Sunday, July 18, 2010

Goblin Rock Lobber

Well, I have busted my butt today to get this thing painted so I can break open Master Manipulator properly with a hopefully helpful post. Let me give you a bit of back story here. I am the kinda guy who owns lots of stuff, but very little of it is painted/finished. Now, its not because of the lack of ability. I am not that bad with brush and paint. I just have a problem maintaining focus. I also tend to obsess about the details making my projects take longer than necessary, and that is one habit I have been able to over come with this army. I have tried to forgo much layering and just stick to some simple colors that all work well together.
 

 Here is a step by step (sort of) of how I painted by Rock Lobber, after the break of course....


Ok I started off with the basics. Models were cleaned of flash and mold lines. Its a fairly important step. It can be time consuming if done right, but your end result definitely suffers if you try to skip it.


Here you can see how I have it broken down. I have the three crew members, the base of the lobber, the counter weight, the stone from the bucket, and of course the bully. I do not currently use the bully, but I am going to paint him here so he is done if needed. I also mounted the base of the lobber on a piece if plastic to serve as a base. Since crew are pretty much wound markers, I have decided to actually mount these on the same base as the thrower so they look all cool and what not. The bully of course will have his own base.

After a solid spraying of black primer I started working on blocking out the colors. Like I said earlier, I am trying to keep the painting as simple as possible so I am able to achieve a decent result with out consuming a lot of time. Now having said that, it so simple I forgot to take pictures during the process so all we have is a start and a finish. Duh. I will give you a basic break down of what  I used and where it went.

I use mostly two different types of paint. VMC or Vallejo Model Color, and GW (Games Workshop). Using the inside out method (paint the stuff farther in, first and work your way out), I started with the skin. Here is a quick list of the colors I used and what they were used on....

Orc Skin: VMC #895 Gunship Green
Gobo Skin: VMC #122 USA Uniform Green
Leather: GW Foundation Calthan Brown
Orc Cloth, and all claws: GW Foundation Tausept Ochre
Wood: VMC #984 Flat Brown
Wood Shaft and Gobo Hair: VMC #908 Carmine Red
Squig: VMC #909 Vermillion
Stones: VMC #836 Londen Grey
Teeth: VMC #837 Pale Sand
Whip: VMC #988 Khaki
*several pieces of cloth were left black to match the other goblins in my army. 

The process is fairly simple. Several thin coats to build up the base. Here is a pick of them ready for the wash..


Once the base if finished I wash all the models with (save the rock lobber itself) with GW Devlin Mud. That ties all the colors together and shades them at the same time. The lobber and the rocks got a wash with Badab Black. After the wash was dry I went back and tidied up the black cloth to remove any stray color mistakes.

Here is a finished shot again...


I could definitely take it farther and do more to them, but as I said the purpose is to find a happy medium between look and ease of painting. I think my total working time today on this was about 6 or 7 hours. That may not seem like it is fast, but for me it is.

Later I will show you a quick look at how I am doing my basing.

2 comments:

Messanger of Death said...

It looks nice for Table Top Standard. *thumbsup*

"I am the kinda guy who owns lots of stuff, but very little of it is painted/finished."

Maybe create a points system. It is something I've seen on other blogs. You give yourself x or y points for each miniature painted. You have a goal each week/month on how many points you want to get done. If you achieve your goal you can get a reward.

Messanger

Master Manipulator (every store needs one) said...

Thanks, table top is really all I was going for.

That's funny, I used to have a thing like that. When I started I used to have all these characters painted and no units. So I told my self, after the unit is painted I get to do a champion. Then after 3 units I get a hero/lord/character.

That lasted all of about 2 months.

It's a good idea though. I might try it again now that I am actually able to not obsess over every little thing.