Priming Figures Part 2: A Story of Black and White starring The Red Queen and DA Denton

Dang, The Red Queen looks a bit sad and I still need to fix her forehead. Time to start adding highlights. For her skin I went back over with Basic Flesh Tone to make her paler but being careful not to cover up any of the shading from the dark flesh. You may notice that I did not do a perfect job on fixing the imperfection of the molding on the forehead, but at a gaming distance on the tabletop it looks just fine.

I painted her pearls Flat Black and then just dabbed Flat White so we could see the jewelry. For the eyes (I'm not as good as I used to be with eyes - early onset of OLD), I first painted Neutral Gray as some eyeliner, then Flat Black and then some Flat White. I carefully dabbed a dot of Flat Black for the actual eyes.

I added some GW Red Wash to the hair, another coat of Neutral Gray to the gloves, and Earth Brown to the revolver handle. Eyebrows - sorta. I put some GW Skrag Brown above the eyes.

 Now I am in more familiar territory. Denton's suit is highlighted with Sky Blue, buttons are flat white and I finished the shirt first with Buff and then Flat White. The tie is Flat Red and needs some cleanup around the shirt. I took some flat brown, watered it down and used it as a wash on the overcoat. I highlighter the shoes with Flat Earth and started experimenting with the various metal paints I have for the Tommy gun.

 He looks like a mess right now, but trust me, it'll get better. Oh and I added some Flat White for the headband and used the brown wash on the hat also.

Currently where we are at in the process with both figures. I have done no highlighting of The Red Queen's Dress or shoes as the white primer brought out the highlights nicely.

 View from the back. You may have noticed I highlighted DA Denton's gloves with some Neutral Gray.

Just about done. I went back over Denton's overcoat with Buff, and added a Dark Blue line at the top of The Red Queen's glove. I just dry brushed the revolver with Silver. For the Tommy Gun I used Gun Metal and the Highlighted carefully with Silver. I also added some Flat Red highlights to the Red Queen's Hair.

 Denton is basically finished. I added GW Skrag Brown over a base of flat brown for the Tommy Gun handle. I did some additional "clean-up" with the pants and hat. The side of the base was painted Chocolate Brown.

The two completed figures. Yes that is my finger print on The Red Queens base.

 Speaking of bases, I use watered down white glue and spread it over the base . . . 

 . . . then I add hobby sand. Once the sand is dry I put another coat of watered down glue over the sand.

For static grass (I use Gale Force Nine) I randomly add some watered down white glue and dio the bases in my static grass tupperware container. And yes I did  paint over my finger print. Once dry, I spray a clear, flat finish to help hold the static grass down and to protect the paint on the figures.

Time for adventure. The Black Prime made DA Denton look rugged and the White Prime made The Red Queen stand out and look flashy and glamorous.

Priming Figures Part 1: A Story of Black and White starring The Red Queen and DA Denton

"District Attorney Denton," said The Red Queen," Why are we in the jungle again?"

"Because the boss has limited terrain for his tabletop."

When I started "seriously" painting miniatures (Thank you Airfix!) at the tender age of 16, fortunately my father told me that paint sticks better to paint. I started out priming my figures with white. Even then, I did not buy fancy hobby primer; I would purchase the cheap generic flat white. Some where along the road, in the mid 90's I believe, I switched to black primer when I started building armies for the War of Spanish Succession. Since then, I prime my figures 99% of the time with black primer.

I'm a gamer that does figures primarily for three reasons:
     1. I get obsessed with a new project (I blame the famous Craig Cartmell for transporting me back to 1895).
     2.I see a figure and I say to my self, "Self, that's a cool figure!"
     3. I paint for eBay to generate funds to purchase the new obsessions or cool figures.

With In Her Majesty's Name consuming the majority of my painting and gaming for the last few years, I have slowly discovered manufacturers for Victorian Science Fiction and also one of my favorite genres, Pulp. Lately I have been purchasing figures from Pulp Figures and Pulp Alley. My most recent purchase is the Red Queen and DA Denton from Pulp Alley. Why? See reason #2 above.

Black primer definitely is the "easy" way for me to paint; it hides a multitude of mistakes and naturally adds shadows. On the gripping hand, it does make colors darker and if you want lighter colors you need to add extra steps to paint base paints where you want the light colors. With white primer, colors are brighter and more vibrant - but you really have to look for those painting mistakes and shading is a bit trickier. As I wanted The Red Queen to be bright and glamorous I went with white primer - DA Denton would be grittier and no-nonsense so black primer for him.

 DA Denton with one coat of generic, everyday, inexpensive black primer.

 Another view of DA Denton, scourge of the Underworld and all around good guy.

 The glamorous Red Queen, leader of a secret criminal empire, primed in generic, everyday, inexpensive white primer.

Another view of the femme fatale.

I gave Denton a base color of Vallejo Dark Flesh for the skin. Unless specifically mentioned, all paints are Vallejo.

 Arrghhh! With the Basic Flesh Tone base applied, I realized that I missed some cleanup of flash, mold lines or whatever happened to her forehead. I know have a new challenge since primer and paint has already been applied.

 The rear side of The Red Queen figure. I used Base Flesh as it is much lighter and as stated previously, I really want The Red Queen to stand out as a brighter figure.

Next I used some GW Ratskin Flesh and thinned it to be a wash to seep into the recesses of the flesh for a shadowing technique.

