Azaam's journey to his full painted army

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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#31 Post by SpellArcher »

Prince of Spires wrote:There's some very nice models in that set.
It's been a life-saver for a lot of our guys, hasn't it.
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#32 Post by Prince of Spires »

SpellArcher wrote:
Prince of Spires wrote:There's some very nice models in that set.
It's been a life-saver for a lot of our guys, hasn't it.
It has. It's a great basis to cheaply expand your army. Especially when they were new and you could sell the skaven and rules etc for almost as much as the cost of the box itself. That was great.

And the fun thing for a hobbyist is that with getting so many duplicate models for cheap you have a lot of stuff more kit-bashing and building your own models. I'm still planning on thinking of something fun to do with my duplicate lord on griphon.

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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#33 Post by Azaam »

And the fun thing for a hobbyist is that with getting so many duplicate models for cheap you have a lot of stuff more kit-bashing and building your own models. I'm still planning on thinking of something fun to do with my duplicate lord on griphon.
Actually I have two of that lord on griphon too. So I was wondering how I could modify it enough to look different from the first one. I looked for some inspiration and I found a gorgeous one that's actually from this forum: http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=39094
A lot of what Traxo did is awesome and I think I'll often go back to look at his/her topic.

Looking great. There's some very nice models in that set.
I really like the Ellyrian reavers and Lothern sea guard but I have mix feeling about the swordmasters. I really like their sword and the helmet tail but the armor is a bit too simple compared to the previous edition Swordmaster.
And also I don't know if this is something true for all the "newer" models but it looks like you can't really customize them. I mean the arms or weapons can only be attached in one position. It's definetely easier to build but it lets less place to more unique models. That's one thing I really like about the spearmen I have, you can choose in which direction they face or look, how they hold their weapon, if they hold a shield or not, ...

It looks like I'm complaining but I'm really happy with what I have now.

Also I almost finished my last 4 swordmasters and I bought a couple of new paint to help me in the whole process :)
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#34 Post by Azaam »

My last 4 swordmasters are done !
I started painting them with the idea of spending only one hour per figurines. But I made the last brush stroke after 8 hours in total so 2h/fig. I don't feel like I spent too much time on one thing tho. I think I'll try again sometime to check how much time I spend. What about you ? Do you do it ? How much time do you spend on a "normal figurine" ?

Image

Image

I don't think they're as good as the command group and there's a lot of details that I'm not really happy with but they're well enough.
As you can see I changed again the way I painted the swords. On the second picture you can see the evolution from left to right (2 of each style). I like the first one but it feels too special and so I want to keep it for more important figurines. I like the white sword concept of the second type but something feels off. I don't know if it's the paintjob, the lack of difference with the armor or simply the shape/thickness of the sword. Any idea ? The third style is a bit like the first one, I like it but it feels a bit too special again. Seeing the whole unit, their outfit gives them enough unity so I'm definetely okay with them having different swords. I guess I'll test some other colours soon enough.
Also you may have noticed that the scalemail is lightly different. This is the new paint I bought. Until now I was using a mix of Citadel Ushabti bone with white for base color and was highlighting with Ushabti bone with even more white. To highlight the scalemail I used Vallejo Model Color Buff. Tbh I find it a bit yellowish but I'll try on a wider area to see how it looks.

So next step is basing ! I'll play a bit with cork, modelling paste and milliput to see which one works the best.
As usual, I'll keep you updated ;)
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#35 Post by Antelano »

I easily spend 10h per model when I'm fast! I'm stupidly slow.
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#36 Post by SpellArcher »

Really nice Swordmasters Azaam, looking forward to seeing the based effect.
Azaam wrote:2h/fig.
I sometimes take that long, though my work is basic compared to you guys.
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#37 Post by MasterOfNone »

Absolutely fabulous unit.
Very neat and precise brush stroke. Apart from the technique, the colour scheme is unique and well thought.
I take probably longer than you to paint, but not because I work more on the miniatures, more because I am slower.
In fact, my miniatures are not as clean and detailed as yours (perhaps also because I cannot see well up close due to age).
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#38 Post by Azaam »

Thank you for all your feedback. It actually made me wondering a bit : why do I need to time myself ?
The only good reason I found is about organisation but in the end it doesn't even matter :)

I didn't really paint lastly but I played and experienced a bit with what I have for basing.
My first experience was with cork. I was pretty excited and the preparation was going pretty well.
Image

I even cut some base size hole to see how it would look like.
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Image

And then came the cutting time ... That was a disaster. Very difficult to cut properly, sand paper doesn't really work and the gap between two pieces is too deep.
As my wife has a some kind of soldering iron for plastic, I tried it on the cork instead of cutting it. I think it worked better but that wasn't enough. Maybe it wasn't hot enough for cork.
I tried to paint it anyway but that looked bad.
Conclusion : I'm sure cork can be useful but not for this. Or at least, it's for me.

