Color Blindness and painting Warhammer minatures

Recently, I've learned about how I've got a problem with colors.  I always knew I was a little colorblind, but not until I tried to paint up some Nurgle marines did I realize how color blind I am.  I've written at length recently about the Nurgle marines I've been painting up to match with an army I bought from a friend and in attempting to match his scheme I've realized how color blind I am. 

I thought I had a done a pretty good close job of matching the paint to what my friend had done, until he took a look at it.  I handed him some of my green raptors and he asked me if I knew they were brown.  Turns out I have a problem with dark browns looking green to me.  The nurgle marines are the exact colors I learned I have an issue with.  Started brown and then added green.  While painting them, I decided they weren't brown enough so I gave them an extra coat of ogryn flesh and this made them even browner.   Only I coudln't see how brown the model really was. 

After a bit of searching it appears that many artists (not that I am calling myself an artist) didn't realize they were color blind until many years into their craft. While I found some forum postings on the topic of Warhammer and Color Blindness it seems to be a topic not given much coverage in the Warhammer forums and blogs out there so I decided to write about my experiences and hopefully shed some light on the topic.

The good news for me is that I really only have a problem with green/brown shades and if it wasn't for trying to match an army I would never had noticed because they would have looked just fine to others and me, we'd just disagree about what exact color they are.

If you aren't sure about this, I'd take one of those quick online tests and see if you have a touch of color blindness. Otherwise, you might be painting turd marines when you think are painting puke ones.

Avoiding the Cat's Craddle - Parenting and Warhammer

Fair warning, this post is less about Warhammer and more about "real" life.  Though there is a fair about of Warhammer in it.  Of all of the things I've done in my life the thing I am most proud of is my eleven year old step son.  He is growing up to be someone I am very proud of, and so far, avoiding the mistakes I made in my youth. 

I know most of the Warhammer players out there are not parents, so this post is likely to be at the minimum not applicable and most likely dreary at best.  I had signed up for an 1850 tournament yesterday at the Games Workshop store in Alamo, California.  I was looking forward with getting some games in with my new nurgle models, that I've mostly finished up.  On my way to the tournament yesterday my Wife called me, asking where the primer was to prime models.  My son had decided he wanted to paint up some Skaven that day. 

Earlier in the morning my Wife and I had sat my son down and told him he wasn't going spend all of his vacation playing video games, and that he needed to find other things to do.  My son has painted a few models in the past, but the hobby hasn't ever really stuck with him.  I've been trying fantasy as an alternative, and so far it is appealing to him much more then the round base variety of the hobby.  After hanging up the phone and driving a few miles down the road I called my Wife back and told her I was coming home. 

It didn't take me five minutes to decide that playing a tournament (even one that I had been looking forward to for a few weeks) wasn't worth missing some time hanging out with my Son, sharing a hobby that I love.  We spent most of the afternoon at our Kitchen table watching James Bond movies and painting models.  I didn't learn a damn thing about how my Nurgle list does in a tournament, but I did make my kid really happy.

Best sunday I've had in a while.  When you get the chance in life, make sure that you turn the car around. 




He painted up ten skaven clan rats from the island of blood.  When they are done I will post a few pics.  He is doing much better at eleven then I did at fifteen when I started.

 My Chaos Warriors.

More Nurgle Progress

I made some more progress the last few days with my nurgle additions.   My demon prince is almost done, with some detailing on his sword/chains and some highlights of the blisters to do. 

I also finished the base coating of the two greens I used on the demon prince on my Raptor and Terminator squads.  I had a brief issue with the first coat on the squads and realized I thinned down the wash a bit much.  It came out almost like a heavy wash.  After mixing up a second batch I corrected the problem and when it dried put on a the second color.  One coat of wash didn't quite get the color right, so I did another coat this morning.  I like to let washes dry for at least a day to make sure they are 100% dry so I won't be able to put some work into them for about a week due to an upcoming business trip.  I am looking forward to cracking open the Necron codex that I've saved for the plane trip.  Really hard not to open that bag....

Some pictures.

How I learned to stop worrying and love my airbrush

I had to stay home from work yesterday to care for my sick son, which meant apart from having to scramble to get some things I had to get done that day done from home, I was able to sneak in some time modeling. 

I had been dreading pulling out my airbrush as I hadn't had the easiest time last year with it painting my guard.  It always seems to jam, never feeding paint like it should, not spraying evenly, etc.  I am sure it is operator error as I haven't had any real training apart from some YouTube videos and the occasional Dakka thread.  I really like the idea of my airbrush and I'm always happy with the results, I just don't pull it out much because it can be such a hastle.

I finished basing the models I've been working on, primed them up, and took an airbrush to my demon prince as a trial run as I haven't used my airbrush since last year when I sprayed my guard vehicles. I also spent some time in the evening actually painting on my Demon Prince.  I'm pretty happy so far, it's a ton of progress for one day.


With the upcoming Tomb Kings, I mean Necron release, I wanted my base to be a bit topical so I hacked up a destroyer as a step stool for my Demon prince. After trying it out, I decided what would work best was to flip it over and use the bottom to stand on.

For stability I added a pin.

The top of the destroyer is round, so a bit of dremel work made it fit a lot better.

A bit of sand and rocks added.

I then pulled out my airbrush and went to work adding the first color to the Demon Prince.  I am using the Olive Greens Reaper Triad, and I basecoated with the darkest of the three.

While that was drawing I finished up the bases on my terminators and raptors.  The terminators got some Necron bits and the raptors just got a few stones.

I then airbrushed a light coat of the second green, this one a bit lighter then the last one.

I then gave my raptors and terminators their prime jobs. Theyare now ready to be airbrushed.  Most likely I will wait until this weekend as I'd like to do it when I have some good daylight to work with.

I then gave my Demon Prince a liberal washing of Ogryn Flesh.  This really brought out the detail.

I spent two episodes of Castle last night on the Demon Prince and his base. I know most people would do them seperatly, I would like to have them bothdone at about the same time.   I don't have any step by steps, only how they came out.  I didn't have any daylight, so the pics are bit rough. 

Nurgle Raptors - Even more green stuff

I've done next to nothing this week on my Nurgle army, the release of a certain multiplayer shooter has really cut into my hobby time.   I did manage to break away to finish up my Raptors with the needed green stuff so I can move on to the Land Raider.

I also played around with basing my Demon Prince as well as my terminators.  The upcoming release of the Necrons has inspired me to base some of my models with dead Necrons.  I had saved a Destroyer and a few Warriors from an army I bought and resold last year knowing eventually I would want to have some models on hand for terrain/basing/etc.