Author: Ben Dake

Final Thoughts on the Inner Circle

Final Thoughts on the Inner Circle

Published by Ben Dake

Greetings readers! I am back for my final installment of the series I have been writing on GW’s Inner Circle event. I started down this road what feels like a lifetime ago, with grand schemes of what I hoped to accomplish. I didn’t win my local event, and I only scored 330 points. But I learned several lessons that I can pass along that will help you win your next painting contest. I know I’ll be using some of these! Lesson 1: Paint to the Rubric All painting contests should have a rubric to let you know what you are going to get scored on and how many points each item was worth. If they don’t, they really need to have one. Once you get your hands on the rubric, really see where you can maximize your point output. The Inner Circle event, for example, awarded extra points for units that had 10 or more models in them or more than 3 models for larger models. I had exactly zero points in this category. While …

Continuing Work on the Inner Circle

Inner Circle Article Two: Electric Boogaloo

Published by Ben Dake

Hey there hobbymaniacs! Ben from Moosehead Studios checking in again to let everyone know the ups and downs and progress that I’ve made towards my goal of having 18 fully-painted units for the North American Games Workshop Inner Circle hobby event. But first, I have got to catch my breath. The time between my initial article and now has been quite the rush. Professionally, my school has gone through standardized testing (which is great for late-night hobbying), and I’ve also started spring training for my football time (not so great for late-night hobbying). All-in-all, it’s been a positive experience so far, so let’s get some of the lower points out of the way. Hobby Lows Life, in general, has been much more hectic and crowded, as it always does at the end of the school year.  With work, my child’s activities, my family responsibilities, and maintaining a commission painting service, I sometimes don’t know which way is up, and my head feels like it is spinning. I don’t think I’m unique in that, though. Anybody …

Preparing for the Inner Circle Hobby Challenge with Ben Dake

Preparing for the Inner Circle

Published by Ben Dake

Hey, guys and gals! Ben here again from Moosehead Studios. In this series of articles, I won’t be offering advice on how to paint, but instead, I will be documenting my journey of preparation for an event, specifically a hobby-centered event. When I got back into the hobby four years ago, I openly said that I only painted for myself, and would never paint for competitive purposes. File that, along with airbrushing and commission painting, under “Times I’ve Had to Eat My Words.” The Holdups The problem for me, up until this year, has been the fact that most of your big painting contests were held at competitive tournaments. Which, as much as I would love to compete in them, I have never been able to because I have an extremely limited hobby budget. I could never afford what I thought I needed for a competitive list. I played mostly with models that I have had on hand for nearly a decade and re-painted, or the few models I could acquire throughout the year as …

How to Paint White - AdMech Style

Painting AdMech Part 2 – The White Sections

Published by Ben Dake

Hey, everyone! Ben here again from Moosehead Studios with the second and final part of my painting AdMech articles (for now, at least). In this article, I am going to cover the second-largest section of my Skitarii Vanguard and Rangers: the white sections. If you missed the first article it is where I painted the blue sections. White is one of the most difficult colors to paint, right up there with yellow and black. What I have discovered works best for me is to build up layers on whatever it is that I am painting and trick the eye into believing that what it is seeing on the model is pure white cleverly applied instead of several layers of different colors built on top of each other. And I can’t stress this enough when painting white: it is always better to apply several thinned layers of paint instead of one thick. I mean, this is the cardinal rule of painting as spoken by the one and only Duncan Rhodes (@WHTV_Dunc on Twitter). When you are …

Guest Post by Ben on Painting Blue Adeptus Mechanicus

Painting Blue AdMech

Published by Ben Dake

Hi there fellow hobbyists and welcome to the inaugural “Painting With The Moose” article! Ben from Moose Studios joins Broken Paintbrush as a guest writer with this great tutorial on painting blue AdMech. His social accounts are at the bottom, so welcome Ben and give him a follow! In the next few minutes, I will break down how I achieve the blue paint scheme that I have chosen for my Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation. Before I begin any painting project, there are a few steps that I go through that save me some time and headache as the project progresses. Painting In Sub-Assemblies First, I always paint my models in sub-assemblies. For this project, I separated the individual models into four parts: torsos, heads, legs, and arms. All you need to do this is an inexpensive box of push pins. I treated myself and sprung for the jumbo push pins. This makes it easy to hold and paint without actually touching the model. Trust me when I say that once you do this, it will …