7 Day Deathwing part 2

DAY 5

Urghhh, all sculpted, all ready to be primed tomorrow. I've been telling myself all week that i'd experiment with a grey primer on this army, but i'm starting to bottle it a bit now. I'm leaning toward dusting, as I am fairly familiar and comfortable with that technique. 

Any comments or advise would be nice, but as it stands now, i'm setting my alarm clock for 8 a.m, and starting to dust after i've had my coffee. 

Here are cleaner pics of the the models I have been working on. I hope you enjoy them:

And finally a nice little tip for those who want more imposing Dreadnoughts. Use an appropriate washer at the hip and shoulder joints to beef up your beast.

Shoulder joins


Hip Join

__________________The Current State of the Project

The mission: Paint a Deathwing force over the course of a single weekend.

Outcome:

FAIL

Urghh, I really thought I could bash an army out in a weekend. I love converting, and I love painting each model to a high standard. While it is possible to do both (check out Harry's blog in the fantasy section, the guy is a machine of high quality output). The habits I have fallen into do not contribute to speed painting, habits such as worrying over tonal range, experimenting with new techniques, not having any primer...

In my 48 hours, I managed to lie down two coats of Dhenb Stone (for good coverage), and three or four very thing layers of VMC Ivory for a solid cover... not very productive huh?

With this in mind, I'd like to offer some advise to anyone else who would like to attempt something similar, and throw down the gauntlet to anyone who thinks they could have done better!

1) Make, base and prime your models before the 48 hours begin. 

I think that it was a major mistake to prime the models within the weekend's time limit. I had 23 models to paint. I estimated that I would spend at least an hour on each model, equalling 23 hours of work (i'm a math savant). Priming the models (once I nipped down to Halford's to buy bloody primer) took me much longer than I thought it would, eating too much of my painting time. This leads me nicely too...

2) Make a plan

Draw up a timetable of the weekend and divide it into hourly slots. Plan your painting time, and try and estimate when you will complete each stage of the painting process. Don't worry if you go over your planned time limit for a stage, because you may gain the time back somewhere else.

And make sure to PLAN BREAKS. Plan time for food and getting a little exercise. The quality of your work will suffer unless you take a little time off.

3) Entertainment

Whenever I paint, I enjoy music playing, listening to an audio book or having a crappy movie, or t.v series on in the background. Having some noise on in the background can keep you company, and stop you feeling so isolated on your painting marathon.

I'd highly recommend downloading or buying a load of films/albums/books that you have not heard before, and mix them with your favourite films/albums/books during the weekend. I watched Pandora for the first time, and really got me in the mood to play space hulk with my terminators.

4) Know the painting process before you begin.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my Deathwing. I had researched the painting process and found a painting process I really liked. The only thing I had not decided was the bolter casings, but I knew how to paint red, and green, so no big problem there.

Paint a practice model if you like, and time yourself doing it. See how long it takes to make your plan estimates much more accurate.

Being unsure of the process, and experimenting halfway through your painting session will eat up your time.

5) Have Fun!

Remember you are doing this for fun. Yes this is a challenge, and you should push yourself to complete what you set out to do. However, if the dog is acting up, or your kids want to play, or if an alien crashes through your window, remember to keep your painting challenge in perspective.

Try and get a few friends around to attempt the challenge with you. It's a lot easier to keep motivated when you have a group of friends calling you a wuss if you don't finish up the highlighting on your Commander's face.


Loser's Challenge: 

Do you think your better than me? Well, you have a lot of nerve mister. Prove that you have the mettle to complete a game legal army of a 1,500 pts or more within the space of a weekend 48 hours and forever gain the respect of your peers.

I'd love to hear if anyone is attempting this challenge, and would love to see photo's (or better yet a project log) with your army.

Start you project log or post with: 'Loser's Challenge' and let's be seeing what you got.

Enough from me now. I'll post up closer shots of my Deathwing, and show off what I've been working on this week.

Toodles,

LilLoser