He Is Legion... Naire

I painted up Legionnnaire for a friend. I used the official colour scheme as my inspiration, but using glazes over metallics for the colours. The teal came out quite nicely. The orange basically ended up as copper, which looks nice enough (if a little patchy in places). I considered yellow for the glows, but ultimately stuck with blue like the studio model. One thing I realised was that a lot of the larger areas that looked like they should be glowing were actually pointing downwards, meaning the glow doesn't really show up that well when viewing normally.
Legionnaire
In the past I have painted my Monpoc models before glueing them to the clear bases, but that can be a hassle so I've changed the way I work. I glued Legionnaire to his base using superglue mixed with Green Stuff World 2400 Dye For Resins Black. After fixing the model in a painting handle I modified from Aktalion's painting handle, I applied a protective layer of Talens 052 Liquid Masking Film over the base (top and bottom). I used a grey primer, most likely Tamiya 87064 Fine Surface Primer Light Grey.

I airbrushed a basecoat of Vallejo 71.073 Model Air Metallic Black thinned with Green Stuff World 1880 Airbrush Retarder. This was a very frustrating process as the airbrush kept getting clogged; I think the paint was getting old and a bit lumpy, perhaps I needed to shake the bottle more? I ended up using a printer resin filter to filter the airbrush paints after that to try to avoid any more stoppages.

After the basecoat I applied a zenithal of Vallejo 71.072 Model Air Metallic Gunmetal, which I over-thinned with the airbrush retarder, required the addition of some P3 Mixing Medium to get a useable consistency. I think I airbrushed this from too low an angle, maybe 75 degrees, as it covered too much of the model and didn't leave enough of the black metal basecoat. I followed this with Vallejo 72.052 Game Color Silver (again with airbrush retarder and mixing medium used together to try to get a useable consistency) from around 15 degrees above.

I edge-highlighted the whole model with Scale75 SC-66 Speed Metal. This is a very bright, whitish metal, that I use for my highlights because it's brighter than most silvers. However I do find it hard to manage the consistency to get a fine enough flow for delicate highlighting; at least that's one reason why my highlights were a bit thick and rough. I found I needed to use low-magnification reading glasses just to be able to focus enough on the model in front of my face to be able to do highlighting; my vision has deteriorated somewhat and it looks like I'm going to need reading glasses to paint from now on. It's a little depressing, but hey: it could be worse. Trying to match the studio model's teal colour, I mixed together around 10 drops of P3 Turquise Ink and 14 drops of P3 Blue Ink, with at least 20 drops of Vallejo 73.596 Glaze Medium. This gave quite a nice teal, and the flow was very manageable for laying down a thin consistent glaze in a single coat. For the orange, I experimented and ended up with a mix of P3 Red Ink, a little P3 Blazing Ink, and a lot of Glaze Medium (at least as much glaze medium as ink). I wasn't able to control the quantites as well so I don't know exactly how much I used. I also used a touch of unthinned Blazing Ink for the golden badge on Legionnaire's waist.

I picked out a few spots of the remaining steel to shade with a roughly 1:1 mix of Citadel Shade Nuln Oil and Glaze Medium, just to add a touch of definition to some of the more detailed areas where I didn't think any of the previous colours made sense. Iirc this was basically the small barrels on each side of each hand, and the turbine-like details in the feet (which I decided I didn't want to try to apply a glow to). I made a very thin black using a mix of Vallejo 72.751 Game Air Black, Glaze Medium, and P3 Mixing Medium, which I painted into the panel lines and recesses. This gave me more control than a black wash like Nuln Oil, without being too dark. To be honest a lot of the panel lines were deep enough that they looked pretty good without the additional shading, but I did it anyway because I felt it would improve the contrast and make some of the boundries look a little cleaner, and it might have looked a bit strange if I shaded the areas that did need shading but then left the panel lines unshaded. One thing I found interesting is that the copper areas ended up feeling less orange-y after shading the recesses, as the recesses had ended up more intense and saturated than the raised areas. You can see the effect in the photos below, which were taken part-way through the shading process: I basecoated the glowing areas with Vallejo 72.021 Game Color Magic Blue. I then applied a wash of Citadel Colour Shade Drakenhof Nightshade, which may not have been necessary. I painted a layer of The Army Painter WP1114 Warpaints Crystal Blue, then I drybrushed the glows and the surrounding areas in the Magic Blue. This was followed by a layer of The Army Painter WP1432 Warpaints Ice Storm. I felt the Crystal Blue was too close to the Magic Blue to be worth drybrushing, so instead I drybrushed a mix of the Crystal Blue and Ice Storm (over a smaller area). This still didn't work too well tbh. Anyway, I followed it with a layer of Formula P3 Morrow White, then a drybrush of just Crystal Blue (over an even smaller area).

