An essay on slapchop

With that highbrow title, let me lay out the subject. I tried slapchop and I like it for what it is, but I am also acutely aware of its deficiencies. In short:

Pros: 

• quick 
• reasonably good looking (with practice)

Cons:

• looks bad for warm colors
• looks bad for skintones
• if you want to paint some details white... prepare for a hundred layers on black

With these in mind, I applied slapchop where feasible, but painted the skin by hand, avoided very warm colors, and painted the eventual ice bases by hand white. See my Free Folk Raiders.

This was satisfactory for a while, but I do need some experimenting in my hobby from time to time. So I decided to tackle the cons of slapchop with a warm undercoat... see several experiments. Conclusion: slightly better for warm colors, worse for cold colors, and still too rough for skintones. Not worth the effort. Slapchop remained firmly the domain of rank-and-file troops, with the above caveats.

The ideas took some time to marinate, but after a long while, I was ready to experiment again with... slapchop 2.0? Warm chop? White drybrush on colored undercoats? I'm still working on the name. But here's where I got.

Converting and painting Free Folk Raiders

After the Thenns and Followers of Bone, I had all the tools out to make unique Raiders as well.

Converting and painting Free Folk Trappers

The last block of Free Folk infantry that I recently purchased.

Converting and painting Followers of Bone

I got a box of these for relatively cheap. Still riding the high of the successful Thenn conversions, I decided on giving these guys the same treatment. Unlike the spearwives, make the miniatures unique through weapon swaps and other conversions.

Converting and painting Thenn Warriors

My first foray into real conversion work on ASOIAF miniatures. I got a box of Umber Greataxes super cheap, with the intention of converting them. I also decided to create a scenic tray, with a raised middle.

Painting Bones minis: cow lady, fire mage, gnoll, naga, snake lady, spectator, troglodytes

A random batch of Reaper Bones miniatures that I primed last using my airbrush. Instead of putting them away, I decided to slap on some paint. Some are slapchopped, others are fancy. A couple had a hydrophobic surface for some reason, so I spray varnished them.

Converting and painting Cave Dweller Savages and Spearwives (and testing a warm slapchop base)

It's been a while since I used the slapchop method. These minis looked detailed enough to support it.

Painting The Edge: Dawnfall sinister miniatures using slapchop method

I joined the appropriate kickstarter for The Edge: Dawnfall as it had demon miniatures, and it seemed like a great idea for Warhammer. Then it was delayed, and I got my stuff somewhere else. Also the big guys  are not quite big enough for greater daemons. The smaller guys are included in weird numbers. Anyway, I shelved the idea (and the miniatures) for a long time. Then I stumbled upon them recently, and I thought, since I did not do slapchop in quite a while, let's put two and two together.

Note that the game seems dead, there is no wiki, no other info on what is what. Sadly, that's the fate of most (if not all) complex board games, no matter how much the producer promises a living game. Anyway, I'm just saying that I don't know what the darkness models are properly called.

Painting commission slapchop elves

Part of the Reaper Bones 5 kickstarter, these elves will probably be just extras in any D&D game they see the table in. Thus, I applied the slapchop method.

Re-painting pre-painted D&D miniatures

I had these since forever. I also used them a couple of times. Unfortunately, my original plan of just washing and highlighting them (a la Moria goblins) failed, as the surface behaves as if hydrophobic and no wash/Contrast stays put. Of course I could have tried regular paints... but that's too much effort, considering the quality of these miniatures. So... re-prime and re-paint! I started them last year November, took a 3 months pause... so my memory is kind of hazy on the exact paints used. Wherever not specified, refer to the Highlighting on a Contrast basecoat.

Painting up an old metal Cypher

I picked this model up on eBay back when Fallen had rules and their own specialist detachment. Nothing came of it then, but I still decided to paint him up to assist my Word Bearers.

Painting Boulderkin (slapchop method)

A group of cutesy elementals from the Reaper kickstarter.

Painting Furry Force themed Possessed

As much fun as it was to convert these guys, it took a long time and I grew tired of them. Time to slap some paint on!

Painting zombies (slapchop method)

Part of a Mansions of Madness lot I bought off eBay some time ago. With the success of the slapchop method on the flesh golem, I decided to try out multiple color schemes.

Painting cultists (slapchop method)

Part of a Mansions of Madness lot I bought off eBay some time ago. With the success of the slapchop method on the genies, I decided to experiment more on cloth.

Painting golems (slapchop method)

Part of a Frostgrave lot I bought off eBay some time ago. More experiments!

Painting genies (slapchop method)

Part of a Frostgrave lot I bought off eBay some time ago. With two identical genies, I decided on painting one red - perhaps an efreeti or demon. This allowed me some further experimentation with the colors as well.

Painting giant rats (slapchop method)

Part of a Frostgrave lot I bought off eBay some time ago. I decided to try them out with the slapchop method, see how the fur fairs. Spoiler: they look great. I also tried to use Stonewall Grey instead of Cold Grey, but it looked about the same for lightness, but with bluish hints. Back to Cold Grey it is.

Painting a thief (slapchop method)

Try out the Slapchop Method on a 28mm miniature. 

Painting a Catoblepas (slapchop method)

Try out the Slapchop Method on a larger miniature.