Mirage8112

I've been oil painting now from somewhere around 15 years (give or take). I suppose I've been painting longer than that, but I'm counting that 15 years from the time I first received any substantial instruction on technique and application of paint. Prior to that, I picked up most of my technique on drawing and painting from books and articles. I read pretty voraciously, and having step by step guides on how artists made painting was pretty instrumental on getting me on my way to being a competent painter. Nowadays, some 15 years on, I mostly don't need the step-by-step pictures anymore. I can read a finished painting like a book. I tell almost at a glance what colors are used, how the paint was applied, what mediums were mixed in and have a reasonable guess at how much prep work was done before the artist actually began painting. I can also tell (in most cases) if the artist was left or right handed. I've been painting miniatures now for nearly 10 years and it's more or less the same. I look at a mini and I can tell, pretty closely how the artist got to the end point. Because of this, I often forget to post the step-by-step progress photos because I don't have quite as much need for them. But at the same time, I also hope that this PLOG might be useful to somebody who might not have quite as much painting experience. As fun as it is marvel at a well painted miniature, and as much as it might stroke my ego being told how good they look. That's all just for my vanity, and doesn't really help anybody else. So, I am currently in the process of painting another 16 dryads and I'm taking step step photos of each stage. I'll be posting them in a day or two as soon as I have everything squared away. In the meantime I've prepared a post on... uh.. preparing... basing materials for the 30 dryads, Drycha and TLA that I'll be basing as soon as all the dryads are finished. Happy painting! -F

Hey Party People! Slowly but surely I'm working my way through the backlog of gray plastic that seems to perpetually sit on my shelf. Im making good progress. I took a bit of a break for the second half of August, while I was waiting for the GHB2017 to drop. It's little bit difficult to choose what weapon option to build, trying to decide if it's worth magnetizing or what variation of a kit I want to use without knowing what the points values stack up to. For example, my intended Disciples of Tzeentch list went up almost 400 points over 2k, so I've had to make some cuts. Nevertheless, after I sat down and worked everything else out, I was able to open another box and get building/painting. It's taken me about 2 weeks to power through the next unit. Skyfires! I started with the disks. Originally I had planned on making the disks metallic, but when I put the finished test disk next to the rest of the army it just kinda fell flat. So, I did the brave thing, and when through and repainted the damn thing details and all: You can see here that I'm starting on the blue base coat. I decided that the since this is such a colorful army (which is huge deviation from how I normally paint) I might as well just go for the goal, and do the disks with the same color progression I did with the Tzaangors armor: Overall, I think it's much better. Here's the completed/painted assembly of the second disk: And finally all three skyfires painted/assembled: As I said in a previous post, each type of Tzaangor will have different type of plumage/ skin color depending on their rank/unit type. Red/orange plumage with black skin for foot Tzaangors. Green plumage and black skin for skyfyres. White skin with Green plumage for the Shaman (that will follow the skyfyres around). I haven't entirely decided on what plumage the enlightened will have. I've determined from previous color combinations that yellow won't work (doesn't work well with the blue and conflicts with the gold). and I don't have any easy recipe for bright purple (being one of the most difficult colors to paint with any intensity). Pink is already the color for my OSL, and blue won't work because it will get lost in the armor. I suspect I'll try to come up with something workable for purple, but I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do it. Anybody know of a good supplier of florescent purple? Finally, a full army shot of the Tzneetch Arcanite models I've completed so far. I have some chaos warriors to paint in this scheme, as well as a box of enlightened, 3 more Skyfires and a Shaman. That combined with what I have from my old warriors of chaos army should bring me right around 2k points. This army is my "fun" army and isn't really designed to be at the height of competitiveness. For that, I have my uber-tuned Sylvaneth army. With the changes to the GHB, my Sylvaneth army is definitely headed in the Dreadwood direction. That means I need a bunch more spites, dryads, and some more Scythe hunters. I could probably get away with using my scratch-boult treelord from 2013, but eventually I'll replace him with something painted to match everything else. Updates soon! (as soon as I can crack open those boxes and add to the force) Happy painting. -F

