A discussion about test miniatures

I've been on a minimalist kick lately on this blog, but today, I'd like to provoke a little dialog. The subject is test miniature.

Instead of painting a whole squad at once, you paint just one to see how you like the color scheme. It's also a chance to figure out what colors you're going to use to get your desired effect.

Here's selection of some of mine:This is the miniature off of which the rest of my Thousand Sons are based. It's actually the second test mini I did. This is the first:

This is the third and final test mini for my Renegade Space Marine Chapter, the Sentinels of Truth. I had a real hard time getting the grey just right. This color scheme has yet to be, "put into production" since I decided to concentrate on demons for now.

Speaking of daemons, her are the test minis for my flamers and horrors. The Horrors have been finished with a slightly different look. The Flamers are in the queue.

One of the few test minis I was satisfied with the first time out. I still need to work on how that gold is going to look, but the flesh tones (blue body and pinkish claws) are pretty much what I was going for. Another unit in the queue.

This is a test miniature of a diffident sort. I just wanted somewhere to practice some highlighting and shading techniques. I figured a spawn was a good place for that. I don't intend to paint a whole squad like this, but I figure that if it doesn't come out perfect, no big deal,it's just a spawn.

The reason I'm bringing this all up is that with the unit I'm currently painting (the bloodletters), I wanted to forgo the usual test mini. I figured that they're mainly just red so how hard can they be?

Another reason I didn't want to paint a test mini was this it takes the limited painting time I have away from the unit as a whole. I really wanted to bang this unit out quick. Plus, I don't want to agonize over this unit too much. I'm more of a Tzeentch/ Slaanesh kinda guy, you know?

I painted the Bloodletters this week but didn't post pictures because I'm just not happy with them yet. I think I've come to the realization that it's harder to work without a goal in mind.

Here's what I mean. I started with a white under coat and started with a couple layers of Blood Red.

The first shading layer was Blood Red mixed with Red Gore(1:1). This layer didn't show that much, but I figured that as it was just the first layer.

I did this on all 8 miniatures in the unit. This took about three painting sessions (yeah, I paint slow).

The next layer was pure Red Gore. However, the shading wasn't really coming out the way I wanted. After I painted about half of the unit, I added Dark Angels Green to the Red Gore and painted one mini with it.

This one miniature looked OK, but I had too many questions. Is this final layer going to be dark enough? Should I add some Black? should I strat to build up some highlights? I wanted to work some purple in there; how would I do that?

I came to the realization that I'd have to paint a test mini. I hope I can nail it on the first try and not have to paint three of them.

What about the rest of you? Test miniatures: Good, bad? Waste of time? I'm open to suggestions if you have them.

It's that time of year again

Time to help the gaming group get their Adepticon team tournament list ready. I haven't play the tournament since way back in 2006, but the people with whom I play do the team tournament every year. So every year for months leading up to Adepticon, I play a lot of team games.

Last night I allied with Chad's Imperial Guard. To celebrate the fact that I completed a second squad, my 1000 pts represented a "pure" Thousand Sons force: Two units of Sons, one unit of lesser summoned daemons, a spawn, and a chaos sorcerer HQ.

Nick and Eric both played Dark Angels (technically, Nick played Angels of Absolution).

Here are some picks plus a short recap:Here's the board set-up. The mission was from the team tournament primer. Dawn of War deployment with a modified Command and Control objective (We team had two objectives in their deployment zones).

Chad's Varrian 10th holding an objective with my Sorcerer. Note: it's not that my sorcerer isn't painted, he's using his powers to conceal himself.

Corrcal's squad disembarks...

... and Rohm Dutts squad takes a demolisher shell to the face.

Some of Nick's troops skulking around the backfield.

More skulking.

By far the most heroic moment of the game. Chad's HQ takes on three terminators at the peak of this ruin. Truly a contest for the ages.

In the end, the angels would be victorious; breaking Nick's non-winning streak, but continuing mine.

I try to learn something with every game I play in hopes that I can improve my playing skill. My biggest mistake in this game was that I worried way too much about Eric's Vindicator on the left flank. I sent Corrcal's quad (a.k.a. Squad #1), to shoot a bolt of change at it. If I had instead spent that turn motoring over to the right flank (which was getting hammered by Nick and Eric's double-wing combo), I probably would have had a better chance of turning the tide of the game.

One tactic that Eric employed to my annoyance was going to ground whenever I rapid-fired my AP3 bolters at him. An odd move for a marine player, but one that kept his troops on the objective.

Rohm Dutt and the next step

Rohm Dutt is done (and the title of this post would make an awesome band name). I'm pretty happy with the results.

However, I must now drift away from Tzeentch and the Thousand Sons. Let's see what's next on the painting block...


That's right. Time to shed some blood for the blood god (Blood Red paint, that is). It will be nice to not have to paint blue for a while.

I haven't done much on these so far: Just base coats and one layer of shade. I was hoping to show that with the picture below.

I'm afraid the shading is just a little too light at this point to really see. More shading next week.

More Battle Photos

I've been getting in the habit of taking pictures of the games I play every other Monday. I really don't like writing battle reports, but I do like looking at pictures.

Anyway, here are some photos of last Monday's "Nerd Night."

I played against Eric and his Imperial Fists (formally the Highland Lions). It was an exciting Command and Control game that came down to a very close draw. I guess it was so exciting that I forgot to take any pictures except for the one above and this one...
...of my Tzeentch Herald facing of against a land speeder (which was downed the next turn).

Since our game was pretty short, I took some pictures of the game happening on the table next to me:

It was a battle between Nick's Angels of Absolution and Chad's Varrian 10th Imperial Guard.

Enjoy.

I hate this part....

I spent a few minutes working on Rohm Dutt this weekend. Good luck finding what's differnt from the last picture I took.

Here one thing:

I like the way this little skull came out. It was shockingly easy.

Anyway, I'm at a point with this miniature were I'm just picking out tons of little details. It's very tedious and I really don't like this stage of the miniature. I had about a dozen different colors on my pallet and I worked on this model for less than an hour.

I believe I will have this guy done by the end of the week. Stay tuned