Diane and I are keeping the festivities sort of low key at the homestead this year. With some of the unforseen changes that 2011 brought, we've opted to spend Christmas at home this year with the boys. Monty is asleep on the couch while Bruno sleeps on his dog bed beneath the Christmas tree all while a Firefly (bleh) marathon plays on TV. Diane is cooking up our holiday feast of ham and a variety of other delicious foods while I assemble little plastic vikings at my desk.
If you don't recognize these fine plastic fellows, they are from Wargames Factory's Hammer of the Gods line (at least I think it is a line). I am currently assembling 10 of these guys as a viking raiding party hence their varied weapons and other equipment. I'm still not sold on the spears at the moment as I find them awkward and unwieldly. Not to mention they make ranking up the models a nightmare. True, I could have based them on 40mm square bases but then it would make using the regiment as skirmishers impossible. So with that in mind, I think those spears will get replaced with swords and axes.
As far as the painting for these guys goes I don't know really exactly what my color scheme will be. I do know that I am going to use earthtones and I'm fairly sure that the colors green and red will be used a great deal on the tunics. What I do know with absolute certainty is that I really need to sit down and plan out my color scheme thoroughly as I am painting 10 models rather than just 1 or 2 and they need to look good as a unit as well as individually.
But that sort of brings me to the point of today's post and that is planning your project. I have always been the kind of painter that loves to jump in head first and just start painting. Sounds great, but that route often leads to minis getting thrown in the Pinesol jar because the color scheme didn't work. Just the simple act of putting thought into your color scheme and possibly a little backstory to your models can mean the difference between a nicely painted model and one that will knock your friends' socks off.
An example of a model where I planned out the color scheme and came up with a little bit of back story is my Goblin Boss from GW:
The plan was that I was going to use a classic goblin color scheme with various greens and reds. Furthermore, my plan was also to use a muted palette for this model as to play down the "Christmas Color Scheme" that I so hate about GW's paintjobs. The last bit of my plan was to come up with a little backstory for the models since he is a character model and backstory always seems to make me feel a little more invested in the paint job. For this Goblin Boss, I decided that he was a veteran of many conflicts in the north and had survived a battle with a massive force of Nurgle tainted Marauders but not without becoming slightly tainted. That little tid bit at the end is the main reason why I used very desaturated tones for highlighting his flesh. Just that little something special to make the model unique and personalized.
So for the upcoming new year, I challenge you all to make a resolution to just take five to ten minutes and put some thought into your new projects. Trust me, it will add a little bit of spice to your work and will help you paint something exceptional.
That is all from me this afternoon. Hopefully I'll have some in progress painting photos later this week as well as some in progress shots of the refitted Paintshop of Horrors site that has been absent for the last three years.
Mike
No comments:
Post a Comment