Author Topic: Pinbacks Blog: My Road to Averland. Updated 07/July/2010 (Read 21010 times)

Pinback · « **on:** January 01, 2010, 08:33:55 PM »

Hello folks and wellcome to my Blog: My Road to Averland

I have officially been part of this hobby for all of about two months and in that time all i have really done is rough out a 3k army, spend money (some of it still a secret from my lovely and far to trusting wife), pick a colour theme, mess with greenstuff and spend what i am learning is a little to much time shaving mould lines off codpieces.

The time I have spent so far on this forum has been invaluable in helping me avoid some of the problems that a newcomer hits as well as give me a wealth of inspiration and knowledge. So far my dumb questions have been met with patience and some great answers (sometimes the answers do spark new dumb questions though, but i have held back)

So I am thinking rather than me randomly post questions and images, i would blog in here (if that is cool grand forum overlords?) my progress in building up and painting my 1st ever warhammer army.

As a little background on me, my abilities and experiences. I am 31. In my life i have painted about 10 warhammer models all when i was about 14-15, all for friends that i guess played the game while i was reading comic books. I have done a little model making in past jobs which should help me out and i strive for perfection (sometimes this means i am really dam slow however and often never finish). I picked an Empire army simply because to me they looked the best fun to paint and play and most of my future games will be against a friend of mine that has lived and breathed Orcs for about 10years and my younger brother (by 11 years) that plays high elves.

Anyways here is the first picture. The contents of these boxes will become a 3k army, no named characters, in the Averland colours. For now most sit all wrapped up snug next to bunch of paints that i need to learn how to use over the next few months. June is my deadline for full completion but running up to that i am hoping to play some smaller games to teach me the rules as i guess i should learn what to do with my guys once painted up. Feedback cruel and kind is always welcome. Enjoy. Pinback

Delthos · « **Reply #1 on:** January 01, 2010, 09:15:59 PM »

Wow, 3,000 points by June and you are an admitted slow painter! I applaud your efforts if you finish it by then. I started work on an Empire army in February last year and had a goal of finishing 2,000 points by the end of the year. I wound up getting 1,000 points finished. I hope to finish the other 1,000 and do another 1,000 by the end of this year.

Oh yeah, there is nothing wrong with a personal painting log on the forum. Lots of people have them, me included! As a matter of fact, just as soon as I finish my Army Standard bearer, I'll be updating it with some new pics of the stuff I've finished since the last update.

http://www.warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=29699.msg416397#msg416397

Zak · « **Reply #2 on:** January 01, 2010, 10:11:25 PM »

1st of all welcome, and i too would love to see your army painted in the next few months ..so post as you finish units or models.....I have been painting and collecting (Empire) for 10 years now i dint think my army will ever be finished ...lol

Pinback · « **Reply #3 on:** January 01, 2010, 11:16:59 PM »

haha thanks guys. June may be hard to achieve but if i dont set a tough goal i know i will go even slower. i kind of know it may not happen but i am also hoping that i get faster as i practice more and more. I guess with this blog running you guys will get to see how fast i go. Place your bets now on my real completion date hehe.

GamesPoet · « **Reply #4 on:** January 02, 2010, 12:19:44 AM »

3,000 points by June is ambitious. Get a good head start this month, yet pace yourself. I've been painting my empire army for about a year and a half, yet I don't even have 1500 complete yet. Course I've been side tracked with 1500 points in 40k orks recently, and a few other thigns along the way. If you need painbting pointers, there are plenty on this site, and feel free to ask for more.

Good luck, don't give up, and keep us posted.

steveb · « **Reply #5 on:** January 02, 2010, 05:19:19 AM »

paint you most common soldiers first, save your characters and specials till later, otherwise when you get a few under your belt and get better you will have to go back and redo these center of attentions in your army. However poorly painted or less well painted line troops can be stuck in the back, and don't really need to be redone, unlike your general who is always going to be front and center so to speak. You can get your points painted in a years time easily, but find an experienced gamer/painter to show/teach you some techniques and trick such as dipping and staining for instant shading and such forth. good luck, lucking forward to seeing your work. steveb

Delthos · « **Reply #6 on:** January 02, 2010, 08:50:06 AM »

Good advice. Also another reason to paint your Core first is that as this is the Empire and we have lots of cheap core troops, meaning you will have lots of them. If you don't concentrate on finishing Core first, you risk getting bored with them while painting the other fun stuff and then you are left with a bunch of unpainted Core models and lots of other painted characters, specials, and rares. Get yourself at least three good blocks of core and at least one detachment for each before you move on to other more interesting stuff to paint.