Awww. Thanks man! That actually means a lot. I'm having tough time staying motivated these days. It helps to have a little encouragement. I got into painting miniatures around 2008 or so. So nearly 10 years I suppose. Originally it was my wife who encouraged me to get into the hobby, as a way stop playing World of Warcraft. One obsession just snowballed right into another lol. But truthfully, I've been painting much longer than that. My miniature painting style is heavily influenced by my background as an oil painter. I started with learning watercolors in my mid 20's; circa 2001 or so. From there I learned to draw a bit, then got some oil painting instruction. I worked as a teacher, teaching drawing to children and adults until 2010, when I left California. Most of my non-tiny soldier work is small scale hyperrealism, mostly a genre called Tromp L'oeil (French for "Fool the eye"). Here's a recent example: In painting like this, everything is painted. From the cloth to background. I have a lot of people try to pick the tape off my paintings: Most of the work is small. The chess painting is 8" x 10". The charlie brown painting is even smaller: 4" x 6". But they do occasionally get bigger. 14" x 16": or 14" square: I don't have nearly the time i used to after my daughter was born, but I'm starting to get back into it. Generally speaking, it's a lot harder than painting miniatures and very slow going which is why I've backed off doing "serious work". Aside from my background as an oil painter, you'd be surprised how little of it translates. Learning to paint miniatures with very thin layers of acrylic paint is worlds away from oil painting. That being said, there are two pieces of information I've learned as an oil painter that have been invaluable to me as a miniature painter. 1. How good is your brush control? Far and away this is the biggest thing. Painting is drawing with paint. Your ability to make the tip of the brush do what you want it to do makes all the difference in the world. Do this as an experiment; how small can you write your name with a brush? Practice that. It teaches brush control like you wouldn't believe. 2. Clean simple painting beats messy complicated painting any day of the week. The cleaner and more even your basecoats the better things turn out. My Sylvaneth scheme is actually really simple to paint, but it's effect all depends on how smooth the fades are. some of my Tzeentch stuff is done with an airbrush, but most of it is by hand, and I could certainly do it all by hand if I wanted to. But it's nearly impossible to paint a clean fade if the undercoat is patchy or if the paint has too much texture. I've taught people to learn to draw from the ground up, paint too; I'm sure you're no different. I'll be happy to give you feedback on your work (if you want). I strongly believe that I do can be learned, especially with a little bit of training and a desire to do great work. Sometimes all you need is that last little push to get over the hill.

I was building toward something like this: Allegiance: TzeentchHeroesTzaangor Shaman (120)Tzaangor Shaman (120)Magister (120)Chaos Sorcerer Lord On Manticore (240)Battleline20 x Tzaangors (360)- 3x Pair of Savage Blade- 4x Savage Greatblade- 2x Savage Blade & Arcanite Shield10 x Chaos Warriors (180)- Hand Weapon & Shield20 x Chaos Marauders (120)- AxesUnits6 x Tzaangor Skyfires (320)3 x Tzaangor Enlightened (160)5 x Chaos Chosen (160)- Mark of Chaos: NoneBattalionsArcanite Cabal (50)Tzaangor Coven (40)Total: 1990/2000 But it remains to be seen if this build will be viable once the new GHB drops. I'm strongly inclined to adjust the list to add a hellcannon for long-range indirect fire.

Yeah, so I've been busy painting, but pretty bad at getting posts up. So far I've made really strong progress on this army. I have my unit of Tzaangors painted up: Well, half painted anyway since this will likely be a unit of at least 20. You can see I used the black skin scheme from the T-rev's in my Sylvaneth Army. Here's a close-up wip shot of the shield guy in the back: This is a tabletop army, so I'm not doing anything super fancy. Just trying to paint as cleanly as possible. The main difference between this and what I normally do is the inclusion of fluorescent colors as major part of the color scheme. You can see the Tzaangors all have florescent orange tips to their tendrils and feathers. It's also scattered throughout the army in various ways. I'm also arraigning them into sort of a visual hierarchy. The Tzaangor Shamans (which there will be two) get white skin with fluorescent feathers. The enlightened, skyfires and tzaangors all get black skin with various fluorescents depending on their unit. Orange for tzaangors, Green for Skyfires, Probably blue or purple for Enlightened (haven't decided). The Shamans will likely be deployed next to their corresponding units. For example the shaman above will likely be palling around with the skyfires since his feather plume will match theirs. I'm also just putting the finishing touches on my conversion. I have little more detail work yet to do, but the idea is firmly there: So that brings us pretty up to speed. I'm not sure what to tackle next so We'll have to see how much bandwidth I have over the next few days/weeks. Stay tuned! Happy painting -F

