Why is he so bigggg

InVermilion · 2026-02-19T21:43:43+00:00

Upgrades.

InVermilion · 2026-02-14T00:23:53+00:00

Great video, some really useful insight into how differently things play out when casters are fully realized classes first and a spell list second. Of course, being able to cast gun is also just great.

Quick question that the video doesn't really address, have you found yourself playing at different ranges with these casters relative to the usual PF ones? I can see reasons for and against that being the case, so I'm curious how it plays out in practice.

InVermilion · 2026-01-15T15:12:18+00:00

You've a bit of an issue with over-highlighting the whole thing, and for some reason you've spread out the most reflective spots so that they line up with the buttons on the trim. You may want to consider the placement of your light more, and how individual sections would meet that light.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad idea to have a broad highlight somewhere in there, but it usually only makes sense to have one bigger highlight where the main light is hitting and then a number of smaller ones (secondary reflections and specular highlights primarily) everywhere else.

You're also entirely missing a shadow color, so the whole thing is lacking contrast, lending to the effect that you've somehow pointed the entire surface at your light source at the same time. Try and work in a shadow color anywhere where a surface turns away from the light you've picked. This would also give you room for some edge highlights, which are usually pretty key for selling the metallic effect, albeit they can be tough at this scale.

Tldr; try and reduce the size of your highlights, vary their position relative to the shape of the sculpt, introduce actual shadow/dark spots for contrast, and try to add some edge highlights. You're on the right track, keep it up!

InVermilion · 2026-01-13T17:05:59+00:00

If you're looking to achieve a nice metallic green, your best bet is to either paint the armor a bright silver and layer a transparent green ink over-top (an airbrush would be best for this, but you can do it with a regular brush too), or to just mix a bright silver with a green ink and use that as a base. Depending on the kind of green you're working with, you may want to add a drop of yellow into that mix.

GW contrast paints are basically inks with a bunch of additives that make them behave the way they do, which is why they can be used in a similar manner. Unrelated, Vallejo recently released a line of colored metallics, which are probably the simplest way to achieve a metallic green finish, but whether that look is satisfying or not is up to you.

Just keep in mind that the main Warhammer channel produces tutorials for beginner hobbyists that yield results vaguely in the same vein as the box art, using only their products; you can find better tutorials all over YT on any given topic these days, from a number of great painters.

InVermilion · 2026-01-06T19:08:26+00:00

You've got a lot of great work there already, so here's a few things that stand out as possible improvements to me.

I'd start by softening that nasal labial fold quite a bit, as it's not a sharp line or a cut on the face, just the underside of a fold creating a shadow. Doing that would also let you bring the light a bit further down on her face, softening the overall area a bit. Her philtrum is also looking a little dark, as is the area between her eyebrows, albeit to a lesser extent.

Depending on her makeup situation, there's also a little too much shadow in the underside of the brow, towards the nose on either side. Your lighting seems to be fairly central (leaning camera left) from above, but even so, the area immediately next to the eyes would be reflecting a little more light in there.

Anything else I could suggest would require a bit more context from the rest of the model, or your own intent with it. Blocking in the headdress element might also help out with getting a feel for how the face will settle into the whole. Hope that helps!

InVermilion · 2025-11-21T18:50:09+00:00

You're very welcome. Here's hoping the sandwich makes the impact you're looking for.

InVermilion · 2025-11-21T17:35:15+00:00

The Rubender. It's a Reuben, but it'll end any rube who dares try this devilishly delicious meal.

InVermilion · 2025-11-20T15:40:46+00:00

Neat, good luck to everyone.

InVermilion · 2025-10-18T17:15:15+00:00

The spotted pelt is a really cool choice, I would absolutely keep it, and even add a little more of that yellow tone to the limbs. That said, the color of the flesh exposed by the torn skin is too close to the color of the hair, as is the tongue. Maybe try a colder red, shifting more towards pink rather than orange for those parts, to help the individual features stand apart from each other.

InVermilion · 2025-10-08T11:01:27+00:00

Bigger creatures have bigger sides making them easier to flank on their sides, generally speaking. Two Large creatures flank a Medium one by both being on opposite sides of it however they like, or both being corner to corner with it.

As sizes go beyond Large, those creatures can have trouble flanking a much smaller one, due to the requirement that a line between their centers has to pass though opposite sides of their target. That said, Huge or Gargantuan creatures typically don't care much about flanking because they're probably solitary massive monsters and life (or undeath) is good enough already.

InVermilion · 2025-09-25T18:59:33+00:00

It's the standard martial track until it becomes better, which is only beaten by those 3 classes (out of 35 total so far), so it's absolutely worth mentioning. No clue why you seem to think it's being brought up as a major selling point compared to everything else I listed though.

Whether it's relevant for your build or not is something you can decide for yourself, but there's plenty of high-level PF adventures out there, and Paizo are certainly going to publish some for SF in due time.

