What’cha gonna do?

What’cha gonna do when they come for you… there, have that ear worm rattling around your brain for a bit now. Misery loves company, and my parents taught me how to share. My gift to you. You’re welcome.

Saturday we are in you! Suns up, snow has settled, wind has died down, and the kids are up & fighting. Hard to believe that March Break is here already. Still feels like we should be closing out January, and not be nearing the middle of the month of March. Time is moving along at a great clip. Too fast some days for my liking. But that may just be because I have been busier than usual since January.

Yesterday I broke out my airbrush to prime & get some gradient paint layers on some board game minis I have. It’s the Nemesis expansion pack with Voidseeders. They were primed black. Base coated purple and then over sprayed with magenta. I dry brushed the bases with gun metal, and that’s as far as I got before I had any work related emails to content with. I want to do some edge highlighting around their squid like faces, and then pack them back up into their box. Prior to Christmas I painted the original Alien figures a pale blue grey, with blood splatter accents. It was fairly bare bones. I just wanted some colour, and not a *box art* look. I don’t believe i could achieve that anyway, given how sloppy of a painter i am. My bust sculpts prove that point. My latest Macross build will second that sentiment.

I like to paint, I’m just not that good at it, as of yet. I certainly improved over the course of my two Macross build ups. So that is good to see. My masking was a bit better with the thinner low tack tape. Though, I will say this, it still pulled some paint off ruining hours of layered painting. Which I was not happy about. But I got it all sorted out. More of a time suck, than a project ruiner. Glad I wasn’t doing gradients, as that would require an entire repaint of the whole part. I have fun painting, namely because it isn’t my job, and I don’t really need to stress about it. I try to do a good job, but it’s not a big deal – to anyone else – if I cock it up. That’s on me. I have a box of more than 100+ minis coming my way in the next year or so, that I ordered off of Kickstarter. So I’m trying to figure out an easy way to achieve decent results without having to devote an hour or more to each individual figure. Base coat black primer, and zenithal grey highlight, with a white dry brush does much of the heavy lifting for me at this point. So that might be as good as it gets for a while. I don’t see myself dropping other hobbies just to be painting miniatures as well as their box art. I like to see others doing so. But not for me, thanks. Good on the table from 2 or 3ft away is my objective.

My oldest would like to start painting minis with me some time soonish. So I’ll need to figure out a good way to show her the process I follow to prepare each item for the real paint job. I’m not sure if she will want to be a part of the priming, zenithal high lighting, and white dry brushing process. Or if she wants to slap colours on, and do edge high lights and detail work. Maybe I’ll wind up doing the prep and she will excel at the colour/detail portion. Tag team duo! Tackling monsters, space aliens and soldiers alike! Deftly and with aplomb. A dad can dream. Ciao Bella!