painting - a tale of 3 sorrows and 2 ladies

So, finally got the time to 'complete' my sorrows.  I also did some work on Candy and Lady justice.

3 Sorrows and 2 Ladies

First off then the Sorrows.  Some work on 'rusting' the ironwork on the bases, believe it or not I also did their eyebrows and eyes.  Doubtless there's more work that could be done, in fact I've just noticed a few white spots on the bases to fill, however, this will do for now, or I'd be there forever.

Candy

Candy I had started last week, just worked on the base which still needs a little tidying up, however, this time it was time to start work on Candy herself.

Not the best photo, the light colours are so washed out by the flash.

Anyway, pretty simple stuff so far.
Her pale flesh is Valejo Ivory, her clothes a mix of Hermagaunt Purple and White with White lace trim.
Her hair was painted Sunburst Yellow and then washed with a watered down mix of Golden Yellow and Baal Red, though I notice I've missed a couple of bits with the wash which could prove tricky to replicate if necessary.

Reasonably happy with her so far, wondering how I'm going to make her hair look Blonde and not yellow from here. Also worried about doing her eyes, so difficult yet critical.

Lady Justice

Lasty, Lady Justice.  From scratch, wasn't sure how I was going to paint her so was just winging it.  I did once have a plan, but.. well.
She was part of my badly undercoated batch of figures so my first step was a black wash to reduce the effect of the rough finish.  Went with blue for the jeans.  It's a bright blue but one that I should be able to make look reasonable with washing and highlights.  Her flesh painted Bronzed Flesh and then began to highlight with Ivory.  However, I realised that highlighting and shading was probably unwise prior to painting her hair, blindfold, gloves and top.  Being not the most accurate of painters it's almost guaranteed that I'll be making some mistakes that will need correction.
Next up was her hair, I really didn't know where to go here, in the end it had to be red, but I'm aiming for a fairly 'natural' red.  So, I based her hair with Caltharn Brown and then washed it with Baal Red, however I notice I've not covered very well with the wash..  There's so much hair.  Just keep finding more bits of it to paint.. But it's key to this model, must make a good job of it.  her gloves, top and blindfold I've painted black.  I'm not sure I shouldn't have made the blindfold another colour, perhaps whatever colour I paint the scabbard.
The base was painted using foundation colours Khemri Brown and Knarloc Green.  The base will get in the way a bit, but nothing so bad that it can't be managed I don't think.  I've noticed through the photo that there are a few bits of undercoat showing through, especially around her trousers, however it should be easy enough to correct.
Taking photo's of your work is such a valuable painting technique.  It really shows up any imperfections.  Expect a dedicated post on the subject soon (ish).

(Previously published elsewhere November 2011)

more painting and initial liquid green stuff thoughts

A little more painting done last night and my first use of Games Workshop's Liquid Green Stuff.

Elbow gap

First the LGS.
I had, as mentioned previously, stuck the arm on Santiago but the glue had left a gap.

Filled

It was my intent to fill this gap using LGS.  So I popped the lid on the bottle, selected a brush - Nylon bristled - and painted green stuff into the crack.


Worked  a treat, how simple.  Any excess was easily wiped away and the result seems quite neat, although there's still a little extra on there that I will have to trim off later I think, in the crease on the left hand side as you look at it.

Wash brush thoroughly after use, it's easy to do, comes off nearly as easily as paint, but I wouldn't use my best brushes for it.

The proof will be in the painting I think, so no formal conlcusion, but until then a big thumbs up.


On to painting then.  I did not finish off the Sorrows, which I aught really to have done, but decided to partly move on to something new from the Neverborn and partly make some further progress with models that were half done or less from my Guild collection.

Candy, Austringer & terrible Executioner

Here then is a picture of how the 3 relevant figures were when I thought I'd finished last night, as you can see the Executioner was simply awful, I was aware that he was in trouble but not quite how bad things were until I took and viewed this photo.  Just about everything you can do wrong with a figure I'd done wrong here.  I've decided to dedicate an entire blog post as a lesson to those that listen.  As I hope you can see here though, I've started to tidy things up where I can.

Candy, Austringer & still terrible but improving? Executioner

The work on the Guild models last night consisted in applying a wash of Devlan Mud on the Austringers bird.  On the Executioner I finished off his claws/ backpack and pipes, applied a dry brush of Gretchin Green on the base before tidying up the statue and applying a Devlan Mud wash to the statue.

The work on Candy was entirely on the base, I decided to complete the base before taking on Candy herself hoping, by dividing it this way, to keep it to two smaller projects to concentrate on and complete, rather than getting bogged down in too much at once.

Candy with base near complete.

Firstly I applied some Liquid Green Stuff arounf the edge of the base insert to fill the gap, this worked nicely but I should probably have been more patient and applied a second layer before painting.

The stonework and sewage were treated the same way as the sorrows, though it looks like a re-visit with the wash on the sewage might be required.

The Ironwork I treated a little differently.  The phones flash has, to some extent, washed out the detail and shading.  I went for a brighter finish this time.  Boltgun Metal base, then Shining  Gold was over-brushed onto parts of the flat surfaces very lightly.  I did not apply the black wash this time though I think maybe I should have.  The 'decoration' on the pipe was painted with Shining Gold.  Burning orange was applied to certain areas to represent rust and then the whole thing was washed with Gryphone Sepia.  As gaming quality was the aim I think this will suffice.  If I was aiming for better I would have applied some highlights along the edges of further Boltgun Metal and applied a black wash before the rust and Sepia wash.  Need to apply highlights to the stonework, then I'm ready to go to work on Candy.

