Zenithal Highlight (part 2)

I've made some progress with the zenithal painting of my next three wee Scots.

I thought I'd start with the flesh. One of the videos I'd watched on painting over zenithal highlights (from Vince Venturelli's excellent "Hobby Cheating" video series) mentioned that it doesn't work well for skin, so you're better off putting down two light coats of flesh tone over the highlight:

I also worked up some of the "volumes" of the tunics with a white glaze over the zenithal highlight. This seems a bit fiddly to me (isn't this what the zenithal highlight should be accomplishing?), but the same YouTuber pointed out that all the time you put into "value sketching" at this stage will pay off at the end.

Getting the consistency of the glazes correct was a bit of a challenge and will take some practice. I'm sure it was only made worse by the fact that my paints have been sitting unused for years. So I followed the advice of another YouTuber and added a 5/16" ball bearing to each dropper bottle:

A messy proposition, but I feel like the paints are much easier to mix now.

After watching another one of the "Hobby Cheating" video series, I decided I might want to give dry brushing the hair a go. This means putting the flesh on hold for now (since dry brushing can be a bit of a messy proposition as well!). Here are the figs after an initial glaze or two of various Army Painter paints diluted with Vallejo Thinner Medium on their heads:

As usual - very slow progress as I muck about, but for me - that's mostly what this hobby is all about!

Flash Flash and more Flash

I've begun the task of cleaning up the Gripping Beast levy blister pack. Plenty of cleaning up to do too. Mostly little bits of flash like under this bloke's arm:

I pray to both Wōden and the Nailed God that I get better at finding and removing this stuff. I thought I had the first set of four figures all shipshape and ready for priming. Fortunately I waited for my new eye to arrive before beginning to paint, because I found I had missed quite a bit. And then after I primed them I found I had missed a bit more. And then when I painted their tunics I found I had missed still more. Cheeky bastards...

I guess the moral of the story is to be patient and methodical. Boring as it might seem, I'm going to start doing all the similar figures at the same time. This way I'll get familiar with where the flash lines may lurk by repetition. Here's one of the guys all cleaned up. Or at least so he seems. Until he gets some paint on him!

The astute reader will note the copious amounts of mind-besotting lead dust about him.

The file I had ordered turned out to be way too big for these wee men.  I hadn't the time or patience to order another from Amazon (as I tend to do for most things since I'm a Prime member - quite the trap they've set!). So I struck out one evening to find a proper set of needle files. Hobby Lobby is the local big box place and they are open later than the smaller hobby shops. However, they didn't have needle files. They did have these cool little sanding needles though. I like them a lot as the pointy tip is great for getting into hard to reach places. I seem to burning through them at an alarming rate though and they are not exactly cheap. Maybe I need a lighter touch. Or maybe I need some needle files still. I do like the fact that the sanding needles wear out before the figure does. I'm afraid with a regular rasp file I might get over zealous. More things to experiment with.

The Beginning

I've been fascinated with the Dark Ages since watching an episode of NOVA about a famous viking sword a few months ago. This led to me finding the most excellent Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell. It's been down the wormhole ever since...

By chance I stumbled across a picture of a viking miniature while googling around one day. I've always been a gamer. Well not always, but I started in the 70's with first edition D&D. My love of mini's goes back to 1975 when my brother got an amazing book called The Wargame for Christmas (Thank you, Mrs. Schwartz!). I had a small collection of miniatures in the 80's. I would play around with them, but I never gamed with them. I never bothered painting them either. I think goes a long way toward explaining my eccentric nature! Well, that and genetics...

Back to today: my interest in the Dark Ages and miniatures led me to SAGA. SAGA is a miniatures-based, Dark Age, skirmish game by a UK outfit called Gripping Beast. There's a good intro to it on this much better blog. I've spent a number of weeks researching and acquiring rule books, miniatures, and all the stuff needed to assemble, paint, and base them. A lot of it was mail-ordered and some of it took way too long to get here (I'm looking at you Michigan Toy Soldier!). But finally, I'm all set up with my Scots starter band and a complement of levy.

I'm new to this whole painting of miniatures thing, so I've decided to experiment with some of the different techniques I've read about online. I've been so inspired and educated by the blogs of other hobbyists, that I've decided to document my stumblings publicly. Either that or I'm so intimidated by the quality of the work I've seen out there, I'll do anything to put off painting!