[WIP] Norse team - from start to finish

[chigger254]

Can I ask where the number decals are from? I could use something similar.

Thanks!

Fighting Pirahnna Graphics, they are mostly a Battletech waterslide decal store, but have some other stuff like those numbers.

I'll need to order more from them myself, as I'm running out of numbers.

http://www.fightingpirannhagraphics.com/misc.htm

[chigger254]

Possible delay in progress due to my own stupidity. I might also have to strip down and repaint the whole team. :p

[landrover]

Possible delay in progress due to my own stupidity. I might also have to strip down and repaint the whole team. :p

Can we ask why?

[chigger254]

Can we ask why?

Lack of proper preparation a patience.

Got the new can of Army Painter, but didn't shake it up enough, so when I applied it it basically just made my dudes shiny. After I realized my mistake, I shook it up and decided to try it out again on a couple of them because I was annoyed at wasting a couple hours for nothing, but I should have waited the full 24 hour drying period, because I think what happened is re-applying the Army Painter right away to the non dried models (I tried 2 of them) made the newly mixed AP stick to them too much instead of running down.

Soooo... Right now I have 2 models that are APed fine, 2 of them stripped due to attempting to fix the too thick AP, 8 of them made shiny but nothing else by AP not shaken well enough and 2 that are too dark with AP getting stuck on non dried AP that had previously just made them shiny.

Tomorrow I'll see if the shaken AP can work on the dried shiny guys, otherwise I'm just going to strip them all back down and start over so when I do get it right they're all the same. I hate it when I don't have any excuses for failure besides being dumb.

If I do have to redo them all, I'll probably paint a few sideline figures first to give myself a little break from painting the Norse.

[Maidoe]

Very nice bases!

[chigger254]

Thanks, the one I Army Painted looks even better... Unfortunately... Heh heh, apparently, when applying Army Painter to something with waterslide decals, you should make sure you seal the decals first. I put AP on one of the bases and it completely disintegrated the number decal I had on the base, so I went back and put a gloss varnish coating over the other ones and I'll see if that prevents it from happening again.

This Norse project is like a rainbow of lessons learned.

I'll post pictures of my failures in a bit, so people can learn from my foolery.

EDIT:

Here is the one based I Army Painted. The rest will likely come out a little darker since I'll have the can shaken better.



And here are the Norse. Left is the one I attempted to re-Army Paint before it was dry, middle is one of them that got a coat that was not shaken well enough and the right is the first one I did with the really old can of Army Painter that was too thick and I had issues getting it to not clump up, but actually came out okay.



Also, opinion time. I was thinking about painting their numbers either inside the stripes on the legs or maybe on the front right next to the stripes in black. Objections or better ideas?

[Kikurasis]

You do NOT have to strip these models. Many people (myself included) coat things in gloss or semi-gloss, then put a coat of matte on top of that. The gloss/semi-gloss protects better, while the matte makes the shine go away.

I'd suggest before you strip, you should get some AP brush-on matte sealer (comes in the dropper bottles) and try that. It'll likely save your minis from being stripped.

[chigger254]

No, that's not the problem, I always do a matte coat on top of the gloss after it's done, the problem is that the figure on the left looks like crud due to my improper application of Army Painter, as I was aiming for more of what I got out of the far right figure (but maybe a bit more shading). If I went with how they are on the far left, you'd just see a big pile a dirty looking figures.

With how much the AP was sticking to the lower, undried coat of AP, I couldn't get enough of it cleaned off and it makes the figure look like he was rolling in the mud, which while thematic is not what I'm going for. When I reapply the Army Painter to the 8 remaining figures, the undercoat will be dry, and actually a little slick, so I shouldn't have that trouble and will hopefully get them shaded correctly.

I am still hopeful I can get Army Painter applied correctly to the 8 figures that look like the one in the middle, since the coat that is on them is barely visible aside from the shine, but there is no saving the 2 Throwers, Catcher and Lineman I've already messed up. Worst case scenario is I DO have to redo the whole team, and honestly, that doesn't bother me too much, because for the first time in a long time painting felt like a relaxing hobby instead of work like it used to when I was always trying to rush to get stuff painted to play whatever game was coming up.

And of course, if I do have to repaint them all, I should be able to do a better job than I did the first time. (improve the stripes on the pants, vary the colors of the straps on their boots, use a lighter brown for the chest straps, do a better job with the metal bits on the chest straps, put numbers on the pants, etc...)

[chigger254]

Okay, so I'm okay enough with the results of re-applying the AP to feel like I don't need to redo 8 of the figures. They are maybe a little darker than I want, but it's pretty close to good, and probably a result of basically having two coats of AP.

They look a bit better in person, as it's hard to photo glossy stuff and I need to wait to put the matte coat on for after I base them.





I'm a bit happier with the bases. It looks like after I applied the AP, I may have to go back over the white lines a little as they are hard to see. After I get the dudes on the bases I have to decide if I want to add a bit of grass to some of the bases to more closely match the FF-Fields board or not.



So, now I need to repaint 4 figures, get the Ulfwereners set up with some Green Stuff armor and paint them and also get the Snow Troll painted and Green Stuff a base for it.

[Fassbinder75]

Um, I think you're a decent enough painter that you don't need to resort to dip to get a passable result. All this re-work sounds like a nightmare, maybe Nuffle is trying to tell you something?

[chigger254]

Not really resorting to the Army Painter, I just really like the shading results it gives, as it's visible but not overpowering, it's just that this is the first time I've ever had trouble with it, and it's all due to my own mistakes.

The rework is a bit annoying, but it's not bad because I don't really have a deadline for the team to be done.

[chigger254]

I stripped down the 4 remaining Norse to get them ready for repaint, and also started putting the plasticard strips on my Ulfwereners. Tonight or this weekend I need to green stuff some new armor for them, since I think I can do a better job at it than my first attempt.

I also primed and pinned (but didn't glue) the arms and head onto my Snow Troll in preparation for painting. I figure it'll be easier to paint the head/body/arms separately and then attach them all, since then I can get to all the details more easily.



No real rush on the Snow Troll anyway, since my Norse treasury is down to 40k in my league and I'd be lucky to get enough to afford him in the next couple weeks anyway, so he may be the final player to be painted.

[chigger254]

I was planning on either painting on the final 4 Norse players or getting the Ulfwereners all green stuffed up this weekend, but I got lazy and ended up just mostly finishing the 9 Norse that didn't have to be repainted. I believe I'm still going to go back over the metal bits and horns with a gloss varnish to un-dull them.

My only issue was accidentally finding out the crack in the waste of one of these guys made it easy to rip the dude in half while I was pinning him. Luckily, it was a clean break and I was able to glue him back together, and there wasn't really any paint damage, but he'll be riding the bench as much as possible.

They're a bit lighter in person, as all I've got are yellowish lights which makes them look a tad darker.

[chigger254]

Got my pitch today. It looks like I got the colors on my bases to match my pitch pretty well from the images I had available.

[ChenZhen]

Looks good! I like how close you managed to match the bases to the pitch!