Recently I was challenged to a friendly painting competition by Ampersand Fern that renewed my interest in the painting aspects of hobby. Over a weekend, we agreed on a mini to paint and laid out some ground rules. The biggest rule; have fun! We both tried something new and pushed our hobby muscles to the limits. You can read her view of the events here.
Here is behind the scenes and look into my side of the event, one which we will do again soon!
I have been in this hobby for a long time, but haven't necessarily been a big painter. Most of my minis are still in that original grizzly gray fresh from the package. For me, as long as they were put together and I could play with my friends then it didn't matter. Not to say I have never painted, but that "pile of potential" is a lot bigger then my pile of completed minis. It's not much of a pile, more like a ant hill. This competition was perfect for me to get back into it, even if it meant buying yet another new mini. This one was going to have to be completed, and I enjoyed the thought of that. This also gave me the chance to try new things, like new paints and scenery. With this in mind, I decided to grab some of those new GW contrast paints to try out as well as test my hand at creating an epic looking base.
For the pillar I used xps foam board. It's an insulation board you can find at any hardware store for building purposes. First time using it and I learned a couple of things. For one, best to get some sort of hot wire cutter instead of a regular knife. I went the knife route and regretted it, even though I still used the end results. It's messy and falls apart unless you wire cut it. The other thing I learned wasn't about the xps foam, but what I learned about my spray primer. Found out the hard way that the Games Workshop black primer I used has acetone in it, which melted my first attempt at this column. I had to start it from scratch then brush prime it instead. So good note readers, for some reason James Workshop thought to use a solvent that breaks things down in the can of spray primer that you would use for your plastic miniatures. Makes sense, right? Next up I get to paint the thing and use those fancy contrast paints!
I only used one type of the contrast for this mini, Aggaros Dunes. This is my first time using these types of paints and this won't be the last. Easy to apply, great coverage and almost does all the work for you. Really can't wait to get my hands on some more of this line of paints.
After a wonderful and fun weekend we took to social media to help us pick the winner of our two minis. Ampersand did an amazing job, beautiful blends on her colour scheme and a really cool base made up for it. In the end though I was declared the winner, and as such I get to choose the next model we use for this ongoing feature! Take a look below for our two completed minis.
