ZeroWolf's Painting Trials

[ZeroWolf]

Okay, my plan has already gone awry.

 

Went to get the Leviathan contrast paint I use for my base purples and discovered this:

Hard to tell from the picture but that's not a liquid anymore...

 

Dang, doing the bone/armour is going to have to wait till I get to town and pick up some more.

 

Wasn't all bad though as another ten gaunts went green.

 

 

Spending more time with these guys shown me that I have to be a bit more careful with handling to them as when the previous owner transplanted them to their new base size, they, well, this is how they did it:

They cut down the part of model that used to slide into the old slotta bases and then glued that onto the new bases making connections that don't feel fantastic.

 

Hoping tonight I'll have the last five Hormagaunts and the Barbagaunts green.

[kabaakaba]

empty pot in the middle of wark is always dreadded. 
green look realy nice. 
why you don't just cut them from their rails?

[ZeroWolf]

3 hours ago, kabaakaba said:

empty pot in the middle of wark is always dreadded. 
green look realy nice. 
why you don't just cut them from their rails?

That was the worst part, wasn't even empty Still half a pot left that became some sort of acrylic block.

 

I did consider cutting the rails off but in the end, it would be too much work to reattach them to the base. My basing scheme should hide them well enough anyway.

 

Have taken some measures to hopefully get a pot tonight, so I should still on track.

[kabaakaba]

did you try add some thinner into the pot and give it a good shake?

 

[ZeroWolf]

Didn't make a difference to be fair. I've only ever had a couple of pots do this to me. One of which was over twenty years old in a twisty lid, so I kind of understood that one 

[Firedrake Cordova]

Oof, that's annoying  

 

2 hours ago, ZeroWolf said:

One of which was over twenty years old in a twisty lid

How on earth did you get one of those to last that long?! I literally had some of those pots dry out before I ever opened them! (the old white flip-tops on the other hand ... I have some from the early 1990s that are fine)

[ZeroWolf]

45 minutes ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

Oof, that's annoying  

 

How on earth did you get one of those to last that long?! I literally had some of those pots dry out before I ever opened them! (the old white flip-tops on the other hand ... I have some from the early 1990s that are fine)

God knows, it was Hawk Turquoise that I originally bought for my tomb kings (that was the base colour of my shields). My dad still had some of the 90s citadel paints in good condition as well, its strange to say the least.

 

I've also got a pot of Snakebit Leather that comes from around the same time but when they returned to flip lids.

[Brother Christopher]

I'm sorry about the paint - I'll reiterate what others already said: it must've been annoying, particularly since these paints are that cheap. Some of GW's paints appear to act randomly and when they do, it's almost always bad. I hate how the gold and copper paints I have separate and I hated how quickly my white turned chalky and dry. Maybe it's the rubbish pots?

 

I didn't expect contrast paints to be affected, though - maybe because I assumed that they can't go wrong due to how runny they are.

 

The green is great, though. I like the hue - this is something I'd probably want for my guys. Did you get a replacement for the purple paint?

[Grotsmasha]

12 hours ago, Brother Christopher said:

I didn't expect contrast paints to be affected, though - maybe because I assumed that they can't go wrong due to how runny they are.

In my experience, once they're 20% or lower, you need to keep the lid closed, even while painting or they'll get thick and gluggy, especially the pigment heavier ones, Black Legion, Dark Angels Green.

[ZeroWolf]

16 hours ago, Brother Christopher said:

I'm sorry about the paint - I'll reiterate what others already said: it must've been annoying, particularly since these paints are that cheap. Some of GW's paints appear to act randomly and when they do, it's almost always bad. I hate how the gold and copper paints I have separate and I hated how quickly my white turned chalky and dry. Maybe it's the rubbish pots?

 

I didn't expect contrast paints to be affected, though - maybe because I assumed that they can't go wrong due to how runny they are.

 

The green is great, though. I like the hue - this is something I'd probably want for my guys. Did you get a replacement for the purple paint?

I did get a replacement 

 

Purple is done for the first five, which means I can move on to the drybrushing and details.

 

All the Hormagaunts have green on them now, which means I can focus on little groups.

