#6MMRPC Week 2 Wrap-up

Matney here.

This was an interesting week as far as the Six Month Mountain Reduction and Painting Challenge goes -- on Monday, I did as I said I was going to and purchased some Malifaux stuff from my liquidating LGS; then, on Tuesday, my GenCon order from Wyrd showed up, adding ANOTHER crew box (The Dreamer) and another Teddy to my pile.  In spite of that, I got quite a bit done.

On the left, you can see the current state of my oil-painted void-wretch.  I'm sad I'm losing those deep blacks I had, but I like the brighter white -- when I'm done, a water color wash will bring the blacks back, which will be fine.  My biggest gripe on this, now, is that it looks like I'm drybrushing, even though I'm not.

At work, I've been picking away at a super long-term commissioned Dark Eldar -- just the Warriors, right now -- and I don't have a picture to follow up for that (I'm not at work -- I'll update this blog, tomorrow, with pictures of those minis.
Finally,at home I've been grinding away at assembling things.  On the right, you can see this week's haul: Teddy, 2 Convict Gunslingers, 3 Drowned, 3 Crooligans, 3 Fire Gamin, Molly, Rogue Necromancy, and the Necrotic Machine.

I spent part of this week considering my plan of attack for the #6MMRPC, and I've come up with this:

• Phase 1: Assembly.  Get everything I currently have from Malifaux assembled.  I should have most of Phase 1 done by the end of this week.
• The Dark Eldar project will be included in this challenge.  Luckily, everything for that is assembled.
• My personal WH40k stuff won't be included in this challenge, as I'm currently sawing all my Tac Marine legs off to reposition them all, and plan on repeating that process with my Terminators.
• I'm not planning on tackling my Reaper Bones in this #6MMRPC, because that's just outrageous.
• Phase 2: Gap filling.  Yes, this is normally part of Assembly, but I've put it off so long on so many models that it's a legit Phase, this time.  I'm going to experiment with various methods -- I'll have to order some Color Shapers to try Liquid Green Stuff in a way I've seen be successful, but I'm also going to try simple Green Stuff, Milliput, and a mix of baby powder and Future (honestly, I hope that's the most successful -- I hear it's sandable, but it's also damn cheap).  This should be done by the end of October.
• Some models will be used at the Salt City Gladiator Games, so they will jump ahead to basing with or without gap filling.  I won't paint them without gap filling, though.
• Phase 3: Basing.  After all my gaps are filled, I'm moving to basing.  I really prefer scenic bases, so this is going to be slower than the previous two phases -- I plan on only getting one base done per night.
• At this stage, I will be deciding and documenting color choices to make the next step more effective.
• Phase 4: Base coating.  After everything is based, I plan on base coating everything.  No shading, and only the most basic detailing.  I plan on doing this with an airbrush to speed things up, so part of making that successful will depend on how well I document and determine all my color choices.  For airbrushing, I plan on only using colors straight from a bottle to make reproduction easier, but also to prevent wasting paint.  After that, I'll clean up my airbrushed stuff with a brush and do the detailing and smaller areas I couldn't hit with a brush.
• Priming will fall into this stage, too.  Up to this point, I've primed gray with a white overspray, but I think I'm going to move to straight white as it's always proven to be easier to make things darker than to make them lighter.  At least, that's how it has been for me.
• Phase 5: Clear coating. Once I hit this point, I recognize that my process will slow SIGNIFICANTLY, and I'll return to playing with my base coated models.  The clear coat will be to make the base coats more resilient while they're played with.
• This may be as far as I get for the #6MMRPC
• Phase 6: Detail painting.  I want to start painting everything I can in oils, which will slow everything down.  I want to do only a handful of models at a time, one model a night (giving a week per layer to cure), and I don't expect to finish everything I've base coated within the year.
  
  Throughout this process, I'll continue to paint the Dark Eldar at work.  HQs and such will be painted with oil paints, but troops and vehicles will remain in acrylics.  They will be the first models through every step of the process (after a few test models from my own test-model pile. (Note to painters: If you don't have a handful of metal models to test out techniques on, GET SOME -- metal models can be easily stripped with Acetone, unlike plastics, which make them ideal to messing up on.)
  
  This is an ambitious project, but I hope to knock it out.