A Ghostly Experiment

 

Doubtful that I'll ever grow up - I laughed and had to download this one (I believe it's actually been taken off Makers as my downloads has a listing of "The print profile is no longer public"). 

I'm sure that I'll find a creative way to use these in a D&D session, rofl.

In the meantime, I used my little ghost friends as an experiment with Vallejo's Xpress Color paints. These ghosts presented a nice surface area to try and use the paints to cover something large like a cape. While I really really really want to like these paints and the concept of quickly throwing paint around, they're frustrating to me for a couple reasons.

1. I use high quality brushes yet brush strokes are everywhere

2. The way the highlighting and the shading works is based essentially on gravity and results in blotches

3. It dries fast, so you have to work quickly - else you tear the previous paint when it's in its drying state - you essentially can't start in the middle - work left, then work right - when you go back to work right you'll tear the paint you've previously laid down - so you have to work left to right, top to bottom or vice versa depending upon your model

4. Air bubbles - I have no idea why, but when I put the paint on my palette it looks like a drop of good paint - when loading the brush it bubbles into the brush which then results in tiny air bubbles - regular paint from Vallejo, Reaper, Games Workshop, etc. doesn't do this - I use sable brushes, I'll need to come back to this experiment with synthetic brushes - additionally some colors are way more vulnerable to bubble attack - my previous use of brown had no issue - red was minimal - white moderate - blue was very challenging as I had to work the bubbles out and there still ended being some - more examples of those colors which are more likely to generate bubbles can be seen on my Xpress Colors model swatch.

The best luck I've had with the Xpress paints is to use the slapchop method as done with the Frost Devil. Using slapchop gives control of highlight and shadow and makes it easier to paint with the Xpress paints.

As I noted the first time I used Xpress paints - they're not for beginners.

One last experiment performed on these ghosts was using a clear coat - I've tried using Testor's dullcote which is awesome on all miniatures except those painted with Xpress Colors as I found out with this troll and then confirmed with the barkeep. 

This time I used Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch 2x Ultracover Matte Clear which I find at my local Home Depot. I use this spray the majority of the time I paint a miniature that's going to be used on the tabletop - the protection against dings and scratches is top notch. However, even though it says Matte, it's not - not like the Testor's anyways (but you can respray with the Testor's on top and the result is really close to Testor's only but much more protected). 

Judging from the pictures above, there's no re-activation and washing away the paint using the Rust-Oleum product. Which is perfect - if I'm using the Xpress Color paints it's because I need the model asap for an upcoming tabletop game and my players literally have no respect for painted monsters.  They have a habit of tossing them in piles as they clear out the dungeons or worse, flicking them with their fingers to shoot them off the board - and I don't even want to describe the behavior they enact on my beautifully painted boss monster after an epic fight.

Lost Mine of Phandelver - Freebie & Contrast Paints

 

I ordered some additional miniatures from 3D Dungeon Labs and besides the two extra giant spiders they also sent me a freebie miniature of this wood fey/sprite or pan creature.  It was the perfect opportunity to utilize some new contrast paints which I'd picked up from the local hobby store. I previously had picked up four of Vallejo's "contrast" paints they call Xpress Color.  I believe Games Workshop was the originator of the contrast paint type a few years back.  I had some friends tinker with the stuff creating a WH40k army or parts of one but none of them stayed with the paint line.

There were only 4 colors of the Vallejo Xpress Color in stock and the local hobby store said they had a difficult time keeping stock because they'd sell out almost immediately. I was able to pick up a brown, grey, green, and blue.  That's enough basic colors to do something with.  Well that something came about with this model.

I remember reading that these types of paints work best on a white or grey primer.  I still had an old can of white primer and therefore shot this model up with it.  Then I went to town on the model with the Vallejo Xpress Color.

First up was the green and using this paint I did what I'd normally do - load up the brush and start inside out - meaning I'd start on the face first and work my way out.  Normally this is good because you can be a bit "messy" and then "clean" by painting over any messes as you work towards the outer part of the model.

I made two mistakes immediately.  I put too much paint on the brush and hence the face and the upper body received too much green paint and I slobbered on other areas of the model which become issues later on.  The Xpress Color is a bit if an ink and paint had a baby but it really acts more like an ink.  The paint works with very little on the brush on top of a white foundation.  It's very transparent and pools into the recesses like an ink.  This thick and thin of the paint give it its contrast - where it pools has a darker color than the flat of a model.  I noticed also that as it dries, it stretches the paint pulling the paint towards the ends and thinning out the middle.

Mistake 1 - you'll notice that the face is too dark compared to the body - I slobbered too much on the face and so the paint didn't have the ability to pull into recess and pull towards the end.  The solution is to use very little of the paint over a solid white primer.  

