November 15th Painting Challenge Check-In

The Power of the Sponge

When it became obvious that I would not finish the large group of infantry I was working on for the week, I changed gears Thursday evening and decided to paint something else: dangerous animals. Dangerous animal is a unit which appears, moves, and behaves in a random way in the game Congo. Sometimes these creatures do nothing at all, but sometimes they maul entire units of troops. It’s a game mechanic which I think I will include in my colonial era games regardless of which ruleset I’ll use.

Being retired, I had all of Friday in which to paint an animal. I decided to try the “sponge-chop” method to paint the miniature. This method appears to me to use a makeup sponge to apply thin layers of paint like a kind of stippled drybrush glaze if that makes sense. Anyway, it allowed me to paint large smooth areas without worrying about brush marks or a chalky finish.

It worked so well, I was able to paint three units: a black rhinoceros, a hippopotamus, and a pair of gorillas (male and female).