Imperial Officers

These Imperial Officers are ready for duty.

Some imperfections, but they look great on the table.

As always, you can see more detail (and all the minis I have painted for Imperial Assault), in my Imperial Assault Album.

Two Issues - Mould Lines and Paint Thinning

So I am still have two main issues while getting my painting sorted.

Mould Lines

I have got a craft knife and a file for removing these, but I am still not able to remove them. I am probably being too careful, but I am not wanting to damage my miniatures while attempting to remove these lines.

Again, with time I will become less precious and will become more comfortable.

Paint Thinning

This is a big issue I am having. First of all is getting a good amount of paint onto my palette without damaging my brush. I am finding it hard to do, and then I am finding it hard to get the right amount of water into the paint. Often it's too thin, or not thin enough.

If it's too thin, then the paint doesn't hold and runs a lot. If it's not thin enough, it doesn't go onto the mini well and obscures detail. Most of this problem is fixed by getting the right amount of paint out of the pot into the palette, but as I said, I am finding this tricky without the paint running up into the ferrule of the brush, which damages it.

I need to play with using a different brush for getting paint to the palette, and then getting the mixture of paint to water correct. It's all going to boil down to practice.

I do find that the paint tends to dry out very quickly in my palette, which is odd. I could use a wet palette, which is easy to make, but it seems odd that I am having this issue so quickly. Most times I have heard a wet palette is good if you want your paint to be held for a few hours, not just 15 minutes, but I am finding my paint will dry in less than 2-3 minutes. Probably because I am not using enough of it.

There is a lot of stuff to learn that experience painters I think take for granted.

Not Minis - Storage (still Imperial Assault)

As those of you who know me will know, I am very keen in pimping out my game storage - and this is also true for Imperial Assault.

I have put a lot of time (am I mean dozen of hours) into trying to plan my storage for Imperial Assault, including being able to make room for the expansions and extra minis as they come out. There are some beautiful solutions for storing IA in the base box, but I have seen with other games that these fall apart quickly when expansions come out, and the first expansion and extra waves of minis have already been announced.

So how was I going to store this?

Well, for the main game I have bought a large plastic tub that I think is a good size and I have started making foam core mini trays (which I will post about when I have them ready).

What I wanted to share in this post is the solution I came up with for the card storage for the two sized cards in premium sleeves.

First I thought I would make them out of foam core like I have for other boxes, but I wanted to look for something simpler and more robust. I then bought a plastic tub that would hold them, but the modifications that would need to be made were too complex.

Then I looked at the sizing of CCG storage boxes and how I could modify those - especially for the small cards. They would work, but I would need to put a centre partition in. So I did.

These are the photos of the finished product - minus the dividers which I haven't printed yet.

I cut slots in the card box for a central partition, then cut a piece of 1.5mm card stock to the right size and slotted it in. It holds well and the cards fit - except for one issue. The box is only just the right depth for the cards, with no room for dividers - so how was I going to put label dividers in?

Well the solution I am using is to have a piece of foam core between the different types of cards, and then the dividers when printed and laminated will go behind those and the gaps will make the labels readable. This is the next step.

For the large cards, just using the CCG box without modification works fine, so that was easy. All that's left is to print and laminate the labels.

Because these are white cardboard boxes, I will be able to decal them or label them how I want, so printing out movie images with text or something will be easy.

Anyway, I thought people might be interested in how, after dozens of hours, I finally decided to store my cards for Imperial Assault - and how I will probably end up storing Descent as well.

Need to update my Stormtroopers, Probe Droids and Royal Guard

So played Imperial Assault again last night, playing the first campaign mission. It went okay.

I need to repaint the bases on the Stormtroopers, Probe Droids and Royal Guard. The green is indistinguishable from the grey on the table. Need to use a much brighter green.

Also, I need to do some form of numbering for the Stormtroopers and the Royal Guard. Probably just lines on the bases, Roman numeral strokes. In the red for the elites, green for the greens and maybe white or a very light grey for the grey.

