When we decided to hold the first ever Beard Bunker painting competition, we needed a neutral figure, since we all painted different armies, but we wanted someone suitably powerful and impressive. So who better to choose than the intergalactic space warrior, leader of the Recyclons from Sigma IX, Count Binface!
Ok, well, maybe that's true, or maybe with all the recent hype about him we found out about his official mini and decided it would be fun to all buy him and paint him and thus came up with the idea of a Beard Bunker painting competition. Tomayto tomahto.
If you have been living under a bin rock, and don't
know who were are talking about (not unlikely for our non-British readers),
the good old Beeb has done a good summary
here.
Tom
Starting with myself as probably the least interesting entrant, it didn't
really occur to me to do anything special here. I just wanted a tiny
Binface painted accurately to his real world appearance to sit on my
shelf. I found it interesting to see when I looked at him more closely
that the colours are more varied than I realised, I had been thinking of him
as black and silver but actually he's got a few different greys going
on. Regardless, one standard unit of paint job from me. The
painting technique is my usual mix of washes and drybrushes and unending
avoidance of ever doing any layering or edge highlighting. I spent a bit
of effort getting his "visor" to be a deep shiny blue, but unfortunately it is
hard to see at the best of times and absolutely hasn't shown up in
photography.
Drew
Drew: Seeing as The Count is an intergalactic space warrior, I
thought I'd channel some of those cosmic vibes into his mini.
The cape is about 5 coats of Turbo Dork’s Turbo Shift paint in Grave Robber.
Initially it was a bit disconcerting to apply as it comes out as a sparkly
grey bleugh, but once the maiden coats started to dry our benevolent
overlord soon began to sparkle! The rest was a fairly straightforward mix of
an Eshin Grey dry brush all over, followed by picking out the armour plates,
sash and gloves. I tinged the metal by shading with Druchii Violet, then dry
brushing over the top with the Leadbelcher base to just knock it out of
candy pink into something reminiscent of the one place that hasn't been
corrupted by capitalism.
Lastly I went with a moon-themed base, and finished with a dry brush of Vallejo Steel just to give it a little pizazz. Thanks for fighting the good fight, your Binship: RIP the one affordable house.
Charlie
Charlie:
I was honestly impressed with the sculpting and casting quality of this
charming little miniature. I wasn't sure what he was stamping on until I
saw the back of the mini and realised it's the helm of Lord Buckethead,
which... well, I don't presume to know how things work on Planet
Copyright, but I'm glad it worked out for the Count.
Rather than getting sucked into my classic approach of edge highlights etc,
I decided to just have fun and see how well I could paint him within one
hour. One or two aspects are a little experimental; his cloak, for instance,
is a mix of metallic and light grey paint to try and represent the highly
advanced synthetic materials present on the Count's panoply. To help with
readability I added a little blue into the grey of the cloak lining, whilst
keeping his body neutral. For the basing I gave a nod to the Clacton
by-election by depicting him on the British seaside.
On reflection I should have sculpted a Flake 99 in each of his hands.
Andy
Andy: All of this of course comes in the context of the recent UK
by-election in Clacton where Count Binface stood as the only real
contender to the frog-faced-fascist. As such, when trying to
decide how I would paint the Count I’ve chosen to project onto him some
of the things I feel strongly about and that are opposed to the horrific
views of the far right and their supporters.
The lining of the cape is the EU flag to memorialise everything we lost
with Brexit. He’s crushing under his boot something the colour of
the Reform party. The glazing on the bin is the Pride flag, and the
shoulderpads are meant to be the Trans-inclusion flag (not the French flag
as its sadly turned out - I think the pink should have been next to the
blue).
The majority painting was a quite simple combo of various shades of grey
and black mixing drybrushing, layering, and washing techniques. I
then tried to paint up the bin and shoulder pads using a
non-metallic-metal (NMM) technique before glazing them (with limited
success - I’m currently searching for and failing to find synthetic
brushes the equal of sable which isn’t helping either)...
Disclaimer: The Beard Bunker's extremely real Editorial Board are
unaware of Count Binface's policy positions on the topics raised in
Andy's entry, beyond the need for a referendum on whether to hold a
second Brexit referendum.
Maisey
Maisey: I am not known for including any form of colour in my wardrobe.
I choose to remain monochromatic but stylish (hah). So with my Count Binface I
decided to go full monochrome. I used exactly 4 paints. Black, White,
Skavenblight Dinge, and Dawnstone. The rest was done with mixing. I thought it
would be a challenge to use as few paints as possible, I originally was going
to use just black and white but decided that the metal and fabrics needed to
be knocked into slightly different shades of grey just to make it readable.
Basing was following on theme and I just used the standard grey basing goop
followed by a dry brush of whatever grey was left on my pallet to
complete the greyscale picture.
Ben
Ben: As an intergalactic space warrior and leader of the
Recyclons, I felt my Count needed a suitably grandiose base and paint job. I
started with a very realistic paint scheme and then layered on the sci-fi
lighting. As a newbie to this technique, the hobby, and the Bunker, I can't
compete with years of honed craft, but hopefully the combined spectacle of
skulls and synthwave will help my Binface to stand out.
Mike
Mike: The BNF-6E is a 25t light mech with two battlefists, jump jets, an SRM-4 and two ER small lasers (weapons all unusually mounted in the head!)
Ang
Tom: Ang has labelled her creation "Count Blobbyface" and wins the prize for being the first person to get her model onto the table to use in a game. When asked about her creation she said "They are Cass Art starter paints and Arteza metallic acrylics 😆. I am pleasantly surprised he looks very 80s. I am a noob."
Boris
Boris: This was a rather typical excursion into the realms of “I have
no idea what to do, so let's get to it”. Whilst I had played with the idea of
using colours of my existing armies, I decided to stay a bit more true to the
original. Most was airbrushed, starting from black, then highlighting grey and
silver (respectively for non-metallic and metallic finishes), followed by
black and grey (non metallic) and metallic black, exhaust manifold, steel, and
silver (metallic). I wanted to include OSL, so needed a reason for it, which -
naturally - ended up being a custom plinth with LED, water tank, and atomiser.
(Tom: Naturally) I hoped for “different” and ended up with “beyond
silly” and a lot of learning - which I'll bookmark as a success.
Tom: And yes, for anyone wondering, Boris is insane.
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner
But Tom! You said competition, so who won?! Well,
dear hypothetical reader who lives in my head, the winner here is clear, it's
Great Britain's National Health Service! For every model purchased £3
goes to NHS supporting charities. If you'd like to join in the fun, head
on over the
Troublemaker games
for your very own official Count Binface miniature.
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