Chill of Winter & Shiny Paint

I haven’t decided what I want to field this year at Hardcore at Privateer Press Weekend at DieCon 9 this year – my Protectorate of Menoth or my Legion of Everblight.  Most of what I’d want to field with my Protectorate is already painted so I’m going to try and get a lot of work done on my Legion before hand so I can make the final decision.

My current project is a pair of Warmonger War Chiefs that I’m painting to match the Blighted Ogrun Warmongers that I painted back in 2007. I’ve included a couple of picture my my photography rig probably won’t be up for another week or so so the quality is pretty lacking.  I really wanted to get back to posting pictures though so it’s a start.

There’s still plenty of work to do – attaching the right arm for instance.  There’s also the bone spines on the back of the left arm which haven’t been shaded yet and are still base-coated in Reaper Master Series Yellowed Bone.  And the Ogrun’s talons and the claws on his pelt that need some work as well as some more general touch-up and detailing.

As I worked on my warmongers my biggest concern was being able to match the colors on models that I painted almost two years ago but for the most part that’s been relatively a non-issue.  I had written down the flesh colors and the armor is very strait forward; the only real issue was the fur on the boots/back but I was able to match that fairly closely to my existing Warmongers’ boots.  My recipe for doing so used a few washes with P3 Armor Wash though, which reminded me how much I hate some of the paints I also think are the easiest to use – the shiny finish.

The effect I see usually happens with either hobby paints that use liquid pigments (Reaper Master Series, Formula P3) or certain washes – that being a shiny finish on the coat of paint after applying it to the model.  The problem is easily solved at the end of the painting process during final sealing when I use Testors Dullcoat but until that time the areas that are painted with these paints are pretty reflective and can obscure detail.

These reflections make it difficult – for me at least – to pick out my own highlighting as I work which has been extremely frustrating at times.  It can be very annoying to seal a model and then realize that the paint job doesn’t actually look like I thought it did when the reflected highlights are are removed.  Even with the glossy finish good paint is good paint so I’ll stick with using the RMS and P3 lines.  The paints apply and blend too smooth and easily for me for it to be worth switching.

Although I’m concentrating on my Legion, I plan on switching gears for the next post.  I’m hoping that alternating between the groups of WIPs will help prevent burnout.  So next post I’ll provide some pictures of a different project I’m working on for DieCon, and with any luck my photo rig will be set back up and they’ll be much higher quality!