OctaBit

@Hawkoon I'd vote for 1 or 6. Both seem like fun models to paint.

Finished waxing the eyebrows. Posting a wip just in case something else happens. Really happy with how the shading on the dress has gone so far, and skin seems to have come out well. I'm planning on trying some freehand flowers since that seems like a common style. 

Thanks for using the conversation as the monthly topic @Shock & Awe. It's a good thing to talk about and it's something that affects most of us at some point in our painting careers. For anyone who hasn't looked at last months topic TimH, Gheist, wobbly_goggy, and Kogan Style all had some really good advice, and it helped me get out of the painting slump I was in. Thanks folks!

As for this month, and the topic, they kind of go hand in hand for me. The thing that really inspires me is making progress in the hobby. Nothing feels better than setting a goal for yourself and then being able to achieve it. Recently I've started working on three projects in order to give myself some variety and to give myself specific goals to achieve. The main goal with all of the projects is to have something to improve upon, with clear goals so I can show myself that I'm making progress in the hobby. Back during the pandemic I took a couple months to just work on painting skin tones. After focusing on it I went from just doing a skin tone and a wash to really understanding a lot of the different facets of what makes painting skin work. Afterwards I was able to look at that progress and have a sense of accomplishment, that fueled my painting for awhile, and got me to experiment with other techniques. Unfortunately a few of these projects involve non-Wyrd models...

For the first project and for the Wyrd side of things, this month I'm working on my Qi and Gong keyword. I mentioned them earlier into the challenge as a crew I picked up to work on to practice my free hand. The other thing I want to work on is painting cloaks and dresses, especially shading in the folds. I've started working on one of the Geishas and was going to post a picture of it, however last night I was trying to give her some eyebrows and end up making them comically thick. So I'll hold off until she gets a waxing session.  

The second project involves sculpting. It's something that I've wanted to do for awhile and it's gotten me to look at planning projects in a different way. The idea is to take one of the mega-gargants from AoS and convert it to look like a tomb kings/egyptian mummified giant. I really want to go all out with the setup and make the model a mini-diorama. I've been trying to sketch out various ideas and really plan out everything before getting too deep into it. Also if anyone has any experience with sculpting I would really appreciate advice.

The third project is to work on another AoS army, my hedonites. Originally it was a covid project, but eventually got shelved for a number of reasons. The goal with this project is to practice and refine technique. I've planned out all the colors and techniques at this point so it's one less hurdle to tackle when picking up a model. The models however give me a lot of opportunity to practice painting skin, leather, and the textured shading I like to use for cloth. I'll post a few pic below, plus my Qi and Gong that are prepped and ready to go.

@Diddick Congrats and well deserved! There was some stiff competition, but I think you did an excellent job balancing the light, while also adding interest to the dark areas at the same time. Well done.

Thanks for the helpful suggestions on how to manage burnout and find inspiration. There's some really good advice in there and it gave me a lot to think about. I've been looking through past projects and I think I've found some ideas that should help get me back on track. I'll post up in the September thread a bit later about it.

For this month though, I've finished up painting Maxine. Love the model, but I need to work on my camera work. I really should set up that light box sometime...

Real question for you folks, how do you handle burnout, and lack of motivation to keep painting? Been struggling with that for the past few months, and was wondering how you folks deal with it.

For better news, I did manage to find some motivation this past weekend and put in some work on Maxine a bit.

Hoping back on the horse this month. Hoping to at least finish Lucius, or failing that a horde of cats that showed up after the easter sale.

Going to have to take a mulligan this month. Busy time all around. In other good news, a new LGS opened up like five minutes from my house and I've given a half dozen demos to new and interested players.

Not sure what I'm painting this month, but will probably be either Lucius or some more Explorers.

As for fun gadgets here's one that I've always loved and is only a couple of bucks. I've seen it go by many names but generally I think it's called a paint brush puck. You just stick it to the inside of your paint water cup and swish you're brush through it, and it knocks all the paint right off. Even after long paint session when I go to clean out my brush with soap, they'll be practically nothing on it. I got mine from either broken toad or scale 75 but there's plenty of different kinds out there.

Not a very productive month this time around. Did manage to get some stuff done for Lucius' crew. 11pts (or 13 if you're resolving in-game effects).

On the topic of the upcoming page, it looks like Wyrd has updated through June. Bunch of new stuff and it looks like they're doing three of the malifaux burns boxes instead of the usual two which is nice to see.

@Hawkoonfigured it out. There was some build up in the nozzle, plus I used an older bottle I had and shook the heck out it and warmed it a bit. Worked much better.

