Author: Joe B

Painting the Pox Walkers with Washes

Painting Pox Walkers with Washes Tutorial and Showcase

Published by Joe B

Yes, I jumped on the new 40k box set. I didn’t fully plan on doing so, but I broke down, and I am glad I did. These new models are incredibly detailed and full of character. The zombies were the first to get paint and here is the tutorial on painting pox walkers with washes. I decided to use washes on the Pox Walkers as I wanted to get all 20 of them finished quickly and experimented with the style. When done well, you can get a great looking unit with a few different glazes of color. Priming and Prep After assembling the miniatures, I took some of the duplicates and modified them as you will see below. On some, I removed horns and extra equipment. On others, I bent arms and hands to get a different look. Each model got a solid coverage of white primer using two light coats. For painting with washes, others have recommended using gray primer and give it a quick spray of white from the top. This can help …

Caught up in the #New40k Hype Train

Published by Joe B

Yes, I got swept into the massive hype of #New40k (can you blame me?). Between building the minis from the Dark Imperium box and a whole pile of Sector Imperialis buildings have kept me busy. I think I have built more miniatures in the last few weeks than the previous six months. While it has affected my posting schedule here, and my writing goals for the next book, it has been a ton of fun getting caught up in the thrill of 8th Edition. Gaming Table I think I bought a set of Secret Weapon’s TableScapes two  years ago and they have been sitting in the box, languishing ever since. But with excitement of the new edition of 40k being easier than ever to get into, I decided to break them back out as well as the box of GW building kits. While it is only a 4×4 set, it will be plenty big enough to get some games in at the house and I can expand upon it later. Eight of the tiles are roadways, …

Good Reads 54

Good Reads 54

Published by Joe B

Cutting into your feed of #New40k reviews and battle reports, Good Reads is here to highlight some of the awesome work by fellow hobbyists. These are some of the ones that caught my eye and well worth spending some extra time on this week. The First Born With all this #New40k going on, it is fun to see people breaking out their old armies again. Like these classic Vostroyans by The GunGrave. Unfortunately, he sold them off, but they are a lovely army to look at. Sail Away Photos While not a full step-by-step tutorial, Nil’s post is a great view into how he painted this lovely bust of Sail Away. It is fun to see how other artists go about painting. You can see the finished gallery here as well. Light Up Marines Rory has a knack for finding excellent hobbyists from the forums and getting them to showcase on his blog. This time it is Bob Hunk with some incredible light-up Marines. Not only is it cool to have the weapon and lens …

A Look at Sticky Tack and its use in the hobby

Cool Tool: Sticky Tack – and it’s many uses for hobby work

Published by Joe B

Ready for a Cool Tool I think you should have on your hobby desk? Expecting something big and fancy? How about something simple like sticky tack! Yup, I want to highlight the different ways you can use it for your hobby. OK, while not the coolest thing on my desk at the moment, I have found that sticky tack (silly putty, Blu-Tack, poster putty, etc., ) is a must have. Below I listed a few tricks that I use or have seen other hobbyists use. Holding minis while painting The most common way I use sticky tack is to create a handle while I paint the miniature. This not only makes it easier to hold the model while painti but also prevents me from rubbing off layers of paint with sweaty hands. I found that corks from whiskey bottles make great handles and a big blog of sticky tack holds the miniature in place. One of the benefits (as compared to glue) is that it works on odd surfaces like the banner here. Holding Still …

To Our Hobby Fathers

In Honor of Hobby Fathers, Happy Fathers Day

Published by Joe B

On this Fathers Day, I want to thank all the hobby fathers who may have brought you into the hobby, much as mine did. Also a shoutout to all the fathers out there passing on the love of building and painting miniatures to the next generation. My very first experience with miniatures was receiving a Snap-Fit, translucent green race car for my fifth birthday. I have no clue what car it was, or where it may be now. But it started my path down the hobby. My Hobby Father I think I got a few other kits over the following years, but the one that I remember the most fondly is the F-14 Tomcat. It wasn’t the plane that was so memorable, but the time I spent with my dad as he taught me how to paint it. But the thing was, my dad wasn’t a hobbyist himself, at least in scale models. I’m not even sure where he learned the techniques to help me paint the Tomcat. What he did do, though, was encourage and …

Book Released! Learn How to Build Miniatures and Improve Your Skills

Published by Joe B

Technically, my book, How to Improve Your Hobby Building Skills, was released on Kindle June 3rd, but now it is available as a paperback as well! If you wanted to learn more about the book, or how you can help, this post is for you. When I was writing the series on How to Improve Your Hobby Skills, I kept trying to balance between going too deep, and thus blowing up the size of a blog post, and covering enough details to make it helpful. This spawned the idea that I could take each part (building, painting, showcasing) and expand it into a full-sized book. It’s a crazy idea for a guy who struggled in English class! But the more I dug into what it would take to self-publish a book and all the tools to get it done, the more excited I got. What is in This Book? When I started writing this book about building miniatures, I started with thinking about what are the things hobbyists struggle with. Many of these ideas came …

