Ripp's Hobby Blog

Hello everyone, what ? Yeah, I’m still alive . I know it’s been ages since i last wrote a post, so i thought it was about damn time!!
I have been painting quite regurly since my last post, I just having been writing for my blog.

By now we have allready played the first scenario. All pictures can be found on my Shire Flickr page.

I will be taking some pictures of all the models that I have been painting for my Shire project soon and put them up. I have also been working on a “Elendili” army, but more on that in another post.

Indeed, indeed, I painted another Ruffian. Well actually two!
I finished most of the one posted below on saturday, but only came arround to finishing the details on thuesday. I painted another one yesterday in just two hours!! I must admit that I allready did the drybrushing part on saturday though. No pictures of it yet however. I did the painting, but it was too late for basing it.

More photos can be found in my Shire photolog on Flickr

So a quick overview of what is done for scenario one and what needs to be done. Two off the Ruffians will have to be replaced by a model with whip later on though.

• 1 Ruffian with bow done
• 2 Ruffian with whip 1 down, 1 to go
• 2 Ruffian with hand weapon done
• Farmer Maggot and hounds

I will hopefully get the rest done during my holiday week, but I’m not going to rush it. I don’t think that there will be photo updates during that week though. I don’t have Photoshop at home and I need it to adjust the light balance.

As for my small tutorial update.
After experementing a little more with the drybrush – glaze technique, I found that using 2 drops of glaze medium isn’t always advised. I found that I prefer a more 1:1 or 1:1.5 mix of paint:medium. Haven’t used water since I got my medium, so I can’t yet say if I need to adjust my amount of water.

Just a small update. I finished painting a Ruffian with bow.
I hope to have some pictures up later. I couldn’t take any last night, because my dullcoat was still wet.

I’m not yet sure on what to paint next. I can choose between

• Ruffian with whip
• 2 X Ruffian with hand weapon (will be replaced with whip models later on)

I’m saving my Farmer Maggot and his hounds for when the Ruffians are done.

For my Gondor Battle Company, Ecthelion’s Spearhead, I had to paint up a Ranger of Gondor. Since one of my archers got upgraded.
I painted the model quite a while ago, around june something, but I never got around to basing it. I wanted to do it at the time but I ran out of pva glue and never got around to it again. So now that I was busy basing my Ruffian I thought it was a good idea to do this one aswell.
So here it goes, my first painted ranger of Gondor. As always, click on the image for more.

I had some productive days last week, so time for another update.
I’m currently still working for scenario 1: Maggot’s Farm. These are the models that require painting

By now I have finished the first model. After last weeks gaming session Werner pointed me to an article discussing a painting technique that uses the sculpt of the model to create the highlights. So I decided to have a go at it. I’m quite happy with the result. Not yet perfect, but not bad looking for a first try.
You can find the original articles here and here. Also have a look at the comment sections.

So without further ado, here’s my first painted Ruffian with whip (click the image for more pictures)

After discussing my first experiences with the technique I was kindly asked if I could write up a short tutorial on the subject. I am actually in no position to do so, but I couldn’t refuse.
So let me have a go at trying to show how I go about applying this technique and hopefully you can all learn from where I failed and do a better job at it.

I’m going to assume that the model is allready undercoated so the first step from here is to drybrush the model. In the articles mentioned above they use about 3 shades, I decided to use 4, but I’m not sure if it makes that big a difference.
The pictures below show (where possible) a picture of a model with and without flash. Hopefully thay give you a clear image (as always click the image for a larger version).

I started of by drybrushing the model Greycoat Grey (P3 range)

The second layer of drybrushing was Codex Grey(Citadel range)

For my third layer I used Fortress Grey(Citadel range)

And for the final layer Skull White(Citadel range)

I apologize for the image quality, I suck at taking these kind of pictures and I don’t have a decent setup at home for correct lighting. If some of the color seem quite light, it’s mostly due to overlighting.

When the drybrushing is done more than half the work is finished. It took me more time to type this stuff then it took me to drybruush the model. That includes dry time in between the layers. The result you want with drybrushing is a kind of black and white effect on the model.
So on to the next part. Glazing the model.

A glaze is a sort of colored film you apply to the model. Sort of like looking through a red or blue sunglass. But you can find a lot info about glazes online. So I’m not even going to try to explian it in detail. I’m also just starting to use ‘em. You can make glazes in 2 ways. Use water or use glaze medium. For the fisrt model I used water, for the one in this tutorial I used glaze medium.
I’m not sure which is the better approach. I’m still testing, but medium has some advantages. Just google it.

The most important part of making the glaze is the paint/water or paint/medium composition. This is where I wasted most time. Struggling to find the correct mix. With water I found that about 3 drops of water for 1 drop of paint did the trick. With medium I’m on the edge of 3 or 4 drops per drop of paint. But it requires some experimenting to get the right mix.

Below are some pictures of the model above with allready some glazes applied. The shiny effect is because the glaze hasn’t dried yet. It will fade away once dry. Keep in mind that the model is no where near finished so it requires some touching up as well.

Well this concludes, what is probably my longest post ever. I hope you found my little tutorial usefull. If you plan on using this technique I strongly recommend also reading the articles mentioned above. And most off all, don’t be afraid to fail.