I had intended to stop here, but I wasn't happy with how it was looking. So I went back over everything with a very light drybrush of Morrow White. I think this helped a lot; not only did it noticeably brighten everything, it also caught the edges around the glowing areas, significantly improving the "cast light" effect. I considered trying to apply a shade of dark blue to recesses immediately around the glows to increase the contrast (a surprisingly effective little trick I picked up from a fellow going by GuitaRasmus), but I decided it wasn't needed. Then (actually after the first varnish) I decided it actually was needed in some spot, so I carefully applied a pinwash of Drakenhof Nightshade into the recesses around many of the glows. And I'm glad I ultimately went back and made the effort because I think it did significantly improve the look of some of the glowing areas, such as the eyes and the gun. After all this I varnished with Mr. Hobby GX 112 Mr. Color UV Cut Gloss then Mr. Hobby GX 113 Mr. Color Flat (both thinned with Mr. Hobby Mr. Color Thinner 110). Finally I removed the liquid mask from the base, giving brushing it under a bit of running water to clear off any residue.

The glazing was quite experimental; last time I tried to glaze colour over metals (on my Exo-Armours) it didn't work and I ended up stripping the paint. So I actually applied a layer of matt varnish after highlighting the bare metal, before starting the gloss, so I would at least have a chance of removing the glaze without having to strip the whole model. And I'm glad I did because that helped me fix a couple of problem spots later, using a touch of Masters Brush Cleaner on a fine brush to slowly clean away some mistakes so I could repaint the areas.

Luckily the glazes did work quite well. I think a lot of this has to do with the Vallejo glaze medium; not only does it help achieve a good consistency/flow for glazing, it also SIGNIFICANTLY increases the drying time. Which helps a lot because it makes it much easier to get a consistent thickness of paint over larger areas; most acrylic paints would start to dry too quickly to go back and move paint around on a larger area to even it out. Also, it was TREMENDOUSLY helpful for keeping the work neat - very important when a zenithal means matching the exact tones to fix mistakes is quite hard - as any mistakes did not dry for quite a while, so it was usually very easy for me to go back and clean any spillovers mid-layer, and then go back and continue working on the layer without it drying out.

Funny thing is I had previously written of the glazing medium because of the long drying times; these had been interfering with my attempts to build up transitions by layering glazes. But it was absolutely the secret ingredient in this particular paintjob. Which is very cool; it's another tool in the toolbox, you know?

The glows didn't turn out as nicely as I would have liked; the rest of the model is pretty bright, which makes it hard for the glows to stand out, and the blue colour blends into the teal a little bit. Plus it just looks a little desaturated; more whitish that blue, you know? Still, I think that final white drybrush and dark blue shade basically rescued the glows. Ultimately I think they look OK.


Overall I do think he looks pretty nice. The glazes did not give me as intense a metallic colour as using straight coloured metallics have in the past, but they do allow me to apply a single zenithal coat over the whole model then tint the areas as needed. Trying to get shading/gradients across multiple areas using actual coloured metallic paints would probably be a much bigger and more challenging job. So I would say it was a successful experiment, and I leaned something I can use in the future.

The Double-Team

This was my first two-monster game of Monsterpocalypse. Since I don't have any faction with two painted monsters, I went for the classic team-up: the two monarchs, King and Khan! Karas was running Sky Sentinel and the typical fifteen Guard units, so I chose my four Bellowers for ranged attacks, four Carnidons and four Assault Apes to leverage Khan and Kondo's Blood Rage, the Pteradactix and the Command Ape for some movement tricks, and my cute little Brontox to help me push my lines up the board.

Game 1:
Karas won the roll and chose to go first. Again we treated all the buildings as apartment blocks. The triple foundations scared me so I tried to avoid filling them.

