This Past Weekend December 25, 2012

This past weekend (my first! 4-day weekend), was all about painting and Christmas parties, and food, and fun. But really all about painting. I was able to spend almost 2 solid days painting away at my army (Sunday and most of Monday) and made decent progress on all of my projects.

Project #1: Glade Riders

The first project I worked on was finishing up some final highlighting on one of my units of Glade Riders. I am not the best painter, so I never get the master-class paint points (or awards), but I do notice certain techniques or painting choices can gain me an extra point or two at each tournament. For this unit I went back and slightly edge highlighted the quivers on the models' backs, repainted the gems on the models' spears, 'ardcoated both areas to give the model a little more sheen, and painted one of the arrow fletchings a different color so that the archer knows which way to nock the arrow before he fires. I am hoping these little additional details really push the army's paint score up a few more points.

Project #2: Dryads

As I stated in my last post, my current army design for WaaghPaca! - now only three weeks away - was to paint 4 units of 8 dryads, 32 in all. Well, after two furious days of painting I managed to completely finish two more Dryads, including bases, bringing my grand total of finished Dryads to 3 out of 32. But I also managed to put some paint on at least ten more Dryad models so I have several more that should be easily finished this coming weekend as well. Here are the two newest Dryads added to my collection:

Dryad #2

Dryad #3

Project #3: Xmas Model Exchange

This year I am participating in a Christmas model exchange through Asrai.org, the Wood Elves website and forum. As part of the exchange you are given a person to paint a model for and when you are finished you send it to that person. At the same time another person is painting a model for you. Its a neat way to paint something you wouldn't normally paint while getting a model in return. For my project, I chose a Pegasus Knight as I thought it would be a fun model to paint for someone wanting to start a Brettonian army.

The first thing I worked on, and finished, was the base. As I am really into fall colors right now I went with a fall theme for the base, but because Brettonia has many mountainous areas, I gave it a more sparse feel than with the Wood Elves.

Next, I started putting base colors on the Pegasus. As I haven't quite decided on the look that I want it to have yet, I just base coated the horse flesh Dryad Bark and gave it a quick wash.

I need to go through some pictures this weekend to figure out how I want the wings to look, but for the flesh I think I am just going to highlight it slightly and keep it as a darker brown flesh tone.  

Finally, I got started on the rider portion of the model.

I first started with a brass color on the under-armor portion of the model which I will be highlighting up a little bit more.

Next was to base paint the larger areas of the model. I painted all the outer armor plates Boltgun Metal and all the fabric Scab Red. I then used Desert Yellow on the belt.

After the model was base painted, I washed the entire model in Devlin Mud wash to give it a dirty, but not greasy feeling. I prefer Devlin Mud over a black wash specifically for this reason.

Next up was layering the model. I repainted portions of the armor Boltgun Metal leaving the crevasses the washed out color. I then used Mithril Silver as a layer highlight on top of that to give the armor some more depth. I still need an edge highlight on the armor but that can wait.

I also started working on the fabric following the same process that I have been using for my Elves; Scab Red followed by Blood Red followed by a red-orange mix. 

This is what the fabric looks like when it is all done.

After that all dried, I went to work on the leather areas of the model trying to breathe a little bit more color into the model and I base coated the shields a dark blue that will be worked up to a light blue to contrast with the red fabric.

I have a lot more work to do on the model, but I have until the end of February to have it shipped out, so I know that I will be able to finish it in time and have it look great. I hope the person I am sending it to likes it.

As I have a lot more painting to do this weekend, I will just close this post with a picture of my Christmas present from my roommate. It looks like I have a lot more painting to do. And some rules to read!