Four guys who want to win at painting... AT ALL COSTS!

Wednesday 14 September 2011

My Crazy New Side Project!

So after I posted yesterday, I kept thinking about other projects I could do.  I went through a rather exhaustive list, and bugged Wallshammer about it, but finally came to a decision!

In a lot of ways, this project is taking me back to my roots as 'Green Feevah'.  But I wanted to take things in a whole new direction.  Something fresh, something I'd always wanted to do, but something that would be easier on both my time, patience and wrecked neck to accomplish.

What is it, you ask?  Find out after the break (plus tasty pictures!)

The name "Green Feevah" harkens back to my days of yesteryear... ah, I remember it like it was yesterday, even though it was like almost a decade ago.  It was the 'height' of 3rd edition 40k, and 6th edition Fantasy.  Warmachine was just a tinkle in someone's eye.  And I started playing Orks.  And Orcs.  And Orcs in Blood Bowl.  I went crazy for the WAAAAGH!

Fast forward to today.  I have a massive collection of 40k Orks (most of which I recently sold).  I have over 10000 points of Fantasy Orcs and Goblins.  It's insanity.  However, while Orcs are my favourite race to play  in Fantasy, I have never fully painted an Orc army.  I've stated before why.  I have way too many models, so it's very intimidating.  I am really burned out on painting greenskins, because I have painted so many. Etc, etc, etc...

Then something happened.  While I was cruising the internet yesterday looking for inspiration I came across the Army Painter website.  And their coloured spray primers!  So naturally, I got to thinking.  This would be great, I told myself, finally I could get a whole bunch of Orcs done at one time.  So I looked through their colours, and found they had a Yellow.  Now I've ALWAYS wanted to do a Yellow army.  Yellow looks AMAZING on the table.  So that cinched it.  I would re-do my Fantasy Orks, using the Army Painter yellow primer as the base for all my cloths, then use their soft shade 'dip' to give it some edge.

So I grabbed some primer from my favourite gaming store (Imperial Hobbies, check them out!) and began priming.  I decided to do some test models from across the range, both metal and plastic, bare and some with primer on them (and one with paint on it).

So let me tell you something about this yellow primer.  It is by far the best yellow primer I've ever worked with.  But sadly, that isn't saying much.  I've looked for years to find a good quality yellow spray, all the way back to my earliest Eldar days, but never found one.  They are too runny, too shiny, too thick.  Always something was wrong with them.


Army Painter's yellow primer is none of those things.  HOWEVER, it sprays on incredibly light, meaning you have to do multiple sprays to get an even colour.  AND, other paints do not stick to it very well at all.  Still, it's miles ahead of any other yellow primer I've ever found.


It took a long time to get the models primed, because of all the coats.  To be honest, these models weren't fully covered, but I was getting impatient and the weather looked like it was about to turn.  The yellow actually came out pretty good though, so I was excited to move forward.  I added the Goblin Green first on their skin.


I finished that first coat and thought to myself 'What the Hell am I doing?  These look SO bad."  But I decided to soldier on, knowing that I've had other projects in the past have have looked horrible to start, but really came together in the end.  I added the Boltgun metal and suddenly, we were back in business.  They were beginning to look like Warhammer models, and less like dollar store toy soldiers.


I added more colours, slowly working them to fully base-coloured.  That when I noticed how easily the paint came off the yellow primer.  But I soldiered on.  I did notice a loss in detail from the primer, especially on those models that had primer on them already.  So word to the wise: start bare.


I finally finished them.  At this point I'm really wondering if I'm saving any time at all doing it this way.



I glued nails to the bottom of the bases, then stuck the nails in my power drill.  I dipped them in the soft shade, then gave them a whirl in a little box.  Sadly, my fanatic broke while doing this.  Not sure how I'm going to repair him either... that's a problem for another day.


After each one was finished, I took the nail and embedded it in a scrap piece of foam I had lying around.  Now they sit for 24 hours, then I dullkote them and see the 'finished' result.  When I say finished, I'm only talking finished in the 'army painter is amazing and this is all you'll ever have to do to your models' sense.  I'll likely do highlighting on top of this, as I really don't think they look anywhere near finished.  Now, by doing it the dipping method, I'm not expecting the result to be Golden Daemon worthy, but at this point, these models look barely painted.


Anyways, until I get the finished results tomorrow night, I won't know hoe successful this little experiment is.  But from the look of things... not good.  If this doesn't turn out, this will probably be the nail in the coffin of this army.  I love to play Orcs, but if I can't paint them, I'm probably never going to field them.  I'd be a hypocrite if I told everyone to pay attention to both sides of the hobby and then played with unpainted models all the time.








So there you have it.  Please comment and let me know what you guys think.

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