I'm not following this advice exactly, but I'm shooting for 20 to 30 core models per special, rare, or character unit. This keeps things mixed up and I reward myself with something fun/interesting every once in a while. It helps keep me motivated to continuously grow my core troops as I can't do more of the other stuff until all my core choices are painted. So far I have 79 core models painted, and two special choices (mortar and great cannon), and one and a half characters painted.

Pinback · « **Reply #7 on:** January 02, 2010, 09:33:45 AM »

Cheers guys for the advice.

So far the fear of cockups has me keeping clear of my griffon and cannons. At the moment for me, every model is a new challenge, so I may be able to keep the core troop brain melting issue at bay, well at least for the first 20. Let's see if I am still so full of beans by spearman number 21 of a total 67. Last night I completed gluing together my 12 handgunners so these guys + my 6 archers and some random "painting practice" models will get primed up today....

Unfortunatily there is no painting guru nearby so you guys and YouTube are my main reference.

CaptScott · « **Reply #8 on:** January 02, 2010, 09:37:05 AM »

I love that first shot, everything is so new and shiny.

Good luck with the project!

Morden · « **Reply #9 on:** January 02, 2010, 11:04:57 AM »

Hi, Pinback

Best of luck with your project, Could you give us a quick run down on your modals you posted a pictured of if thats not to much trouble and What kind of army your wish to run?.

Cheers and good luck again

.

Immovable Object · « **Reply #10 on:** January 02, 2010, 11:13:16 AM »

Be sure to update your blog as you get things painted. If you need any help or advice Im sure we're all more than happy to oblige. Good luck

Pinback · « **Reply #11 on:** January 02, 2010, 11:38:35 AM »

The boxes =

80x state troops
20x knights
30x handgunners or crossbows
2x general boxes
1x general on griffon
3x cannons or mortor
1x helblaster
5x pistoliers
1x wizard box
20x freecompany
6x archers
1x pegasus

I also have a warrior priest and grey wizard model that a friend gave me to practice on

I think that's the lot. Will edit when I get home if not.

Mainly I would like the army to be spearmen mostly with freecompany and crossbow detatchment plus some random stuff like archers, handgunners, pistoliers and knights backed up by 3 cannons/mortors or a mix of the 2. I brought extra generals/captains to add in to the core teams and as i didn't go for a named char I picked some cool looking beasts. That's about the main of my army plan

skipper · « **Reply #12 on:** January 04, 2010, 01:32:21 AM »

Well, first off, good luck!

It took me half a year to paint 500 points, so don't feel to bad if you don't go as fast as you expect, like Zak said. However, as has been mentioned before, you really must pace yourself. If you can paint a guy a day, you will do quite well. Weekends, aim for much more. If you paint faster, congratulations. At first, it will most likely take an hour per model. Try to paint all your models to your best at first, and try to paint this same quality quicker and quicker. Also, painting unit by unit helps too. I recently purchased some 600 points myself, so we're in the same boat here.

Otherwise, good luck and enjoy!

-Skipper

ninerfan · « **Reply #13 on:** January 04, 2010, 02:03:32 AM »

Welcome to the Hobby & our wonderful forums Pinback. I like a guy who sets hard core goals like this. I hope you achieve it - from experience (blog in signature) I know that it can be done - but with a lot of time put in - I was putting in 1-2 hours every week day and 8hrs a weekend.

Also, choosing a painting method will probably help too (like some of the others have mentioned - dipping. staining etc). Personally I spray with white undercoat (as it gives brighter colours), add the basic colours for a whole unit, follow up with the few extra bits & pieces for jewls, extra equitment, scars etc & then use the GW washes to create all of my shading. I don't do highlights etc because like you, I'm really still a newbie that stuff scares me too much.

One again, good luck - I'll be watching this post for your updates

Death · « **Reply #14 on:** January 04, 2010, 04:28:58 AM »

1rst newbie roadblock i see in that picture = citadel black spray. Its a fine product and will work well BUT it is way overpriced. go to wall-mart or a simmilar retailer and find Krylon flat black/white/gray spray (color depends on your preference, some people do actually use gray)

second roadblock i see, although less of one = no varnish. without varnish a paintjob can chip. Again, Krylon flat/matte clear spray does the job well and won't make your models super shiny.

both sprays mentioned are $3 per spray can and work as well for me as my singular citadel spray can did.

i wish you luck in your painting and modeling endeavors.

Pinback · « **Reply #15 on:** January 05, 2010, 11:57:44 PM »

OK guys here he comes.... The first of my army........... He took me about 3 to 4 hours but in that time there was a lot of cursing, squinting and overpainting of previous work. I don't think i am 100% happy but i think it would be better if i now move on to the next model and look to improve on that rather that keep hammering away at this one. As first attempts go though i think he is passable.

what did i learn though on this guy....

