Today marks the start of a new and (hopefully) ongoing section of Wyrd Stones and Tackle Zones. It’s called Under the Brush, and it will focus on what minis and/or terrain we are currently painting. For me, personally, I am hoping that it writing about what I am currently working will help me keep my motivation and focus for miniature painting. The idea is to write multiple posts as I progress with painting the minis I currently have on the table. We’ll see how this all pans out for me… Well, with the clever (I guess that’s debatable) intro out of the way, let’s take a look at what is Under the Brush!
As I teased a while back, the next mini painting “project” on my agenda for a while now has been my old Delaque gang minis for Necromunda. Since I have a Shadow War: Armegeddon boxed set on the way, along with an awesome looking gaming mat provided by Deep-Cut Studio, PLUS the recent announcement by Games Workshop that Necromunda is being re-released, these Delaque minis are kind of the perfect minis to start this new series with.
Now, as I have stated MULTIPLE times in the past, I really don’t like painting minis, so don’t expect these minis to get finished in the next week or two…
My Delaque minis consist of the original boxed set from Games Workshop, plus an extra Heavy with a Flamer. This gives me a total of nine Delaque minis. I picked these minis up years ago from one of the guys in my home town who originally got me into Blood Bowl. He also bought a Necromunda boxed set and Outlanders supplement, but I never got the chance to play it before the old group moved on to something else.
I had previously started painting these minis, but I was using them as my first attempt at layering. I only had the flesh done, and a couple of them came out OK, but a couple of them not so much… with that, I decided to strip them and start over. Here they are after stripping.
I added a little base gravel, but moving forward, I might do something a little different for Shadow War/Necromunda minis. Gravel just doesn’t seem right for minis that are supposed to be fighting in highly industrialized settings.
I decided to prime the minis black because I was originally going to go with black trench coats, but I have since changed my mind.
I managed to actually finish the flesh on the minis after a couple of sittings. I went with a fairly pale flesh color for these minis, with the idea being that the Delaques are big into technology, and not too much into getting Vitamin D compliments of the sun. I started with a base coat of Vallejo Game Color Pale Flesh, the shaded the area with Vallejo Flesh Wash. I cleaned up with more Pale Flesh, then added some Vallejo Game Color Skull White to the Pale Flesh for highlights.
After I finished the flesh parts on all the minis, I moved on to the first few trench coats. I decided to go with Vallejo Game Color Leather Brown for the base coat. It’s a little darker than the color of the coats on the box image, but that is what I was going for. I want them to be similar, but not too similar to what is on the box.
Here are a few close up pics of the minis in their current state.
Left to right we have my gang Leader, a standard Ganger, and a Juve.
Left to right: another Juve, and two standard Gangers.
Left to right: the two gang Heavies and a final Ganger.
I was hoping to get some painting done this week, but I actually managed to sprain my wrist last Friday, so I won’t be getting much done with a big wrist brace on for a few more days, at least. Hopefully I will manage to do at least a LITTLE more painting before my Shadow War boxed set and the gaming mat arrive. Time will tell.
Be sure and check back soon for my review of the Deep-Cut Studio Space Hulk gaming mat!
As for the Shadow War: Armageddon, it’s not exactly a new release. Do you guys want a full unboxing for it, or has it been out long enough that an unboxing is no longer of interest to anyone?
Wyrd Stones and Tackle Zones 
Really looking forward to this series, as I start to delve back into painting, with Blood Bowl minis. I feel rusty as heck. It’s especially nice that we use the same paint brands, seems everyone uses Citadel. Question, how thinned down do your make base coat paint? How many layers did it take to get the trenchcoats done? I’ve had a crazy time trying to paint over darker primer, and I think it’s because I water down my initial coats too much.
I was also really curious what that wooden thing was in the background, till a few pics later, I learned it’s your ‘priming stand’. Very nice!
I like the color choice for the trenchcoats. With the black, they look very Matrix like, which could be cool. But I think they will end up with more character, with the color you chose.
I would certainly be interested in a Shadow War: Armageddon unboxing. I’ve never even seen the game, so it would be interesting to see how it compares with what I’ve seen from Necromunda.
Sorry to hear about the sprain, and hope it heals up soon!
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For base coats I usually just do 25% water. 3 drops of paint to 1 drop of water. I just try to add enough water to help the paint flow a little better. I think it only took 2 coats of paint to cover the primer.
The coats are far from done. I really just started the base coats, and I haven’t decided what my accent color will be just yet. Maybe red, maybe white… don’t know yet.
For the painting stand… I made that probably 2 or 3 years ago now. It’s 2 pieces of 1×4 cut to just under 17 inches. The top piece has 10 1 inch holes drilled into it in a staggered pattern, then the 2 pieces were glued together. Then I cut 10 pieces of 1 inch dowel in 4 inch lengths. With a little poster tack on top of each removable dowel, I now have a very substantial handle for each mini that I paint. That is huge for me as holding on to anything smaller for a few hours at a time just kills my hands. When I am not painting the minis, the base holds all the dowels safely and allows for easy group transport in and out of the house for priming or clear coating.
I ordered some more Games Workshop industrial terrain pieces today, so hopefully by the time the new Necromunda officially releases, I’ll have a nice collection of industrial terrain.
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Ah, I didn’t realize those dowels are removable. I thought they were fixed so that you could prime them all at once or something. That is really nice. I paint on top of some Citadel paint pots that I’ve never used. They work well for holding minis when coupled with blue-tac. But I’m constantly moving minis on/off of the paint pots. Yours is a much better solution. Cool that you got some new terrain, looking forward to seeing how it shapes up.
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I used to attach the minis to plastic bottle caps years ago, but it just didn’t give me enough to hold on to. I had given up GW paint pots years earlier by that point, so I started thinking about making my own solution. Once I started thinking about making something, I tried to think about it from multiple angles to try and come up with a solution that might serve multiple purposes. I knew I wanted something with a long handle for my hands, but I also needed something that I wouldn’t have to worry about constantly falling over. After thinking about it for a few weeks, this is what I came up with. I’m happy with how it turned out.
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