On Brushes

A friend asked me about brushes earlier so prepare for a waffle.

I do about 90% of my painting with a size 1 brush, using a 0 or 00 (sometimes written as 2/0 to be confusing) for detail - that roughly lines up with M and S from GW I think. I've recently starting using a size 4 a lot more, as it holds more paint.

Most of the higher end brushes use Kolinsky Sable, which is a type of Siberian weasel (and thus not vegan) - though other natural and synthetic ones are becoming popular, not least of all because the price of the fur has been increasing.

For the longest time I used Winsor & Newton Series 7, a watercolor brush from a really old English brush manufacturer. Christmas last year my partner got me a set of Artis Opus brushes that I have mostly switched to (also supporting local, they are manufactured in Stockport, the founder of the company is also one of the owners of Element Games). I did also get gifted a Raphael 8404 last week by a friend, I've yet to try it but it gets compared very favourably to the W&N.

For the most part it's personal preference - I like the Artis Opus ones as they're just a tad longer than the W&N , and also if I buy them from Element there's no chance of them being fake, which is a problem W&N had on Amazon in the US for a while...

Links

Here's the three:

https://elementgames.co.uk/paints-hobby-and-scenery/artis-opus/artis-opus-series-s-1-brush

https://www.jacksonsart.com/winsor-newton-kolinsky-sable-round-series-7-no-1

https://www.jacksonsart.com/raphael-kolinsky-red-sable-brush-series-8404-size-1

(Note for the W&N series 7, they do a normal and a miniature version - you want the normal one, despite it's name the miniature one is too small for us, it's for painting tiny watercolors).

Brush Care

This video is also good for teaching brush care:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeDwTY7C9xs

I'd most agree with him on the soap, it helps keep brushes alive and working for longer:

https://www.jacksonsart.com/the-masters-75ml-brush-cleaner-and-preserver

https://elementgames.co.uk/paints-hobby-and-scenery/artis-opus/artis-opus-brush-conditioner-and-cleanser

Others

I also use a lot of cheap brushes from amazon, something like this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08QFWBQXC

They're fantastic for basecoating, doing large volumes of stuff (like terrain...) or even work fine for some detail work.

The GW brushes are also fine (apart from the super cheap ones you get in starter sets or for free, they are garbage) - their artificer ones are made by Windsor and Newton I believe, and I really like their drybrushes (though, you can get away with just cutting the tip off an old, ruined brush just fine).

Conclusion

In general brushes are a consumable - in 2020 when I painted all of those Tyranids I went through one in 6 months, though if I was painting less or took better care of it it'd last a year plus. They can be expensive, though I like getting them as gifts as it's a way for people to gift me hobby stuff but not add to my backlog...

Zone Mortalis: The Plan

Starting with the Necromunda Dark Uprising box at the end of 2019 I have acquired an astonishing amount of Zone Mortalis terrain. I have a plan to put it together in a semi-modular way - copying the layout of the card tiles from the Necromunda box for the first layer of walls, then having several modular sections that can be fitted on top.

This is the plan for the tiles - 2 using the Gang Stronghold kit, 6 tiles copying the card tiles and 1 blank tiles to place scatter terrain:

Painting

I came across this video showing off weathering using water soluble oils and I love the effect. I tested it out, along with trying out Vallejo Chipping Medium, on some Munitorum Armoured Containers:

Aside from some minor tweaks using brighter colors and putting down a layer of varnish before the chipping medium, I'm super happy with the result.

A Tale of Many Lamers: Quarter 4

The final quarter of 2020 was a lot of fun - I really liked doing the Zoanthropes and Hive Guard, they feel much chunkier than the infantry models but nowhere near the size of the monsters I have been painting. The Ripper Swarms are fantastic little gribblies as well.

Conclusions

This project has been a blast. Having set goals to head towards every quarter has really pushed my painting progress forwards, and completing the army piece by piece like this on a schedule has been great for avoiding the problem of ending up with a huge backlog.

I'm not planning to go in quite as hardcore next year - I'm going to continue tracking what I paint each month and have some rough goals, but definitely not starting a new army. I'd like to clear out some of my backlog (in particular, there's a whole lot of terrain) as well as finish off some of the remaining Tyranid models I have. I might even get to play a game in 2021.

A Tale of Many Lamers: Quarter 3

Quarter 3 was much lighter than previous ones - a Malanthrope and a pair of Tyrannofex. It became even lighter as it went on, as with the release of ninth edition it became apparent that with point increases I would be way above 2000 points by the end of the year. I chose to drop one of the Tyrannofex (though he was built, magnetized and basecoated) and instead plough through a bunch of Flesh Eater Courts, Necromunda and even some Tau.