Painting eyes is insane.......... Just insane.

metal is a little more complicated that i expected. i ended up doing Tin Bits base coat the dry brush of boltgun then chainmail followed by a 50/50 mix of blk and brown washes.

Yellow is good fun to paint but i almost had to drag my self away from killing it with to much sepia wash (its so much fun that part of shading).

Black is really tough and i went for the option of doing quit a light mix of chaos blk and codex grey and then kept adding on layers of the blk wash on progressively smaller areas.

the standard supplied paints with skin names are not so skin. i really wanted lighter than i ended up with and have realised to get that you have to look further in to the paint range and start mixing (something for the next guy)

Anyways here he is. the picture was taken only minutes ago so no natural light makes him look a little different than in person, much of my highlighting and shading to his face and moustache is missing .

As i said at the start i would really value feedback on how you think he turned out and also some of the methods i used, as i really want to progress in this side of the hobby.

ninerfan · « **Reply #16 on:** January 06, 2010, 12:02:04 AM »

That's pretty darn good mate.

Oh - about the eyes - Yes it's insane!! I don't even do the eyes on my troops - too much for me.

Fog Of Waagh · « **Reply #17 on:** January 06, 2010, 12:26:45 AM »

You sir, win the internets.

Bast damn eyes I have EVER seen.

Death · « **Reply #18 on:** January 06, 2010, 12:48:52 AM »

Quote from: Fog Of Waagh on January 06, 2010, 12:26:45 AM

You sir, win the internets.

Bast damn eyes I have EVER seen.

QFT

good job dude. now get some krylon flat clear and varnish that sucker to keep him safe for eternity.

Pinback · « **Reply #19 on:** January 06, 2010, 12:57:37 AM »

Thanks guys for the kind words. As for varnish, I found that the paint set came with a pot of some. Is that ok to use or should I only get a spray on?

Death · « **Reply #20 on:** January 06, 2010, 01:30:27 AM »

its ok to use, but it makes your mini's shiny. as i said before, for three bucks you can't go wrong, just make sure you test it before application on a model, there is a possibility you could get a bad can (the spray still works but causes "textured white dots" on the model.

skipper · « **Reply #21 on:** January 06, 2010, 02:08:38 AM »

Yup, good job! Most people don't bother painting (or even trying) to paint eyes to the extent that you have successfully pulled off.

Applause for your first shot at it.

Otherwise, If you can paint all you models to that level, you will get quicker and quicker. It's like running a mile: you time just gets better and better, or, like cooking a cake: it just gets easier and easier.

As for highlighting, it is quick, and quite painless.

Also, I noticed that you have no visible areas requiring touch-ups. These little suckers are black holes of time. You can spend hours trying to fix 'em up. This means that either you spent too much time painting your model perfectly (not necessary the first time on the model) or you spent too much time doing touch-ups. For touch-ups, simply dap on a dot of the basecoat color over the error, and voila! You're done.
Touch-ups are small enough that they are easily covered up.

By painting your models slightly quicker, and then mass-touching-up them afterwards, you can save hours, and, they will look equally nicely in the end.
Note: This is for massed troops only: generals, heroes, and such should be painted exactly as you did

In other words, NICE WORK!

Siberius · « **Reply #22 on:** January 06, 2010, 09:00:25 AM »

That guy looks mean! In a good way.

I look forward to seeing a whole army like this in the near future

.

Skyros · « **Reply #23 on:** January 07, 2010, 08:30:03 PM »

Quote from: Death on January 04, 2010, 04:28:58 AM

1rst newbie roadblock i see in that picture = citadel black spray. Its a fine product and will work well BUT it is way overpriced. go to wall-mart or a simmilar retailer and find Krylon flat black/white/gray spray (color depends on your preference, some people do actually use gray)

second roadblock i see, although less of one = no varnish. without varnish a paintjob can chip. Again, Krylon flat/matte clear spray does the job well and won't make your models super shiny.

both sprays mentioned are $3 per spray can and work as well for me as my singular citadel spray can did.

i wish you luck in your painting and modeling endeavors.

I'm glad I caught that bit of advice - I'd been using the citadel primer and had no idea there were better cheaper alternatives.

I went to Wal mart and somehow came away with something called "Krylon fusion' that bonds to plastic..but is more pricey than $3. Is that better than normal kyrlon? Is it the least bit necessary or am I just throwing money away?

wissenlander · « **Reply #24 on:** January 07, 2010, 08:56:22 PM »

Yep. The eyes are the first thing I noticed. Very well done. It can be a very fun and rewarding journey. Patience and persistance are the key. Neither of which I have in this area, but I hope you do! Blogging should help you out in that regard, though. Good luck!

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Author Topic: Pinbacks Blog: My Road to Averland. Updated 07/July/2010 (Read 21010 times)