Karas made sure to grab some buildings and power nodes, while I focused more on getting models out and pushing them up the board.
Defender and Sentinel shot down a couple of high-priority units.
I tried to position my monsters to be hard to line up with.
We pushed up our units again.
Defender and Sentinel chained their throws to knock Khan into Hyper. I think Sky Sentinel took a point of damage for stepping into the hazard, which he shouldn't have.
Khan hit Defender with a melee attack with Super damage, then threw him into two buildings for five damage with another point of Super damage, for 8 damage total. Kondo then took damage to step into two hazards to throw Defender into another building, for three more damage, one-rounding him from full!
Karas split some attacks between Khan and some units, not quite managing to break Khan's DEF.
I responded by combining some melee attacks into Sentinel (I don't remember if they hit though).
Sentinel threw Khan into a building.
Khan returned the favour, then Kondo took another point of damage to line up for a power attack, but I think he missed the attack.
Karas focussed all his units to make two attacks on Khan; one hit, leaving Khan on one health.
Sentinel took his Rapid Fire attack into Khan, finishing him off, then threw Kondo into a Hazard. Kondo bounced away from the flames.
At this point Kondo was very low on health; I didn't want to take any more damage from stepping into hazards, and I didn't want to make it easy for Sentinel to land more power attacks, so I moved him to a safer position and used a Swat to throw a Strike Fighter into Sentinel.
Karas sent in his Strike Fighters to swarm Kondo, doing another point of damage.
I tried to get some damage onto Sentinel with my units, but with Khan gone the Terrasaurs were no longer getting Blood Rage and my Apes were all on the table and too far to help out, so I wasn't able to break his DEF of 9.
Sky Sentinel used Rapid Fire and a Fling to put two more points of damage on Kondo, leaving him on one health. Kondo could only do one damage in return with a single Fling.
History repeated itself once more as a swarm of human planes gunned the majestic beast down. Truly, it was human engineering that killed the beast.

Damn, that 11-damage turn was insane. We both thought it was basically over after that, but with no buildings left on that side of the board Sky Sentinel was able to live long enough to finish off the wounded Terra Khan, leaving him in a slow battle of attrition against King Kondo. With two attacks a turn and an army getting extra boost dice, against Kondo's limited one-on-one tools and no units able to take advantage of his buffs, I slowly fell behind, and Karas was able to grind out a win.

I don't really "get" King Kondo; I can see how he has a bit of extra survivability, and High Mobility helped to set up combos, but he just feels to me like he's missing a rule or two. I was a bit starved for power at times; I didn't focus enough on generating power with my units, and I kept forgetting about Kondo's Riled. I also struggle to make the most of melee units; ranged attacks are just easier to get value out of, even if they can struggle a bit with Cover.

While actually running Kondo and Khan alongside each other was very cool and thematic, it felt a little awkward in terms of unit selections and buffs. I dunno, I guess mono-faction just feels more natural to me right now. Guess I need to paint some more monsters.

Monkeying Around Town

Karas brought out his new Monsterpocalypse G.U.A.R.D. army for a spin, opting to try Sky Sentinel. I decided to run my Apes for a change.

Game 1:
I won the roll and took first turn. We played all the buildings as apartment blocks; someday we'll actually use the building rules... I brought in my flying apes first to take space... which didn't make much sense since they're the same speed as the gunners. Karas brought in his flyers because they get buffed by Sky Sentinel.
True to form, Kondo grabbed a plane out of the air and threw it at another unit.
Sky Sentinel hit Kondo with a blast but kept his distance.
My units killed some of his.
His units killed some of mine.
Kondo finally got his oversized opposable-thumbed-hands onto Sky Sentinel, slamming him into a building.
Sentinel repositioned and threw Kondo back, but Kondo bounced right back into his face, just to send a message.
Our units continued their battle over the center of the board.
With no buildings nearby, I decided to reposition. Kondo moved away, Swatting a unit into Sky Sentinel then stepping away a bit.
Sky Sentinel gave chase, throwing Kondo into a building. Kondo bounced to his feet to clear a power node.
I tried to run a fancy play, using the Rocket Ape and Command Ape to clear three units and repo back onto a power node, but I missed the third attack and couldn't step back onto the node.
Kondo slammed Sentinel again.

Sentinel retaliated with a throw first to generate a couple of extra power dice, before using them to power a blast attack to finish Kondo off.

Sky Sentinel seems a bit straight-forwards, but decent. Offensive stats might be a bit weak, but his higher SPD and DEF are nice. I'm not really feeling Kondo though. His damage output feels very low, with no extra attacks or super damage. Blood Rage is fine, but I never used it; it's easier to target models with blast attacks, especially when my melee units are a little slow and I don't have any movement tricks to deliver them. I feel like Grappler and Tantrum could be good defensive tech in two-monster games to prevent my opponent from lining up high-power turns, but neither of them did much here.

Anyway, I think we've reached the point where everyone understands the game well enough that we can start using two monsters each. That should make things interesting. I just wish I had time to paint up more of my monsters, so I could run two monsters while still playing mono-faction. Well, Khan and Kondo make a thematic pair themselves, so that's fine.