This is to make them better for gameplay, even if they don't look quite as good as minis, and I have to keep reminding myself that is the main goal.

Update: Here is the image of the minis with the updates bases.
This photo is taken under bright light, so the green will look more subdued on the table. You can see the difference by comparing the Royal Guard in this photo to the ones taken under more normal light in the previous post.

Royal Guard and E-Web Engineers

So yesterday I finished the Royal Guard and the E-Web Engineers.

Of course I have added them to by album at https://imgur.com/a/udu5Y

I learned a lot doing these. Of course I am still copying Sorastro's guides, but learning from people who know what they are doing is the best way for a beginner to learn.

First, the E-Web Engineers were the hardest thing I have done with miniature painting so far. The painting itself wasn't complicated, but the shape of the minis made getting to the places to paint really hard. I had to learn that if I couldn't turn the mini and find a way of seeing a surface, there is no way that anyone is going to see if I have painted that spot right on the table. But there is a lot of paint in wrong spots because it was so hard to get the brush into the hard to reach places.

Second, when looking at the Royal Guard at the start I couldn't see any mould lines to speak of. As soon as I started painting they were very obvious, and now they are complete, you can see them very clearly if you look. I need to find a better way of spotting mould lines early, and then removing them.

Thirdly, I am starting to get better at paint consistency. Sometimes I still have them too thin, and sometimes not thin enough. Each has problems, and it does vary depending on what I am trying to do. There isn't a simple rule for how much you want to thin your paints, it really depends on what you are doing with them.

I also learned a lot about brushes, though it's hard to explain that. The brushes I want to have are expensive, and considering I am still getting paint up into the Ferrule (the metal part that holds the bristles) I don't want to buy too expensive brushes until I am better at avoiding that as it does kill the shape of a brush. This is reducing my accuracy and lowering the quality.

However, I am keeping to my motto "They only have to be table ready!"

Even with these lessons, and the mistakes I made on them, I am really happy with how these came out.

Next up is the Imperial Officers, which add a new level of difficulty. There may be a break in between to make some foam core trays for storing them all.

Starting my Miniature Painting journey.

The upcoming Star Wars movie has me really excited, and that excitement has for me been getting me very interested in the Star Wars: Imperial Assault game my Fantasy Flight Games.

This game is basically Descent 3 in a Star Wars setting, and Descent 2 was a game I loved, though never got to play enough.

The cool thing is this comes with a lot of Star Wars miniatures you play the game with, and I really wanted to paint them. But I wanted to do a good job, and therefore never started.

Then I found Sorastro's Painting Channel on YouTube which takes you though how to paint these miniatures in great detail, including which colours to use, what techniques to use and all the tips and tricks you need. It was great, it was the kick I needed to get started.

So I did...

Here are the results. This album is where I will be posting the updates.

https://imgur.com/a/udu5Y

Not as good as what Sorastro is doing, but I don't care about that. Already I am improving, and most importantly, my minis look great on the table when I am playing the game - which I have now done once.

So I am spending a lot on paints, and a lot of time on painting. I am spending a lot on storage and all sorts of stuff - but I am enjoying this, and I am loving getting back into Star Wars and combining it with my love for Board Gaming.

Now I just need to find a group to play campaigns with.

As a teaser, here are some photos of my E-Web Engineers and Imperial Guard in progress.

Back - with a new focus

This blog kind of fell by the wayside when I moved away from role playing.

However in a very big way I have been getting into Board Gaming, and many aspects around that. This has been a journey of a few years, and there has been a lot of joy and a lot of pain in that journey.

Recently I mentioned I had thought of starting a Mini Painting blog to track everything I have learned - and people seemed to think it was a good idea. Instead of creating a new one, I rediscovered this one and thought... "why not just use this..."

So I will try to relearn how to use this thing. How to use tags and stuff, and start posting. Maybe this time I will have the tenacity to keep it going.