Good Luck Evil Homer

Well the time has come for Evil Homer to take his leave of the local scene. His wife and family had already made the move to their new home in Austin as he stayed behind to finish up some critical stuff with work and take care of the final details of his move.

Got to play a game of Confrontation (god I love that game) with him last night at the LGS. It was great fun and we had a great time. We really had a great run with Confrontation and even though we hardly ever play it anymore it was really nice that the last game we played (for what I think will be a long time) is Con. Fitting I think.

I just wanted to take a second to give him one last good luck. He has been a good friend and I will miss the regular talks we have about the good and bad we see on the net. I am sure we will still keep in touch but it is not quite the same when your friends are 5 hours away.

Thats right...I said it...friend. Damnit I avoided that for this long and now I stick myself with it. I need to take a look at the rules again. (thats and inside joke for anyone not local)

Good luck Evil Homer..hope to see you back soon for a tournament or some other event.

New Project...and dumb mistakes

So I have been feeling a but lost working on my Black Templar. Normally I would push forward until I get to a point that I feel I have it worked out. Well I am at a place where I think I am happy with what I was doing with the black, and I am also kinda bored with messing with them. So I need something else.

I dug out a model that I bought from Dark Age. I bought some of the minis for this game and even at one time intended on playing it. The models that caught my eye to start are the Dragyri Whispers. I love the models and so I thought I would dig one out and have a go at it.

Learning Curve...black....I think I am getting it

Ok I think I have got to the point I am happy with. The unfortunate part is that I have not had that much time to paint so I have not got that far. I started to block out some colors so I can see what they look like with other colors on them. Maybe if I get some time this weekend I can get one finished for you to look at.

Learning Curve...black....getting there.

Ok I bet you are tired of seeing these posts. Trust me I am tired of doing them. Like I said in the first one I am hoping that what I am going through will help you out. Spending some time looking at some other painters, mainly those who are much more talented than me, gave me an idea of what I wanted. When I attempted to match their work using the steps I thought they would take, my results were less than spectacular.

Learning Curve...black....your doing it wrong.

Well well...can someone say epic fail. I thought I had the right idea, thought I would whip out a quick mini that is somewhere close to what I want. Then I could figure out some shortcuts for the basic soldiers.

WELL WELL WELL...I could not have been more wrong.

So that makes test number 11-12. I am not even really sure where I went wrong. But the mini on the left could not look more grey. I might try to work some black into some shadows to see if I can pull it back to what I want.

If you want to see test model 9 check after the jump....

Learning Curve...black.....still working

Well not much to report right now. I have had little time or inspiration to work on minis. When I do get time I tend to work a bit on some black and then quit in frustration. I have done a few trial pieces and have not been satisfied with anything I have..so no pictures.

You see the problem I have is two fold. First off, you can not shade and highlight black like you do other colors. Normally you have your base color then a shade and a highlight. The highlight is simple. The shade not so much. What do you add to black to make a shadow? So after a bit of hard headed struggling I gave it up. The other problem I have is that I am not terribly hot for the traditional hard edge lining that most people use for black.

So what am I going to do? Well the last couple of test models I have worked on (and I think the count now is up to 9 or 10) I am using a bit of a mix. Instead of hard lining both the top and bottom edges of the model I am only hitting the areas that would get light. For the most part that means just the top edges. In addition to that I will be hitting some of the larger flat areas with some normal shading to try to give a nice contrast. Could this work? I hope so. It could also lead to test models 11 and 12. Hopefully I can get something to a point where I take some pics for you soon.