All posts tagged: community

Good Reads 57 – Tutorials, Conversions, Oddness, and More

Published by Joe B

Looking for some awesome hobby reads to check out? Good Reads 57 is finally here with some of my favorite posts from the last few weeks. There are so many excellent hobby bloggers out there sharing fantastic content, and this is a celebration of some of that work. I owe big thanks to Scott (@brushwizard) for guilting me into finally getting this post written. Apparently, I have built up an expectation among some of you to get this out now and then! So without further ado, here are your Good Reads: A New Plague The creative genius Da RedNekkz does a great job of converting and painting disgusting Nurgle, things. This converted Plague Caster is a perfect example of that. It’s fun to see how artists modify pieces to fit their vision. A Son to Be Proud Of Modian is well known for finishing whole armies in a week before selling them off to start the next. His current focus is this beautiful Sons of Horus, complete with a great looking Contemptor. Build a Zone …

Some WIP Shots and Slowing Things Down (for now)

Published by Joe B

Between the reemergence of the sun, writing books, and chasing after two little boys, I have realized that I need to slow some things down. But part of that slow down is to make sure the articles I publish here are not rushed or forced. So with that said, let’s check out what is on Joe’s painting table first and get back to the boring blog stuff after. WIP Blood Bowl With two Blood Bowl teams completed (Orcs and Dwarves), I had turned to the balls and tokens so that I could get a fully painted game in. As with many things on my painting table, I got started and then distracted. At this point, both teams (and the human team) are mounted to bases and primed. The ball mark, the one meant to fit in each base, is press-fit into a spare base. All the others are glued down. I’ve made decent progress on the Dwarf team’s markers with all the base colors and wash completed. I will probably only do basic cleanup on …

Learning from a paint & Sip

Learning from a Paint and Sip

Published by Joe B

Recently I went to a paint and sip with my wife and found it amazing that twelve people, mostly with no painting skills, all managed to paint a great picture. It got me thinking about how we could apply some of the techniques to our own painting and tutorials. If you haven’t done one of these events, you show up to a room of empty canvases and a cool looking painting hanging at the front of the room. Each person takes a seat with a plate will the primary colors, white, and black paint, a couple of large brushes, and a cup of water. Over the next hour or two, the whole group is walked through each step and brush stroke to complete that same beautiful painting at the front of the room. This was the second of these type of events that I have done and I reflected on the remarkableness of it. I wanted to take away how the instructor was able to get so many people to accomplish works of art. I …

Good Reads 50 with Hobby Blogs to Read

Good Reads 50 with painting tutorials, Battlefleet Gothic, and Orruks

Published by Joe B

Another week of Good Reads hobby posts for you to check out and enjoy. With painting tutorials and inspiration for your hobby needs. Check out these posts from fellow hobby bloggers and check out their sites. Remembering Battle Fleet Gothic I never got into Battle Fleet Gothic but it looked like a fun game, and with the growth of other ship based games I wouldn’t be surprised if Games Workshop brings it back. Caladaris dived into his collection and shared what made this game so fun. On Commenting You may have heard me talking about the importance of community before as it is a big reason why I do this blog. Morpheus on The Fantasy Hammer shares his thoughts on commenting and why it can be so important in our hobby. Using Lots of Washes I have been getting more into washes and glazes as they can not only be super fast to get a good look but add nice variation and color to parts of your model. Da RednekkBoss talks about the goodness of washes as …

How to Improve Your Hobby Skills Through Showcasing

How to Improve Your Hobby Skills Through Showcasing

Published by Joe B

Want a quick tip to improve your miniature painting skills? Post pictures of it for the world to see. No joke, this has been one of the best drivers for me how I improved my hobby skills: through showcasing. This is part three of my series on improving your hobby skills. You can download all three parts into a single eBook by filling in the the form below. [convertkit form=5003522] Improve Your Hobby Skills Through Showcasing You may think it’s odd that I would add a suggestion for showcasing your model as a way of developing your hobby skills. But it comes down to this: community feedback and incentive to improve. With very rare exceptions, we have a very warm and encouraging community of hobbyists, and if you post your progress and ask for help, more than likely some of us will find you and encourage you to keep it up. I know because that is how I pushed myself to improve and keep at it. This final post in my series focusing on improving …

Thoughts on Why Do We Hobby Blog

Why do you Hobby Blog?

Published by Joe B

The people who paint miniature wargames is relatively small. And those who choose to take the extra time to write and share pictures is even smaller still. To these, I ask the simple question: why do you hobby blog? Last week I posted this question: “Why do did you start  your hobby blog, what motivates you, and what frustrates you.” I wanted to get a sense of why others choose to write and share their work. And what keeps them going. Below you can see some of their responses. I also added my thoughts about why to start blogging about the hobby, frustrations along the way, and ways to stay motivated. Reasons People Start a Hobby Blog I started what is now Broken Paintbrush in 2008 as a way to log my painting progress of my Iron Warriors. With no idea what I was doing, how to find other hobbyists, or how I “should” blog. I just started writing and posting pictures. @brknpaintbrush I blog to try and make sense of what I'm doing – kind of …