Mistake 2 - I'm used to slobbering paint initially and then cleaning up that slobber with another color.  This is displayed in the hair of the model and the sash across the back.  I initially did some brush strokes slobbering on the green and quickly realized how fluid this paint actually was and how little I needed to use and that because of the translucent effect the paint needed over white primer that this was going to cause a problem.  The solution and understanding is that this is a very technical paint and black lines generate where paint overlaps - which is a very cool effect because essentially it does the black lining for you!  This effect is noticeable on the front of the model where the brown meets the green or the blue of the sash has a black line between it and the green of the body or the brown of the pan flute.  You can also see on the back of the model where the green was slobbered all over the sash and the blue on top just turns into big splotches of black.  Therefore the trick is to stay "within the lines" and have a slight overlap between two colors to generate a thin black line for higher contrast.

Once the green was done and I started to learn some lessons, I then pulled out the brown and did up all the wood on the creature - the legs, hands, shoulder pads, and antlers.  I made sure to use only a little bit of the paint at a time and being very careful technically to only put paint on the right parts.  I found myself dabbing and spreading more than actually painting.

Next came the blue which I used on the sash and the shoulder pad decorations.  And finally I used the grey on the hooves, 

Some thoughts...

* the paint over a solid and smooth white primer is going to generate a very dynamic model

* very little paint goes a long way

* keep washing the brush, dry it into a point with a twirl, then dab into the paint - do this often but do not leave water on the brush as normal

* the contrast is between crevice and flat - not as the sun shines which we've been taught as mini-painters to do for the past two decades

* the brightness and shading of the sun can be accomplished by moving the paint around or placing a second layer - so for example, I placed more brown at the bottom side of the antlers once I figured out how the paint worked

* the grey was too translucent - it needed two coats

* it's a fast way of painting - this entire model took an hour and I probably could have done it in less time as I was learning the paint

* it's a very technical paint - you can't be sloppy and you can't change your mind unless you repaint a section white

* there's no blending or layering - it's a very different thought process 

* I would not teach a beginner using this paint - however an intermediate painter can use this paint to quickly paint highly dynamic models

Overall it's an interesting paint line - I'm going to keep dabbling with it and probably pick up some more colors within the paint line.

Polygons & Peril Borderlands Inspired Lilith Dice Set

Something new and different for the blog - miniature painting of a different sort - I received today a "deluxe" set of dice from Polygons & Peril Etsy shop - the Borderland Inspired Lilith dice set is hand cast and hand painted making every die unique in the set.  

I opted for the "deluxe" version instead of the "standard" 7 dice set - this one has 12 dice - it adds a total of 4d6's for spell damage - 2d20's for 5e's advantage/disadvantage roles - and even a d2 for odds/evens - it's brilliant, that's the die I've always been missing and didn't know it!

D'Artisan Shoppe - WetnDri

I can't recall ever doing a product review but I'm quite pleased with a recent purchase of a wet palette but this also includes a dry (dri) palette.  I came across D'Artisan Shoppe once before on Amazon for some brushes and they were okay but not really my style.  From that initial purchase I occasionally receive product info they send out and I received an advert for their WetnDri palette - I normally just use a paper plate, a folded paper towel, and my own cut out parchment paper that I steal from the kitchen.  It works - but palette was reasonably priced on Amazon so I thought it worth the try - works pretty well!

First - whoever is doing the packaging at the D'Artisan Shoppe is a genius.  The packaging is as good as any coming from Apple, Samsung or Google for a high end electronic product.

The palette comes in this lovely box that when you open, it has this nice Thank You message with a QR code to their website to sign up for more information or to send a message about your product.  Fully opening the package gets you to the palette which has a great strap with their logo holding the three sections together with another note explaining the various features of the palette.  Even the sponge pad has their logo stamped into it...

So how did it work...

Well as you would expect - it's science - the moisture from the pad seeps through the parchment paper  into the paint at about the same rate that evaporation occurs which keeps the paint at a pretty constant  to work with while painting your model.  The parchment paper is included and cut to the dimensions of the pad - I think there's 50 pieces which should last me a long time and I could use my own but quite honestly their prices for the pre-cut on Amazon were reasonable and saves me the labor and effort to do it myself.

Some of the other niceties are the various pieces - there's a bottom piece which holds the water, pad, and parchment paper.  Then there's the middle section which has a dozen or so wells for inks or paint you want to mix - I used one of the wells to setup my drybrush with just the right amount of paint.  Finally there's a top piece which works with a paintbrush holder to keep your brushes organized while you paint.  The entire setup is rather nifty.

Here's a picture of the next day after an evening of painting (you can see the primered model in the earlier pictures and the finished model below) - the paint remains decently usable even though I left it all open overnight (probably would be perfect if I put the middle section on the bottom to keep it sealed) because I was done with the model and didn't actually need the paint anymore.

This ends up being the product I didn't know I actually needed - two thumbs way up!