau, well the Tau are something else. On top of the aforementioned chopping and reposing his arms (which i think looks really good on the finished model!) I've gone for a different paint style - much stronger highlights shading in an attempt to replicate a slightly cel-shaded look that fits the Tau's clearly anime-inspired designs. It's not perfect, and a little rough in places, but on the whole I think its a good fit and as I do more Tau I'll stick to this design.

Pictures after the cut.