Author: Joe B

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Brush Stroke 4 with Batch Painting, Warboss, Zone Mortalis and More!

Published by Joe B

Another look back at great hobby posts including batching painting tips, a Warboss, DIY Mortalis board, a Chapter Master and painting bases. Enjoy this week’s collection. Brush Stroke is the weekly newsletter of Broken Paintbrush, sharing the latest blog posts from that week as well as other great hobby posts from the web’s archives. This post archive’s last year’s newsletter. If you want to stay up to date, make sure to sign up in the form below. Painting: Batch Painting Tips For those who have a heap of miniatures on your painting table and need to crank them out quickly, there is no better way that batch painting. It can be a painfully tedious process, but Cadian Shock put together his tips for cranking them out with losing only minimal sanity. Painting: Ork Warboss With the new Ironjawz out, I have plans to turn the megaboss into a warboss for my 40k Orks. Having done a tutorial on how to paint my last warboss, it can give any aspiring warboss a start painting your own boss. …

Something Coming (not an 8th Edition Post)

Published by Joe B

This is just a quick post as I’ve been somewhat head down the last little bit trying to finish a new project. It doesn’t involve plastic and glue, but rather I’ve finally turned all this writing I’ve been doing into an actual book! Ironic, considering that English was my worst subject through school. I’ll have more info next week once I nail down some of the specifics, but I figured I would go all Games Workshop and announce it before the rumor mill spoils the fun. (rumor mills cover my blog right? 🙂

Cool Tools Bits Box for Organizing Spart Bits

Cool Tool: Bits Box

Published by Joe B

After building a brand new kit, many new hobbyists wonder why there are so many ‘extra’ pieces left on the sprue. As you make more and more kits, these extras start to pile up. At some point, you need to start the almighty bits box. What might start out as a plastic bag of the remainders can quick add up over the years. In today’s post, I’m going discuss a few ways to organize all those parts, and how doing so can help with your conversion skills. Options for Bits Boxes The term bits box can mean anywhere you store all the extra weapon options, helmets, and even unbuilt kits. Cardboard Box Often, the very first bits box is the same box the kit came in. The full sprues can be slid right back into the box for later use. A nice advantage of using the original box is that you know exactly what kit the part came from. Or if you are in need of the head from a particular set, you can quickly grab …

Good Reads 51

Good Reads 51 a HUGE collection of hobby posts to enjoy

Published by Joe B

Welcome to Good Reads 51 where I share some awesome hobby posts from the last two weeks. With some painting tutorials, amazing miniatures, and awesome hobbyists, there is lots to check out. Alternative Magnus the Red The plastic Magnus the Red is already an incredible miniature, so it takes some skill and creativity to convert it. Rebecca took up that challenge with this creepy alternative for their INQ28 campaign. Painting a Blue Orc Popping out of his shell to give us another incredible painting tutorial, Darren Latham wrote how he painted this blue Orruk Megaboss face. While not everyone will want their orcs to be slightly blue, the details around the ears, eyes, and mouth are useful for any orc/ork/orruk player. Master of Change As this is the third Thousand Sons army that Moridan7th has painted, and then sold  :-/, I think it is fair to say he knows a thing or two about the army. He is also a painted machine, and by the time of this post, he has already finished a few other …

Dwarf Blood Bowl Team the Golden Miners

Dwarf Blood Bowl Team Showcase

Published by Joe B

After a few last sprints, I have finally finished my Dwarf Blood Bowl team, the Golden Miners.  These were a great set of miniatures, and in many ways, a much nicer set than the start box models. I’ll talk more about what I liked about this kit at the end of the post. I also linked the tutorials I’ve already put together for the team below. Let me know what you think of the team. Dwarf Blood Bowl Team Here is the whole Golden Miners team on the pitch. The Dwarven Slayers are clearly the most dynamic set of miniatures in the set. You can also see that for this duo and the Blitzers below, the kit came with two sets of heads. You can’t argue with their beards though. And here are those Blitzers. Clearly the heavy hitters of the team, they have a bit bigger armor plating and a hand guard bordering on a knuckle blade (no weapons in Blood Bowl of course!). The final specialist on the team are the two runners. …

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Brush Stroke 3

Published by Joe B

Another Brush Stroke from the archive, issue three continues the Mansions of Madness painting. With a lava skin tutorial, a Lorimar conversion, and tips on scraping mold lines. Brush Stroke is the weekly newsletter of Broken Paintbrush, sharing the latest blog posts from that week as well as other great hobby posts from the web’s archives. This post archive’s last year’s newsletter. If you want to stay up to date, make sure to sign up in the form below. Painting: Jenny Barnes This week I finished up painting Jenny Barnes from Mansions of Madness. I put together a tutorial for how I painted her pale skin and blue dress (including a downloadable PDF). Painting: Laval Skin When I started working on the Hounds of Tindalos, I came across James Wappel’s post on painting lava skin. It is amazing how he can put colors and layers together to create such amazing work. Building: Lorimar Kraus Scientist is an amazing converter and decided to modify the already great looking captain from the Betrayal of Calth box. This …