Basing

As mention way back at the start of the slow grow, I planned on doing jungle bases from a tutorial on Goonhammer. I modified it slightly, choosing not to use aquarium plants and adding in some yellow blossom tufts for a spot color to match my army's weapons.

This quarter I went back and based all of the large monsters I'd already completed. I hit them with a satin varnish first, giving them an unpleasant/alien sheen, then mostly followed the guide. The basing is really fun to do and it really finishes the models off.

Big Guys

The Malanthrope is my favourite of the Forgeworld Tyranid kits, I really like the tendril detail under his carapace.

The Tyrannofex is the largest bug I've painted and it wasn't too bad, though the green is by far still the most tedious.

As a bonus, I posted the Tyrannofex to Twitter and it was picked up by Warhammer Community for their Hobby Roundup on Twitch. I think I most enjoyed when they speculated what it's insides look like, particularly the phrase pink blancmange ichor.

Next quarter is the home stretch and I plan to add in some medium sized models, a unit of Hive Guard and a unit of Zoanthropes, as well as filling out my Hormagaunt/Termagant squads to 30 models each.

Flesh Eater Courts

My Flesh Eater Courts were the army I got into Age of Sigmar with at the very start of 2019, after some light encouragement from others in my gaming group. In a shocking turn of good fortune, I started collecting them just before they got a new flavoursome and powerful Battletome, which was a nice bonus.

The range isn't the most expansive, when I started they only had 3 plastic kits that built most of their roster (and conveniently were all in the start collecting box), plus an ancient finecast character. That expanded a bunch with the new Battletome, adding a new character, scenery piece and some boss looking endless spells.

The scheme I picked was a simple as possible, a classic basecoat->wash->drybrush->details one. This was a choice driven heavily by the prospect of painting 70 ghouls...

That simple scheme is the main reason that this is the first army I have fully completed, I now have just over 4k points of them painted with all the models I currently want to field - until something new is released for them or a new death army comes out to ally with them. Enjoy a quick and dirty full army cupboard shot:

A Tale of Many Lamers: Quarter 2

The overarching theme for quarter 2 would be "oh god, too many bugs". Having learned no lessons whatsoever from quarter 1 I set myself the task of a Broodlord, 16 Genestealers, 12 Hormagaunts, 12 Termagants and a Mawloc.

Lockdown Progress

With the country firmly locked down in April and no distractions like "socialising" or "leaving the house" to get in my way I made a ton of progress. The weather was lovely and I was able to spend the weekends in the garden building away - I got the Genestealers and Mawloc built like this, along with a whole load of Necromunda Zone Mortalis terrain put together.

I switched to batch painting the little guys in groups of four and found this infinitely more manageable than what I'd done the previous quarter. Getting the Broodlord and Genestealers done early felt great and meant I could spent more time on the Mawloc. There was a mild rush at the end of the quarter again to finish up the rest of the 'gaunts, but nowhere near as bad as the month before.

Turns out all I need to make steady progress is a global pandemic and nationwide lockdown...

Results

I'm still improving with the airbrush, I'm still super happy with how the pink comes out. The green basecoat is proving the most tedious, it takes 3 or 4 coats to get the Vallejo Dark Green opaque.

I also made a start on the basing at this point, adding a mixture of fine/small basing grit, painting it brown and giving it a light drybrush. Next quarter I'll be adding more jungle to it.

The plan for next quarter is a grand total of three models, a Malanthrope and a pair of Tyrannofex. Easy.

T'au

My T'au were the army that I got back into the hobby with back in 2017. I have around 3000 points now, though only about half are painted.

For my birthday last year my girlfriend surprised me with a trip to Warhammer World (as surprising as "we're driving to Nottingham on your birthday, I'm not telling you why" could be) and while there I decided to cave and buy a Y'Vahra. This model's rules have swung between good to great to trash and back several times, but it looks awesome and if nothing else it's hilarious to use. In April I finally finished painting it:

The base is the Riptide kit and it's a fantastic model to pose.

I'm happy with the paint scheme I went with for this army, but in retrospect white was a poor choice for my first force. The airbrush improves it immensely but it's still scheme that I burn out on regularly.

I will revisit the T'au more soon, in particular I want to paint the Kroot I have, and I'm looking forward to using it as a benchmark of how I've improved as a painter.