Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Plan for 09

So it's 09, technecly my 3rd year as wargamer, altho my first year only lasted a month, and we are only a week into the third, so in reality I have only been doing this for just over a year.

In the past year I have painted 500 28mm figs, and about 800 15mm.
I have started many projects but only one is gameble and thats my 15mm Napoleonic, with two forces of even strenght, it has all you need for a good game, arty, cav and lots of infantry.

This years I have sevral planes and here they are.

Two big ones.

15mm ACW project about 750 figs
15mm SYW project aslo about 750 figs.

I have one smaller project of 28mm Napoleoinc skirmish,
Here I was planing on 30 ish figs for the first go, then build on it.
This will aslo help me in my most inportant goal of the year, to become a good painter, it will ofcourse take more then a single year to become realy good, but I want to see a substantial improvement over what I do now. I have allready started with some practice on some old 40mm figs I have laying around. But found that my paints weren't up to the work, I feel I have the brush control and I know what I want to do, but can't get the paint to do what I want to do, I'm sure it's just as much my fault as the paint, but hopefully if I get good paint, it will be easier for me to work on my skills.
Also for this purpouse I have orderd some Western figs, again in 28mm, I will probebly game with them to but I bought them manly because I want to paint them and use them for practice.

And finnaly I want to make my first diorama, It will be samurai based, simply because their armor makes a great view and are very colorfull, perfect for a diorama. but this will be after I have gotten better at painting as it takes skill to paint those armours.

Well thats the plan, I'm sure I'll find lots of other stuff to use my money on, but this is THE PLAN.

3 comments:

muzik212 said...

Check this site, loaded with good tips for painting...
http://www.paintingclinic.com/

As for your paints I would really recommend using Vallejo. I switched a few years ago and it was the best move I ever made.

You're doing amazingly well for 1 year in. Keep it up!

Sean

Gunfreak said...

Thanks

I have some Vallejo, that I use for my WW2 figs as they have more earth tones that works for the WW2 era uniforms, but I find them very easy to chip or rub of, often even before I have finished painting the figs, I have to repaint parts of it becaise it has rubbed of during painting

muzik212 said...

Yes, they do take a bit longer to dry and they go on thinner but the final look, when used correctly is stunning. Lord Ashram has the same problem with his fingers stripping paint at times. Some folks have a higher acidic quality in their oil or sweat that causes this. You can help it some by spraying a light matte varnish over your primer. When you seal the final figure go with gloss first then matte.

I over came the issue by training myself to only touch the base. Lastly, vallejo paints take FOREVER to mix, sometimes u have to shake them for almost an hour. I add a ball bearing to each bottle and this mixes them much better and faster.