Painting Inside Out

Last week whilst I was out of the country (bored and in a hotel room) I started to listen to Precinct Omega Hobby Podcast. The guy running this, Robey, is among other things, is a Gaming Club Network Rep and runs his own painting business.

Whilst I’m quite a gristled hobby veteran (I’ve even won a couple of best painted army prizes) I did pick up one surprisingly useful tip which I’ve missed in all the years I’ve been in the hobby.

When base coating a model, Robey divides the model into layers, painting the inner most layer and working his way outwards. So for example on an eldar head, you would start on the recessed faceplate before basecoating the rest of the helmet. The advantage of this method is you can be quite rough with the inner most layers, tidying up your painting as you go along.

In fairness I sometimes paint in a similar way, but I don’t normal follow that exact logic. However, I’ve just tried it on a dire avenger exarch and it certainly seemed to speed up the base coating stage. This is one technique I think I’ll be using again.

The second tip is one I do anyway and is vital for my painting projects (especially at the speed I paint). When I’m painting a new army I always put together a painting guide showing the exact paints I’m using. This makes it very easy to replicate the same style and scheme time after time so the army looks consistent.

The piccie to the right shows the (in progress) guide I’m using for my new eldar army.

Finally, moving away from the painting side of the hobby, I owe my father an apology (like he is ever going to read this blog). The dice made by Blatchfords for their 120th anniversary are actually made from (military grade) aluminium. Happily as Warmachine does not require many dice, the three gold plated D6s my dad dropped round today will do quite nicely.