Outside My Comfort Zone

Reaper Bones: Cinder

As we head into March, I started thinking about my painting goal for the next month. The year-long goal is to finish at least one Descent figure a week. Four weeks in March makes the goal fairly simple - three Carrion Drakes (those are the last of the Labyrinth of Ruin figures) and one other figure (probably the Raythen hero to finish that pack).

So why this post and what is outside my comfort zone?

Well, at the end of March is the Arizona Game Fair - a standard gaming convention here in my neck of the woods. As I looked over the activities, I saw that they are having a miniature painting contest. Now normally, I paint to standard below competition level - tabletop. That is to say, I do more than just get some paint on the figures, but I'm not trying to make them all perfect either. It is hard to justify spending hours on a couple of guys that might be on the table (in my eyesight) for a total of five minutes! Of course, some models are fun to try and make look really good, but for the most part I  wouldn't consider putting them up to be judged against other models.

Since there is a month until the game fair, I've decided to step outside my comfort zone and try and put together something for the contest. That's how we grow and get better - stretch and make mistakes and learn.

So I went and dug in my crate of things and found Cinder. A dragon model from a Reaper Bones order that I had never even un-bagged. A dragon. Good room for a little creativity and still a little "safe".

So I started tonight with the assembly. The model comes in multiple parts:

• Body with one leg
• the other leg
• two arms
• two wings
• top of the head
• base

Right off the bat, I'm doing stuff I don't normally do - assemble the model. No big deal, a drop of super glue and parts slide together. A leg, head, and two arms and I have something that almost looks like Godzilla. 

Except that of course the glue-in parts have gaps. gaps that need to be filled in with some liquid greenstuff (which despite the name isn't liquid). Citadel's Liquid Greenstuff is just model putty that is soft enough to spread with a brush. 

So I set about filling in cracks (like drywall spackle). The toughest part is trying to figure out (because once you start spreading it, it can be hard to tell) if I'm filling in the cracks or filling in a bunch of details too. 

I also start noticing a bunch of mold lines. Normally, I'm far too lazy to spend a bunch of time cleaning those off the models. Again, it is one of those things I just don't feel make a big difference in a tabletop model - Descent models have enough other flaws that I rarely notice a little mold line.

Well, this model is supposed to be a competition show piece, so I spend a little time with the file cleaning the stuff I'm seeing. I'm pretty sure that after I start priming this, I'm going to find a bunch more. 

One thing I don't do is glue in the wings. I'm still thinking about how I want this to look and not sure I want to limit my access to spine. I figure it can't hurt to start priming the wings, so while the green stuff is drying, I start priming the wings. I'm using Army Painter brush on primer to give me a nice neutral grey. 

By the way, I was right. As I'm priming the wings, I realize I have some mold lines on the wings to clean up. Sigh. No big deal, I want this to look good and I have a month to work on it. I don't have to get it done all in the first couple of days.

It is all part of the process. Who knows? Maybe I'll start really seeing all the mold lines and feel I should clean them up and all my work will take that next step. That's part of the goal here - not show off my questionable skills as a painter, but total a leap and see how far I have to grow.

So the next step is more primer and more clean up. I'll have to decide on whether to assemble the wings and take care of that now or after I work on the spine. I started looking for pictures of dragons to get some inspirations. About all I'm sure of is that I don't want to do either red or green. There are more than enough of those out there already. I'm thinking dark blue - almost black. Stay tuned!

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Painting Descent - February

Here is my February update for painting - the month isn't over, but I don't anticipate finishing anything over the next two days.

Over on BGG, the Painters Guild runs a monthly "Challenge List". For February, my goal was a modest 7 figures: four Goblin Witchers, two Archyura, and Ariad lieutenant figure. I blew that goal out of the water and also finished: Queen Ariad lieutenant, Raythen Lieutenant, and two heroes - Ulma Grimstone and Logan Lashley. My goal has been to average a figure a week, but I know from experience that a group of small figures will take only a few days, so I felt silly saying all I'd get done  is one group of four Goblin Witchers. As silly as it sounds, I have thus far not quite averaged 2 figures a week, so I have tried to be reasonable about my estimates so I don't get behind.