I look forwad to cpmpleting Candy.  The Executioner will be a pain in the neck.  Look for a specific post shortly.

(Originally painted elsewhere November 2011)

game report: pandora vs victorias 35ss

Game last night.
35 ss
Pandora (that's me) vs Victorias.

My Pandora crew
Pandora 8ss
Baby Kade
Candy
Teddy
3 x Sorrow


Victorias crew

Victoria x 2 4ss?
Killjoy
Mizaki
Freikorp Tracker
Ronin
Desperate Mercenary

Basically I had my ass handed to me on a plate.
Within 3 turns all I had left was Pandora.  In return all I'd got rid of was Killjoy and done some wounds to Mizaki and the Tracker.
Turn one - the Viki's slingshot into Teddy and take him down to a couple of wounds.  I got Mizaiki to wound herself, failed on everything else with Pandora, having only a Red Joker to cheat with which I wanted to save (big mistake) for when I really needed it - doh.
Anyway, turn 2 I win initiative, good.  Except my opponent burns a ss in order to re-flip and flips an 11 so I burn one too and get a 5.  So Viki one kills Teddy (an end before I've done anything with him in his first outing) moves and slingshots Viki 2 across to start taking out Sorrows.  He sacrifices the Desperate Merc and brings on Killjoy, getting a healing flip (3 wounds) on Misaki at the same time. Killjoy is just out of range on Candy.  Candy triple casts Self Loathing at KillJoy, succeeding twice and doing 2 x weak damage for 8 points plus two failed WP within 12" of Pandora so he's 2 wounds left.  Pandora gets off three incites against KillJoy, Mizaki and Tracker then one self loathing against Mizaki (I think).  Kade, who's been round the back of a building comes out with a double move, dragging his Sorrow with him, the sorrow the Links to KillJoy ready to inflict his last wound if he activates.
Turn 3 and it's all over, he kills remaining sorrow with tracker who inflicts severe damage with blasts, which hit Candy taking her out as well.  I get rid if Killjoy, Kade gets taken out and that's it.
Pandoras left.  She can be useful on her own but I've scored no VP, he's scored 4 so far and will easily get his remaining four.. I can't win, we call it.
A few things would have helped immeasurably.  Firstly we made a mistake with Desperate Merc.  when sacrificed he shouldn't have been able to heal Mizaki, which meant I'd have killed her later (probably).
And one or two high Crows in my hand would have meant I could have had Mizaki (if not dead) and Trapper on the run after turn 2, which would have meant Kade and Candy and a sorrow still alive and much still to play for.  Never the less I was Hammered :-(

(previously published elsewhere Oct 2011)

first pandora outing

Had a game last night, well, part of one, and got to use my Pandora crew for the first time.  My opponent was using his C. Hoffman crew for the first time too and as we didn't start until late thanks to my wife cooking us a lovely Curry, we only got two turns done.. But, they were fairly interesting turns, turn two in particular.
Here's an overview of how it went down.

20SS Game

Pandora
Kade
Candy
2 x Sorrow

vs

C.Hoffman
2x Guardian
Watcher
Mechanical Attendant



Strategies  Pandora - Turf War, C. Hoffman - Deliver Message
Schemes Pandora Bodyguard & the one involving being in opponents deployment zone, C. Hoffman Kill Candy & 1 other I can't recall.

We'd set up our small crews virtually opposite each other, there wasn't a huge amount of scenery, 3 trees and 3 ruins, but just enough to ensure it wasn't quite a straight run accross the table.
The Hoff was set up in a gaggle with everything in base with the Hoff.  Pnadora set up with both sorrows in base, one each side, Candy in base with one of them and Kade off on his own a bit to my left.

Turn 1, not a lot happened.  Hoff won initiative and moved a guardian up dragging Hoffman with it.  I activated a sorrow to link to Pandora, he moved up his other guardian. I moved Pandora, tried to use Incite (or Pacify, I can't remember which) and failed, managed to cast Self Loathing on Hoffman for a total of 4 wounds, failed everything else.  Not much of significance happened that I remember that turn, my deck was week with a solitary 9 being my only remotely high card so couldn't force much.

Second turn was more interesting.  I don't recall the exact order of everything but some of the highlights were, Pandora getting off my first sequence of wounds/moves caused by Pacify/Fading memory, pulling it off 3 times causing a wound to Hoff, 2 wounds to one  Guardian and 3 wounds to the 2nd Guardian (multiple wounds thatnks to Sorrows Emotional Stress) whilst also triggering Mental Anguish that saw one Guardian falling back to within a few inches of my table edge.
One sorrow bought it as did Kade, eventually, after successfully using backstab on Hoffman, only to see his damage limited by borrowed armour.  A Guardian cast a spell that put all my casts within 6" on  -ve flip, which is nasty, luckily it was the guardian I sent packing so impact wasn't too sever.

That was it really, no objective points scored, however he'd killed two of my models and I'd got Hoffman down to 4 wounds both guardians damaged and one of them a push away from being off the board.  Could have gone either way, with a good hand next round I think I'd have had him, but I was low on soul stones (though I wouldn't have used my penultimate one had I thought the game was going to continue).
had some bad luck, twice using Soul stones to add to my casting value or dual value only to flip a one, and had some good luck, he flipped black joker a couple of times.

Great game, if a bit slow, both crews more complex than we're used to.  So nice to play something different.
Got a good idea of the power of Pandora though :-)   great fun when it comes off, but Soul stones and good cards are important I think.

(Originally posted elsewhere October 2011)