Rather busy week this week. I've finally settled on a list for my Disciples of Tzneetch army, and managed to pick up (nearly) everything I need to make 2k points. At this point, I'm really only missing 2 boxes of skyfires. I'm not too concerned, simply because at this point I have more than enough to keep me occupied. I'm currently building the first box of Tzaangors while also finishing the Tzaangors that were part of the silver tower box set; Since I started painting silver tower before starting DioT, the color scheme is just "Silver tower." I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do for the army, but I'm leaning toward the standard blue-and-gold armor from silver tower, but coal black skin (like the tree revenants from my Sylvaneth army) with grey faces and red plumage. Kind of like an African grey parrot. (They are supposed to be bird-like after all. But the big news is the progress on the model I teased last time: As you can see he now has a rider, and head! The gap filing was interesting, as I had to sculpt scales to match the transitions. Most of the sculpting work is hidden by the flanges on the head, but it was worth it anyway just to get the practice in. On top of that, the last of the important parts came today and I was able to do a dry fit: I'm not totally set on the wing position, but it's difficult to test them since they are too heavy for blue tac, and my fiddling with it actually broke the model off the base. It's evident that the model with need to be pinned, and likely given some terrain under his front foot to help with stability. All in all it's shaping up rather well. Rules-wise he'll likely stand in for a Sorcerer lord on a manticore. I'll post an update once things are more stable and I've had a chance to work out how to attach the wings. Happy painting! -F Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks mate! Coming up with the color scheme is probably the most difficult part of painting an army. sometimes it takes me longer to decide on a color scheme than to paint it.

Big update! Yeah. at this point any update is a big update. I try to paint everyday if I can, but we all know how daunting such a task can be. Between wife and daughter, daycare and the inevitable summer projects, painting time can get squeezed so easily. So often I'll paint sporadically over a couple of days/weeks without doing any plot updates. So inevitably when I get around to it, there's lots to go over. Thankfully at this point, it's really just the revenants. I'm so far, very pleased with how the color scheme is coming together. I played with a few variations, but ultimately the grey skin and white bark made for great contrast. The faces looks so strange and stark outside of the hair since the highlighting seems so drastic (skavenblight dinge highlighted up to Celestra Gray + a little white) before the hair is added. It's a lot like painting tiny portraits (something i've actually had a fair bit of experience with). One with the torso attached, but before hair is added. One of the things I've really really enjoyed painting was the glow effect on the weapons. I used to do these transition with an airbrush, but recently it's just been easier to do it with the brush. The artificer brushes are of such good quality that these transitions are fairly easy if you have a light touch. First, the weapons are bas coated with an even, smooth application of Ahriman blue, and the dark sections are marked out with a 50/50 mix of Ahriman and Black. Most of the swords get one dark transition on one edge, and two on the alternate edge. (I can do more, but it doesn't really add anything, it just takes longer.) When the black is added you can see the transition aren't terribly smooth. i usually end up doing the smooth transitions on the next layer, when I add temple guard blue to what will become the light parts of the sword. After that, I'll go in the light parts a second time. First with Baharroth Clue in the center of the light area and also along the edges and center ridge. that way there is a really clean demarcation between lights/darks. . All thats left after that is to hit the center of the lights with a little baharroth mixed 50/50 with white for some extreme highlights. It makes for a brilliant blue effect and serves as an eye-catching spot color for the army. These have been quite enjoyable to paint, and I've since finished two units. At some point I will add a third for my Outcasts Tournament list, but I think I'm a ways off from that. My next Sylvaneth project will be Alarielle, but I've opted to take a short break from the Sylvaneth and move over to my other project; my Disciples of Tzneetch army. I've very much wanted to take a crack at conversion I've been kicking around I'm my head for a couple of years now. (Since the End Times rolled around at the tale end of 8th edition). Here's where we're at so far. I'll just post part of what's on the work bench, (as the good parts will need some substantial green stuff work and I'm still working out exactly how everything will fit together). Anyone care to hazard a guess at what I'll be working on? Update in a week or so when I'll have something more impressive to show! As always, happy painting! -F

