Author: Joe B

Community Question on how to paint black and white

Community Questions: Painting Tips for Black and White

Published by Joe B

Mixing it up a bit today. Rather than share a post with you, I’m looking for your thoughts on painting the ‘hard’ colors: Black and White. As I’ve been building up the blog, I’ll get a ping on Facebook or email with hobby questions, and the one I get the most is how to paint black or how to paint white. Both are hard colors in the sense of highlighting or shading without it looking too harsh. So I turn to you, my awesome readers. What are your favorite tips for painting black or white? Post them in the comments below so everyone can learn. Have a tutorial as well? Post the link!

Good Reads 41

Published by Joe B

Bringing together some awesome hobby blogs that I have found the last few weeks, Good Reads 41 has some good ones for you. So dive in, check out what your fellow hobby bloggers are up to, and leave them a comment. How To: Chipped Paint Tutorial by Scott on The Brush WizardAdding chipped paint to a model is one of the basic ways of adding weathering. It can be as hard as you make it to be, but Scott shows a few steps to take to make them really pop. With only a few extra colors, you can give your models some extra character. Birth of a Chaos Knight Titan Anyone who finishes a Knight Titan deserves an award. And to do one with such incredible degree of details, Thor’s Chaos Knight Titan deserves an extra reward. Named Ironfate, Thor has put an amazing amount of work into painting him. Converted Gal Vorbak Forge World’s models are epic, and the Gal Vorbak of the Word Bearers are no exception. The problem Eric ran into is …

Orks in Progress and Hobby on the Couch

Published by Joe B

There is nothing as satisfying as painting Orks. Ok, there are plenty of things that are more satisfying, BUT they are a blast to paint. Especially when done on the couch with a glass of whiskey. As a way to restore some hobby time from the sprint that was Dreadtober, I’ve been working on a couple of the Orks that have been lingering in the Closet of Doom (TM Mordian7th). The simple and crude nature of Orks makes them quick to paint and rather fun. I also wanted somethingÂ I could work on while watching movies with the family. It’s how I painted a bunch of the Tyranids before and figured why can’t Orks watch a flick or two as well? Megaboss When I saw the Orruk Megaboss I knew I needed one for my growing Ork hoard. That is something as I haven’t had a ‘must buy’ impulse for new miniatures in a while. At the time I did an unboxing video and some rough ideas on how I would turn him into a 40k …

Watch This Brush Control with Kujo Painting

Watch This: Brush Control – Tips on Holding Your Brush

Published by Joe B

If you find it hard to get your paintbrush to go exactly where you wanted it to go, you aren’t alone. In this Watch This, Kujo Painting shares tips on holding your paintbrush to get fine detailed brush control. If you can ignore the cheesy music interruptions, Kujo’s tips are really handy and stabilizing your hands and putting the bush to work. Let’s watch: My Notes For quick reference, or for those who like words, I put his ideas into my notes below. The point is to be able to get paint exactly where you want it Use the middle finger on your painting hand to rest the brush Index finger and thumb pinch it against your middle finger With your other hand holding the mini (or a cork handle in this case) stick your thumb up high enough to rest your painting hand against Elbows on the table! Place the brush against the model and use your index and thumb to pull the brush backward It should slide against your middle finger Do a …

Cool Tools: Canva – For Awesome Blog Headers and Social Shares

Published by Joe B

I’ve had a couple of people ask me how I make the blog headers and other images I use. When I shared Canva with them, I’ve had nothing but positiveÂ feedback. So I figured it was time to share it with all of you: use CanvaÂ (a free tool) to make awesome images with pictures and text. Before we get too far along, I want to clarify that Canva is a free tool (with paid upgrades of course) and there areÂ no affiliates, meaning I get nothing for sharing this tool with you. It’s simply a tool I have found super helpful and want to share with you. What Is Canva? I found Canva as I’ve dived into the how-to-blog world. Amongst all the bloggers-selling-to-bloggers crud I have found a few gems worth sharing with hobbyists. With Canva being one of them. As an online web app, Canva is super easy to get started, create images from anywhere, and use them for anything. It prompts you to create a new design based offÂ of a ton of different pre-configured …

Good Reads 40

Published by Joe B

Happy Thanksgiving my fellow Americans and to the rest of the world, happy Good Reads Day! Whether you are bored at your family’s house, or trying to make it to Friday, I hope the selection of hobby articles will help 🙂 As I’ve taken a few weeks off to recover from Dreadtober, this week’s Good Reads is a bit longer. So sit back, click through the links, and enjoy a day of happy hobby reading! Painting Space Marines The team at Tale of Painters is constantly putting out good looking models, and Garfy has been featured a few times in White Dwarf. Over the years he has put together a ton of tutorials as well, and now all his Space Marine painting guides are gathered in one place. It’s cool to see the colors and styles all together. Mechanical Vermin Lord Going in the other extreme, Jake is showing off his WIP Skavan Vermin Lord built from a Knight kit! I’m not sure why he wants a twelve inch tall rat, but I am sure …

