My Escalation League Army Build Up Part 2

BLOGS FOR THE BLOG GOD!!!!

Okay so I've been a bit remiss about keeping up with my plan on the Escalation league. Unfortunately life has been keeping me busy and haven't had the time to keep on track with my army build up plan.

I do have some things to report though and of course some pictures for everyone to ooo and aaah at. Okay maybe complain about it being washed out or blurry.

Let me start off by saying... I hate painting red over white. I used the white so it picks out the detail better but man what a pain. I started out layering up Brick Red as a base for the red bits. This took about 3 to 4 coats on most areas, but some places required 6 layers. It was an interesting color to say the least, kind of had a purple hue to it, but it actually worked in the end.

Here's a mini with the first coat of Brick Red put on it. As you can see one coat allowed quite a bit of the white to show through. The Brick Red seemed to rub off quite easily too on the tips of the model. Just handling them caused a bit to rub off.

My next color I used to layer up was Reaper's Blood Red. It's a more vibrant red then the Brick Red, but not as bright as GW's Blood Red. I didn't get any pictures of the mini in this color but you'll see it on the Rhino below. This is close to a color between GW's Blood Red and Red Gore I think. Not too bad a color over all, but not as vibrant as the Blood Red from GW.


As you can see it's a nice red, I've left the Brick Red in some of the more recessed areas for shading. I really like how this Rhino is turning out, also like how the Berzerkers are turning out.

Unfortunately I didn't take into account the many layers of reds I would need. Even this Blood Red from Reaper still took several coats to cover up the Brick Red completely. I do have to say though I'm pleased overall with it, just wish I could find a short cut to save some time.



I'll have to look into that at a later time. To the right you see the Rhino with the final layer of red. I used Vallejo's Game Color Blood Red as I like their paints a little bit more then GW's.

I also used Brassy Brass from Vallejo and Tarnished Steel from Reaper as base coats for the other bits you see on the Rhino. I'll wash the brass with a brown/black ink wash I use for most of my metallic colors. I will also wash the tarnished steel and then use a chainmail color to highlight those. Same with the Brass color. I'll most likely just use the base color over top the washed brass first layer.

Half finished Berzerker

Below is the top down look on the Rhino from Steps 2 to 3 with the red colors. Second one is a bit blurry, sorry about that, but you can definitely see the color difference. I think an army that looks like this is going to be very sharp on the tabletop indeed.

Primer

Recently someone asked me my opinion on Primers. So I figured I’d go ahead and put my thoughts to paper and actually update the Blogs as well. So here are my thoughts on Primer.

I won’t say that any Primer is superior to any other; I can only tell you what I’ve experienced and what I’ve seen. I used to love GW’s Primer; I had a can of white that lasted eons.

Eventually I ran out, so thinking I would get the same results I went and bought more GW Primer. Granted I was a little sticker shocked at the price that the Primer had risen to, but I was willing to pay it for the quality I got.

So I took my purchase home, walked out into the garage and got ready to spray a Rhino. Boy was I in for a surprise. The spray came out hard and fast which is not a good thing as it tends to push light plastic all over the place. Another thing is it tended to be chalky and grainy. Some people say “Oh you got a bad can”, I thought so as well and returned it for another. Same thing happened with the new can. Sure it could have been a bad batch of cans, but for the price I was paying quality control should be better.

What I needed now was an alternative. I went and tried various sand able Primers from the automotive section in Wal-Mart and such. While the price was right, the primer was too thick and tended to diminish the detail on the minis. Also the fumes of that primer got really bad at times, I continued my search.

That’s when someone told me about Armory’s Primer. I knew about their Primer, it was one of the first one’s I got way back when. When I first used it I wasn’t impressed with it. I didn’t think it was a bad Primer, just not a great Primer. I saw the new can and thought to myself, “Hey cool, they got Kovalic to do their can wrappers.” (For those of you who don’t know Kovalic… shame on you…go here at once www.dorktower.com)

I can say their Primer is better than it used to be and in my opinion better then the new GW Primers. They also have Grey which works well for medium shades of color and to me a little bit easier to get a darker red to work. They also have the traditional White and Black Primers.