 Here are my lifetime totals for Descent and the figures I finished for the month:

• 63 monster figures done
• 20 hero figures done
• 11 lieutenants done
• 17 figures done in 2019 through 9 weeks

Goblin Witchers

Archyura

Ariad Lieutenant

I wasn't a big fan of any of those models and glad to just have them done. I dislike doing multiples of the same thing anyway, but the goblins were really uninteresting to me. The spider/crabs were also fairly boring (but turned out better than I thought they were going to). I almost never cut the models from the base, but they were so low that I had to in order to paint the bottoms. Ariad was ok until I got to the gold. I hate lining anything with gold paint. No matter how carefully I do it - it always looks gloppy in the end.

I got through my original goal early in the month, so started work on a few "bonus" items.

Queen Ariad Lieutenant

Queen Ariad might be one of the worst large models that FFG has ever done. It is just lazy and lacking details. The reference art is also terrible, so I whipped through this model in no time flat, glad to be done with it.

Ulma Grimstone

Logan Lashley

I finished the heroes I had left to work on from the Labyrinth of Ruin expansion. I wasn't excited about these two models, but they ended up being more interesting than I anticipated. Ulma's reference art looked like she had blown up a potion with her goggles on, so I went with that and made he forehead and chin look darker - that turned out decently (her face and goggles are just about the only interesting feature of this model). Logan has a stupid number of belts and things which meant trying to color them all differently enough to stand out as different features. That being said, a whole bunch of green and browns and belts make for a boring (to paint) mini.

Raythen Lieutenant

Reference art

The Raythen Lieutenant model was also a bit junky. First, the model was crap - lots of mold lines and flash - worse than the normal FFG stuff. The reference art was also really lazy. Black cape and burgundy armor with silver trim. I went ahead and decided to try out two-brush blending on the cape as something new. It is hard to tell from the above picture, so I put another just below that better captures the true colors. The cloak is really a dark green with black radiating out from the head/shoulders. The cloak ended up looking good enough that I didn't really care that the rest of the paint job was fairly generic.

The only other thing of note - I switched from using black gesso to using Army Painter's brush on primer (grey). I've decided to give this a whirl and see how it goes. So far so good, but I can definitely see keeping the black around for some work. I also grabbed a new set of P3 paints and so far they are fabulous on the Army Painter primer. I still like Citadel's paint line for a number of things (metallic and washes and glazes), but I suspect I'm only going to keep colors I can't readily get in P3's line. Logan and Ulma were probably 85% P3 paints - I even printed out a nice paint rack for them:

Bonus, printed with glow-in-the-dark material

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Hobby Painting - Brushes

Hobby painters are funny. Maybe human beings are just funny - and by that I mean quirky. People that play tabletop games are of course quirky (but in my experience, not all that differently quirky than lots of hobbyists as things relate to their hobbies). But of course, miniature painters are a whole category of quirky within the tabletop gaming world.

A couple things recently caught my interest - different discussions, posts, videos etc that related to painting, so I thought I'd just share some random thoughts about some Things of No Interest. Today we are talking about... paint brushes.

When you boil it down, you basically need three (hundred) things to paint minis. Minis, paint, and one or more brushes. I belong to a couple of different groups on BGG and FB for minis and one of the most frequently asked questions is some variation of, "What brushes do you use?", "What brushes are the best?", "What brushes should I start with as a beginner?"

I'm not even going to try and answer which you should use. One, I'm no expert. Two, google can help you research.

I can tell you what I use and why. I mean, at one point I was asking the same questions. I currently use Kolinsky Sable brushes by Kalish. The general consensus seems to be that Kolinsky Sable is the best choice for a lot of painting. The overwhelming brand recommended in most painting forums is the Windsor and Newton Series 7 (and if you want to know why, watch this short review video).