Few days later, my coworker came back with the 3D printed object I asked him.
Image

As you can see it's not a roll as I intended to do in the first place. I thought that for the first time I'll go with something easier to use.
With that I could start experimenting with modelling paste. I built some basic shapes that I used for drilling and cutting test. I even let it fall on the ground several times to see if it would break or not. All tests clear ! So far so good. So I went to the next step : using my big stamp.
Image

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Used it in 2 different ways : directly on a base and on a wider surface. It's a bit more difficult to put the right amount on a base but the afterwork (is it a real word ?) is easier. And here the wider surface is not thick enough so the pattern isn't clear enough.
In the end, here's how it look like on some bases.
Image

I still have to glue them and drill some holes in it before even starting to paint but I'm really happy with the result so far. And of course I'm also really afraid of ruinning them when I'll start painting.
I'll come back with some news soon enough :)

Oh and we (French people) are starting lockdown season 2 from this week Friday so I guess I'll have even more time to paint now :)
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#39 Post by Prince of Spires »

Looks good.

I think cork is used more to create natural looking height than fine details. It's great if you need a rock a model is standing on or similar. But the grainy texture means that fine details are tough to create. It's a bit similar to the regular white polystyrene. It's not that great for details.

Also, a friend with a 3D printer is always great to have. Keep him ;)
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#40 Post by Azaam »

And here's the final result !

After drilling and glueing them to the bases, I primed them black and paint them grey.
Image

Image

As it was looking good enough, I glued the swordmasters on it and repaint some parts that couldn't stand my cutter/x-acto knife skill :)
Image

Image

I like how it turned out. The base could be a bit brighter but I like the black trim, that makes the figurines pop more ! Although I might give them a better finish for the messy ones.
You may have noticed that all the base are not the same height. That wasn't really intended. As I'm making them in different batch, they're coming in different quality. Thinking about it now, I should have tried to have at least a rank with all the same size.
Also the whole process of making the base is not really fun. The part with the paste and the stamp is nice, the painting too, but all the trimming to cut it to the right size then the drilling is annoying. So I'm thinking about making different moulds and use the modelling paste to fill them. Or use the modelling paste to make the moulds. Or not using the modelling paste for that ^^ Anyway, with a mould I'll be able to have more homogeneous bases.


Soooo, I think I'll let the swordmasters rest for a bit now. I want to experiment a bit more for the sword but I also want to have fun with a different unit. And I was thinking about the archers as they are really different : lot of clothes, no armor, no sword. I'm planning to start with the second-hand ones as they are partially assembled so it'll shorten the first step though it'll give me a bit of experience too. I think I'll paint 15 in total, 3 batches of 5.
Can't wait :D
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#41 Post by Prince of Spires »

They look great. The bases turned out very nice. I don't think it's much of an issue that they are not all the same height. I hadn't noticed it until you mentioned it. So I think they're fine. Thanks for sharing!

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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#42 Post by SpellArcher »

Azaam wrote:I primed them black and paint them grey.
This works really well with your Swordmaster colour scheme Azaam.
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#43 Post by Azaam »

Wow one month since the last post !! It really took me a long time. I have to admit that I didn't spend as much time on the hobby as I though during this period.

So, the archers ! I could only build 12 on the 15 so I made 2 batches of 6. And here is the first one :
Image

Image

Image

To be honest I'm not as happy with them as I was with the Swordmasters. A lot of mistakes were done. I can't really call them happy accidents but I guess that learning opportunity is close enough.
First : too thin paint make it really annoying to paint these surfaces => Thinning is good, too much thinning is not bad but annoying.
Second : washes on that wide flat surfaces like the robe don't work well => On that wide flat surface, it's better to work the shadow by yourself.
Third : "stale" paint (= left too long on the wet palette) doesn't dry the same way as "normal" paint => Don't be cheap, throw the stale paint and put some new.
Forth : I like mixing paint but it can be hard to make some kinda realistic skin tone consistently => Find a good mix and make a lot of it or buy a base paint and add just a bit of other color for some variety.
Fifth : There's some accesories I could have added. I realized that when I was in the middle of the painting process => Think and plan it before doing it (who would have guess ?!)
Sixth : The photo doesn't make the orange belt really ... orange => Use your wife phone when it takes better pictures than yours.