How to Paint the Blood Bowl Troll

How to Paint the Blood Bowl Troll – A Broken Paintbrush Tutorial

Published by Joe B

I started painting the Blood Bowl Troll as a way to show different painting techniques but found it was going to work better as a general tutorial instead. Check out the tutorial below for tips on how to paint the Troll as well as some general tips on painting with washes and blending. Orc and Goblin teams can take the Troll for some extra muscle and even toss a (somewhat) willing volunteer across the field. As I build up each of my Blood Bowl teams, I want to add some of the special team players to add some fun to the games. I had fun painting him to a higher standard than the Orc players and testing a few techniques. Building and Prep This model was probably the craziest I have done regarding odd pieces for a single character model. This does create a pose that is detailed and dynamic but provides only a single pose. For those who like to leave pieces separate, the only one part that made sense was the shoulder pad. …

Good Reads 53

Good Reads 53

Published by Joe B

Despite the focus on all the exciting changes for 8th edition, there was still a bunch of awesome hobby working happening. So dive in and check this week’s Good Reads and be inspired by your fellow hobbyists. For those new here, Good Reads is where I showcase some of my favorite hobby posts from the week. Some are fantastic tutorials, others are inspirational showcases, but all are worth checking out and giving the blogger a follow. Bogged Down Durthu NafNaf is on a roll with his Sylvaneth. This week brings his reimagining of Durthu as a bog demon. Not only is there some excellent conversion skill going on here, but his use of texture paint is impressive. Your Brain on Art Outside of the usual hobby sphere, I did find this interesting article that discusses neural scientists studying the brain activity of artists. While there isn’t anything substantive in the article, it is interesting to see scientists trying to understand what makes painters like us tick. Art Imitating Art I loved the Doctor Strange movie, and …

Finished Blood Bowl Tokens

Blood Bowl Tokens Done

Published by Joe B

As I try to get a few projects off my painting table, I knocked out the Blood Bowl tokens for both the Dwarf and Orc teams. I wanted them to match the players, but still be identified as tokens, as in mostly metal. Since I have now finished the Orc Team, The Mighty Squigs, and the Dwarf Team, The Golden Diggers, I figured I should get their tokens done as well. The idea to glue the tokens to the bases originally came from Scott on Twitter (@ryglore), and Thor (@Thor_Thorison) added the idea of gluing the coins as well. Having the tokens glued to a base should make it much easier to move around and not lose the tiny balls. It should also be fun having the coins stand up on the sidelines. Orc Blood Bowl Tokens For my Orc team, I painted the purple and orange over random armor plates and icons. This was fitting for the Orc feel, and I carried it over to the tokens. Since these are supposed to be tokens, I …

Some WIP Shots and Slowing Things Down (for now)

Published by Joe B

Between the reemergence of the sun, writing books, and chasing after two little boys, I have realized that I need to slow some things down. But part of that slow down is to make sure the articles I publish here are not rushed or forced. So with that said, let’s check out what is on Joe’s painting table first and get back to the boring blog stuff after. WIP Blood Bowl With two Blood Bowl teams completed (Orcs and Dwarves), I had turned to the balls and tokens so that I could get a fully painted game in. As with many things on my painting table, I got started and then distracted. At this point, both teams (and the human team) are mounted to bases and primed. The ball mark, the one meant to fit in each base, is press-fit into a spare base. All the others are glued down. I’ve made decent progress on the Dwarf team’s markers with all the base colors and wash completed. I will probably only do basic cleanup on …

Good Reads 52

Good Reads 52 with Nurgle Titan, Painting Tutorials, and a Cult

Published by Joe B

Another awesome week of hobby posts to check out in today’s Good Reads 52. Come see some of the work done by fellow hobbyists, learn from tutorials, be inspired, and some things to think about. While it has been a busy week here between finishing a book and getting started on a crazy Rainbow Warriors Project (more to come), it is awesome to poke my head up and see what others have accomplished. Sorry I haven’t commented on your site lately, but I do bookmark posts to eventually get back to 🙂 But for now, dig into this week’s Good Reads, they are another set of amazing work. The White Knight White isn’t a color you see very often in the fantasy setting, especially on chaos warriors. But Nick has done a great job with this Chaos Knight, the start of a new AoS army. Rotten Skin The Rednekkboss has become proficient with the multiple wash technique. Here, he put together a tutorial on how to paint rotted skin that looks incredible. It has a …

I Wrote a Book! Start of a New Series

Published by Joe B

After writing on this blog for a few years now, I’ve realized that I kind of like writing. And some of you kind of like reading it. So writing a book about the hobby would make sense then yeah? So that is what I did, I wrote a book. Well, two books so far. A Free eBook If you enjoyed the How to Improve Your Hobby Skills series of posts, I hope you will like these books. Especially since the first is the three posts (Building, Painting, Showcasing) and formatted into PDF, Kindle, and eBpub books. I struggle to read books as PDFs, especially on my phone. So I felt stupid for providing only a PDF for that series of posts. Now, you can get the book (still for free) on nearly every eBook platform. Kindle, iBooks, Nook (still around), Kobo, and a few others. Even more stores through this link. Improve Your Building Skills So, getting the free book published on all these different stores was an adventure (one I’m still figuring out). But it got me …