RecklessFable's Journey to Mediocrity (Painting an IG army)

[RecklessFable]

Pre-ramble

Well, I've finally committed to Imperial Guard, which means I've committed myself to a future that will be cramped, blind and looney from rank upon rank of tiny little models with actual human faces.

Human faces, the hardest thing in the world to paint since everyone knows when they don't look quite right. Screw up an alien and it might look like you meant it to look like that. Space marines? Heck, you might paint 3 faces in 2000 points!

Good grief, what have I done to myself? Oh yeah, I love painting, even though I am horrible at it.

Yes, if you continue reading you will embark on a journey with someone who has played this game for over a decade, but is a horrible painter anyway. Good luck to us all.

Getting Better

Once upon a long time ago I bought a pile of Tallarn models. They've been sitting around for a long, long time, waiting for their turn at my table. After 10 years (on, off, on, off and on again) I finally finished 4000 points or so of black power armored Space Marines of varying and often dubious quality. Here is a prime example:



It is time for the next level. I'm going to get better at painting, even if it kills me. For that I need to practice which is one thing a pile of IG are good for.

Hopefully this thread will be a log of one gamer's journey from dreadful painter to a level of at least passable mediocrity.

So fill up your glass and settle in for a long trip. Hopefully this will be an inspirational thread for those of you who still "spray and play" their armies so you can see that anyone can have a decent army if they actually commited to trying. Barring that, at least you can feel smug about my pathetic attempt to paint better! I'm trying, but my expectation is not to go from Spray and Play to artist in one go.

As always, constructive comments and outrageous flattery are appreciated.

[RecklessFable]

As with any project, you have to start with something resembling a plan. However, folks like me tend to get caught in a cycle known as "Analysis Paralysis". The short definition is "A state where you are thinking so hard about what you want to do that you never get around to doing it." Longer definition here. It isn't quite procrastination, but it smells the same.

The difference is that procrastinators generally know exactly what they should be doing, they just aren't doing it.

That being said, I finally came up with a concept. The orignial thread is here: "Aiel cadin'sor color scheme" (Aiel cadin'sor color scheme). Thank you to everyone who helped me figure things out.

So my concept model is this one.


I'm still not finished figuring out how to highlight it and I'm not happy with the weapons, BUT I MUST BREAK OUT OF ANALYSIS PARALYSIS AND PAINT ALREADY! So I decided to start painting the first platoon and figure out the finishing details AFTER.

Colors:
Codex Grey (Tunic)
Graveyard Earth (Trousers, Shoulders and slashes of color on the tunic)
Scorched Earth (Boots and Leather items)
Chaos Black

Thought for the day: "Analysis Paralysis can kill a project more effectively than making mistakes along the way and fixing them."

[RecklessFable]

So I am cheating a little. I actually took so long to start my blog that I've already been making progress with the first platoon. I'll still post in chronological order.

Here is the obligatory workspace shot. Please note the lamp over my left shoulder. I can't thank <I NEED TO FIND OUT WHO IT WAS> enough for mentioning that tip. I was living with overhead lighting and my swing arm on the right side of my desk for far too long. Lighting over my left should has helped me see details my crummy eyes have never seen before! I'm a lifelong wearer of strong glasses so I always figured the probelm was me. It was me, being stupid, rather than being blind!



And so, after removing some flash, we are ready to begin.
Bare Metal Tallarn!


While removing flash I came upon my first, horrible, realization. Some of the old GW models were cast so bad they are nearly unusable. I had a flashback to 10 years ago when was at a store and had the owner allow me to put together a single usable dreadnaught from his stock of boxes. Then he returned the insanely miscast pieces to GW.

Well, I don't have that luxury now. Besides, even these horribly casted ones (I'll upload pics another time) are a few dollars each now. So some models will just be horrible, but I'm taking a deep breath and moving on.

Thought for the day "Forward Progress is better than lamenting setbacks"

[RecklessFable]

So, I have a color scheme. Now how do I paint the first batch of 45 without losing my mind or giving up?

Well, thanks to Undeadair's tutorial, I learned that I might finally be able to paint faces without a zillion layers of paint thanks to basing the face with GREY! I'd been doing so many layers of flesh tones that I was going batty and losing facial deatil in the process.

So that being the case, I changed my basecoating plan midstream and switch to grey, as you can see here:


The best part is that this also allowed me to use the same Codex Grey on the faces for a basecoat while I was doing the tunics.

My plan was to do all the faces, then do the grey basecoating, then the graveyard eath basecoating. The plan changed slightly after seeing the tutorial to doing all the grey first, then the faces, then the rest.

Thought for the day: Much like rock-paper-scissors, Codex Grey beats Chaos Black Primer, Elf Flesh Beats Codex Grey...

[RecklessFable]

Just a short post here so you can see my progress.

How did I pick skin tones you ask? Well since this entire platoon is a learning experience for me, I went and basecoated a a handful of models at a time in each color of skin tone I owned. My big mistake was washing them all in Flesh Wash. Flesh Wash is sooooo freaking dark that it essentially ruined the lighter-toned basecoats.

Black Primer -> Codex Grey Basecoating -> Face Painting -> Graveyard Earth Basecoating -> Skulls in Bleached Bone






One day I will go back and fix all the faces, but I must make forward progress and my next 50 guardsmen will have better washing!

Oh, and somewhere in there is a melta gunner with skin that looks like sunburn. Yeah, I meant to do that. He is, after all, carrying a 1.21 gigawatt microwave in his hands!

Thought for the Day: My Imperial Guard are Racially Diverse.

[RecklessFable]

I'm finally caught up on my posting, so from here on out everything will be posted "in the present"

If you are actually still reading this thread, Thanks! What do you think?

[Lost Nemesis]

Looking good. Interested to see how they turn out.

[LittleBlueMan]

I like this thread very much. Nice determination to get up and paint so many models. I play tau, and I've only painted 2 out of my 3 squads of 12. But I am an extreme procrastinator.

I must say, rep for making your IG racially diverse. I am tired of seeing every model in the game be white, like all the sisters of battle will be white. They are sisters for god's sake. (bad joke, sorry).
Yeah, but all special characters are white in all of the pictures, etc.
And your post is humerous and fun to read.

[RecklessFable]

Thanks for the encouragement! I'll be posting the next part soon!

[RecklessFable]

Once again, my army progress is ahead of my posting progress. Time to catch up.

The first batch are almost complete. I experimented with highlighting and t wasn't really noticable. When I used a lighter shade, it was noticable and detrimental... sigh.

So this is the almost finished group. Just needs basing and something less boring on the guns. I'm saving the basing for waaaay last.



The special weapons lads:


I really hate the "Drybrush with Boltgun Metal" thing for these guys. It looks horrible. I could really use some ideas on how to make these fellows look like they are carrying "tactical" looking guns, as in matte black, without making it look like the modelas are unfinished.

I tried using tin-bitz accents, not sold on the idea though...

Thought for the Day: Matte Black Tactical Weapons are cool in real life, boring on the tabletop.