Dreadtober Recap and Thoughts on the Event

Dreadtober, a review and thoughts on running the event

Published by Joe B

Well Dreadtober 2016 has come and gone, but I want to take a moment and look back at what happened during the event and my thoughts from running it. As some of my readers have gathered from my lack of posts the last two weeks, Dreadtober wore me out both on the hobby front as well as the blogging. While I have no regrets doing it, I needed some time to step away and paint a few models for fun. What Happened For those who missed it, or didn’t follow the full journey, Dreadtober was a challenge to build and paint a Dreadnought-like model during October. Greg started it last year and I ran this year’s event. I ran it a bit different this year by breaking it down into six weekly challenges and using email to communicate with the participants. Starting at the end of September, I challenged each member to plan out their project and state their commitment. It then continued into building, painting, finishing, and photographing the miniature. The results of …

Dreadtober 2016 Showcase

Published by Joe B

Dreadtober 2016 is completed! I want to thank everyone who participated and those who cheered everyone on. It’s been a great adventure and some AWESOME models have been completed. I’ve been honored to have had the opportunity to host it this year and it’s been incredible to see what everyone has done. So many of your tried new things or pushed yourself to improve something in your hobby. So even overcame school, work, and illnesses to get things done. So congrats to everybody. Gothmog – COMPLETED! This Red Hunter’s Mortis Dread was achieved simply with successively brighter silver undercoats and then washes of blood letter glaze for the red and seraphim sepia for the gold, with some Nuln oil in all the recesses and exposed silver parts. This method can achieve these results in a single night and is a great way to get a Tabletop/tournament quality army ready to go. Blog: sepulchreofheroes.blogspot.com Albie – COMPLETED! Dreadtober was a fun challenge. As dreads are pretty easy builds it was cool to see what custom work …

Good Reads 39 - Hobby Blogs to Check Out

Good Reads 39 – Lots of Hobby Blog Goodness

Published by Joe B

Did you miss this awesome hobby posts for them last two weeks? Well I have you covered with some of my favorite (non-Dreadtober related) posts I found and want to share them with you! Magos Titus Apologist is a constant source of amazing conversions. His AdMech Magos is no exception. That and the awesome fluff he wrote for it makes it well worth the read. Genestealer Cults Rockgrinder Goliath Rockgrinder by Amy One of the cool aspects of the Genestealer Cult is their utilitarian look. Amy really brought this out with her Goliath Rockgrinder with that awesome red dust effect. Building a Boat I’m not sure how this fits into our hobby, but I thought it was a cool diversion. Alex created a step-by-step tutorial for how he built this boat from wooden coffee stir sticks. Now that’s scratch built! Marines and Paint Set Want a hobby challenge, one that limits what you can use? Zab did that with painting up the Marine starter paint set. Only the 8 basic colors and press-fit marines. But …

Dreadtober Challenge: Photograph Your Mini

Published by Joe B

While October has come and gone, and hopefully everyone completed their Dreadtober models, we still have one challenge left: photograph your model. This may seem a bit redundant as each of us has been taking pictures along the way and posting them in the showcase articles. But I felt it was important to take a week just to improve our skills of photographing miniatures, editing the picture, and loading it to your site of choice. Challenge: Photograph Your Model So this week your challenge is this: read/watch some tutorials on photographing your miniatures (some helpful links below), build a simple light box if needed, and take the best picture of your model possible. As you will see in some of the tutorials, you donâ€™t need a fancy camera or photo booth. A white sheet of paper and your cell phone can take some amazing pictures – if you take the time to do it right. So this week, take that time and up your photography game. Result: A Beautifully Photographed Model After four weeks of …

Dreadtober Showcase #4 Painting Completion

Dreadtober Painted Showcase

Published by Joe B

Ladies and Gentleman, October has pretty much come to an end. This week our participants were challenged to finish their models, completing their Dreadtober pledge. While there is still one week left of the challenge where we will work on photography, today we put our brushes down and declared victory! Gothmog This Red Hunter’s Mortis Dread was achieved simply with successively brighter silver undercoats and then washes of blood letter glaze for the red and seraphim sepia for the gold, with some Nuln oil in all the recesses and exposed silver parts. This method can achieve these results in a single night and is a great way to get a Tabletop/tournament quality army ready to go. Blog: sepulchreofheroes.blogspot.com Albie So the base for my dreadnought is designed after the red rocky terrain of Mars. I started with a blank base and a piece of 1/4″ thick cork. This way the dreadnought will stand over most other models. I broke away pieces until I liked the shape fitting on the base and so the dreadnought could …