I do not own any Windsor and Newton brushes. You don't need to own any to do quality work (but after watching this video recently, I may go play with my brushes and seriously consider buying some). For the most part, I've been happy with my Kalish brushes. They are reasonably priced ($7-8 each, including shipping) and work well for me - and that is really the key. Finding a set of tools that work well for you. I'm not a pro painter, I don't do it for money and I don't enter competitions, so spending 3x as much money per brush (to this point) hasn't seemed reasonable to me, as I'm not frustrated with the tools I have.

I have used a number of different brushes since I started painting and most were cheap synthetic brushes. I started spending a little bit on sable brushes, because the synthetics didn't hold sharp points well on my 0 and 00 brushes. That being said, I also started taking better care of my brushes as I spent more on better brushes and that makes a big difference too. Cleaning your brushes with brush soap after using helps keep paint out of the bristles and helps keep the tips nice and pointy.

In the last year or so, I've also started using larger brushes (size 1 and 2 vs 0 and 00). Better quality brushes with sharp points/tips do matter when you start going to larger brushes. The main reason I use larger sized brushes for my main jobs is that they hold more paint, which makes painting figures much faster.

Other than your standard round brush (which means the "belly" of the brush is round, not the brush - a round brush is actually tear shaped) I have a few other "specialty brushes I use as well. I have a pair of old beat-up flat brushes that I used for dry brushing, but they were getting to the point where I wasn't quite happy with the results. I bought a cheap package of synthetic angled flat brushes to replace them, but I haven't even tried them out yet because of this video:

Yep, I am currently (mostly) using $1 makeup brushes from Walmart to do my dry brushing. The results are as good as shown in the video. I highly recommend grabbing some and trying them out. I also keep some of the random synthetic brushes around for doing washes (so I don't stain my good/main brushes). I use one of the bigger synthetic brushes for priming the models in gesso, but I'm looking to try a new brush-on primer (out of curiosity as much as anything) so I might make the switch and ditch that brush. Or maybe I'll keep it for misc playing around - because again, the secret is finding what works for you!

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Cult of the Not So New February 2009

Here we are in February 2019! Time to look back at the hotness from 10 years ago! 

BGG user JonMichael Rasmus (jmsr525) has been doing analysis of the games and their trends each month for what seems like forever. I like looking back, because frankly, there are lots of good games that didn't come out in the last two years, and lots of games you probably heard of that don't get played (for good reason). So sit back and enjoy this blast from the past. Based on information in the geeklist - BGG Top 100 Analysis February 2009

Prime Movers

• Space Alert: +14 to #83. Space Alert is a cooperative team survival game. Players become crew members of a small spaceship scanning dangerous sectors of the galaxy. The missions last just 10 real-time minutes (the missions came on a CD, which required you to have a CD player). When this was released, everyone wasn't running around with a smart phone and bluetooth speakers - so a CD was a reasonable way to release the soundtrack. At the time, it did something new and interesting (and was a short co-op where you played in a panic) and how the heck is this still sitting at #168? I assume you can download the soundtrack now, but still...

Falling Stars

Well, technically there were no falling stars, but Mr. Jack fell 6 spots to #76 (a "falling star" was something that dropped more than ten spots). Mr. Jack is two-player game where one player is secretly moving Jack the Ripper and the other player is trying to catch the first player (think of it like a two-player Scotland Yard). A decent little two-player that has an expansion and a variant or two. The original currently sits at #447. If you want to give it a whirl, you can even try it online - http://www.hurricangames.com/en/games

