How to paint 3mm war minis part 3...

Admittedly, painting minis has taken a back seat to some pressing issues in my world, not the least of which is going to come to either a happy conclusion or world shattering end tomorrow when the polls close at 7pm tomorrow. 

It's taken me close to two weeks to finally upload photos from our last painting session and during that time, it looks like my friends over at Pico are starting to post some cool stuff on their blog (finally..and again, welcome to the 21st century). It has something to do with 18th century warfare and how you'd start the set and army and something and zzzzzzzzzz and I'm definitely NOT inclined to getting into the weeds on this one. But if you are, go and check them out here.

So last we left, we had primed and done all this boring...I mean...important...stuff to the minis. We reconvened, and this time, there were a lot more colors involved, which made things a lot more interesting. 

Of course, as I was doing my online wasting o'time/research, I came across this post in boardgamegeek.com that was actually pretty fantastic...he's doing larger figures from a game called Heroquest...which is not to be confused with an actual board game called DrunkQuest (I kid you not). Why the hell would you need a game to TELL you when to drink? Isn't that what you are doing before, during and after? How about a game called BreatheQuest? There must be a market out there. I'm on it! I've found my new concept for my board game :)

ok...so last we left off, we had primed tanks...super boring...

So we turned it up to 11 and busted out all the fancy colors...

...color wheel...everything...

Right? Here I am thinking I'm going to be painting rainbow-colored tanks and stuff. Which, btw - I TOTALLY forgot to take a pic of my super gay unicorn after I got done with him, but this is his BEFORE photo:

But instead, the Pico nerds introduce me to the color "Army green". Boooo.

The good thing is that it is easy to mix, and slap on the color. After we let them dry for awhile, we used the OTHER exciting color of black to paint in the treads.

I did manage to snap one pic of JacJac's awesome orc, which The R noted was actually OLDER than him by quite a number of years :) Nicely done JJ. You just wait until I finish my UniBuddy!

I promise I'll take better pictures next session...which we're still trying to figure out given our cray t-giving travel schedules. 

Hope you enjoy!

How to paint 3mm war minis and mini-turtles, part 2 (of many, I suspect)

Hey all - well after a very long and busy week, I'm settling down and working on an overdue part deux of our little painting project. Now, I've been slowly checking out the amazing work of seasoned super-nerds like Tim and Curt on their blogs. Also, exciting news that my friends over at PicoArmor are starting to (finally) port their website onto a mobile friendly platform (welcome to 2013, John and Jack!!). Additionally, both of the Pico guys are going to be more media savvy and start posting some cool pics and randomness that they have been collecting over the years. I will continue to help as best I can. One of them literally just signed up for FB this past Friday. I kid you not :)

Anyways, clearly the stuff that you can see on other sites is way more advanced than what I am posting now, but I am hoping that this "how to" will provide more of the step-by-steps for novices (like me).

So where were we? Oh right...beer...waiting for our minis to dry....more beer....and now onto...

I think this turtle is overcompensating for something.

So as you can see, our little friend is NOT a tank, but like I said, we were interested in painting some other minis as well. See how he is sitting on top of a little blob of clay? Well the reason why you need the wood with all the holes and the nails with a nice flat head is because you get to take each and every mini and stick them onto the top of the nails using something called "rope caulk".

This is something you can find at any hardware store. You take little blobs and stick them on top of the nails, and then it is pretty much what you think will happen until you have a block that looks like this:

At this point, we needed to take another beer break. Everything was stuck and ready to go, so we broke out the Gesso. Nope, that isn't a new brew by Revolution or Bells, but it could be, one day. It is a type of primer that, as it dries, actually shrinks right onto the mini, giving it better definition which, at this scale, is pretty limited real estate.

The instructions I was told was, put some in a bowl, and thin with sterile water until it is the consistency of milk. Dunzo! We first did our non-3mm tanks with the pure white primer. After that, then we added a couple of drops of army green before we attacked the tanks. This is the brand of modeling paint, not the colors we used :)

So then, you take some brushes, grab yet ANOTHER beer, and start to lovingly coat all of your minis with a nice sheen of tinted Gesso! I found that dabbing my brush in once was enough for at least two tanks. That is pretty much it for this stage. They key to this stage is having some great music on (which I think we're going to have to come to some agreement on what qualifies as "great music" among the nerds) and plenty of beer and stuff. It was nice because we had just started a new Call of Cthulhu campaign and both of my teammates ended up jumping out of a second story window because they were seeing blood pools and a bed was trying to attack them. I, of course, just quietly snuck back down the stairs and ran away :)

I'm really enjoying the painting project, even though at the rate we're going, it might be another two weeks before we're back together. But it is truly fun, relaxing and, with the right nerds, highly entertaining! Cheers!

