Finished Model #2 – Blood Bowl Skaven

Summers in Minnesota – the joke about us packing a years worth of outdoors in three months is totally true. Summer is here and I’ve been super busy so not as much time at the bench as I’d like. I was also waiting for some much needed equipment to arrive. A new desk, a hobby-purpose light, vortex mixer, and a wider selection of paints and brands to see what I like. Now that it’s all here, I can get to painting!

I didn’t take a lot of process pics while finishing the skaven figure as I wanted to just focus on technique and regaining my muscle memory for painting. Took a little bit but I think I’m finally getting there. I can see as I progressed through this model here I started and how “painterly”, if you will, and ragged the blending and layering was compared to the final areas. For example, the blue in the face mask is a bit rough (done earlier) and the orange of the undershirt (at the very end).  The figure looks ok, in general, but lots of room to improve, though. I was initially very frustrated because I wasn’t improving as fast as I wanted but later learned to relax and just go through the motions for now and trust in the process.

Primer

When I primed the first coupe of models with what I could readily find, Army Painter’s Matte Black, I was kinda shocked at how NOT matte it was. I’m not a spring chicken anymore and having to descerne small details with a glossy surface sucks. I hunted down what I used to use, Duplicolor’s Matte Black automotive primer. While not a true “black” (more a very dark, dark, grey), here’s what I like about it: the spray comes out in a vertical fan – less waste, it goes on very thin, and when it dries, it tightens up nice an close and doesn’t cover any details. The true matte-ness means no distracting reflections. I took the same model and primed with both to compare. Quite the difference.