 

Interestingly, I noticed that one of the Hormagaunts had already been given a base of sorts, which you can sort of see in the picture below:

This is the only one like it in both bags that I bought. All I can think of was that the FLGS got a whole batch of ones like this but split them with others to make their bags of 10.

 

5 hours ago, Grotsmasha said:

In my experience, once they're 20% or lower, you need to keep the lid closed, even while painting or they'll get thick and gluggy, especially the pigment heavier ones, Black Legion, Dark Angels Green.

*Stares at his pot of Dark Angels Green that gets used for the weapons*

[ZeroWolf]

Last nights session brought us some nice shiny teeth (they won't stay shiny for long!

 

 

Also did their tongues while I was there.

 

My plans for Dry brushing went a bit pear shaped however as my pot of moot green has vanished from my paints box. Suppose that's what happens when I don’t use something for a year  I've either left it at my dad's when painting previously, or my son borrowed it. Both likely scenarios to be honest.

[Firedrake Cordova]

1 hour ago, ZeroWolf said:

I've either left it at my dad's when painting previously, or my son borrowed it. Both likely scenarios to be honest.

Space Marines/Guard removed it when you weren't looking to limit the number of Xenos they'll have to purge  

[kabaakaba]

We prefer Purge xenos directly. 

 

Currently teeth looks cartoonish, but some how it's nice and funny. Don't you considering left them as is?

[ZeroWolf]

15 hours ago, kabaakaba said:

We prefer Purge xenos directly. 

 

Currently teeth looks cartoonish, but some how it's nice and funny. Don't you considering left them as is?

I've considered it in the past with the others but decided against it as the nuln oil wash (a little bit) and then a small drybrush of white helps tie things together.

 

22 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

Space Marines/Guard removed it when you weren't looking to limit the number of Xenos they'll have to purge  

Always taking the easy way out 

 

Was out last night for my brothers 50th so there was no painting done, hopefully back on tonight with some more purple paint...

[ZeroWolf]

Been a few days but I'm closer to getting back on track!

 

All the Hormagaunts have their purple, and have been cleaned up.

 

With the recent purchase of a new pot of Moot Green, I got to drybrushing and got ten looking a lil greener:

 

 

Sadly, I didn't get the other ten done as my bad luck continued as the paint water tipped over, covering them all. This caused some of the still wet paint on them to have issues. Even the one I thought was fine proved to have been hit when I tried to drybrush it. The green went a bit weird...

[Rusted Boltgun]

This set of 'nids is proving quite a challenge! Well, the paint is at least. You'll get there, I'm sure!

[ZeroWolf]

21 hours ago, Rusted Boltgun said:

This set of 'nids is proving quite a challenge! Well, the paint is at least. You'll get there, I'm sure!

Not sure which chaos God I upset enough to curse me (probably Tzeentch) but definitely feels that way at the moment 

[Antarius]

Well, a bit of weirdness might be okay. I mean, it always pays to remember that you'll be deploying a big swarm of them, so don't focus too much on the individual - at least that's what I tell myself and it keeps me (mostly) sane, whenever I paint Gaunts and similar models.

Overall, I think yours'll come out looking great!

[space wolf]

These are looking good! Love the intense green skin!

 

Sorry about your paint woes, i just went through that with my pot of snakebite leather. All of my refugular GW paints have been swapped over to dropper bottles with a bit of airbrush thinner. Now they last forever....mostly. Contrasts I keep in the same pot, but put a mixing ball in, that seems to help. Other than contrasts I dont buy GW paints anymore. Proacryl or Vallejo for me.

[Brother Christopher]

On 6/28/2025 at 3:27 PM, ZeroWolf said:

Sadly, I didn't get the other ten done as my bad luck continued as the paint water tipped over, covering them all. This caused some of the still wet paint on them to have issues. Even the one I thought was fine proved to have been hit when I tried to drybrush it. The green went a bit weird...

 

That's an awful lot of bad luck. But that's probably just divine retribution for abandoning GW's the Emperor's Finest and choosing some filthy xenos ;)

 

I sure hope that, with your perseverance, you've managed to exhaust whatever warp entities that plague this project and it's going to be smooth saling from here on out.