Author: Joe B

Tutorial on building a custom model with bit bashing and scuplting

How to Build a Custom Model Through Kitbashing

Published by Joe B

Sometimes you are going for a unique look, other times you want to add new dynamism to a model. Either way, learning how to build a custom model through kitbashing is an excellent way to make something truly yours. For my examples, I use a Space Marine Dreadnought. They are boxy, unwieldy beasts of a model that are cool, but static looking. I want to fix that problem and show you how I took a Blood Angels Furioso Dreadnought and turned it into a charging Ironclad for my Mentor Legion. Making a Plan As with any project, it’s important to have at least a rough idea of where you are going. It can change, reform, and flow as your build the model and get further inspiration. For this dreadnought, I had a Furioso model sitting in my bits box from the Baal campaign box set (really got it for the Tyranid models). I needed something to build and paint to create these tutorials for Dreadtober and thought it would fit the bill nicely. That and …

Dreadtober Challenge 2: Build Your Model

Build Your Model a Dreadtober Challenge

Published by Joe B

This is it. We are starting to actual begin working on your Dreadtober model! The challenge this week is to build your model. Glue, knives, and magic may all be required. Well, hopefully between your fellow Dreadtober participants and the helpful tutorials below we can skip on the magic part. But I do hope that as part of this challenge you are trying new things to push your hobby skills a bit further. As a reminder, these weekly challenges are only meant to be guidance and milestone markers to provide encouragement along the build. If your model is already built or you prefer to paint on the sprue, don’t let me stop you from your hobby style! Challenge: Build Your Model This week’s challenge is pretty straightforward: create your Dreadtober model! It doesn’t matter if your model is still in its box or already partially assembled, the goal is to have it fully assembled by next Saturday. For those who like to paint the model in sub-assemblies, magnetize the crap out of the model, or have …

Dreadtober Painting Challenge

Dreadtober: The Participants

Published by Joe B

The Dreadtober build and paint event is officially started! Last week, I posted a pre-event challenge to have the participants plan what they will accomplish for the month. The idea was to organize and prepare for the month. I challenged each of them to make goals for not only the finished model but what steps they would need to accomplish along the way. As the challenges progress, the Saturday Showcase will highlight their progress. For this first week, it’s more of a meet the participants and have them share what their plan’s are. So check out their blogs, give their social feeds a follow, and cheer them on. The Participants Listed in no particular order are the Dreadtober 2016 participants. (ok, it does relate roughly to when they sent me their info!) If you missed the initial launch and still want to join, just fill in the form below and I will email you all the details. As there isn’t a competition but rather a fun thing to do together during October, there isn’t a penalty for …

Watch how to paint books and freehand text

Watch This: Painting Books

Published by Joe B

The Silver Tower came with a lot of books, but they are a common addition to Librarians, Grey Knights, Wizards, and all sorts of book lovers. Some seem some amazingly done books and parchments done by awards winning painters. For the rest of us getting started with it, Victor Ques made a nice video on painting books. This how-to guide to painting books doesn’t get fancy or use an airbrush. In fact, Victor only uses a few colors to achieve a fantastic result. Check out his video and then some more of my notes below. (note: there is a section in the middle where he almosts moves off screen, but just for a moment) Painting Books by Victor Notes Pretty simple right? Basically, paint the main colors, wash to provide depth and wear, and then a bit of fine brushwork – probably the hardest part. But with anything in our hobby, after a bit of practice, it becomes easier to do. Let’s go back through his steps: Base Colors Paint book cover Mornfang Brown Paint pages …

How to plan your hobby projects

Planning Your Hobby Project

Published by Joe B

Between piles of gray sprues, dozens on unfinished models, and perhaps a few pieces of terrain, you might be feeling a bit overwhelmed by what is supposed to be your hobby. I’m hoping that my notes below will help you with planning your hobby projects and get some of them done. Unfortunately, too many people think of planning and organizing from school days. It was a chore, something that was graded. Instead, the planning process I’m talking about here is how I organize my hobby projects and blog posts. It brings enough order to my chaotic life so that I am able keep from getting overwhelmed. Why Plan For me, there are three big reasons to plan: 1. Create Mile Stones Buy, build, and paint a whole new army is a ton of work. For most of us, this is an overwhelming about of work before it’s done. But break that down into buy, build, and paint a new unit or character – and that becomes a whole lot more manageable. It’s no longer this …

Dreadtober Challenge: Planning Your Hobby Project

Published by Joe B

Here it is! Dreadtober begins today! Well at least the first challenge: planning your hobby project. I think I just hear about a third of you grown about having to plan. “I’m an artist, not a cube-man!” “It’s just a hobby, planning is for work.” Or something along those lines. But the truth is, projects (even artistic, hobby ones) have a much better shot at being accomplished if you put together a simple plan. Notice, it doesn’t have to be a giant Gantt chart, 90-page operating plan, or even anything formal. Instead, the point of this challenge is to prepare so that the project goes smoother, and you can spend more time building, painting, and interacting than worrying about what color to paint it. The Challenge: Plan your Dreadtober Project One of the best pieces of advice for planning is: write down what you want to achieve. Start with the end in mind and we will work back from there. Do you have a Space Wolf Dreadnought missing out on battle honor by sitting in …

