Friday night, I finished up my painting for the Midwest Massacre, and here's how everything came out. The basing is a bit rudimentary, and not all the details are done, but the minis themselves are at a decent tabletop standard. For a week and a half's worth of nightly painting sessions, I won't complain. I even managed to cram in those 3 Fire Warriors who you can see poking around on the right, so figure that I lost a night's worth of Eldar time to work on more Tau.
I even managed to get my Eldrad to look like this in that time:
And that includes his magic technicolor star coat. He's got talismans to paint, but he's 95% awesome. (And actually, the infantry bases were drybrushed after I took this picture, so they're not so plain as they look here). Speaking of bases, since I switched up my list at the last minute to put in a unit of Pathfinders, I decided that after three years of running around on naked bases, I would give them the love they deserve. It was also an opportunity to try out some of GW's textured paints. Here's the results:
The bases were done in a combination of Armageddon Dust texture paint, Seraphim Sepia shade, and Terminatus Stone drybrush. Working with the texture paint was odd at first. It's very (for lack of a better word) gloppy, and working it onto the bases without obscuring the feet of the minis is a challenge. Remember, it's still a paint, so be prepared to repaint feet even after you clear the material off. When it's wet, it doesn't look like it has much texture at all; it just looks thick and sticky. Once it dries, though, the texture becomes more noticeable (I hit the bases with a hairdryer to speed up the process). Adding a wash and drybrush, though, makes them really pop, and you see the organic earth feel that the texture paint creates. I have to say I'm impressed with the product. It creates a more varied look than the traditional "painted sand" approach to quick basing, and once you get a feel for how to work it around the base, it's not difficult to use at all. Add foliage (flock, static grass, grass clumps, etc.) to taste, and you can end up with a very natural looking base without a lot of work.
That was the end of my painting for the tournament. Next up: the tournament itself!