 Another view.

 I used thinned out Dark Flesh for the shading and started adding base colors. Flat Black for the gloves and revolver, GW Skragg Brown for the hair and something a craft paint called Folk Art Lime Green for the dress and shoes.

 View from the back.

 The dark flesh wash is hiding some of my repair work on her forehead but I am still not quite satisfied.

Base colors for Denton. Dark Blue for the suit, Leather Brown for the shoes, Neutral Gray for the hat, and German Camouflage Orange for the overcoat. I also decided to give him gloves since he is wearing a suit and overcoat and repainted the hands Flat Black. His shirt base color is Flat Earth Brown.

 View from the side.

 View from the back. Note how the black undercoat is already producing shadows and on The Red Queen you can see the natural highlights just from the white primer.

Next: Let's finish these figures. Nothing like great figures to make them easy to paint.

Favorite Games: Oldhammer (Warhammer)

I saw an article the other day about how us "Boomers" loved the old Warhammer which is now referred to as Old Hammer. Dang how I loved this game; according to the article we could not adapt (even though most of my "boomer" friends also like other skirmish games!). For me Warhammer 4th Edition, and then 6th Edition was the fantasy big battle game (we will talk about Warmaster later!). An innovative concept provided everything you needed straight from the box: two armies, rules, terrain, etc. Everyone has an opinion on the rules and I personally felt it reached its epitome with Edition 6: Heroes and Monsters were Heroes and Monsters but you still needed an army to win.

 Who doesn't like trolls? Just lay off those Billy Goat jokes that make them mad.

I was never a tournament player searching for that "perfect" army. I was the guy who saw something and thought to myself. "Self, that will look cool in such and such army." I was lucky that I had my 5 Honorable Sons who liked to play plus several friends who were not into the tournament aspect of the game. By the way, I'm not criticizing tournaments, just not my thing.

Yikes! Night Goblins!

Then came the other editions (sigh) which just didn't feel right to me.. Some of the models were great, the prices rose (I know, the purpose of a business is to make money), and unfortunately for me, all of the armies became too "gothic" with a definite feel of darkness. Suddenly the new Warhammer wasn't fun. With the drop in sales of "big battle" fantasy games (though I would still argue that the prices and not giving the consumer what they wanted) turned Warhammer into the monstrosity that is the "Age of Sigmar." Needs more skulls. (Just my opinion that others also share - I also know some guys and gals that love the Age of Sigmar)

 The Empire to the rescue!

 The Imperial Knights Panther.

 Artillery is cool.

Anyway, the armies my Honorable Sons and I did were the Orks and Goblins, The Empire, The Kingdom of Bretonnia, the High Elves and the Dwarves.

Of course you have to have Knights and a Jester for the Royal Army of Bretonnia.

Stout Men-at-Arms.

 Speaking of Stout - who doesn't love Dwarves?

 Dwarf Troll Slayers or maybe football hooligans. I'm not sure which.

The Grey Beards. "The Orks and Goblins were bigger, smellier, and meaner in the ole days."

 It was a good run but now the White Dwarf and Josef Bugman have one last toast for an epic Fantasy Game . . .

The two veteran warriors meet to have one last toast . . .

 Josef sighs, "Who would have thought that we would have to fight Chaos Space Marines now?"

 "I know . . . I laughed silly when I saw the Space Marines on our side!"

 "Back in the day those Chaos Space Marines were a lot tougher . . . these new ones have round bases!  They have no rank bonus and will be easy to cleave in two! "

Well . . . at least the XXX Brew is still a trade secret!

 Oh well, to each his own. My preferred rules for Fantasy Gaming is now the wonderful Dragon Rampant by Daniel Mersey. I usually don't editorialize on my blog but now I'm inspired to show off my "old" Warhammer armies - a separate entry for each! See you next time. 

Ogre: A Classic Returns

A Classic Returns!

As a teenager sometime back in the 19th Century I had the original Ogre and GEV (Ground Effect Vehicle) board games which were (need I say) cool. If you are not familiar with the basic scenario one side has a combined force of heavy tanks, missile tanks, artillery, GEV's (armored hovercraft), armored infantry and a command post. The other side has an Ogre - a giant cybernetic tank. Oh and the best part it's cool! (Whoops, already said that). Plus it has excellent play balance.

In 2016 the 6th edition was released (6th Edition? Where was I?), but it is a giant version of the original microgame. It features large 3-D constructible models of the Ogre Mark V, two Ogre Mark III's, the Command Post and a mobile Command Post. Thank goodness for me that Honorable Son #3 bought one for himself.

I've set up my defense against Honorable Son #3 (The Engineer) to stop the huge Mark V.

The Command Post.

Trying to stop it . . . my advice: go for the long range missiles and the treads to slow it down and eventually make it immobile. If you are good at cavalry tactics, the GEV's are your best friend: move, shoot and move.

This is the mobile Command Post.

Cardboard cut-outs and easy to put together.

The poor bloody infantry takes out quite a few of the treads . . . until they get run over.

The Mark III is trying to break through.

The counters are reversible. Here is a disabled Missile tank.

There are also plastic miniatures you can buy and for his birthday, I got a box of miniatures for Honorable Son #5. And yes I did lose the game when the barely moving and burning Ogre ran over my command post. Looking forward to that next game with the miniatures! All are available at Steve Jackson Games, online retailers or Amazon.