Wizkids Barbed Devils - WZK90416

 

Time flies when you're having fun is the saying - I'm surprised that it's been a year since I last opened a Wizkids pre-primed blister pack to paint. Last Wizkids mini was the raging troll from January 2024 when I had the Vallejo Xpress paints vs Testors Dullcote massacre.

So this is, with the exception of the base and the flame, 100% an airbrush painted miniature. With the work I've been doing on the Hexton Hills hex tokens, I'm getting more comfortable using the airbrush in smaller and smaller spaces. I was airbrushing a dragon turtle (coming soon) and using Red Terracotta when I had some extra paint in the pot - so it appears that's my current method to the madness lately - I'm airbrush one model, have extra paint left over, and then find a second or even a third model to airbrush, lol. I think that airbrushing is so much fun and fast - spraying paint is contagious and once I get going with a color I don't want to stop.

I figured the Red Terracotta was the perfect base color for these barbed devils. The packaging has a computer based paint image and uses a bone color as highlights for the chest, stomach, and tail. I did similar getting out the Bonewhite and spraying a highlight all over the model. I didn't exactly like how that turned out so I hit the Bonewhite with Bloody Red everywhere except the chest and stomach. A light spray of the Bloody Red on top of the Bonewhite gave this great highlight. Then I sprayed a splash of Hot Orange on the head.

Another simple technique which I had heard about but never done was masking an area with blue-tac. The flame in one of the hands is a clear piece - I had an idea of using the Xpress color on that but first I wanted to make sure that I didn't get any spray on it. Others said blue-tac was good for that (and I have a bunch of blue-tac as the models are tac'd onto a wooden spindle for painting) - I grabbed a bit of blue-tac - smooshed it flat and then surrounded the clear flame. It worked very well - when finished the blue-tac peeled off and I could use the clump of blue-tac to dab into stuck bits to get them off the clear plastic.

The clear plastic was painted with Xpress colors and I used the inverse layering technique - Xpress colors have to be layered light to dark instead of dark to light. First using Imperial Yellow over the entire flame. Then, Martian Orange from the top to about 2/3rds of the way down. Finally, Plasma Red from the top to about 1/3rd of the way down.

Standard basing on an inverted Reaper base and called it done. Overall a very quick and great way to get a set of miniatures ready for the table. One more point about fun... I noted a year ago how much more fun it was using the drybrush technique using the super soft drybrush brushes from Golden Maple 6 piece drybrush set when I painted the Ar-Grush using their brushes for the first time - I was reminded tonight when drybrushing the base how easy that was versus using the old hard bristled drybrushes. Between the airbrush and the soft drybrushes, getting miniatures off the "to-do" shelf onto the "done" shelf is easy and fun.

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.

Reaper Miniatures Frost Devil - 77324

 

This is the second time posting this miniature but it now has a completed base. The original publish of the Frost Devil was in October 2023 a bit more than a year ago where I talked about slapping some Vallejo Xpress Color paints for a D&D session I was running that night and how awesome it was to very quickly paint up a tabletop ready miniature.

I was just cleaning up the game room a bit and came across this model and figured it was time to give it a proper base.

Reaper Miniatures Torture Equipment 2 - 77443

 

Some more Vallejo Xpress Color testing - this time pretty simple wooden structure which was perfect for the contrast type paints. The paints are more like a stain than paint so it was fitting that I "stained" this with Copper Brown.

No dullcote on this one - leaving as is for the moment.

Kickstarter paint total 206 + 1 Torture Equipment = 207

Reaper Miniatures Torture Equipment 1 - 77442

 

Some more Vallejo Xpress Color testing - this time pretty simple wooden structure which was perfect for the contrast type paints. The paints are more like a stain than paint so it was fitting that I "stained" this with Copper Brown.

No dullcote on this one - leaving as is for the moment.

Kickstarter paint total 205 + 1 Torture Equipment = 206

Reaper Miniatures Townsfolk: Innkeeper - 77084

 

Wow! So I did one more test - I painted this the other day using the Vallejo Xpress Color paints and gave it a day - simple paint job which is how I see the Xpress paints being used - I need a quick innkeeper at the bar for my game.

I used grey primer and then did the slapchop thing with a drybrush of Dead White.  The Xpress Colors were Velvet Red for the shirt, Mystic Blue for the pants, Dwarf Skin for the head and arms, Black Lotus on the boots, Space Grey for the hand towel and hair, Copper Brown for the mug, and then Templar White for the apron. Pretty quick paint cause you need to get it on the table.

And then curses, I sprayed it with Testors Dullcote. The best way to explain it is if someone threw bleach on the model as the colors literally bleached out - except for the Space Grey on the hand towel and the Templar White for the apron - somehow those survived - weird? The Velvet Red took the worse and the Mystic Blue wasn't too far behind in the damage department. Again, I know the Testors product is good as the base greys and black are using Vallejo's Game Color and those are good with that perfect flat look which I love about the dullcote.

At this point I've ruled out using Testors Dullcote on Vallejo Xpress Color. One alternative is to just not throw a protective coat on the model. Another alternative is to try a different brand of matte spray or spray Vallejo's matte from an airbrush and see what happens.