So now that I know all that, no reason not to make the next batch better ! Right ? Right ... ?
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#44 Post by Prince of Spires »

Azaam wrote: To be honest I'm not as happy with them as I was with the Swordmasters. A lot of mistakes were done. I can't really call them happy accidents but I guess that learning opportunity is close enough.
First : too thin paint make it really annoying to paint these surfaces => Thinning is good, too much thinning is not bad but annoying.
Second : washes on that wide flat surfaces like the robe don't work well => On that wide flat surface, it's better to work the shadow by yourself.
Third : "stale" paint (= left too long on the wet palette) doesn't dry the same way as "normal" paint => Don't be cheap, throw the stale paint and put some new.
Forth : I like mixing paint but it can be hard to make some kinda realistic skin tone consistently => Find a good mix and make a lot of it or buy a base paint and add just a bit of other color for some variety.
Fifth : There's some accesories I could have added. I realized that when I was in the middle of the painting process => Think and plan it before doing it (who would have guess ?!)
Sixth : The photo doesn't make the orange belt really ... orange => Use your wife phone when it takes better pictures than yours.
They look pretty good. Maybe not Swordmaster good. But still great for a core unit. And learning something in the proces is always nice. After all, that's the only way to improve. I recognise a lot of the points you make. Thinning paint too much is really annoying, but it's also hard to fix once you get to that point ;)

I'm curious. Did you alrealy tell your wife about your plans with her phone?
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#45 Post by Azaam »

Thank you Rod.
Also I'm glad that someone can relate ^^

And for the plan to use my wife's phone, don't worry, she knows :D Almost all the previous pictures were taken with hers actually. She was the one suggesting the idea.
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#46 Post by SpellArcher »

Prince of Spires wrote:They look pretty good. Maybe not Swordmaster good. But still great for a core unit.
I agree. Firstly the models aren't as good as the Swordmaster models before painting. Secondly the Swordmaster unit has the benefit of command etc. and of being fully based and finished. I'd be interested to see the whole 12 archers with bases finished.
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#47 Post by Olthannon »

I still think they look great, I agree with your second issue as I have often had that problem, I need to work out in advance the areas I want to shade. The bone colour goes great with red though, reminds me I really need to start painting my archers!
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#48 Post by MasterOfNone »

Your archers are good.
We are never 100% happy with our work, but looking closer you have worked the detail neatly. The gems are gorgeous.
It is true that the miniatures look a bit "flat" as in the shadowing and contrast is not great, although in part this is due to the quality of the phone images.
Based on what I see (that could not match reality) I think an easy fix could be to do more highlights on the skin using colour straight from a bottle and also brighter highlights on the red clothing mixing some yellow to the red.
Or you could just leave the miniatures as they are, and put in the front ranks those you will paint later, which will likely look better. After all this unit will never be the centre piece of your army.

Your learning points are spot on, I never spelled them out this clearly but they match perfectly my experience.
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#49 Post by Azaam »

Thank you all for your feedbacks, I really appreciate it.

Here is the second and last batch of my archers. No command group yet, I'm still thinking about how i want to make them.
Image

Image

Image

Image

For all the red surfaces I shaded them without washes. I wanted to try it and I really enjoyed doing it. It may be a bit too dark but at the end I didn't want to spend much more time on them for something like that. The highlights were a bit trickier on the flat surfaces. I mixed my red with orange and I think that was the right move (thanks MoN ! ) but now I think I was just kinda scared to put too much paint and make it looks like a pattern more than some highlights ...

And the last picture with the ones I painted previously.
Image

I like how the red looks on the earlier ones but I'm happier with the more finished look of the later ones.
I sometime felt down painting them because of the flatness and the lack of details, but actually I enjoyed testing things on them and the result matches my expectations so I guess that's a win :D


For the basing, I'm gonna continue with the same look but I'll literally make them differently. I plan to ask my collegue to print a dozen of bases I designed (same pattern as before) and then make a mould from them so I can cast as much as I want without bothering him anymore ^^ But I still have stuff to figure about the cavalry bases so I'm gonna start working on the next project while I think about that.
Speaking of next project and cavalry ... Ellyrian reavers ! I'm sure half a dozen would be largely enough. And after seeing Antelano's job I'm eager to give them a go.

In the meantime I talked with a friend that used to paint and play. And he told me how much he loved making terrain. And actually that's something I'd really want to try too. I think I have enough on my plate now so that's definetely not gonna happen any time soon but I'll keep the idea in a corner of my head so it can grow a bit unti I start.
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#50 Post by SpellArcher »

They look great now Azaam, some real depth to them.
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#51 Post by Azaam »

My most recent purchase : Phoenix guards. This was the last unit I didn't have and whose I felt like I needed. Of course there's stuff like Skycutter and some cool mage models that would be great but I don't really feel the same "need" so it should be my last purchase before long.