Good Reads 45

Good Reads 45 – Awesome Hobby Posts to Catch

Published by Joe B

Back with some awesome hobby posts from the last two weeks, I’ve some great articles for you to check out from 30k, 40k, AoS, and Blood Bowl! I even have two tutorials in there for you to learn some new painting tips. Ultramarine Battle Tanks I love tanks, and Lord Halfpenny’s mobile detachment for his 30k Ultramarines caught my eye. Between the nice shade of blue and the weathered tracks, they fit the nice balance between the traditional boys in blue and realistic military vehicles. Drakon Riders When I first looked at Swordmaster’s Drakon Riders, I thought they were simply a dragon kit that I didn’t remember, only to read his post and find out the are converted from Cold Ones and Vargheist wings! Not only a cool conversion but a nice paint job as well. How to Paint Non-metallic Metallics Painting non-metallic metals is an advanced painting concept that can look nice when pulled off. Blazmo has been learning how to do it on his Greyfox Inquisitor. In the process, he decided to create …

How to Paint Black Armor and Clothing

Guide to Painting Black – How to Paint Black Cloth and Armor

Published by Joe B

I’ve received the question on how to paint black a number of times so a few weeks back I put the question to the greater community and have compiled this guide to painting black armor and clothing. I broke this guide down into a few different sections: background/color theory of black, general tips on painting black, three different methods to paint black, and further reading with tutorials by other bloggers. Want this as a PDF? I took the extra time on this post to create an eBook for you to download and take with you. Check out the form at the bottom of the post to grab it. So let’s jump in! What is Black and Why is it Hard? What makes black such a hard color to paint? Painters suffer from the opposite problem as painting white: it is hard to shade black. Reds, blues, yellows, they can all be shaded and highlighted. You can change the tone or saturation by mixing in other colors. Black, well is black. So while you can’t shade …

Broken Paintbrush Blogroll is Live!

Published by Joe B

This is something I’ve been putting off doing for a while, but I have finally got it done: The Broken Paintbrush Blogroll! One of the common themes I saw in last week’s discussion on commenting was that many people have lost contact with blog updates since Feiet’s blogroll went down. I know I used to get a good deal of traffic from it that has disapeared. So, following Thor’s advice, I’ve installed WP RSS Aggregator and added all the blogs I follow (over 150!). You can check it out at: https://www.brokenpaintbrush.com/blogroll. That is where you can also find how to add your own blog to the feed (if I haven’t already added it!). I am still working on the formatting and sync issues, but I’m hoping that the Blogroll will soon help everyone find new hobby bloggers and connect. If you see funny business, let me know so I can fix it. Request for a Logo Also, I am putting a request out for anyone with digital art skills. I need a blogroll badge, and …

Importance of the Hobby Community

Importance of Community

Published by Joe B

I had originally titled this post “Why I Comment” but decided there was more to it than just leaving a note on other blogs. Instead, I want to speak of the importance of the community, in particular, the importance of the online hobby community. As this blog is nearing its 10th birthday, I’ve had a lot of up and downs with both the hobby as well as the blog. The thing that has sustained me through so many low times is the fantastic community of online hobbyists. Shortly after starting the blog (named 14th Grand Company at the time) I joined an online group doing the Tale of Even More Painters. We had a monthly challenge to paint a particular type of unit for our armies. It was a productive time, but more importantly, it was a chance to build roots into the community. What got me thinking about all of this, and finally write this post, was one of the responses to a survey I sent to all the Dreadtober participants. “People not helping other …

Good Reads Week 32

Published by Joe B

Ready for some more awesome blog posts to fill your hobby desires? This week’s Good Reads includes some crazy Grot Bikers, Oldhammer comic battles, Doom Rider!!!, Angles, and an award-winning Drake. Good Reads is a bi-weekly post that gathers up some of my favorite posts and shares them with you. There are amazing hobbyists out there showing their amazing work. Click through to their blogs and give them a follow and a comment! Custom Grot Bikers Do you have some spare bits that need a model? Blazmo shames us all with his amazing creation of custom Grot skorchas built with scrap. Some awesome crazy mek work there – and hard to tell where some of the pieces come from, and when you do, the creativity required is impressive! Old Hammer Battle Report Sean signed up to be a guest writer on Broken Paintbrush (check out his article this Saturday!) which is how I found his blog. Not only is he a hardcore Oldhammer fan, but he does his battle reports in a comic style.  Check the comic reports, …

Scratch built Avesor Assassin by Henry South

Good Reads 3 – Hobby Blogs You May Have Missed

Published by Joe B

So Week 12 of 2015 is here and with it some more Good Reads that caught my eye with nifty posts. I love finding new artists and inspiration and follow about 30+ active blogs on Feedly but am finding more and more on my Google+ and Twitter (@brknpaintbrush) accounts, so if you aren’t following me on there, hit up the link and say hi. Ok so let’s check out some more goodness: Converted Evesor Assassin   The Evesor Assassin is such a scary idea that it is such a shame GW hasn’t gone back and updated the Assassin line or updated the rules like did in third addition. I found Henry South on Google+ where he posted a few WIP shots of his crazy bits bash of the Assassin and posted his finished piece to his blog 4gotowar.blogspot.com. Check it out, you won’t be disappointing. Egyptian Themed AdMech   Last week I posted some cool Greek flavored Space Marines, this week we have an Egyptian themed Adeptus Mechanicus Sentinels. Not only is the sandstone look a cool alternative to the …