Stalking With Swords

My trio of Witchling Stalkers. I could fake it with the Exorcist, but the Ortega theme kinda falls apart with these. I suppose the Guild sent a shipment over to the Ortega Ranch to assist with that tricky Neverborn Magic. Anyway, I picked them up because they're cheap and good in melee, both of which are traits my Ortegas lacked. Their melee aspect fell short of expectations, but I've found that they're a good overall package. They do way less damage than Francisco, but are much more likely to at least do something.

Aside from a one colour basecoat across the whole model, these three were painted entirely with washes. It's something I've wanted to do for a while, and the Witchlings made for a good opportunity, what with the many folds in their clothing. As I had hoped, it was pretty easy to do, was quick (aside from the drying times for all the washes), and produced decent results. I feel that this style only works on certain kinds of models though, so I don't know how often I'll be doing it.

Regarding the image, as I had feared, it was difficult to get a good shot of three models at once. The edges of the photo are clearly blurrier than the middle. I'm concerned about taking group shots in the future, especially regarding colour balance since it's pretty rare that every model has the exact same colours, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Benedicamus Domino

The Ortegas are good, God fearing people, so it's only natural that they would consult with a priest for spiritual advice. The Exorcist is a model I picked up partially on a whim, mostly with the intent of replacing Papa Loco in certain matchups.

He's my latest attempt at painting black, and I am reasonably satisfied with it. There are a variety of mistakes I made, but I've identified them and should be able to avoid a repeat of them the next time. Though time consuming, it was surprisingly easy to paint the black; I just needed to not try to shortcut it. Instead, the shortcuts this time were in the overall colour scheme and in not picking out details in a separate colour.

I've barely played with him so far, but I've found that he isn't as radically hateful of certain demographics as I thought he would be. Which I suppose makes sense, given his reasonable cost. What's mostly letting me down are his ranged CBs of 5, which make it difficult to purge the unfaithful. He very much seems like a finesse unit compared to the Ortegas, so I'll see how it goes.

He so Crazy

Got me a Papa Loco done painted. I went for silly colours on him because I figure he can dress however he wants and nobody's going to stop him. The washes darkened and muted everything, as expected, and although I should have gone back over and highlighted, I just wanted to get it done with. He's not varnished yet, so hopefully that'll go ok.

I'll need to get in a lot more games, but right now I'm not liking him. Not because he's bad, but because of how he is relative to my other models. My crew is filled with WP resistant guys, and he feels like a major hole that can be exploited. I also don't have the Obey engines that can make him sing. Still, he's pretty funny and this is all conjecture anyway.

I've recently had renewed interest in Malifaux because of another LGS I've just checked out. It's technically in the next town over, making it a little difficult to get to, but the Malifaux scene there is big. I'm hoping I can head over there every now and then, because it's good to expand your horizons. They're also starting up Infinity, which is actually why I went, so I'm hoping that catches on too.

Magister Knight, Plus Musings on Photography

"Where's his Rifle?"  "He doesn't have one."  "Oookay..."

I managed to paint up two Magister Knights (only one of them shown) for my small Military Orders collection. The only real idea I had for the colour scheme was to make green and white the main colours, and I kind of went on the fly from there. It's pretty apparent that I don't have enough colour on this model, but I was trying to get them done in time for our recent tournament, so I'm just taking it as a lesson learned. The Magisters are the poverty knights anyway, so my Teutonics can have more colour, and hopefully cleaner whites.

My limited experience thus far playing with Magisters tells me that outside of a Link Team, they're quite bad. This is ok, given that they only cost 27 points for a Heavy Infantry, but it's entirely possible that a Magister won't kill a single enemy model during a game. What they are nice for, is collecting points in a scenario. They're very durable for their cost, so put them wherever the scenario needs them, and don't worry about whether they will be fighting or not. I don't know if I would ever field a Magister in vanilla PanO, though.

I didn't photograph the other Magister because I dropped both of them while moving stuff around, and there's a pretty noticeable crack now on the base of the other one. This one also had a bit of paint chip on his sword, but since I just painted it silver anyway, it's no big deal. I was a lot less angry about the cracked Magister than I thought I would be, and I chalk that up to me not being that satisfied with how I painted it anyway, as well as there being 4 more Magisters.

Anyway, the photo is obviously overexposed in some areas, and some colours have been washed out. The model is also gloss varnished right now (there isn't a matte varnish I trust 100% at the moment) which I'm sure isn't helping matters.

I sometimes I get a nice, clear photo that is not only sharp and in focus, but that also captures the proper colours. The other 99% of the time though, I get a photo that is messed up in some way. And while I'm sure that my lighting, backgrounds, and maybe even camera aren't conducive to photography, the fact that I'm able to get that good photo once per hundred tries tells me that it is possible without a specific rig.

The other issue is, even if I wanted to fix my set up, I'm not exactly sure how. I have read up on how to make a lightbox and such, but since I'd need to go buy a bunch of stuff, that's a secondary concern for me. I've tried a bunch of things, including a white background (actually my worst photos, I'm guessing that only works in a lightbox), but haven't found something that works. I'll be trying some more photography soon, and will be posting up results.

Mexican Cowboys

Two of the very few models I've painted since I pretty much stopped playing Warmachine a year and a half ago: Santiago and Francisco Ortega, from Malifaux's Guild faction.

Santiago was painted quite a while ago, but I just finished Francisco recently. I'm not happy about how I painted a lot of things on both of them, but I've long since learned that if I keep worrying over every detail I'll never actually finish a mini.

Even though I basically forced myself to finish them just so I can have fully painted minis, I'm not terribly disappointed with the overall result. I did have an issue with the matte varnish, especially on Francisco, and that was rage inducing. The bases are pretty ugly as well, but again, the idea was just to get the models done so I can play.

Despite having bought the models back in May, I've barely played any Malifaux. This is partially my fault, for greatly favouring Infinity over Malifaux when I get chances to play, but also just because we don't have much of a scene for it over here in Ottawa. I know that plenty of people have bought Malifaux, because they're selling over at the LGS, but I don't know where any of these people are.

Anyway, I like both these models, including their rules and fluff. Santiago has those dual pistols, and I've seen what he can do when he gets mad. Francisco is a great character and I'm a little disappointed that they chose him to be the Ortega's low cost model, because he's a total badass in the fluff. I haven't had any success with him yet, but I'm sure I'll eventually get him into melee safely.

Next up on the Malifaux painting block is Papa Loco.