Update: March 1, 2017

Another month of 2017 has passed. This last month, I started painting a little bit more, trying to at least get three or four hours a week in every other week. I also managed to get in a game of Kings of War this last Saturday at my local game store while the U.S. Masters Tournament was taking place in Nashville. I gave up my spot on the West Coast team this year because I was not able to travel due to work and the impending birth of our second child (which as I write this should be coming any day now). I will have a full write-up of that game in about a week or so as I managed to track the game pretty closely while I was playing. My DnD group has also managed to get in a couple more games, though we are having some trouble clearing a dungeon due to some repeatedly bad dice roll (we've been in the same dungeon for three sessions already clearing only a few rooms at a time). Anyways, here's how the painting is coming along with the Ratkin army:


I recently spoke to a friend of mine, Ed Phillips (perhaps you have heard of this knucklehead), who is a much better painter than I am and asked for a bit of advice on kicking the Rat army up a notch. He suggested taking all of the colors up a highlight or two (almost to their whitest version) and dropping in some dark black through use of either an ink or the .005 pen that everyone (including myself) seems to own. Taking his advice, I went back and reworked the Clawshoot Troop that I had finished for the West Coast GT back in September when I was cranking out all of the army bases.

For this unit, I added another highlight to the main cloak color, the tips of the rat's ears and other similar bits, and the green ammo cases. I then went through and dropped some deep black lines in the crevasses which I think helps clean up the model a little bit as my painting is not as crisp and clear as others. This is how the unit looked before I went back to touch it up:

And here's how the unit turned out after working on the unit a bit more. The extra highlight really picks up the eye from table-top height and the black lines, particularly along the gun barrel, really cleans up the whole model making it look more realistic from a distance (which is what I am painting for rather than a competition or close up display).

Same unit from the same picture position to show the extra level of highlights. 

Front view of the unit with the extra work and highlights.

Side view of the completed unit.

I have also spent a bit of time on a DnD model that I got for Christmas. The GM for our group, being a kind and generous fool, and also tired of us using whatever models we happened to have around, made us all custom miniatures from Heroforge as Christmas presents. Heroforge is a website that allows you to build customer fantasy and futuristic miniatures using their online tools and then have those custom models 3-D printed in various kinds of plastic or other materials. As our GM had never used their services before he just got miniatures with the basic level of plastic (as they get quite expensive for a single figure at the higher quality plastics). You can take a look at the miniatures below, but I can say that they are reasonably detailed for 3-D printed models. One of our group was lucky enough to get his model printed in a higher quality plastic for free, and I can say that the higher quality plastic is definitely worth it if you can afford it (roughly $25 for a single miniature). The details on the basic level were good, and the customization alone definitely makes picking up these models worth it when you can't find the right Reaper model to represent your character. But, having seen the difference between the two (and having primed both plastics), I would definitely upgrade all my future purchases. But here is what our custom models looked like (the black plastic is the upgraded plastic).

From left to right: Theren Wanakin, Elf Druid; a Halfling Monk; a female human archer with bow; our Dragonborn Bard (though a saxaphone was not an available instrument); Lord Easton Greymane, human wizard (my character); and our glaive-wielding human fighter.

I wanted to paint my miniature for the game as a basic white figure doesn't stand out heroically in combat. I primed the model black, and then laid down a base coat of the colors I wanted over the primer. The model was difficult to prime, as it seemed the model (even after a proper washing) sucked the primer into small gaps and grooves left in the printing and the model had an overall rough feel. Then, I basically had to lay down a double coat of each base coat in order to cover the model. This lost a little bit of the finer detail, but it was impossible to cover the model with how rough it was after priming. (Note, this did not occur on the higher quality plastic model).

Based colors over black primer. You can see the patchy coverage of the primer and the thicker base coat than normal.

After a dark color wash. At this point I could see the wash run into small divots over the flatter areas of the model.

I then spent a few more nights slowly highlighting the cloak and under-robe in order to make the model functional on the table. I knew after priming that this model was not worth putting in time to make it truly jaw dropping so all of these highlights were done in a little less than 2 hours over two nights while watching re-runs of The Twilight Zone.

Front of the model after cloth highlighting. I still need to work on the skin and the magical effects.

A side view of the same model. I really like how he is in the process of casting something like Bigby's hand or Chill Touch.

I also spent some time getting all of the rats for the Blight Horde together and got the first layer of highlights back on the models after having washed them all. This is the start of several layers and so the models still look dark and messy, but should get cleaned up by the time the next five layers are put on the cloth. Right now, however, I am just happy to have all 20 models at the same point so I can really drive back into this unit.

The Blight models all together and staring the slow process of layering.

One more picture because I can. Time to really dive in an finish a second unit of this army.