Beards

Didn't spend ages today either, but did the beards and hair.
Doing four different colourings (I think).
Today I just did the first coat.

One has Dark Flesh which I think will end up being red/orange.
Another has Bestial Brown, which will be a brown colour overall.
Another has Khommando Khaki, which will come up to blondish.
Lastly Codex Grey, which will be grey/white when it's done.

I usually do two/three layers of hair colour for batch painted guys.

So I basically started with the dwarf in the far left corner, painted his beard Dark Flesh, then skipped three dwarves and did the next Dark Flesh, then skipped three more etc. etc.

After that I just did the ones next to the Dark Flesh ones with Bestial Brown... you get the idea.
I work from the top left towards the front right for several reasons.

Firstly I don't then reach past already painted minis to get the next one.

Secondly it means I start with the furthest and work my way closer, psychologically I find it's better that way.

When painting this many guys I find the psychological barriers are pretty high. You see so little progress when you just look at one of them and start to think that you're never going to finish.

I must admit, that blogging the progress is a great motivator, even if nobody read it, it would still be a good idea to keep on task. It also means that you are aware of the progress you're making.

Anyway here's a close up (again, sorry about the camera) of the four types of hair.

The Khaki was the worst one to do, it's so thin compared to the others when it comes to covering black. I just made sure that there was a decent amount in the "depths" of the beard. Although the surface coverage isn't so good, it's the higher parts that will have another layer or two of paint, so it's more important to get the darker colour well covering the deeper parts of the beards.

It's also doing this step that makes you really see the difference between metal minis and these plastic ones. The details blur into each other a lot on these. Often it'll be just the paint colours that differentiate where one thing ends and the next begins.

The metal minis, however, are so well constructed that they are a real joy to paint. That's why I save them until last, sort of a reward for having done the rank and file. Also it means I'll have worked out which colour combinations worked and which didn't!

Oh, speaking of metal minis, I won an e-bay auction for Balin today, at about a quarter of the GW cost. It's shipping from Britain (I'm in Australia) so you won't see him for a few days. He's going to be my Etako, with the outstretched hand converted into a gauntlet (by either replacement or greenstuff) and I'll pop an eyepatch on him too.

Then he can join the silver Khazads that you see lurking in the background sometimes.

Anyway, tomorrow it'll be on to the purple.