Need a general opinion for my dua/umbra stuff. So the plan I'm going with is to paint the crew as though they were at night with a very directed light on them. I've got a picture of one of the deva with a real/green light on them. I was going to keep the umbra models this way, kind of marching their art. For the human models I was going to mask of their sections to hit specific areas with airbrushed inks to color the white areas.

My question is what should I do for the bases. I was thinking of hitting the roots, bricks and other debris with some dark browns or grey's (or whatever makes sense) and then hitting them with the zenith white followed by the teal. Just want to get some opinions on the idea before committing to it. 

One other thing I need to do is go back and hit the deva's eyes with some florescent orange to really make them pop.

@Hawkoon I don't think there's a pressure drop anywhere in the line, but I would have to double check. I did have to take the nozzle off multiple times and did see some blockages, and after sending some more air through it at some points it seemed to clear some bits.. When you run your airbrush what's the temp in you're room? I had the window open a bit and was running the hood for a little while before hand because I was cooking (I live in an apartment and the hood over the range may as well be a laptop fan for all the the good it does). 

The other thing I tried was adding some thinner to the primer. I normally don't but one of my friends commented saying that I should since it would lower the amount of dry tip I was getting, but it seemed to make it worse. Do you use any thinner with yours?

@Viruk Love the colors on the void wretch. You normally don't see something that vibrant for a lot of Tarra's stuff and it's refreshing to see. Got a lot of that other wordly vibe going on.

Does anyone use stynylrez primer? I was trying to apply some yesterday but it was clogging constantly and was coming out very chalky. I was using an airbrush with a paint hood and it was decently cold last night, but I haven't had much of an issue with it in the past.

3 hours ago, Gheist said:

Okay but playing two such immensely time-eating games is very hard. How do you even manage to eat in between? The dudes still look great.

Maybe only play Elden Ring? It's not as if Destiny still offers new stuff after 100 Years

But I got to get ready for the day one raid!

And thanks! They maybe 1pt models but they're one of the more interesting mini games in malifaux. Just need to finish the last one. Was going to paint him up like a famous bridge man from one of my favorite book series.

Planning on painting terrian this month. We've got a new shop opening at some point and I'll be doing some wooded fae theme terrian from Dragon trappers lodge. 

Hopefully I'll also work on some more Explorers and Neverborn, but I've still got Destiny 2, and Elden Ring. So we'll see how that plan goes.

Pledge for this month is continuing with Lucius' crew, and finishing up some Apex models that were half finished. I'm also going to try some freehand work on the witness' scarf, and the lawyers shirt.

I've also got doppelganger finished. 

For the monthly topic I'll try and do a write up for scale 75. I just finished getting the last couple pieces for the range and it's been my go to for the last few years.

Also finally got around to putting the pigment on the base. Sorry Viruk, didn't have time to try out you're advice on Basse but I tried it out on some other models I'm working on and it seemed to help.

@muraki Love the horsemen models! I've got the older ones based in a similar fashion. I particularly like your solution to the mech riders base, haha.

I really like Anya2, more than I thought I would. She's got a surprising amount of depth in what she can do, but for the most part just being able to manipulate models out of activation is very nice. Plus the Dredges, as you pointed out, are pretty nuts for essentially free summons. Being able to hand out unionize until the models next activation is huge.

I agree with you that the front of her card is more appealing than the back half, but New orders is really nice. Being able hand out an extra ap to people like Rook, Winston, or Sovereign is really nice. 

One thing I want to point out because its a strat that I really like that doesn't get a whole lot of love. I know Sovereign is viewed as not that great here, but I've had a lot of success with Sovereign with Anya2 and Mr. Ngaatoro. Being able to thunderstruck three times a turn is really nice. It can keep Sovereign alive, damage/stun a decent amount of the enemy crew, or at the very least drain a lot of cards out of your opponents already pressured hand. You can also add in the effigy/emissary to make it even tankier. The emissary is especially good if the enemy has a model with armor piercing attack.

Also Ngaatoro is nice for the crew in general since his Voice of the Society ability effects at least one ability on almost every model in the keyword.

Thanks for the reply @Viruk. Would you suggest going in with something like a wash on some of the materials just to tint it down a bit more in the shadows, or going in with something a bit more opaque?

Also, love your paint job on the Geryons. It's nice to see them with so much color, as opposed to to the normal grey on the box art.

Ok, not so much a trick, but just part of how the rats are supposed to work. Didn't realize it counted as a chain activation though, that's interesting.