One of the theories I had about owning a Convergence of Cyriss army is that it would be very easy to paint quickly.
I am not a particularly skilled painter, though I truly enjoy it when I have a fully painted list on the table. I paint to a standard that I can look at the model from 3 feet away and be happy with it. Not what the crazy painter friends I have are happy with, but what I'm happy with being on the table. This is important as a standard because painting is about time and I don't particularly have a lot of it.
A large part of my enjoyment comes from the idea that once I have a faction fully painted, I can just put it on the table and play and not have to think "damn I need to get to painting this."
So the theory about painting CoC is that you can prime the models with a metallic spray paint, add in a few colors, apply a wash, and then be done. Turns out this is actually true!
Since my last post about CoC spoke about how the bulk of the models I received were in really bad shape and I highlighted obnoxious the paint jobs were in addition to the fact that most everything was in pieces when it arrived, compare this to what the Monitor looked like before it was primed and painted:
That's quite a transformation! So how much effort was put into this from a painting perspective?
- I based the model with sand/aquarium gravel.
- I spray painted the model with some metallic spray paint, though I did test on the extra armless Axis model that was sent with my lot to make sure the primer wasn't going to be too thick.
- I spent roughly 2 hours or so applying the colors and washes to the primed model.
- I also had to repaint the base and basing material black instead of silver, which was odd but worth it for how much time the whole process saved me.
I should put a few notes, since it was slightly jarring with this as a primer.
The model will look almost comically silver when primed. In fact it was left slightly sticky, despite drying for nearly 24 hours after being primed. In fact before I started I was afraid the entire project was going to be a failure and I'd have to just prime everything black like I always do.
Luckily the washes came through for me in the end. It's amazing what that did when combined with some gold and bronze paint on the model. Everything turned out about as I'd have expected it in the end, and I'm at a point where I think I can really hammer out my CoC army probably well ahead of my Trolls.
As a point of painting comparison, I spent about two hours painting that Monitor. I spent about an hour and a half just touching up the base painting on my first Longrider unit, and I still have to finish painting the metals on it before I can apply my wash and then go back and hit a highlight to get the skin on the trolls the way I want it.
Perhaps it's because I'm pushing the Trolls to be painted to a much higher standard than what I think the CoC should be, but man does it just feel nice to be able to knock out a model and have it come out looking good enough for me to be happy with. For my Trolls I feel like I need to put in all this extra work to get it to a point where I'm happy. I suppose that's the difference between having models of something organic like a beast or a infantry with lots of exposed flesh vs. robots. Here's an example of what I paint my Trolls to:
Right now I have to admit it's almost tempting to just try and get the CoC going. I did get lucky and have my wife agree to let me play in our local Scrum League (think a Steamroller with 1 game a week), and lists are due Friday. I was very likely playing Trolls in it, though after last night I admit that I've had some thoughts about playing CoC instead. I have two days to decide!