2023 End Of Year Report

This year did not feel productive to me. I'm not satisfied with what I achieved. I put a lot of time into several large hobby projects, but lost steam and motivation on every single one, leaving them unfinished. Part of this could be attributed to new responsibilities, but it's still depressing to think about it; I put a lot of time and effort into a bunch of hobby projects, but I haven't actually finished painting a miniature all year (technically I finished painting one model that was a gift, and I finished one miniature but didn't post about it because I was planning on finishing the rest of the set first), and that just makes me sad and depressed - I have SO MANY half-finished hobby projects. My sleep has been a bit messed up, perhaps as a consequence of this I haven't been able to adopt a routine in which I do regular exercise - at least I haven't been able to stick to such a routine for more than a few weeks at a time before getting distracted or just abandoning it for some other reason. Whether it's the lack of sleep or lack of exercise, my energy levels and concentration have been quite low. My eyesight seems to have detoriated too (especially in the last few months), I now need to use reading glasses if I want to paint with any measure of precision. I spend a lot of time lying in bed watching youtube or reading webcomics on my tablet; this is probably caused by and also contributes to my low energy levels and lack of sleep, but regardless I'd say it's basically an addiction at this point.

On the positive side, my work hasn't been as frustrating and stressful this year as it was the previous few years. I've been able to spend more time with family and friends. I feel like I've improved some of my hobby skills despite not actually seeing any projects through. And I want to believe I'm slowly (VERY slowly...) becoming a bit more accepting of the fact that life isn't and never will be perfect. I guess overall I'm feeling more positive than I have been the previous couple of years. Well, at least I hope I am.

Anyway, let's talke resolutions:

Old Resolutions:
Well, the exercise thing didn't happen. And I don't know if I've been spending less on hobbies, but I have definitely been spending a lot. Honestly, sometimes I'm not even sure what I've been spending all my money on, it just slips away.

New Resolutions:
To be honest, I'm starting to think that making a new-year's resolution actually makes it less likely to achieve something. So I kinda think I shouldn't even do it. But lately I have been meaning to try to put more effort into sleeping early, exercising, and spending less, so let's go with those. Fingers crossed.

Warmachine Card Creator V4

... And now there's a V4!

Changes from V3:

• It is now possible to overlay and independently position multiple background images when loading images from URLs.
• There is now and option to flip the small data box alignment. It will be automatically set to run left-to-right if there are more than 6 stat blocks.
• It is now possible to have up to 7 model or weapon stat blocks if the life bar is hidden.
• Numbers have been removed from health boxes, although they can still be added back manually.
• The mini spell box now resizes automatically.
• Added file upload options for background images, profile images, and icons since local paths don't work unless running the web page locally.
• Replaced "import/export" options with single card/all cards JSON options (more future-proof as it only saves data, so more likely to be able to import the data in the future).
• Unit health rows can now be hidden.
• The unit health area is now raised if the fluff box is hidden.
• The fluff box and unit health area are now raised if profile image is hidden.
• Can now have up to 8 model health bars in unit health box.
• Increased size of model name boxes in unit health area.
• Added a more efficient font to save space in some fields.
• Added an importer for importing data directly from the app.
• Rescaled card elements and added an option to set the page size to try to make printing easier.
• Added an option to scale up the warbeast damage spiral.
• Added a separate colour control for damage boxes.
• Automatically shrink ability text to fit available area.
• Replaced base size icon with a text field next to the name.
• Increased number of health boxes in life bar to 30.
• Fixed some display issues.
• Added the ability to print hardpoint option cards.