Hot Lava Birth

• Cosmic Encounter - this oldie but a goodie (seriously, this was I think the 4th or 5th edition of the game) was redone by FFG in late 2008, so received a resurgence and push into the Top 100 at #89 (currently #113). CE is one of those love it or hate it negotiation games where each player takes on the role of a faction (each having their own rule breaking power) that wants to take over the galaxy. FFG saw the potential of a game with a built in fan base and a good amount of expansion potential and ran with it.
• RoboRally - I have no explanation for why this game from 1994 might have jumped into the top 100 (at #98, currently sitting at #366). If you have never played it (and it was redone in 2016) then you are missing out on one of the few "programming" games out there. The game setup is simple - put out a number of boards representing a factory. Program a handful of moves into your robot, then everyone executes the moves. Of course, you are trying your best to both foil the other player's plans while trying not to have yours screwed up. Its chaotic and some people love it. Others really hate the chaos and having their plans screwed up after their first planned move. I think it was too long for what it is and it has a little bit of a Mario Kart problem - if you can pull away from the group, you have the best shot at winning. Get knocked around a little and stuck in the pack and you are hosed for most of the game. Honestly, it defeats the purpose of the game if you get away with pulling off your moves every single round (leader) and its frustrating when you can't do anything. So, the chaos is fun for a bit, then I'm not sure where the entertainment is in this game.

Top Ten Trends

I like the top ten trends. Some of the PBM folks were talking about the #1 spots earlier and I had a fair idea of a number of them just because of this particular topic.

• Through the Ages (+1 #7) - TtA kept on with its steady rise (though it never held the #1 spot). I've mentioned it many a time in the past - I was a huge fan of this for a long time, but after a number of games, it fell out of favor with me due to a couple of (IMO) serious issues. For a longer game, bash the loser sucks, especially with no way to recover once it starts. If you enjoy this, great, have a good time.
• Swapping places with TtA in the top 10 was the super classic area control game - El Grande. El Grande has fallen outside the top 50 (currently #57), but is still a phenomenal game that everyone should play at some point (if you are a euro-gamer). 

Top 5 Winning Movers

These are the highest ranked games that have shown any positive position movement in the last month that aren't in the top 10. I especially like this portion of the article, because typically games that showed some kind of movement upwards in the top 100 were (and often still are) good games.

• Command and Colors: Ancients - this was about the 5th iteration of Borg's C&C system and is one of the best. I don't have any particular love for this setting, but as a "light" wargame, the system is really well done. Well done enough to have at least 5 expansions. If you have not ever played any of the C&C games, don't let your attention wander to the variations that have minis - the blocks work really well here (the biggest drawback of this game is actually sticking the damn blocks).
• Die Macher - game number 1 in the BGG database! Who wants to play a game about elections in Germany? Well, besides being a crazy brain burner, it is an amazing game. The theme sounds dry as toast, but it works perfectly (and what you do makes sense, despite being a dry-euro-cube-pusher). All euro-gamers should play this at least once. Even if you only try the "short" version.

• Goa - I have never tried this game. It came out a few years before I got into boardgames again and by the time I arrived on the scene, the local group had pretty well played this out. As most newbies soon learn, there are so many games out there you don't know what you are missing (if anything). I've been told this is best with people of similar experience, so someday I'll need to find a copy and a group that has never tried it (or they need to release an app of the game).
• Le Havre - Some find this game a little dry (it is), but I think this is one of Ewe's better games. It takes a few plays to get a handle on the flow and the main buildings that will come out, but after those few plays, this is a beast of a mid-weight engine building euro. I'd rather play Ora et Labora or Caverna to get my Ewe fix, but this is definitely in the mix.
• Battlestar Galactica - oh BSG... This is one of the more popular co-op/traitor games, but its length and my lack of desire to play this kind of game has always kept me away. Love the source material, but not enough that I want to play it. I'd rather play One Night Werewolf for a quick fix of the traitor genre, and Eldritch Horror is one of the few co-ops I'd actively try to play, so this just isn't my cup of tea. That said, she still sits in the top 100 at #64

And that's all for this look back at BGG history and what was hot a decade ago.

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