This model is being painted for the 2012 Clean-Slate Challenge, an attempt to paint all the forgotten models accrued over the years by an enthusiastic hobbyist.
I've always had a fascination with knights. If you look at the six armies I've painted, only one of them hasn't been knights or space knights. I never had the conviction to paint en entire Bretonnian army (more on that next week), but that didn't stop my picking up a model from time to time. This Pegasus Knight stood patiently by for many months as I worked on other projects, and now it was time he receive his dues.
The first order of business was to ensure that the knight was properly pimped out. I did some research into what other people have done with this model in the past, and one of the recurring themes was a more impressive lance. This only makes sense, a Bretonnian Pegasus Knight is pretty much the pinnacle of ostentatiousness. The only thing more showy that a armor clad knight on a flying horse is one with a bigger flag!
I scrounged through my fantasy bits and came up with just the pieces I needed: a unit banner from an old Empire state trooper and the lance from a High Elf prince. The flag was second-hand and in pretty rough shape. Thankfully it had been soaking in simple green for the better part of two years. The layers and layers of paint had finally come free, leaving me to concentrate on the liberal glue that had been used to secure it to the pole.
Something good to note here: it pays to have bits for the game system you're working on. Not only do the pieces fit stylistically with each other, but it eliminates a lot of problems in terms of fitting. Despite the fact that I was pulling from 3 separate army ranges, the fact that they were all GW meant that all the pole diameters and join locations were already consistent.
After everything was cleaned up, I drilled all three pieces for pins. This was a time consuming and delicate process, but there was no way I would realistically rely on super glue of any caliber to hold a join that fragile. Once everything was pinned, glued, and primed, it looked like it had been cast that way.
Micro-Lesson: Freehanding
Freehanding is an all or nothing gamble that will either make your model look like gold or garbage. My suggestion is to start simple with some script that no one expects to be able to read. It will give you a good foundation and let you experiment. A great trick is to prime some left-over frames from your plastic sprues and use the long flat surfaces to get some experience. But when it comes down to the real deal, I'd like to propose a new way of thinking about how you paint those impossibly small details.
Picture your mind as the world's most impressive juggler. Every single thing you do all day every day is like a bowling pin being thrown to this guy/gal. The more you're doing at once, the more pins your brain has to juggle. Everything from breathing to walking to thinking about stuff to talking to chewing gum; it's all stuff your brain has to handle.
It gets worse.
Not only does any activity add pins, you end up having to add extra pins for a skill. Watch a competition of any sort, the competitors are most likely in a quiet, secluded space with little or no intereference from the outside world. Watch the face of a gymnast during the olympics; that is the face of someone who has committed every single pin they can to whatever act they are performing. So what does this have to do with freehanding toy soldiers?
Everything.
First off, you need a plan. Sketch your image out a couple times to make sure you're happy with it and get some practice in. Make sure your space is at whatever volume level you can best ignore (SimplyNoise with a pair of headphones is perfect for this). Do everything you can to make sure that you won't be interrupted, during whatever time of day you usually do your best thinking or when your the most relaxed.
Now lets talk physical. Just like sudden noises and sights will distract you, so too will having to control your body. Even the act of sitting requires core activation and some amount of motor control. With this in mind, I've begun laying down on the floor, completely removing my core and legs from the equation. I only had to move my lower arms while my mind stayed focus, allowing me to execute complex freehand designs with relative ease.
This has been one of my favorite models to paint in the challenge so far. I was so happy with this model that I couldn't possibly let it go to waste just sitting on my shelf. Thankfully, I knew someone who could make good use of it...