Hobby Blog Collection Good Reads #36

Good Reads 36

Published by Joe B

Good Reads is all about sharing some awesome content from fellow hobby bloggers. Every day you guys are building, painting, and writing some amazing things. I try to gather some of my favorites here to share with all of my readers. Necron Triarch Necrons have always been one of those armies that I have wanted to do (killer robots are irresistible after all!). I also love blue, so when I saw Grenn’s Necron Triarch Praetorian, I had to share him here. It’s a fantastic metallic blue and green that adds interest to the metal warrior. Red Hunters I hadn’t heard of the Red Hunters until Gothmog’s post on them, but I really like how he used the Death Watch set to build them. It’s a great use of all those inquisitor bits for this specialty chapter and yet not painting more black and silver. Concrete Walls Line of sight blocking terrain is important for any gaming system and concrete walls are the simplest ways to do this. Scar Hand Painting wrote up a tutorial on how he …

How to Paint Joe Diamond from Mansions of Madness

Painting Joe Diamond a Mansions of Madness Tutorial

Published by Joe B

Mansions of Madness provides a great mix characters to investigate the mysteries. Some are the intellectuals to solve riddles, and others are like Joe Diamond. A classic Noir PI, he has his duster flapping and pistols ready. Unlike Noir, I wanted Joe to have some color – makes the game more fun in a way. So a red duster, yellow tie, and bright white hat and shirt fit the bill. All the paints used were from the Vallejo range. You can grab all the colors with either the Game Color Set or the Skintones Set. Shirt, Shoes, Hat Game Color Wolf Grey Game Color Sombre Grey Game Color Dead White Jacket, Pants Game Color Charred Brown Game Color Beastly Brown Duster Model Color Scarlett Red Game Color Tan Game Color Khaki Game Color Red Wash Tie, Hatband Game Color Gold Yellow Game Color Sun Yellow Skin Model Color Mahogany Brown Game Color Parasite Brown Game Color Brown Rose Model Color Dark Brown Wash Base Coats The first step was to paint all the base colors throughout …

Status 6 Weeks into having Guest Authors

Guest Post Status – Six Weeks In

Published by Joe B

About two months ago I put a call out for guest writers on Broken Paintbrush. I wanted to add some diversity of thought to the site, new perspectives on the hobby, and give others a chance to write. We are now six weeks in and I wanted to share the guest post status and do another call out for anyone interested. To date, I’ve had four guest writers and five posts (Thor has gone twice already!).  I’ve received emails and ideas from five more writers who I hope to post soon as well. My hope is that after showing you what other guest writers have done, it will get you to think about writing as well! Thor Talks about Blogging The first guest I had, and now twice, is Thor from Creative Twilight. He started a series where he will discuss how to improve our blogs, tailored specifically to us hobbyists. His second post dived into the importance of writing a strong title for your article. While Thor has his own awesome blog, he decided to …

How to Paint Eyes with Kuro Cleanbrush Minis

Watch This: How to Paint Eyes with Kuro Cleanbrush Minis

Published by Joe B

They say eyes are the window to the soul, but probably only if you paint them straight. So learning how to paint eyes help make your faces look more believable and add character. With today’s Watch This, we have Kuro Cleanbrush Minis who shows off some nice tips. Sometimes it can be easier to watch someone show off a technique through a video than through pictures. So check out the video below and then I’ve got a cheat sheet underneath. How to Paint Eyes If you weren’t able to watch the video, I’ve summarized the main points below. The biggest takeaway: use the brush tip and clean your brush as the paint dries. General Tips Don’t use pure white for the eye, instead, choose an off-white Keep the paints thin so it doesn’t add texture to the eyes (use something like airbrush medium) Painting the eyes or the skin first is a matter of choice and how easy it would be to do one way or the other Don’t use a tiny brush (he used a …

Adding pictures metadata so they get found and shared

Adding Pictures to Your Blog – Uploading, Editing, SEO

Published by Joe B

In the greater blogging world they speak of the importance of adding pictures to posts, the get more readers, shares… blah blah blah. In our hobby community, adding pictures isn’t the problem (we are sharing our painted miniatures after all) but rather may don’t understand the importance of the metadata associated with the image. As hobby bloggers, we are often uploading our images or WIP models, finished collections, or battle reports to have readers enjoy, critique, or even find us. It’s that last point I wish to speak on today as I’ve noticed many of my fellow bloggers miss out on new readers by not adding a description to their images. The Might Google Image Search If you go to images.google.com right now and type in your army, faction, character, does your miniatures pop up? Perhaps that doesn’t matter to you, but if you spent time creating a post on your conversion or a fantastic painting tutorial, having new people find it would be good yeah? While the Google is smart (scary smart sometimes) it still can’t …

Dreadtober Introduction – What to Expect for 2016

Published by Joe B

Dreadtober is three things: fun, productive, and starting soon! Maybe you took part in it last year, or at least saw it take over your social feeds, or maybe it’s brand new. Either way, I want to provide a Dreadtober Introduction for you here and invite you to join in. Do you have a dreadnought, Deff Dread, battle suits, Carnifex, Warjack, or anything along that size? Does it need painting AND you want to join in with a ton of other community members to get it done in a single month? Then Dreadtober is for you! Greg (last year’s host and originator), has handed me the torch for this year’s community challenge. I am super excited for this opportunity and hope to make it both productive (paint a dread!) and fun (community!) What is Dreadtober But before we get too far along, what exactly is Dreadtober? I hinted at it above, but the goal of this challenge is to paint a dreadnought-sized model in the month of October. By teaming together with a bunch of …