ScrapYard Armory

As a player and a collector I love seeing large uniformly painted forces in my battles.  I kicked off this quest with my first demi-company of Free Worlds League Militia.  For the most part, the militia were easy.  The colors just worked and I found little trouble duplicating the color scheme later on when I added a Perseus and a Cerberus for the Twilight of the Clans collection I painted for a friend.

So I moved on, and started an even bigger force, this time a reinforced company of Regulan Hussars.  For whatever reason, orange is just difficult for me.  The worst part of it is, the full company is sitting on my work bench on corks waiting to be finished because I am not happy with how they are coming out.  Since I decided to do the whole kit and kaboodle at once, I have all those miniatures waiting for me to break out of a color confused malaise.

Test Pieces

Make a test piece before you embark on anything larger than a lance.  Get a representative miniature, not something too difficult to prepare or anything with a complicated pose and slap some paint on.  Work out the details and don’t be afraid to toss the results and try again.  Pine Sol cures all woes.

Since I’m a little embarrassed to show my Hussars, I’ll let you in on a few other examples that I am working on for a friend and ScrapYard commenter Quigs.

In the first picture are two different tries at an admittedly difficult 2nd Donegal Guards.  I’m not happy with either attempt.  The first (the one on the right) came out far too flat and the second (the one on the left), far too dark.  I am going to Pine Sol both and adjust my technique for a third and hopefully successful paint job.

Moving on, I attempted another Lyran scheme in a color I think I am usually pretty comfortable with.  The 15th Lyran Regulars use a familiar drab green with khaki highlights.

Suffice to say, I am much happier with the results.  I think the only thing I would change is making the highlight color a little bit lighter.  It looks more light brown than it does khaki.  For the most part, this mini seemed to paint itself.  I painted him up start to finish in a single day.  Dry times between coats were absorbed with other tasks, like coding for Solaris Skunk Werks and writing this blog.

I’m looking forward to replicating this paint scheme to give this lonely Avatar a lancemate or three.

Take Some Chances with Your Brush

You never know what is going to work and what isn’t until you try.  You’ve got to pick up the brush and give it a go.

Life’s too short to play with badly painted minis.