Rats and Stolen and Shifting Stones (Oh Yeah!)

Just three updates and a teaser today. 

First is my progress on my Play It Painted 2013 models. Admittedly I went with something pretty simple, but I figure if I set an easy goal for my first month I'll have good momentum going in to it.

The grey was unsurprisingly easy. In this month's No Quarter, a magazine put out by Privateer Press, their painting feature had a part about painting runes for Circle Orboros. How fortunate that I had runes to paint!The green you see is a glow effect. I'll get closer on the final piece so you can get a good look at the ridiculously small area I had to paint.

I'll probably give them a once-over before I start my basing, but it's nice to know I'm mostly done with this month's pledge. I may grow impatient and pledge to paint one of my warlocks too, but we'll see how busy my competition piece keeps me.

Next are the actual models for my competition piece. I just did some zenithal highlighting while I decide how I want to paint them. I thought about doing 100% washing with them, but I may take this opportunity to fully try my hand at glazing. Decisions...

Finally, despite last night's hissy fit, my rat swarm is looking achievable once again. After letting the molds sit for over an hour, they were hard enough for me to pull them out, while still being soft enough to trim away the excess bits. What that means is that I'll be able to fit them together rather well, and when I'm done I can start hacking new molds apart and fitting them in all the gaps. Sadly it's going to add several more hours to the process, but the utility of epoxy over resin is worth it.

I also tried using some Milliput I had lying around. Although cheaper, it didn't grab fine details like I hoped, and also developed small cracks. I'm casting a second Milliput mold now, but I may end up sticking with greenstuff.

And finally, the promised teaser. As you recall, I have some goals I'd like to accomplish as a painter. One of those is to use my painting to take part in a charity. I've found two charities that I'd like to support. One is going to be a highly ambitious and expensive project that I'll begin as soon as my competition piece is done. The second isn't an event per se, but it's one my brother-in-law really believes in after witnessing their work in Afghanistan.

I'll be back another day with a full writeup, but it's great to know that if I achieve nothing else on my list, I'm working towards the one I want to accomplish most.

See you tomorrow!