I used Armory Primer up to about a year ago. I stumbled across a Primer that I never would of thought would be very good. Rust-oleum’s Painter’s Touch Primer. So far I’ve used the White and Black, but they also have Red and Grey (although I haven’t seen these at the store yet). You can get them at any Lowe’s or Home Depot and it’s about a fifth of the cost from GW’s Primer.

It goes on even and dries quickly. It is a little thicker then GW and Armory Primer so you have to be a little more aware of how much you’re spraying, but not nearly as thick as the automotive Primers. It was a nice middle ground, and since it’s thicker than normal you use less of it overall per mini. So now that can of Primer will go a long way.

I’ve used it on plastic, on metal and even on Resin. It sticks to them all. Leaves a nice even coat when it dries and I haven’t had a grainy can or one that starts spraying like silly string. It’s very resilient as well, I haven’t had it rub off or chip with normal moving of the mini. I feel that it’s well worth the cost and time to learn how to use this primer.

If I had to point out a “bad” thing with it is that sometimes it tends to dry shiny. Not really a big deal since it doesn’t “shine” through the base coats, but if you wanted to base coat a large structure and leave it black it might be dull and shiny in places. So just a heads up.

So there you have it, my thoughts on different Primers that I’ve used. Of course this is all relative as I’m sure others have used the Painter’s Touch Primer and thought it was horrendous, or others that love Armory Primer. To each their own, and it’s why I say there is no absolute perfect primer. A lot of it hinges on personal choice and also personal style.

Painting Tricks and Tips

So a group of us were approached about sharing some painting secrets and tips. I thought "I don't really have any 'tricks' to my painting or anything like that." There I was thinking about laying down a grand article on some masterful ideas of painting. I then realized, I'm not that great, maybe a little better then average; so how do I churn out my paint jobs.

I'll have to start with the basics. Know what you're going to paint. Paint a test model. That will give you an idea of how you want the mini to look and how to paint it. Many times I'll find shortcuts to a final step by just painting a single mini. It also gives you a chance to take a look and determine that what you saw in your head is or is not the final product you painted.

Many times I've had an idea in my noggin only to find out that put down on a mini it really isn't all that. Take note of my Elysian link to the right and the test model there. I don't like it. I thought I would and have given myself time to look at it and get a better feel for it. After several days I've decided, nope. It's not what I saw in my mind. So off I go looking for the right paints again.

Another trick, be comfy. Not to the point you'll fall asleep in your chair but many of us have a restricted painting area, whether it's because of a wife and kids needing the extra bedroom so you have to make space in another room or because you're in an efficiency and have no other rooms except the bathroom. Regardless of your painting area make it comfortable.

I personally like background noise when I paint, whether it's the TV or tunes only depends on my mood at the time. To me painting is a release, not a "job" (I'll get to that in a minute). Where I paint depends also, sometimes it's on the folding TV tray table or it's at my desk with the big screen TV turned so I can see it. The point is I paint where I'm comfy and that translates to better paint jobs.

Another thing is, set time aside. If you have an hour between coming home from work and dinner. Use it to paint, then don't touch a brush again unless you really want to. This helps you stick to a schedule in case you are doing work for someone else or if you're trying to get a bunch of stuff painted before a GT or event. Don't push it though, nothing sucks more then being burned out on painting.

My final piece of advice, be ready with the assembly line once you've got your test mini where you want it. This works well for rank and file, but not so much for your special characters and leaders. Those you want time to work on seperately, but joe smoe trooper can get the basic paint job, unless you want a perfect showcase army. Granted most want that, but I find once you get your basic paint jobs on then you can always go back and keep adding to it... as long as you don't seal the mini. Of course this could cause you to have to go back and touch up your base coats after several games of handling the mini, but I find that once I can go back and do touchups I find a little extra time to add something to increase the quality of the paint job.

So there you go, it's not elegant, nothing like use your finger nail for wet blending, but I think these basics will help you get to where you want to be. Stick with the basics and build on them and you'll be pleasantly surprised. Until next time...

FOR THE EMPEROR!!!