--EDIT--
14/12/2023: Refactored the card creator data loader to make it more robust and general.
14/01/2024: Added the option to scale the warjack damage grids.
12/02/2024: Added an option to copy just the card settings between cards, and paste them in the loader.
14/02/2024: Added command card compatibility to the data loader.
09/03/2024: Fixed an issue with Chrome preventing the same image from being uploaded multiple times in a row.
09/05/2024: Fixed a bug where the JSON exporter only exported 25 health boxes, not the 30 that we new have.
09/05/2024: Unit damage box name no longer wraps and overflow is hidden, so less likely to need manual work.
09/05/2024: Can now select more than 4 cards of models, will open multiple new tabs if needed.
13/05/2024: Doubled the card sizes, so screenshots can be taken at 100%.
13/05/2024: "Edit" button in loader is now colour coded to show if options have been selected.
13/05/2024: Save PDF functions added to loader and card menu.
16/05/2024: Excess weapon profiles will now "overflow" onto the left of the card.
18/07/2024: Fixed the PDF padding issue (by scrolling to the top of the page before export).
18/07/2024: Added a new attachment feature for combining cards (eg. unit with it's CA).
27/07/2024: Added an option to print rack cards.
13/08/2024: Fixed an issue with the solo model health track being replaced by unit boxes.
02/10/2024: Fixed an issue with not handling null profile advantage data properly.
03/10/2024: Added more ability icon slots to profiles and weapons.
08/10/2024: Changed background file name to use _ instead of |, as | doesn't work on Windows.
20/11/2024: If a card only has one free option per slot they are selected automatically and not listed on the card.
20/11/2024: Removed spaces from profile,weapon, and spell stats (so Sp 8 becomes Sp8, etc).
05/01/2025: Added a function for importing manually written lists.
05/01/2025: Fixed an issue where the "view" etc. buttons weren't disabled properly when we reload the page.
05/01/2025: Edited keywords to use faction, then armies, then other keywords, then type, to fix display issues.
11/01/2025: Removed model type keyword when it would be redundant (e.g. "Heavy Warjack Warjack").
01/02/2025: Options with no cost are set to cost 0 by default, allowing them to be selected automatically if appropriate.
02/02/2025: Added a scaling factor for the unit damage boxes.
03/02/2025: Better handling of model names in unit damage boxes.
04/02/2025: Can now specify separate background images for front and back of each card.
04/02/2025: Options list now correctly shows only faction-specific option cards.
01/04/2025: Added damage rings that can be used for Infernal Horrors.
01/04/2025: Fixed an issue with weapon abilities not being read properly.
14/04/2025: Fixed an issue where options cards weren't working anymore.
14/04/2025: Fixed an issue where the menu wouldn't open for some cards.
14/04/2025: Fixed an issue with attaching models to existing models with no health track.
14/04/2025: Card type is now the last keyword.
18/04/2025: Added a menu option to control the font size in the abilities field.
18/04/2025: Companion/attachment IDs now optional in card data in JSON.
18/04/2025: Can now choose to list all options for a hardpoint, rather than just choosing one.
20/04/2025: Added scaling options for cohort damage trackers to card loader settings menu.
05/05/2025: Fixed profile/weapon ordering issue for attachments.
05/05/2025: Can now select options for attached models.
05/05/2025: Added a horizontal rule before attachment rules texts to avoid confusion.
08/05/2025: Last update broke option cards, quick fix to get them working again.
30/05/2025: Added a colour selector to the image menu.
30/05/2025: Updated loader to set profile colour based on background image name.
30/05/2025: Fixed an issue where the profile image wasn't being handled properly in the JSON exporter.
31/05/2025: The "continuous corrosion" icon was showing the "continuous fire" icon instead, fixed now.
31/05/2025: Now added a faction icon override system based on keywords.
06/06/2025: Added weapon type icons up to x9.
09/06/2025: Added text fields next to the top two large number fields around the profile image.
09/06/2025: Fixed an issue where the fields around the profile image didn't use the field background.
09/06/2025: Added images of selected hardpoint options, or all options to option cards.
09/06/2025: Added profile image of attached card instead of faction icon on back of card.
14/06/2025: Made the background optional for option images.
28/06/2025: Model list combo box includes base points cost.
28/06/2025: Displaying total point cost of all selected models and options.
02/07/2025: Fixed a bug with loading cards from saved lists.
02/07/2025: Displaying total cost of added card beside each card name.
02/07/2025: Added a search function, to add cards by name.
03/07/2025: Search now displays a dialogue letting the user know how many cards were added.
05/07/2025: Can now save card selection to a json file that can be loaded again.
08/07/2025: Added a PDF quality option to the loader settings.
08/07/2025: Added an option to print only 2 cards per page on PDFs, for printing larger cards.
14/07/2025: Added a PDF quality option to the card creator menu.
14/07/2025: Fixed a bug with Granted: Resistance: X (it was not adding the "Resistance:" part).
14/07/2025: Added the ability to find models based on special rules, keywords, and spells.
15/07/2025: Fixed a bug where you could not remove attachmnets once added.
15/07/2025: Fixed a bug where attaching by name and failing to find, did not show the existing attachment.
08/08/2025: Refactored PDF code to fix issue where it crashes if there are too many cards.
08/08/2025: PDF export loading message now shows current page being processed.
08/08/2025: Fixed page size option in card menu.
10/08/2025: Added half-height spell cards and command cards options.
29/08/2025: Improved spell code to ignore bad data.
29/08/2025: Added document loader.
29/08/2025: Exposed the stylesheet when loading a document.
31/08/2025: Improved default CSS for document loader.
05/09/2025: Can now select rack spells in card options.
05/09/2025: Loading and saving lists to json files now includes warcaster rack spell selection.
12/09/2025: Added option to show images in "mana" fields to card menu.
12/09/2025: Fixed issue displaying bordered option image from card loader.
12/09/2025: Enabled fifth "mana" field as fifth option image.