I spent a lot of time looking for a decent price on the internet and at some point it became really heavy. Especially after seeing good deals but being beat by someone else by just a couple of minutes. I was checking FB groups and shopping site like Craiglist in countries around France at least twice an hour. And it was just frustrating and not healthy. So I decided to post on several FB groups asking if someone has some 6th ed. PG to sell.
I was kinda expecting to get some really expensive offer because usually people on these groups know what they have. And I had. But in the end, one guys offers me 20 PG for only 30€. It was even less than the best price I was expecting. They were already painted but he showed me a photo of 15 of them and it didn't look that bad and not that far from my colour scheme so I felt pretty lucky. He said the other 5 wasn't really finished and that 3 weapons were missing but for the price I didn't really mind. In the end, I gave him more than what he asked because it really felt like I was scamming him.

I received them today and when I opened the box I was first disappointed because that wasn't the 6th ed. ones but the plastic ones. I took all of them out and there were actually a lot of 6th ed. and few plastic (are they 7th or 8th ed ?). And that kinda felt more than 20. So I counted and indeed, it wasn't 20 but 27 PG that I got : 21 metal and 6 plastic. And I have to say the paint looks a lot better than on the photo he sent ! It's far from perfect but it's great and I'm definitely gonna use some of his idea. The bases are amazing tho !

So here's one picture as a tribute to Julien F. that permitted me get some closure on my hunt for PG with an amazing deal :
Image
(To be fair, I should have take the capes too because even though they're just plain blue without any pattern, his highlights are simply gorgeous !)


Back to my own work, I'm still in the process of cleaning and making my Ellyrian reaver pretty to get primed. The gap between both parts is sometime pretty huge and I'm using some milliput to fill them. I'll show some picture before I prime them (if I don't forget).
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#52 Post by Prince of Spires »

Congrats on your find. 27PG for that price is awesome. I stumbled upon a similar deal when I got mine. That was just after the 8th ed. ones launched. I found 25 on ebay for cheap. Sometimes you get lucky :)

The new plastic ones are 8th ed miniatures in my mind. I think they were launched around the time we went from 7th to 8th. We got a wave of new models around that time. Just not sure exactly when. It may have been the last set of models before 8th hit. I think these were launched before the island of blood set (which added the new SM to complete the new elite infantry models). Which makes them 7th edition oficially. But only just.

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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#53 Post by Azaam »

I finally finished to prep the reavers ! It feels like I took more time for this that I'll need to paint them ...

As I said in my previous post, there was a pretty huge gap for some of them. I don't know if I mess something during gluing or not but I don't think it was that big when I dryfitted.
Anyway I took this as an opportunity to try milliput. I also wanted to kinda round their lower back (croup ?) because they're weirdly flat. I'm not an expert in horses but it was bothering me.
And here's the result after priming (yes I said that I'll show before priming but I wanted to hide the fact I'm using terracota milliput and not the standard one ...) :

Image

The one on the back (and left for the second pic) is for comparison. I'll deal with its ass later :roll:
Image

Image

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and even if it took me a long time to get used to it, I had a lot of fun with the milliput. It's definitely something I'll use some time to time.

I'm a little bit concerned by the dusty feel of the priming though. Maybe it was a bit too cold ?
I'll try to paint on that and see how it goes.
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#54 Post by Prince of Spires »

Azaam wrote:I finally finished to prep the reavers ! It feels like I took more time for this that I'll need to paint them ...
I don't know how fast you paint, but be careful what you wish for... ;) They too kme a while to paint. Horses are always a pain for me. And the riders have got lots of finicky details on them as well.

I look forward to the pictures with the miliput on the models. It's always fun to do these kinds of conversions. And which color you use doesn't really matter to me. I think it's mainly down to the properties in how they dry and how hard and flexible they are when they dried. I've used the green one, which is very soft when it's just mixed but it dries very hard. It makes it harder to work with on details compared to green-stuff. But it's great if you're "casting" something using a mold and because it's tougher it holds its shape better than green-stuff.

A great tip I received when I started experimenting with green-stuff and milliput was to use water when working with it. It doesn't stick to water, so if you wet your tools then it doens't stick to them. Be a bit more careful with milliput and water, because it does dissolve a bit in water, if I remember correctly.

