Replacing Badab Black - a review of Black Washes

I don't know about you, but I was pretty disappointed when the old GW washes were discontinued. Badab Black and Devlan Mud were pretty key in my painting. I've been seeing my pot of BB slowly diminishing and knew I had to bite the bullet and find a replacement, so I ordered some washes from Maelstrom Games and tried them out. The ones I tried were Nuln Oil (GW), Dark Tone (Army Painter), Black Shade (Vallejo) and obviously Badab Black as a comparison.

I sprayed 4 goblins silver using Army Painter Plate Mail, and then gave each a quick base coat in my Moria scheme.

 

 

I then applied the washes over the whole model to see the effect on normal paints and metallics.

Here are the results:

Conclusions

Dark Tone (Army Painter): Looks the same as BB in liquid form. Is slightly softer in effect than BB, so where details on the model weren't great it looked a bit indistinct. The effect on the metal was very similar to BB (which I love). The overall finish was slightly glossy. The bottle is a dropper bottle which I really like for normal paints but actually prefer a normal pot for washes. This may end up in my old BB pot when it is empty.

Black Shade (Vallejo): Gave a much more matt finish than any of the others and pooled well in recesses giving very clear shadows. It was far more effective on the non-metallic paints - it made the metals look slightly dusty. This wash is also available in a huge pot for only three times the cost of the any of the other washes. This obviously makes it very cost effective, and if you want you could dip the whole model in the pot. (You can buy it as a dropper bottle too like the normal Vallejo range.)

Nuln Oil (Games Workshop):  Initially made the whole model look a lot darker than the others and also took much longer to dry than the other washes. It gives a slightly glossy finish and doesn't give quite such clear contours as the Vallejo, but is clearer than the Army Painter. It gives a decent finish on the metallic areas, although not as nice as BB or the Army Painter wash, and the normal paint areas look better than the Army Painter, but not as clear shadows as the Vallejo.

I actually think that at least two of these will find a regular use in my painting. The Army Painter wash will be used on metals, whereas the Vallejo will be used on other paints. The Nuln Oil does a decent enough job as an all rounder and will suit some people who only want one black wash, or who only want to shop at GW. If I had to choose just one I would probably go for the Vallejo wash as the price would just tip it over the edge for me - such great value!

Project Gondor

Well, I've not been on for some time. The summer is always busy for me, and this summer added in moving house too. I've managed to get some painting done though (and am managing more now that I have a dedicated space!

Project Gondor has progressed well, with all the basic troops and siege crew being finished. Out of the first batch I just have 6 command to complete.

I also completed a Warg Chieftain to relieve the boredom of painting armour and black cloth!

Great Beast Completed and Project Gondor

Well, I've finally finished the Great Beast. I'm really pleased with the final thing, and painting it was good fun. I'm looking forward to trying it out on the table now! I decided in the end to pin all of the orcs so they can be removed as casualties.

 

I've also completed some orc archers that weren't used on the beast and a second barrow wight for scenarios:

And now the Beast is done, it's time for the next task - I bring you "Project Gondor!"

Last summer I went a bid mad on ebay and bought over 100 Gondor models. Many are elites, but I'm starting on the basic Warriors of Minas Tirith, plus a few siege crew, captains and Faramir (54 in total). To save time I sprayed them with the Army Painter platemail spray which seems great on the few test pieces I've done. I've also base coated all the faces. I hope I can get these done before I bore myself too much!

Wow - 2 updates in 2 days!

Having completed the Great Beast, the crew are next. These orcs are fantastic sculpts, using bits of the previous plastic and metal orcs and even the helmet that Frodo wears through Mordor. I'm tempted to swap 2 of them for plastic archers just to give some variation to my orc infantry.
I'm also contemplating some sort of pinning system so that they can be removed from the Beast when dead. That may be a while off though.

It looks as though one of the crew has sneaked into both photos!

In other news Josh and I have recently finished off some rocky outcrops to use in the Fellowship of the Ring scenarios. Really simple stuff - just chunks of slate on bases, but they look good. One of them is bark instead of slate as a test. I think it makes a great rock substitute, and is a whole lot lighter and less likely to chip.

Half Term Painting

So I haven't posted for a while, but half term a teacher is a great time to paint, so here is an update.

First off Erkenbrand is finished, and with him a detachment of Riders of the Westfold (signified by the red shields to go with his). I'm not sure which is better with flash or without?

Also, the main body of the Great Beast is done, now onto the base and the crew:

New recruits

So painting hasn't really been my top priority this year but I've slowly knocked out a few models whenever I've had the time. This dwarf captain will be useful as a slightly cheaper hero for my dwarf army and with the new 'battle companies' rule might turn out to be a necessity. I experimented with the red cloak, trying to avoid my usual urge to make use of a wash.

 

 The drummers below are pretty useless given the low number of goblins I have painted up but this year I decided to only buy one model for every ten I paint so this was a quick way of adding three to my tally.

The orc is a very experimental paint job but I love the results. I want to paint up the full set of the original metal lotr orcs as they are my favourite metal miniatures from the gw lotr range. Hopefully, I'll post more of them throughout the year.
 

Painting Update 18/3/12

Not much progress recently, partly down to illness and partly down to other hobby stuff (Risk Legacy is recommended!)

Anyway, here are the latest WIP shots:

I've finished 8 Black Dragons who now just need basing. I've got another couple of spare Easterling swordsmen around somewhere so may be up to a unit of 10 soon.
To go with these fellows I've also nearly finished a Dragon Knight and Warpriest:

Finally this week, the King's Huntsman is finsihed apart from the arrows to go on his base, and Glorfindel is slowly nearing completion.

Painting update - Royal Guard completed

So I've finally completed my Royal Guard (apart from static grass anyway). They've taken a while to get into, but actually I'm pretty pleased with them.

 

I've also done more work on the King's Huntsman. His beard is now sculpted (he looks less like Boromir now).

 

 Finally I'm testing an Easterling for a colour scheme for the new Black Dragon upgrade. I'm pleased with how the black has come out, but need to see how he looks with the rest of the army.

 

Rohan King's Huntsman

I had half an hour spare this afternoon and was rooting through my bitz box for pieces of a balrog when I spotted an old King Theoden model that was missing an arm. Before long I was hacking him up to make myself a King's Huntsman. This is the new Rohan character that has been added to the Rohan command box. I have the other models from the set already and I wasn't ever going to spend £24 just for one extra model, so now I have one! More updates soon.

Painting Update

Painting has been a bit slow of late, but not as slow as updating this blog. 

Following the release of the new Lord of the Rings miniatures and rules I decided to shove together my own Warg Marauder out of bitz. The warg was a broken one and had to be pinned together and the goblins all had bits missing and had to be combined with bits of other goblins. I have no idea of the rules for the model, but it was a quick conversion. Also included is my Shagrat conversion. Obviously both need the bases finishing.

 

My other project at the moment is a group of 6 Rohan Royal Guards. I'm finding them pretty dull to paint, but feel I'm starting to make progress at last.

I'm hoping to post more frequently now (different camera makes it easier to post photos), let's see how I do!