Object Source Lighting Tutorials

List of Helpful Object Source Lighting Tutorials

Published by Joe B

Whether it is a lamp, glowing lava, or a spotlight, adding the glow effect onto the model can look impressive. Many award-winning miniatures have multiple lights that appear to actually be glowing. I’ve gathered some articles with object source lighting tutorials so learn how to do this effect. The term object source lighting (OSL) is what painters use to describe the illusion of a light striking the model. The painted on lighting effect can be dramatic, and sometimes overdone. But it is also tricky to achieve. I have tried to do this effect on some of my miniatures with varying levels of success. But rather than try to create a tutorial on something I don’t fully get myself, I found articles by painters who have mastered the technique. Light the Fire I couldn’t find who the author was for this guest post on Chest of Colors, but not only is this a beautifully well-done miniature, but the tips offered are great. “C’mon baby, light my fire ” – OSL Tips | Chest of Colors Seven ‘commandments’ …

Learning from a paint & Sip

Learning from a Paint and Sip

Published by Joe B

Recently I went to a paint and sip with my wife and found it amazing that twelve people, mostly with no painting skills, all managed to paint a great picture. It got me thinking about how we could apply some of the techniques to our own painting and tutorials. If you haven’t done one of these events, you show up to a room of empty canvases and a cool looking painting hanging at the front of the room. Each person takes a seat with a plate will the primary colors, white, and black paint, a couple of large brushes, and a cup of water. Over the next hour or two, the whole group is walked through each step and brush stroke to complete that same beautiful painting at the front of the room. This was the second of these type of events that I have done and I reflected on the remarkableness of it. I wanted to take away how the instructor was able to get so many people to accomplish works of art. I …

Brush Stroke 2

Published by Joe B

The second newsletter, Brush Stroke 2 shares the start of my Mansions of Madness painting spree, tutorials on painting pale skin, and a look at the Golden D6. Painting I finished the zombies from Monsters of Madness this week and even put together a tutorial. Oh, and I created a PDF version as well if you want to download it, please let me know your thoughts on it! Spiky Rat Pack has transformed into the Iron Sleet, but in their backlog, they have an excellent tutorial on painting pale skin. A few more steps than my zombies, but an amazing result. Photography James Wappel shows us his new video recorder that he uses for live hangouts. Reviews the pros and cons of this cute little camera. Hobby The Big Mek give a list of 10 Things Beginners can Do to Improve, a great list of tips that some of us take for granted now, but invaluable when we were getting started and a great reminder of the basics. Inspiration The Golden D6 is a hobby …

Good Reads 50 with Hobby Blogs to Read

Good Reads 50 with painting tutorials, Battlefleet Gothic, and Orruks

Published by Joe B

Another week of Good Reads hobby posts for you to check out and enjoy. With painting tutorials and inspiration for your hobby needs. Check out these posts from fellow hobby bloggers and check out their sites. Remembering Battle Fleet Gothic I never got into Battle Fleet Gothic but it looked like a fun game, and with the growth of other ship based games I wouldn’t be surprised if Games Workshop brings it back. Caladaris dived into his collection and shared what made this game so fun. On Commenting You may have heard me talking about the importance of community before as it is a big reason why I do this blog. Morpheus on The Fantasy Hammer shares his thoughts on commenting and why it can be so important in our hobby. Using Lots of Washes I have been getting more into washes and glazes as they can not only be super fast to get a good look but add nice variation and color to parts of your model. Da RednekkBoss talks about the goodness of washes as …

Tutorial on How to Paint Yellow with layers, wash, and one coat paints

How to Paint Yellow – Three Techniques on Three Different Models

Published by Joe B

Yellow is one of those ‘hard’ colors. So, much like painting black, I stepped up to the challenge and created a tutorial on how to paint yellow. But not just one way, but three different methods to paint yellow. Mostly this tutorial was spawned by painting my Dwarven Blood Bowl Team with yellow padding. Since I wanted to try a couple of other techniques for painting yellow, I built a Bretonnian Knight and a Death Watch Space Marine. Both of these other kits provides great opportunity to paint other colors. Well, at least if you don’t keep to the ‘standard’ Death Watch scheme. So if you need some help or inspiration on how to paint yellow, check out the three tutorials below. [convertkit form=5009797] Using Layers to Paint Yellow on a Knight I picked up a box of Brettonian Knights years ago to practice painting different colors and freehand.  And so far, I have painted only two of them! But Sir Sunshine here has provided the canvas for my first tutorial on how to paint …

Brush Stroke 1 - The Broken Paintbrush Newsletter

Brush Stroke 1

Published by Joe B

Exactly one year ago I started a newsletter for Broken Paintbrush called the Brush Stroke. The first few issues didn’t go out to many other than family, so I decided to post each week’s post here for posterity. Want to get the latest newsletter into your inbox? Make sure to sign up in the form at the bottom. Welcome to the first ever Broken Paintbrush newsletter! I hope to bring new ways to help your hobby right to your inbox. New Post: Foldio Review This week’s post on Broken Paintbrush is a review of the Foldio 2 Light Box, a relatively large, but portable light box. Photography: Build Your Own Light Box But you don’t need to buy a light box, Marc from Old School Gaming built a huge one out of a lawnmower box. Painting: Tutorial on Painting Eyes I’ve been working on improving my skin tones lately and stumbled upon a Reaper Minis article on painting eye first. Inspiration: Warlord Titan Dave Taylor is a long time favorite painter of mine, and recently …