Lead Doesn't Bleed!

When I first heard about what some of my gaming buddies did as a side business/hobby - 3mm minis for wargaming - I thought to myself: wow, these guys are Ur-Nerds, and wow, this is too cool!! While I'm definitely more of a 3.5 kinda gal (and rapidly loving Cthulhu as well), I've never been so much into boardgames that require a lot of using of rulers and sticks and such. I know, that sounds stupid since others would be like, "And dice are more real? Come on." But whatevs, I like my magic casters and spells! 

For the record, I have been known to get into a game or two of Star Wars Armada so I kinda get the idea of formations and rulers and such. But I'm just not so much about the historical battles. There, confession made! Let's move on :)

Lead Doesn't Bleed - Politically incorrect, Family-Unfriendly War Gaming Blog has introduced me to the fact that there are actually 2mms as well in this gaming universe?!?!? Really?? And he's got some amazing posts of these 3mms for some Ogre game that I'm still trying to figure out. The painting is fantastic, and I'm realizing we need a better camera for our painting project because there is no way any of our phones, no matter how S7 they are, will get this level of detail. Check out the blog post here. But my fave pic from that post is definitely this one, called "Mama Spank" :)




I'm highlighting them also because they link to PicoArmor! Whoohoo!! My Pico-Nerds are super thrilled that I'm finding all of these references and connections for them through my little blogging time I can put in. I think it is great that this hobby is totally blowing up and that younger people and (maybe??!?) more people from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds will make this community even more fun and vibrant over time. Insofar as nice clean fun, this is totally it - and encouraging more young people to think about rules and strategy and good gamesmanship can't be all that much of a waste of time, no?

How to paint 3mm war minis and other random minis, part 1

So here we go...no real intros, or forethought, actually, to how this is going to look...let alone be comprehensible...but whatever...better a trial run than never doing anything, right?

So below, we see the ultimate Box of Nerdery - everything that is needed to paint minis. 

OK, I lied, I'll set some context and then we'll start on our merry way on how to paint minis and super super minis. 

On a Friday afternoon, our gaming group decided to launch a new Cthulhu game and do some mini painting at the same time, just doubling down on the nerd! 

The Box of Nerdery (BoN) was brought by the Head Engineer Nerd, hosted by the Reverend Nerd, and then me and another member would be considered Peon Nerds (that really doesn't sound right).

The idea for this walkthrough of how to paint 3mm war minis came up at a previous session where much beer and wine had been drunk - clearly, we didn't drink enough to forget that we thought doing a walkthrough of this process would be a "fun" idea. 

Once we go through this whole process, I'll type up a list of supplies and stuff you'll need. Given this is my first time as well, I'm asking a lot of questions and may overshare, but if you're pretty new to this like I am, I hope you'll appreciate the details.

Let's get started. 

As with any mini painting, you're going to need something to stick your tiny little minis onto so you can prime and paint in peace.

Foam vs. Wood. Who knew?

Many people use foam blocks, especially for these 3mm figures, but as you can see, they get pretty beaten up after awhile, so wooden blocks work just fine too. And to note, less weird green "dust" sticking to your figures with the wood blocks!

But I'm getting way ahead of the process here...you won't have the pleasure of working with this drudgery until you've filed, removed "sprues" and washed the whole darn lot of minis which, btw, check out how TINY they are!

I know their supposed to be tanks, but they're SO CUTE! There are 30 in this shot, and I guess that makes up a battalion...of CUTENESS!!

So remember, in this phase, you really need some kind of file (that's the thing in Jack's right hand), and a keen eye to distinguish between the things that should actually be hanging off your tanks and figures, versus the "sprue" which is this tiny little dangly thing that could be mistaken for a tank gun if you aren't careful. 

You want to file everything down, and throw it in a cup that you'll be able to fill with vinegar and hot water. Make sure you have an old toothbrush. Experts (who weren't drunk) say that for 3mm, you just need to use the brush to swish the pieces around. Larger pieces need a better scrubbing. 

Again, if you're just working with 3mm, you really don't need a lot of space, but we ended up adding in some D&D figures that were 28mm, I think?

We added a dracolisk, unicorn and other randomness - washing larger minis requires a bigger tray, but same 1/2 vinegar, 1/2 hot water. Put on a towel and wait for 2 hours, minimum. 

And don't forget, when you are engaged in such delicate work, always ensure there is enough beer, wine and snacks for you and your friends! I should have taken some photos of the great chili that the R made, as well as the cheese board we had going on (because we're closet hipsters like that). 

Anyways, this is the end of part 1. Next part will be on the tedious attaching of each piece onto the nails and the priming.