Nomads: It Only Takes one (RED)

Nomads was my first faction for Infinity. I started playing the faction not because I particularly liked them more than any other, it was the only faction in the group that had yet to be represented. It just so happened Nomads are one of the more well rounded factions available to play with.

The collection of models has grown over the last year and a half to include a large majority of those available to the faction, mainly lacking a few support models I rarely play with at this point. What I do not have is a painted force. I started a test moderator over a year ago and have since stripped and painted it four times looking for a scheme I enjoy painting and that I can consistently paint.

This relates back to kicking the rust off after more than 3 years of very little painting (plenty of gaming though!) I believe I painted this model somewhere around June of 2013, so not too long ago. I went with a fair amount of washing and little highlights that don't show up under these lighting conditions. I really need to set up a light box for this kind of thing...

I settled on a scheme that is still Nomad like in that it carries the Red, Black, and white colors, but switches where those colors appear on models depending on their status within the army and what I feel like painting.

Here is a good example of swapping the dominate colors around for a for unique look, but still maintaining the scheme and faction unity. This model was begun around the same time that I finished the Moderator test piece. It really shows in pretty much every part of what I thought was OK a few months ago. Now compare the reds on the single should pad I messed around with about two weeks ago to the reds I painted on the Moderator. Happy with the improvement so far.

Now lets get to something I painted about 4 weeks ago (and one of three models I managed to completely paint in 2013) ... a small KrazyKoala for one of my Moran Massi Hunters.

Now I was fairly happy with how this model turned out, including the base. The parts that really didn't work out so well, were the gems and OSL I failed miserably at for the eyes and "Mouth" area. I think I hit a block of not wanting to ruin otherwise acceptable paint job trying to kick rust off of that too. I am tweaking my airbrush in hopes of taking areas like that I can achieve a much better result with less effort.

These pictures are not kind, but in a good way for me to really see where I dropped the ball on technique and thought "That looks good enough." There are areas that stick out as poor (to the standard I want to achieve) i.e. the stomach plates and arms having a pink strip that has no blending and just shows up. The only way I am going to get better and really get a feel for technique is to paint as much as possible, to the best of my ability at all times until it just happens that way.

I made I few decisions for the Nomads paint scheme. I will use metallic paints, I don't have a very good NMM technique and I'd rather just paint a bunch of random stuff learning than try it on an army I would like to have fully painted by NOVA 2014. I not only want a painted force, but I want something that can compete for Best Painted. I feel I can have a good showing at an army level, just a personal goal for 2014.