Updates! So. Five more Revenants on the table. At this point they are cleaned and done up to the first wash. Unfortunately, since these will be getting the "standard" treatment, (as opposed to the darker, faster variation seen on the outcasts) I have to wait a fair bit longer for the wash to dry. It's been my experience that if I hit the model with airbrush too soon, the parts where the wag has pooled with flake off if I touch it. So I've opted to wait a little longer to let the model off gas so the second airbrush base coat goes on easily. It makes the process slower, but ultimately results in less work over all. On a side note I'm attempting to sell my china hutch that's serving as a display case. I had to empty out, so here's it's contents set up on my washing machine. At this point it's mostly scenery, my scratch built terrain and a few chaos/order units that either don't make it into my usual list rotation, or I don't have way storage for. Also my somewhat stalled 40k dark eldar. This is by no means all of my models. I still have maybe another 200-250 models in my transport bag. Two full armies no less. I did manage to get a nice shot of my growing sylvaneth army in its natural habitat. I was able to get some basing done on a second forest floor last weekend, and it really makes a difference. Thankfully the second forest went together pretty quickly. Eventually I plan to have 9 citadel woods, but at the moment it's only 4. The hold up is basically the leaves which are hard to come by this time of year. But even with only 2 of those painted, it sure makes for a nice scene! As soon as I get my hands on some more leaves I'll do a basing tutorial for those of you who are interested. Happy painting! -F Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@wolfkin03 Totally. I'll be doing some bases in a day or two, i'll post the process then.

So I spent most of Wednesday putting paint in the outcasts. Here's a photo with Drycha who set the color scheme for the flesh. I agonized for number of weeks over what would be the best color to use for the flesh. In the end I opted for a greenish flesh tone starting from Skarsnik up to guass blaster and then up to a 50-50 mix of that and white. It was a decent compromise between not wanted to bring new colors into the scheme, but also trying to differentiate the outcasts from the rest of the army. Here a decent pic of the three infantry types together: You can see how the color schemes are definitely close. The dryads are nearly all white with tips that fade to black, while the Tree-rev's are a little darker thanks to the skin. The white hair however more than makes up for the dark skin. The outcasts have the exact same palette for the wood portion of the model, but the fade happens much faster and the highlighting is more aggressive. The light skin also makes the bark seem darker. And since the green of the skin is more or less reflected on the green leaves scattered throughout the army, it doesn't look entirely out of place but also doesn't entirely fit in either. Fluff wise it's perfect. It makes sense that the outcasts who are cut off from "all but the most violent parts of the spirit song" would only reflect a very small portion of the color spectrum; while the tree revenants, tempered by ages of martial memories would have the more balanced and more neutral flesh. I have a bit more work to do on these guys but I'll post an army shot when they are finished. -F Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Now an actual work in progress. My daughter got an extra day at daycare this week, so I opted to put some paint on the tree revenants creepier cousins; the spite revenants. The color scheme here will be very similar to Drycha (who I haven't gotten a decent photo if yet, but soon!). That is to say, darker than the dryads but with the same basic idea. The bodies of the spits themselves will be in OSL up to gauss blaster green. The progression here is pretty simple. Basecoat with Rakarth flesh, with the tips of the branches/feet shaded to dryad bark. Which is kind of a pain. I do most of my basecoating with an airbrush to save time (although most of my test models are painted entirely by hand) before going in with a brush, but the dryad bark thins down very quickly and it's tricky to get the consistency right without it spattering. Once all the fades are clean (no need to be perfect, this a tabletop quality army after all) I'll take the bodies out (everything but the main legs are held together with blue tack at this point) and hit everything with a wash of Carroburg Crimson. This allows everything to pull together before a final spray of Rakarth flesh to bring the lighter parts of the wood back up. I also like to leave a wee bit of blue tack where the glue will go, so I can leave the contact points clean. Then I'll just leave them offgas over night so everything doesn't rub off when I go to do the next layer. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Next up, Tree-Revenants! I went back and forth a few times with this color scheme. Occasionally when I pick a general color scheme to work across an army, I'm not entirely sure how everything will "fit". I originally tried blue skin with some OSL much like the weapons, but I found it was too distracting, and didn't read well from a distance. I wasn't particularly keen on bringing in any new colors (flesh, reds, yellows ect) so I opted to go with a "black" skin tone. The base is the old Charadon Granite, washed with a little watered-down black and then highlighted all the way up to Celestra Grey. On the tabletop, the white of the hair pushes the faces much darker creating this weird "no face" effect. It ended up working out really well. I originally intended this blog to be more a documentation of my works in progress rather than just for showing off finished models (which admittedly is always nice.) I have a few more photos to get of the things done so far, but after that it will be primarily WIP shots. Happy painting!

