School's Out

Being a teacher, I can honestly admit that the best period in the year has begun for me. Two months off regular work and plenty of free time. Can't really complain. I plan on painting some more LotR minis as well as a few from Malifaux. Also, I definitely want to try actually playing the game. But first I need some time off, away from work, computer, maybe even paints.

Slow progress

We adopted another cat a couple of weeks ago. They've been getting along pretty well. They fight a lot but draw no blood so I guess that's OK. They definitely keep each other entertained for the most part. And they sleep. A lot. I read once that cats sleep between 16 to 18 hours. I guess that's a pretty accurate estimate.

Fortunately for me, they're very careful around my workspace. Overall, I can totally recommend getting a second pet if you have only one at home :)

I'm still working on a large batch of Gondor minis. It's a tedious work as I'm working on several miniatures simultaneously. It's easy to get carried away and start cutting corners so I have to constantly remind myself to slow down. So far I've painted the black/grey areas, the armors and basecoated the brown parts. There's still plenty of work left but as I said, haste makes waste.

The Jolly Boys

Not much to say here, these guys are simply amazing, check them out:

Pumping Iron

So I'm finally back into serious painting after being occupied mainly by playing Diablo 3. I'm currently working on a larger batch of Minas Tirith Warriors and Knights - all plastic.
I started with putting together the mounts. I was worried that I might have a hard time working with that but the nice thing is that they're actually numbered on the inside so you can't really make a mistake here. The sculpts are pretty nice but horses from the LotR range look good in general. After putting together the halves it was just a matter of working over them with some LGS and they were ready for priming. I'm not going to glue the Knights to the backs of the mounts as painting them separately will be much easier. Also, it'll be much easier to transport them.
I used Platemail Metal primer from Army Painter on the Warriors. I used the same basecoat for the previous heavily armored minis from Minas Tirith army and it worked well. Following the basecoating, I prepared the bases and was ready to work on the armors. The first step was to tone the armor plated down and fill the recesses with black color. I used good old Badab Black on previous occasion. This time I wanted to play around with other black washes that I have. Here are the results after one coat of Black wash:

The washes I used were (from the left): GW Badab Black, Army Painter Dark Tone, Vallejo Black Shade and P3 Armor Wash. Badab Black and Dark Tone had a pretty similar effect, while Vallejo Black Shade was more opaque, I don't really know how to describe it but it had a sort of smoky look to it. Quite predictably, P3 armor wash looked different as it had a more glossy, darker look.

In the pic below you can see the same minis after a second wash.

Sorry I messed up the order here but you can see the effects I described more clearly here as they became more pronounced. The Vallejo wash is a tad grayish. At this point I think I'll wither go with Badab Black/Dark Tone or P3 Armor Wash as it is darker and highlights the details better. The glossy effect will disappear after applying matt varnish anyway. I'll make up my mind after working with metallic paints over these. And for that I'll definitely stick to Army Painter paints.

The Judge reveals his true identity

Here's my next ITIC entry. As I planned, I'm sticking to Wyrd minis that fit the theme (even when it's a bit far fetched ;) This round's theme is "IT"S ALIVE!"

I like this one even more than the original mini (which I painted a while ago), very dynamic pose with wonderful details. I had a blast painting him. If the pic is too small, click here to see a larger version.