Meander Minis

Well, in case you missed it on one of the forums, here is my quick Geisha makeup test. Needs a little cleanup, but I'm liking the general idea.

PHOTO DUMP This is a technique I haven't seen much anywhere and that I'm still experimenting with. Not really sure what to call it: "Zenithal Toning" "Toned Zenithal Priming"..whatever... It is just zenithal priming using a color base instead of black to give a mood and cohesion to a large group of models at the same time. Here I've primed everything with an airbrush in Vallejo Game Air Alien Purple, my absolute favorite all-purpose cheater color for shadows and effect. After this stage, I'm going back at a 140ish degree angle all around the models with Air Bonewhite, to push the "Sepia Asian Watercolor" vibe a little. This is the result: It's a vibe, maaaaaaaaaaaaan. Got the whole keyword (ish) ready for brushwork last night. AWAY WE GO! Next step is kimono choices, and a test of red enamel for everyone's armor that is wearing it. Then freehand and flesh tone tests. I'll get some bonus terrain piece photos up here as well! Thanks for looking!

ALRIGHT! LET'S DO THIS! Update: After what seems like an eternity, I finished the build of my last models this weekend! Minus the Samurai and unreleased Kabuki Warriors (and probably a Wanyudo if I can ever find one) this is the whole Qi and Gong keyword built! I start the airbrushing and all the pre-brush stuff tonight at my FLGS!

A small update! I picked up some hanging trees and some large and small terrain pieces. My plan with the Hanging Trees is to convert them in to Hanging Sakura Trees.

AND THEN THIS HAPPENED! You know what's really useful for a Youko project plog? If you've been following along, you probably know the answer. YES! FINALLY! Yesterday was Labor Day here in the States, which made it a big 3-day weekend filled with activities and family, AND there was no paint night last night, so I haven't cracked this bad mamma jamma open yet, but now I feel like I can finally get actually started. Dug this up while rearranging the basement, it will be...useful? Excessive? Both? Lots of horrible self-flagellating freehand punishment awaits!

Got some playtesting in with Lynch and a proxied Youko crew over the past few weeks. Love the feel, reeeaaallly needs Hinamatsu against killy crews. Still fiddling with lists, but Shadow Emissary is pretty funny in Qi and Gong.

Micro update! Snagged a Hinamatsu, Lone Swordsman, and Kunoichi at the Gen Con sale and snagged these bad boys from a Denver FLGS on a road trip. Now I'm getting excited and debating whether or not I'm doing both tournaments at NOVA or whether I can even paint fast enough to make it worthwile!

Okay, sorry, had to dig up some ancient login and account information from flickr so I could keep this train rolling! Remember this guy? ONE HOUR ARM GUY? Yeah I packed him up the other day and when I unpacked him for my game against @CrimsonWraith he was in pieces again. Great. Let's talk about capillary cement and this Bunraku arm. Once. And then never mention it again. Another 30 minute on this one joint, here is my stupid physics hack solution: The blutac counterweighs the elbow as it balances (!) on the sleeve so you can brush it with the cap cement. If you are lucky, you don't brush the whole arm off. These are the lengths I will go to to avoid using super glue on Malifaux models... SO, Fuhatsu, 1.7 TT Bros, and all Bunraku built, and I'm waiting patiently for the GenCon sale!!!!!

TRIGGER WARNING Crushing defeat, hobby sadness, misery, comedy of errors, model breakage Okay, before I get all the way in to this let me give you some background: I spent plenty of my younger formative years as a pretty diehard Japanophile. Not like a weeb, per se, I don't watch much anime at all, don't read manga, etc... But like I'm the kind of person who has books on Japanese textiles and more than one copy of The Book of Five Rings and a subway map of Japan, well you get the idea. Second part of the equation is that about half of our tiny little community out here in little Fort Collins, Colorado are current or past Wyrd Henchman. So naturally when everyone signed up for the Beta I did too. ALSO in Magic the Gathering parlance, I'm the BLUE/BLACK U/B player. It's my favorite kind of deck and my favorite kind of interaction with rules systems in general. Towards the end of 2e right before 3e was leaked, when Domadores de Cadaveres came out, I was sketching out a list that woud take me completely in to a new faction, out of TT and in to Guild just so I could play a Perdita/Judge/Domadores/Bone Pile DISCARD list in Malifaux which filled me with intense glee. Naturally, when Youko rules were previewed in Beta, like I said above I full on freaked out. Japan! Discard! Malifaux! Control! Unnecessary Cheesecake! All of my favorite things had combined in to one! So as soon as I could, I ordered the Youko core box from my FLGS. And waited, and waited, and waited. Many people globally don't keep track of industry news and drama, so this is some surprising information for some of you: Alliance games is the "main" hobby distributor for the US. They have a Midwest warehouse, which is where the stuff generally comes from for my region (Colorado). THEY RESTRUCTURED THE MIDWEST WAREHOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE M3E RELEASE. Everything was taken apart and moved and "reorganized" which meant when everything shipped from Wyrd, everything in the Midwest Warehouse was in piles in complete disarray I imagine. The result was that Alliance, in order to save face with stores who were frustrated that all the Wyrd M3e stuff was Out of Stock or unavailable, said that Wyrd hadn't ship any of the m3e release product AT ALL. If you've been following other forum threads and A Wyrd Place on this issue, the folks at Wyrd have delivery receipts, Alliance just didn't process anything because they are a hot mess. All of this meant that I was fairly certain that after months and months of anticipation, I wasn't going to get my Youko box on time. Right after release, Wyrd issued a public announcement that all of the m3e Release product they had, with the exception of some stuff they held for GenCon, was SOLD OUT until September, so if my Youko box didn't come in now, it wasn't going to be available for more than a month! AUUUUUUUUUGH. When the GenCon sale was announced I began to consider ordering a second time just to make sure. Monday nights in Fort Collins we have a paint night at said FLGS, the Northern Colorado Scale Art Society. NCAS on facebook !! Give us a visit if you are a paint nerd, myself and Syndjinn Scott are the founders! Last Monday, due to some scheduling kerfuffles, I was later than usual to the Paint Night. When I arrived, there was a Youko box sitting on the painting table between two other painters. WHY IS THIS SITTING HERE? Oh it was cool, we decided to split it. Okay, but where did you get it? Off the FLGS sales floor. OK, OMG Don't panic. Hey FLGS GUYS, did you get a Youko box special order in? Yes? Cool? Did you put it out on the shelf? COOL BECAUSE IT WAS MY SPECIAL ORDER AND NOW IT'S SOLD OUT EVERYWHERE AND I DON'T GET ONE AND THOSE GUYS DON'T EVEN PLAY MALIFAUX and their paint backlog is so large THEY AREN'T EVEN GOING TO BUILD THEM FOR A WHILE AUAUAUAUAUAAHHHHHGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH! Then I had to stare at the box all night and wonder how to continue a Youko plog with no Youko, and while the FLGS said they would reorder for me, my hopes aren't super high that I'll receive it any time soon, so that's a thing. TO BE CONTINUED

