The struggle is Chaos!

   I FINALLY got back to painting my Chaos Marines and it was not fun.  I started this project by overbrushing silver on the primed models so this step wouldn't be so hard.  Anyone that's painted trim on Chaos knows what I'm talking about...  Well, I finally got to the 'touch-up' stage and it wasn't touch-up at all!  My cunning plan wasn't so cunning, apparently.  

  In the last visit to these guys, I noted that I was finished with the basecolours and all I needed to do was touch-up all the silver to get rid of the spillover.  As it turns out, the spillover wasn't even the only issue.  Because these models are not... 'official', they are made of a material that isn't known for holding primer and paint.  Many times, I had to go back and add colour to painted areas because the basecoat had rubbed off.  Khorne Red, Zhandri Dust, and Abaddon Black were all opened, closed, opened, and closed again as I had to keep rehashing the touch-ups!

  The worst part was still the fact that I had to basecoat all the metal bits as though they weren't painted at all.  I specifically wanted to save the trouble of painting all that trim and the order of operations for this was supposed to save me.  It didn't.  I literally had to go back and paint all the trim.  And then pull out the other colours and clean it up.  And then return to the silver.  And then clean it up again.  Hours lost on a goal to save hours.  Well, that plan didn't work!

  And then came the coup-de-grace for that step- the Iron Warrior paint pot took a suicide leap off the hobby table down to the eager carpet, spreading the dark silver all over the floor.  And my hands.  Not only am I losing time, but now $5 worth of paint and more time as I have to clean up the mess.  Oh, man...

  At least it got done though and I could finally move on to the next step.  Two washes- Nuln Oil and Seraphim Sepia, to be globbed onto all the black and metal areas and bonework.  Just like the trim, this was supposed to be an easy step that took only minutes.  But I wasn't bathing the entire models, so it took much longer than I planned as I had to actually pay attention.  Oh, the struggle.   

  I love what the GW washes do.  They make the colours gain shadowing AND dull down, which will show off the highlights that much more when they're applied.  The 'Citadel System' doesn't suck and the washes are a big reason why it works for even the least-trained amongst us.

  Now comes the fun of layering up and highlighting, plus all the details that weren't covered.  As I painted, I found tons of grenades on everyone- that shall be my reward.  Stay tuned and hopefully these are done before my patience (already on reserves)...

Happy Hobbying!