Kickstarter paint total 204 + 1 Innkeeper = 205

Wizkids Raging Troll - WZK90081

 

My "fun" with Vallejo's Xpress Color paints continues - with some limited success and a major fail. I had picked up the raging troll from Wizkids at the local game store when I picked up some additional standard Vallejo Game Color paints that I was close to running out - plus Vallejo has refreshed its Game Color line and I picked up some of the new colors. I'll report on my opinion of the new formula in a future post. 

The Wizkids line comes with a Vallejo grey primer from the factory. Before starting to paint I aggressively hit the troll with a top down drybrushing using Vallejo Dead White to provide the highlighting slapchop on the model.

Best Xpress Color for a troll... Troll Green of course - so I used my handy dandy Xpress Color paint chart and came up with Troll Green for the body, Plague Green for the cloth, and Black Lotus for the hair - more or less following the 5e Monster Manual picture. Being cognizant of the bubble issues, I took great care to brush any of those out - they tended to appear when I used larger quantities of paint on the brush - which the brush does tend to load up a large quantity of the Xpress Color paint because of how thin the paint is - almost an ink. Keeping it basic with minimal colors and letting the contrasting of the paint do its job, I finished within an hour. It was a serviceable paint job.

I say serviceable, because when I finished I did something I hadn't done - I hit it with Testors' Dullcote and crud was that a mistake! It appeared to either reactivate the Xpress Color paint or dissolved it at the high levels of the model where the paint was thinnest (vs the recesses where the paint was thickest). The green didn't have as much of an affect, but I think that's because the green covers a smoother area? The black was hit pretty hard as the top ridges actually show the white drybrushing. However, worst of all was the Plague Green on the cloth - it just ate through the paint giving it a very bleached out look.

Now, if I had spent tons of hours I'd be pissed. As it's a test piece and still suitable for the gaming table, I figure I'll just live with it as is and do some more testing to determine what's going on. I do know that the Testors' spray can is okay because I used it to dullcote the six Redbrand goons which were painted using Vallejo Game Color and there was no problem with the paint on those models. Those turned out perfect.

Therefore I'll do some more testing on additional models painted with Xpress Color - both using Testors' again as well as using another brand of matte spray. Additionally, I can try giving a go using Vallejo's matte through an airbrush.

Reaper Miniatures Does Xpress Colors

I've noted in a few of the recent posts that I picked up a few bottles of Vallejo's version of the contrast paint product they call Xpress Color. I originally found four at the local hobby store and was told that they were hard to get and keep in stock. After the holiday the jackpot was hit as the local hobby store had another 18 colors in stock. According to Vallejo's literature there's a total of 52, so I only have about half. Plus there are 8 "Intense" colors which I haven't seen on the store shelf - only in Vallejo's marketing literature.

Making a color swatch on a piece of paper isn't really possible so I figured it was best to see how these really performed on a model. Therefore I grabbed a handful or two of modern Bones from past Kickstarters that I was never going to actually use in a medieval fantasy game that I run.

All miniatures were airbrushed with a white primer.

Here's what I have so far...

Velvet Red - Reaper Miniatures Deadlands Noir: Femme Fatale - 91011

Plasma Red - Reaper Miniatures Nightslip - 80027

Martian Orange - Reaper Miniatures Ellen Stone, Cowgirl - 80003

Nuclear Yellow - Reaper Miniatures Berkeley, Zombie Hunter - 80022

Imperial Yellow - Reaper Miniatures Deadlands Noir: Houngan - 91010

Deep Purple - Reaper Miniatures Texas Ranger Female - 91004

Cardinal Purple - Reaper Miniatures Brotherhood of the Seal Human Monk of the Seal - 89035

Gloomy Violet - Reaper Miniatures Deadlands Noir: Grifter - 91014

Storm Blue - Reaper Miniatures Sister Maria - 80028

Omega Blue - Reaper Miniatures Sascha Dubois - 80004

Mystic Blue - Reaper Miniatures Astrid, Female Bard Half-Elf - 77078

Caribbean Turquoise - Reaper Miniatures Deadlands Noir Occult Detective - 91013

Copper Brown - Reaper Miniatures Deadlands Noir: Stone - 91009

Wasteland Brown - Reaper Miniatures Texas Ranger, Male - 91003

Dwarf Skin - Reaper Miniatures Deputy Wayne Tisdale - 80024

Plague Green - Reaper Miniatures Undead Outlaw - 91005

Lizard Green - Reaper Miniatures Stone - 91001

Troll Green - Reaper Miniatures Deadeye Slim - 80002

Snake Green - Reaper Miniatures Sam Ayers - 80030

Black Lotus - Reaper Miniatures The Black Mist - 80007

Space Grey - Reaper Miniatures Bonnie - 80025

Templar White - Reaper Miniatures Agatha Fox - 80026

I've put all these models on a little riser shelf on the side of where I paint so that I can reference them as needed. One note that I did notice after the paint dried that some of them had air bubbles in the paint with the Black Lotus color being the worst of the group. I'll need to watch and determine if that's something I'm doing or a characteristic of the paint itself.

Kickstarter paint total 182 + 22 paint sample figs = 204