Charm warders are here! FLGS still doesn't have access to the Youko box, so I think I have to wait until the GenCon sale to pick up the core crew box and the Oiran/Kunoichi. At the rate I build things, that's probably fine. Heh. The GF and I purchased an insane amount of grocery store sushi the other night, and THIS GLORIOUS THING is the tray it all came on. Do I convert it in to the crew's display base somehow (which I think would be hilarious) or just use it as direct inspiration for Youko's kimono? Let me know below. Anyone who tells you that Yan Lo's beard is the toughest modeling task in Wyrdville has never tried to put this joint together with capillary cement. I spent an hour. AN HOUR. AN. HOUR. AN. HOUR. Trying to get these two pieces to cooperate. Either I am completely incompetent or FVCK THIS MODEL. Or both. But it got done. That's all for now, putting together some dudes at Monday Night Painting at my FLGS tonight.

Some Easter Viks for no other reason than better pics to give an idea of the level I'm painting this crew to, and some bonus pink.

INSPIRATION DUMP! The Miyako Oduri is the annual Cherry Blossom Dance of the Geisha, makes sense that Youko and her Qi and Gong coterie would get in on the action. For this crew I'm thinking *lots* of freehand, lots of cream and several different shades and saturations of pink, and maybe the pale blue from the pics below to pop off of the pink for some visual dynamism. Neat. Lots of enameled red lanterns and bridges for some pop, and plenty of cherry blossoms on bases and the display board. Whoohoo. I'm really going to use this as an opportunity to push my freehand skills as well.

Ten Thunders Brothers! I felt like I was going to need at least one TT Bro for this crew, but I already had one assembled and painted for TT Lynch. Unfortunately he was painted and based to vibe with that crew and would look like a poop with a pink and cream Youko crew, so I had to break out the rest of them from the box on my shelf. I'm really not a fan of the crouching sculpts of the other bros, but whatcha gonna do? Here's my Lynch TT Bro. So yes, I keep all of my boxes even after they are open or empty. I'm not a weird hoarder, what are you trying to say? Also, screw this guy with the hair, worst Malifaux assembly I 've ever had to do, and I built Datsue Bae's THREE PART FACE. This guy's hair didn't fit, and holding the parts in to place got capillary glue on my finger and made a melt mess of the front of the model. Good story. Went to Monday paint night at my FLGS and got the other TT Bro mostly built as well. Now we're caught up! Here's a bonus [REDACTED] work in progress.

I'm going to post a big dump of reference material for everyone to ogle, but first I'll post where I'm at so far so I can stay actually current instead of posting updates from photos I took a week ago. I ordered my Youko crew box to get on release date with my rulebook and cards, but they fell victim to the Great Wyrd Alliance Wars of 2019. A week and a half later, my FLGS still hasn't received their product. Booooooooo. In anticipation of the arrival of my goodies, I built this Fuhatsu that's been sitting in a bag since he was originally released. I wanted him for my Lynch crew, but he was real bad in 2e. Now he's REALLY GOOD, which makes me happy beyond measure. I had to glue the backwards guy on to him to get the pushing guy fitted correctly, which is weird, but whatever. I use plastiweld (capillary cement) on all of my Malifaux stuff because I hate joints and seams showing but you have to be really careful not to melt things and it can be a pain during assembly, but I think the results are worth it. My Bunraku came in the mail! Can't wait to get these guys built, they are really solid scheme runners and look like they'll be fun to paint. Still deciding when to take Kabuki warriors instead, and it's probably Reckoning.

A few pics of my work to know what to expect, I guess.