I’ve been taking advantage of work downtime to keep up with my painting. I finished the other 3 Terminators I mentioned in a previous post, and am also 90% finished with a brood of 12 Genestealers.

The Genestealers are a source of aggravation at the moment. Nothing, and I mean nothing, seemed to go right with them. I must be even rustier than I thought. 😛

The idea I had for them was to do them in black. So, I basecoated them in Vallejo Game Color Black, drybrushed and highlighted them in a 2:1 mix of Black and Vallejo Game Color Cold Grey, painted the claws and teeth in a 4:1 mix of Vallejo Game Color Gunmetal Metal and Black, and here’s where things started to go wrong. I forgot how strong the Citadel Badab Black wash was–once it dried, I discovered to my horror that all 12 Genestealers basically looked exactly like they did after they were first basecoated.

Yes, feel free to laugh. I’ll wait.

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Back already? Okay. Note to self: next time, test things out before committing to 12 figures.

You can still sort of see the highlights if you look really close, but they don’t stand out enough in tablevision. I’m not going to worry about it for now–I have some gaming time planned this weekend, so I’ll fix them sometime after that.

The next thing that went wrong was the basing. I couldn’t for the life of me keep the PVA and sand off the feet of the Genestealers, so there’s kind of this sloppy “foot sinking in mud” effect going on that’s absolutely driving me bananuts.

The last 10%: drybrush the bases with 1:1 VGC Earth and VGC Bone White, clean up base edges with VGC Charred Brown, apply protective Future hardcoat, then after that dries, glop on some satin varnish. I’m hoping to finish that in the next couple of hours.