Lol. Yep! That was me! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So, My Sylvaneth is actually my first "dedicated" AoS army, originally pulled from my 8th edition Wood Elf army. After a few proxy games, I opted to scratch the original paint scheme and go with something "outlandish." I've always liked the Japanese Cherry blossom scheme and used that as my jumping off point, but it sort of morphed into more of a "rose" color scheme. As such I'm calling this "The Wargrove of the Blackthorn Rose." It's a cool scheme, and instead of going with the usual "dark center light edges" it reverses it and goes the other way, with parts getting darker the further they get from the body of the model. The base is a whitish pink that transitions to a dark rose and then to Black at the tips. Electric blue is serving as a spot color with the opportunity for some use of OSL. Nothing too crazy. The forests will be as follows: With a Branchwytch chilling on a blue rock: As you can see, the bases will get the same treatment as the floor of the wyldwood forests. In case you were wondering, the leaves are birch seed pods. They make banging maple leaves. I have more painted, but no pictures. Stay tuned! More to follow.

Hi party people! So, I've read these things for years and always appreciated the ideas they gave me. So i thought I would set one up myself and detail the progress I'm making on my AoS army(s). Firstly, just a little background on myself. I'm actually a classically trained figure painter. I've been painting professionally for about 15 years off and on (though more off than on since becoming a father 3 years ago.) I originally got into warhammer as an alternative to playing online MMORPG's about ten years ago, and since I specialize in miniature paintings, I figured painting miniature soldiers would be an easy transition. I currently have an 8th edition Warriors of Chaos army (my first army) a 8th ed Wood elf army as well as an AoS Sylvaneth and am currently starting A Disciples of Tzeentch army (although that army is still more in the planning stages). This PLOG will probably heavily feature my Sylvaneth army, since it's my first real dedicated AoS army in progress. There will probably be some Tzeentch stuff thrown in as well, to give myself a break from the trees, and who know where it will lead (I'm as excited to see that as you are). So i'll start by showing what currently finished and what's in progress. If you want receipts, thoughts or anything just ask. I'm always here to help. Happy painting -Frank

Totally your prerogative. I think there is more evidence that it works than doesn't, but I understand wanting to make a "safe judgement." With all due respect, I think you've made the wrong call on this one. (Especially as GW has ruled on more than one question that the phrase "As if it were the movement phase" means you can do anything you could during a regular movement phase.) I know it's not the place to debate it, so I won't. And again, it's your event so you can run it anyway you wish. Good luck mate! -F

@Ben I might also point out that GW has already ruled that move that don't happen in the movement phase are still "moves", and subject to all the rules that apply to movement. MOVEMENT PHASE Q: Do pile-in moves and charge moves, or indeed any other sort of move that doesn’t happen in the movement phase, count as a ‘move’ for rules purposes? A: Yes Rules tell us what we can't do, (just because it's "not the movement phase" doesn't mean a unit can move without coherency, or move within 3" of a unit without charging), but also tells what we can do ("i.e. navigate the realm roots or move from the hidden enclaves). If it has to abide by the restrictions shouldn't it also get its benefits? As @scrubyandwells already said, it's your even and you're allowed to rule however you wish. But this seems more like a comp than a rules interpretation.