Terrain is everything - Project Ω - Realm of Battle Board - We can rebuild it!

What we have here is the first 'real' step to the restoration of Ferron Proxima. The shadow wash solved the Polyvine problem but here we see the true colours shining through. The bottom board has had it's coat of Vermillion craft acrylic. I was slightly more judicious with its application this time as the shadow wash was heavier to counter the Polyvine so I was having to cover black shadows instead of darkened Red Oxide, if you follow.

Now it took a suspiciously long time to do the first panel which may indicate I added too much and subsequently was less enthusiastic with it's application on the remaining tiles. 

I don't know whether the strength of the application will show up, certainly in these pictures it's not immediately evident but there are filters applied to the images which may not represent 100% colour accuracy [close though].

The second flat board seems to be of a similar tone and we are still saving some of the past effort.

Although it may look a fraction darker in this comparison...? However I think I fixed the boards in respect to taking the highlight to the edge a little more. I was concerned the tiles would look distinct, I think I've mitigated that compared to the first time around.

here you can see the right side of the board highlighted. Some may think I'm flattening out a perfectly acceptable finish but you can just see some Polyvine remnants in the top left corner so close up this far from the perfect finish so I have to fix it. There are still highlights to add to this which will bring back the contrast we gushed about first time around.

Bang! and the Polyvine is gone! All back to an acceptable first pass of highlights.

On with the Pumpkin, mixed in with Vermillion. Once again it was only a small amount of Pumpkin and I made sure not to highlight any tile edges, only board texture, and random spots across the board for variety.

This was followed by a pure Pumpkin highlight on the extreme edges and adreas of 'high traffic'

Overall I think I managed to recapture the original.

But the proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating [although the lighting is a little off between the two pics they are pretty much bob on] ...

Close up I may have added a little more Pumpkin despite the above picture suggesting otherwise.

And on with the spatter. i managed to get some bigger blobs in some places, which was nice

However, there is definitely a diagonal 'swathe' in the bottom left hand corner resulting in the spots having a direction. Not optimal but I can live with it after all the drama thus far.

I did however object to the three larger blobs of Bonewhite, an example being the one on top of the hill. And so went at it with a damp cloth. Of course it didn't come off cleanly and despite a similar 'rescue attempt' on paint bristle last time around I didn't learn from my mistake and the end result probably looks worse than if I'd just left those three larger blobs. Clearly I need to have a lesson beaten into me to take notice!

So, next up the extra shading and then fix the skulls...

Terrain is everything - Project Ω - Realm of Battle Board - 50 Shades of Red Oxide

Happy Hallowe'en! Dry your eyes and lets fix this mother! On with the shadow wash. You can see there is still some evidence of the Polyvine [the whiteish streaks towards the top of the board] but overall I'd say it's been reduced by 80%

Once again this could be considered a perfect place to stop and I bet this would ideal for most of what John Blanche does with his Inquisition models or those done by Spiky Rat Pack [which I think are done for JB]

The colours are very earthy indeed and more than suitable for that painterly look that's popular for INQ28.

I'm hoping that because I've still manage to retain some of the depth of colours from the original coat of paint there will in fact be much more to see in the details when I add the highlights.

It's such a relief that I don't have to go back to square one, square 2.5 is still rewarding for the effort put in so far.

Just to illustrate how bad the Polyvine can get, notice the white 'foamed blob' on the edge just where the clips go. Clearly this product is desparate to dry milky white. Goodness knows what I would do if it dried like that on a freshly laid hardwood floor - it's intended purpose!

4+

Somehow I forgot my own 'blog day'. I guess all the home improvements have taken their toll. However, it's been four whole years since I truly fell of the wagon, when after 10 months of painting and modelling I finally committed the ultimate act against ,y sobriety and started a blog. I won't do a review of this year like I did last time, because I pretty much did that for the hobby season but I will say a big thanks to all those who continue to support the blog.

THANKS

Yes, whether it's reading commenting, following or even lurking it's great that you keep coming back for more random chat and occasional pic of a model ;) I'd been thinking I hadn't had a 'confession' for a while but given my limited hobby activities at the moment due to the continued home improvements schedule. It's a bit tough to take stock of what's happening when most of the hobby room is taken up with furniture that still has to be taken out of packaging. Still, I have a couple of updates on my Realm of Battle board to come once that is out of the way I should be able to cross off my Blood Bowl Elves and then it's about time I revealed Project Z, not to mention crack on with my Dark Angels.

Anyway, I'll leave with some colour tweaked and tilt-shifted pics of some of my Armies on Parade Board because they're just OTT.

Armies on Parade 2014 - Southport

So I managed to get to Armies on Parade and this time I would face some competition, albeit there were only 3 entries [not including the stores] so whatever happened we were all going to get a prize. First up was Chris Draper's Ogres. I think Chris was actually in the year below me at school, we hung out a bit, I remember him coming along to a LARP event on the Wirral once.

Anyway, he does a lot of commission painting now so we had a chat about what he does, but he's currently too busy to keep a blog going so I can't share more of his work.

However, the Ogres were full of character and with plenty of Basil on the board to give it a leafy feel. 

Some very interesting individuals

It was all the little details that made this.

I particularly liked the lurking spider and handily he made good use of the Hallowe'en cobwebs to decorate the board.

I may be wrong but think this was done by a guy called Tom, who went to Lost Boys Gaming Club. It's been so long since I last went I may have got it mixed up but the plague marines were fab.

Consistent throughout, lots of little details and all excellent quality.

He deserved a medal just for painting Cultists, you know how difficult I found painting mine!

Nice little blue glow effect too.

Gotta love the eyeball in the Hellbrute.

Some cool Greenstuff sculpting on the Vindicator and I love the little old skool familiar joining the squad.

Lovely, if you can call plague marines lovely.

The store's effort, an Iron Warrior's fortress.

Once again full of character [although the manager did admit the board was the work of a previous manager]

Still the Army was created for the parade and the board is still no longer a requirement and they weren't in the competition anyway.

Lets sacrifice the Fist!

Love the chaos glow.

And my effort. I sadly bottled it a bit. I was a little late getting there and hadn't been able to set up the night before so with 20 minutes I didn't fill every nook and cranny as I'd hoped but did put as much new stuff as I could down.

I would have liked to put more and the manager was prepared to let me do so but in the end if I did it would have taken longer to pack away and that would have made me late leaving and would have caused issues on returning home.

So the end result was that Chris's Ogres took the win, I came second and Tom came third. I'm happy with that because I didn't add a whole lot to my army. There's a small amount of regret but I am pleased to have a different looking medal than another gold.

It's also nice that the other guys efforts were recognised, Chris was up till 1am painting the night before so that alone deserves credit.

Overall I'm just glad I got to take part, although sad I never got to create my original board, which I may have been a little upset if I hadn't won and I'd actually made it. 

Still, Liam won the Bolton AoP so go check out his blog if you haven't already.