Heyhey, look what I’m painting again! Yup, Dreadfleet. Third set of DF I’m painting since the game was released in 2011. Yes, my own set still is on sprues, thankyouverymuch. :p
Anyway, in case you missed it, here’s my big three part review of DF from a few years back:
I said everything I have to say in this and previous postings I made concerning DF. It’s criminally underrated, it’s a labour of love, it’s different, it’s much more than a clever marketing ploy (like packaging that Imperial Knight in a 2-for-1 pack).
I’m starting out with painting the islands, as I always do. Get the rough stuff (islands, markers, counters, small airships, dragons and so on) out of the way, so I can do the long slog through the single ships later on.
These islands here are pretty much done, just need a little refinement and some weathering.
So stay tuned, there’s a lot more to see soon!
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@Nogle: You could try giving the water a mid-grey basecoat, highlight manually with white and pretty bold strokes, then give it another drybrush with white, then apply several layers of very thin blue and/or green (or other colours if you want to get freaky) paint and washes. Wipe off the crowns of the waves where necessary and/or just add some white on top again in the end. It's rather fun experimenting with that stuff.
@Matt: Thanks very much! I usually start doing the islands/cliffs as seen above, when get as much of the markers done as possible. Just before your eyes fall out of your skull out of boredom switch to painting one of the capital ships. Getting Grimnir's Thunder and the Shadewraith out of the way is pretty easy and gives you quick morale boosts by getting stuff finished. Next on my list would be the Kraken followed by the Skaven one (Skarbus?) and the Khemri one. The first lets you go crazy with filters and washes and generally icky looks while the other one is just fun to paint due to all the colours you get to use and the clean look you can do. After that you're only left with the lady pirate ship which is pretty straightforward and gets you used to painting sails, the High Elven ship and the Arabyian one. Those are a bit tricky, but look great once done. Then you can go on to hit the big ones – the Heldenhammer and the ….dread…fortress…death..ship. Forgot the name. Those two can be a major slog so you'll be glad you got the easier ones out of the way first. But once those are done you can already see the light at the end of the tunnel. Finish odds and ends and you're done. 🙂 Painting Dreadfleet is just like playing Mega Man – it helps having a plan and an order in which to hit the single stages.
@Somewhatdamaged: Yeah, it probably didn't do well because it's different. GW restrict themselves to a very, very narrow niche, which works fine for them and majorly increased the popularity of 28mm. The downside of course is that the huge group of people who will only collect what GW put on the shelf and just feel unwell with anything that's out of the very limited ballpark of 28mm funnily proportioned sci-fi/fantasy miniatures. 😉 But oh well. Everybody does what they enjoy and that's nice.
Love Dreadfleet; as you said it's criminally underrated and it's a shame it didn't hugely well.
Looking good so far! Those splashes of color really pop without being too distracting. Just came across my set in the garage last night – I think the only thing I've done is looked at the book. Any tips on painting the whole thing, seeing as this is your third time through?
That game is in my queue. It's so different from marines and such that it kind of scares me. Not even sure how I want to paint the water