The Final Push - Lawnor approaches 100% painted

Models remaining:
Batch: 23, Normal: 12, Luxury: 7, Modular: 0, Bits Box: 3, Terrain sets: 9, To Ship: 80+

My only active project this week was this Beholder.  I was having all kinds of troubles with him.  For whatever reason, washes on his underbelly refused to behave the way I would expect.  Paint on his spittle took 5 times as long took dry as anywhere else on his body.  I really should have worked on him in sub assemblies.  Gluing him on the flight stand and base was right.  Gluing anything else on was very much the wrong decision.  There were major access issues on this guy.  Look at him.  He’s made of knots.  Learn from my mistakes if you get a copy.

You probably can’t see it at these angles, but I tried Gerry’s Fogou (Fogou!) walls technique on the base and I like it.  I swapped the AP tone for GW Nuln Oil and forgot to thin it and it did the job fine.  I skipped the toothbrush step as I didn’t want to ruin my paint job too.  I’ll be doing this on stone bases from now on.

I slipped up elsewhere too.  I keep an eye on ebay for getting a bargain on a few things.  I have a selection of searches I check most days.  I put in some offers on some stuff this week and actually got some good stuff at a good price.  I picked up 6 models for KDM (Leather Armour Sprue, Twilight Knight, and a White Speaker for £17.45 all in).  I also picked up a board game.

Every few months a group of friends and I get together and play Gloomhaven for a weekend. On the Sunday, one of us has to vanish for a few hours for a karate class and I get to spend quality time with my friends kids, aged 3 & 5, turning 4 and 6 very soon.  I’ve been curious about Stuffed Fables for a long while and I think the eldest is probably ready for it to become our Gloomhaven Junior on those weekends.  I was able to pick up a cheap, opened but as new, unpainted copy this week.

It looks like there’s only 7 1-2 hour missions in the book so I don’t wan to spend weeks painting up the models.  I’m pretty sure I can knock out the trash fairly quickly, and to speedy basic jobs in the rest, but if anyone has any links to sped paint tutorials for these guys that’d be great.  I followed Jerry Hawthorn’s speed paint guide for Mice and Mystics and it helped me get through that box in a weekend, if not a day.

I’m hoping something turns up ASAP as my painting is on hold until it does.  No sign of a shipping confirmation on either KS yet so hopefully I can get Stuffed Fables done just as something new gets in the house at the least.  our next game day isn’t until January and I’d like it table ready by then, without getting in the way of ATO or KDM painting.

I could use some advice on a few other things.  I’ve some bugs to paint soon and I’d love to see a guide on using colour shift paint to achieve that beetle shell reflective pattern in a way that doesn’t make the bug look metallic.  I would also love any advice people have on printing game cards out in a way that guarantees they come out the correct size.  I’m pretty sure Gerry mentioned a program he was using when printing banners, but I can’t remember what it was or what video I should be looking for to find it again.  I’ve been producing extra cards for kingdom Death, and none of them match the game cards size, no matter what I do.

Once again, for the TLDR crowd:

Questions: 

1. Got any guides for speed painting Stuffed Fables
2. Got any guides or advice for using colour shifts to paint beetle shells?
3. How do you print game cards at home guaranteeing they’re the same size as the ones in the box?
4. Are there any cards or tokens I might want to make and print for the Expansions of Death that don’t come in the boxes or I might want more of?

Update: Stuffed Fables just arrived.  I guess priming begins tonight!

Update 2: I found the Gerry banner video (16 mins 14 secs in).  The software is irfanview.  Gonna watch the video again and then experiment. I’m still curious to see if anyone has any other suggestions.  Irfanview does seem to only print / rescale one image at a time and doing multiple cards per page would be better.