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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#55 Post by MasterOfNone »

Prince of Spires wrote:
Azaam wrote:I finally finished to prep the reavers ! It feels like I took more time for this that I'll need to paint them ...
I don't know how fast you paint, but be careful what you wish for... ;) They too kme a while to paint. Horses are always a pain for me. And the riders have got lots of finicky details on them as well.

A great tip I received when I started experimenting with green-stuff and milliput was to use water when working with it. It doesn't stick to water, so if you wet your tools then it doens't stick to them. Be a bit more careful with milliput and water, because it does dissolve a bit in water, if I remember correctly.
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The Ellyrian reavers are in my memory the unit I enjoyed the least painting, go figure. I suffered them even more than Arachnarok (which was actually great fun, except perhaps the goblins).
Wetting tools and fingers is great, but then it is sometimes difficult to finding adherence for sticking on plastic or metal surfaces. I find millliput dissolves more easily with water, it must be because it contains clay.
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Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#56 Post by Azaam »

Prince of Spires wrote:I look forward to the pictures with the miliput on the models.
Actually I have one model I used milliput on but didn't primed because I wanted to fix the bow first.
Image

Image

Image

The cons of good quality picture is that it looks really messy if it's not perfectly clean ... It's not as bad as it looks :?
I'll try to remember to take a picture after priming and after paiting for this one.
Prince of Spires wrote:A great tip I received when I started experimenting with green-stuff and milliput was to use water when working with it. It doesn't stick to water, so if you wet your tools then it doens't stick to them. Be a bit more careful with milliput and water, because it does dissolve a bit in water, if I remember correctly.
MasterOfNone wrote:Wetting tools and fingers is great, but then it is sometimes difficult to finding adherence for sticking on plastic or metal surfaces. I find millliput dissolves more easily with water, it must be because it contains clay.
I actually did wet my tools and that helped but the tricky part was not to let water go between the model and the putty while I was putting it on. I guess this is what you're talking about MoN.
I also used some isopropyl alcohol to smooth the milliput and I found that it works a lot better than water. For the same quantity, it dissolves far less so it's less runy and you can be more precise.


I think I'll start painting them next week. I still have to figure out what kinda colour I want on the horses.
Thank you for the heads up. I see a lot of people having the same experience with them so I'll try to prepare mentally :D
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Vermis
Posts: 103
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 2:50 am

Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#57 Post by Vermis »

Nice to see some milliput love. I've been using it for years, back when I started this hobby. Went from hating it, to using it in greenstuff mixes, to - when I came back last year - just about preferring it to others. It's definitely got a learning curve but it's got properties of smoothability and carvability that I appreciate more.

Regarding the reaction with water: yes, definitely needs to be used sparingly. The solution I started using for other putties, which helped a lot when I turned to milliput, was to wet a piece of sponge in a dish. Dab the tools into that and lightly moisten them, adds an extra little layer of control.

Colour: don't worry too much about it. It's plain from the primed pics that you've got it nicely smoothed down. :)

I'll keep an eye on progress. I've got some of these myself, far down the pipeline, and you guys have got me scared. :lol:
MasterOfNone
Posts: 378
Joined: Sat May 09, 2020 1:26 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#58 Post by MasterOfNone »

Azaam wrote: I actually did wet my tools and that helped but the tricky part was not to let water go between the model and the putty while I was putting it on. I guess this is what you're talking about MoN.
I also used some isopropyl alcohol to smooth the milliput and I found that it works a lot better than water. For the same quantity, it dissolves far less so it's less runy and you can be more precise.

That's exactly what I meant.
Good tip about the isopropyl alcohol, I'll try it sometime.
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My WHFB armies:
High Elves
Dwarfs
Orcs and Goblins
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Olthannon
Posts: 304
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2019 3:26 am
Location: UK

Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#59 Post by Olthannon »

Amazing work on your archers, I like that bone colour on the sleeves, works wonderfully with the red.

Looking forward to seeing your reavers
One foot in the hobby
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Azaam
Posts: 118
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:00 pm

Re: Azaam's journey to his full painted army

#60 Post by Azaam »

Little update for my WIP Ellyrian Reavers.
I'm painting pretty slowly these days (also because I'm spending a lot of time on other activities) but I'm enjoying painting them so far. It's the first horses I paint since I'm back in the hobby and I'm trying stuffs. They could look better but I'm pretty happy with the result. When I'll be done with all the other parts, I'll see if I'm up for improvement :)

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Also I wasn't very happy with my painting set up so I decided to build my own painting tools stand. I could spend some time to add a bit of colours but it's usable as it is so I think it'll stay this way a bit longer. I have to admit I enjoyed a lot desining and building it and that really conforts me on the idea of building terrains.

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Painter, maker, caster
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