Review: Let's Paint Black Templars

  Call me crazy, if you like, but I like painting tutorial videos.  I seem to be able to pick up something from every one I watch, no matter how bad they might be.  This 2 DVD set from AGProductions is not bad, in fact it's the best I have seen to date, save for the GW "How to Paint..." DVD.

  The DVD I bought was, oddly enough, Let's Paint Black Templars.  I wondered when I clicked "buy it now" how the producer could possible spend 4 hours (2 DVDs) on BTs.  I mean, really, slap on the black, pick out some white and metallics and bammo, you're done.

  Not so fast.  Christopher Davidson starts off with the very basics, how to build the marine in a way that makes it crazy easier to paint.  I had always left the bolter off the fig, but Christopher has a way better take on how to do things, and the one Marine I have painted so far shows the effect of this improvement.  (No, I'm not going to divulge all his tips in the review, buy one of his videos for that :)

  Christopher then goes on to talk about all the normal stuff, but he uses an approach you don't normally see on youtube vids, and I think it works darn well.  Especially his take on edging, which I have never seen done anywhere before and is great for someone like me (old, with brush control issues :).

  Just for those alone, the $15 price tag is justified, but wait... there's more.  Seriously, at $15 these are some of the least expensive DVDs I have seen and you get 4-ish hours of instruction.  The production value of the DVDs is great.  The steps he uses are clear and in focus, most of the time.  Every now and then he may drift the area being painted out of the camera, but he corrects it right away.  You're not going to find yourself annoyed by this, but it happens once or twice.  He has a very moderated voice that does not grate on your nerves over the duration of the video.  His words are well thought out and it does not seem scripted at all.

  And best of all??  There is NO FREAKING BACKGROUND MUSIC.  DVD producers take note, background music SUX!  I don't care how much you really love that loop from your favorite (crappy) band, hearing it loop 500 times while you tell me how to paint is FREAKING LAME.  STOP IT.  For the love of god, at least turn it down.  Some videos I own (see this review, not mentioning names) have music so annoyingly loud that you cannot hear the speaker, and it's not like it's good music either.  It's crappy loops, you see them on YouTube all the time.  Why people?  WHY????

  If the DVD has any weak spots, it's the menu/navigation again.  I know what a pain it is to author DVDs with menus that work in every machine and computer, so I don't harp on this too much.  I have 6 computers here and 2 different DVD players that I use frequently, and as usual, the menus work great with the mouse and keyboards on the computers, but less so on the dedicated DVD players.

  All in all, this video gets an A grade, or 90 out of 100 on the DVD coolness scale.  It is not for general use painting, it is very Black Templar specific, but the techniques are usable anywhere.  Production and sound quality are GREAT.  Content is top-notch.  Alongside the Hot Lead DVD's and the GW How To Paint Citadel Miniatures, this video stands up very well.  Kudos to the author!!

Ciao for now...

"Hot Lead" DVD Review

  Ok, so I last reviewed the MiniWargaming.com set of Painting Academy video's and I liked them.  The DVD production was terrible and the music was worse.  Now, alas, I have the "Hot Lead" 3 DVD set and it is AMAZING. The guy in the video, I will call him Lazlo, is amazing.  The things he does with paint on a fig is crazy cool.  And the video has great production value.  The menu system is easy to use to drill down to what you want, or you can play through an entire subject area, or the whole DVD.

  Lazlo is not a WH40K painter, or at least he doesn't paint army style.  He paints individual figs amazingly well, and the techniques he shows are phenomenal.  So while the approach isn't stylized for 40k, it suits anyone who wants to learn all the techniques and learn them well.  he shows it all, by brushstroke in great light and with great explanations.  You won't find a lot of "Missing Info" here.  What you need to put great paint on mini's is here.  He has a whole section on blending that, while a bit long and overdone, is great to learn how to soften and highlight different colors as well how to achieve the very subtle blending that makes a model POP.  The section on Non-Metallic metallic is great, as is the gems chapter.

The good and the bad

The bad = not much, there is a section on advanced basing that seems weak, but all in all, this is great stuff presented very well with very high production quality.  You can even tell where voice-overs were done after the video sessions to make it better.  That means some effort went into the editing and mastering of the DVD.

If you need/want help with your mini painting, I don't think you have to look farther than this set of 3 DVDs.

Overall = A+.  Well done!

MiniWarGaming.com's Painting Academy Review

So, I have been back into the 40k hobby for a while, and I have a confession to make.  I suck at painting Minis.  I mean, I am not good at it, so I get frustrated doing it and then I turn out worse stuff.  A vicious cycle.  Then I stumble on the MiniWarGaming site and I start to like the videos they have on the site.   Then I am at my FLGS (Ares Games) and, lo and behold, they have the Painting Academy set of DVDs...

<chunk> goes the plastic and home go the DVDs.  What a great deal, I think to myself.

 good and the bad...

The good - The painting tips and techniques are ROCK solid.  They start out with basics, and move along to some very advanced stuff.  You do get your moneys worth with the content in a big way.  They cover dry brushing, highlighting, blending etc in a well lit, well produced method that makes it easy to learn and you can actually SEE what they are doing, unlike some videos where they folks cover the mini with their hands or have horrid lighting.  A great deal of thought went into the minis they demonstrate on and the techniques used on each.  The videos made me want to try the techniques (and fail, but that is how we learn).  So, content gets an A-.  The minus is just because I don't want to sound all fanboi...

The bad - As good as the techniques and videos are, they really fall short on production.  #1 - the music track is at times, too loud and at all times, HORRID loops of some canned crap tunes that make you want to vomit.  #2 the DVDs seem like they just grabbed the video's from their site and tossed them onto a DVD program and hit "create".  There is no "play all" so you have to select every video scene in every menu heading.  The menu structure makes it even harder to navigate.  20 minutes with iDVD on a MAC would have made a tons better structured DVD set.  This is more like picking videos from YouTube than a well made DVD.

Overall = B.  The presentation and video quality far outweigh the bad production quality of the DVDs .  You WILL learn alot from the DVD set and it will get you in the mood to paint!  They succeed here in a big way!