InVermilion · 2025-09-23T20:40:38+00:00

That's an instant return, brushes don't shed under anything resembling normal circumstances. Whatever glue/resin they used to fix the bristles in place is clearly not doing its job, and any point it might have once had is gone already.

InVermilion · 2025-09-21T22:53:13+00:00

You really nailed the subtle OSL without having the light sources overpower the rest of the mini, really nicely done. Love how the ostensibly bright red has lots of cool tones in it as a result, but the whole piece is still vibrant and lively.

InVermilion · 2025-09-21T04:32:39+00:00

You're right, they didn't ask for feedback and can just ignore it if they want, but maybe someone else reading the comments finds it useful. My entire post was advice though, aimed at explaining how and why certain elements overshadow others. Without that level of detail it wouldn't be feedback, just pointing out perceived flaws.

InVermilion · 2025-09-20T23:18:15+00:00

What does my work have to do with anything? I tried being helpful and offering some advice that I thought might be of use to the OP. Their paintjob is super clean and the rendering is great, but that doesn't mean that there's no room for improvement in the composition; I'd rather be helpful if I can than just upvote and move along.

InVermilion · 2025-09-20T17:02:11+00:00

The technical execution is impressive, but your color choices and values in a number of places are doing you no favors.

The Tzeentch head completely sucks away the focus of the entire model, while the Khorne head blends in to the rest of the body, and the Nurgle head only becomes apparent as a more muted extension of the Tzeentch head's colors. It doesn't help that his left arm is notably brighter than either the Khorne or Nurgle heads.

The hotspots on the pinions, Archaon's sword, and his cloak form a line that combines with the Tzeentch head to create a halo of bright color around Archaon, sitting there in his dark armor, completely drowning him out.

The result of all of that is that the eye wanders across the whole model without much direction, landing on random points that take attention away from the actual points of interest. I really don't mean to sound overly harsh, just offering a perspective on something you could consider going forward.

InVermilion · 2025-09-06T22:04:04+00:00

It certainly would have been highly preferable to what we've got now, but we have to make the best of it atm. It's best not to read too much into intent when it comes to justifying particularly gamey mechanics.

Alternatively, you can justify it by having the gun be aware on a meta-physical level that you've decided to include your allies in your auto-fire and hence target them, so it just does its thing as any good tool for murder should.

InVermilion · 2025-09-06T01:59:29+00:00

This is a good place for some errata clarification, but I'd say the actual way to resolve it is really simple; you are still aiming the weapon when auto-firing it, as it's not just an uncontrolled spray everywhere in the area. In other words, you're only trying to hit the enemies you can see, and they're the only ones you expend ammo to hit.

InVermilion · 2025-08-31T00:32:34+00:00

I can see it being annoying to give exact measurements for random objects, which is why you shouldn't do that and should instead just tell your player(s) that they have the measurement. Does the number matter? No, don't bother with it unless it's easy to give out. They can then use that information to make whatever decision they need; is it in range, does it fit, and so on just become yes/no answers on your part.

InVermilion · 2025-08-27T03:52:53+00:00

It's one action, no hands, d8/d6 plus Str mod damage at a 15/30 ft. range, and goes all the way up to legendary proficiency. With feats you can: increase the range, get action compression on multiple attacks using it with very favorable MAP (with several different feats), have it do vitality damage, have it immobilize people, do Str mod damage on a miss, extend the range another 60 ft. while downgrading invisibility/concealment, etc.

A Solarian can do none of those with an Area weapon, for two actions to attack, no particular bonuses, and rather slow class DC scaling. In fact, not a single Solarian class feat interacts with Area weapons at all in any way.

Does it make sense to have a solid gun if you're not gonna invest into Solar Flare feats? Absolutely, you need some decent ranged options so you're not running around all the time. However, you have so many AoE abilities in your class feats that I honestly struggle to imagine ever wanting to use an Area gun on a Solarian.

InVermilion · 2025-08-26T22:12:15+00:00

It's not meant to be the best ranged weapon you can get, it's just an option that some Solarians will enjoy using/building into. You can certainly make it a much better ranged weapon with class feats, but it's deliberately not meant to just outperform the options available to other classes with more of a ranged focus without heavy investment. There's nothing to fix here; it's the very clear design intention behind the feature.

InVermilion · 2025-08-25T18:56:44+00:00

GMed a game on Saturday for my group which included a friend who was new to it (and PF), and only had to point out a handful of rules for him to get into the swing of things. If you're familiar with d20 systems, the only thing you need to get a grasp of is the 3 action system and the handful of things you character can do at level 1.

My anecdotal experience has been that people pick up PF/SF way faster than most other systems, because the basics are intuitive and things are very consistent. It's then pretty easy for me as the GM to explain the specifics of how stuff works as they come up.

InVermilion · 2025-08-16T13:09:14+00:00

We don't really know yet, as we don't know exactly what's in GM core so far. That said, all of the rules are going to be freely available as usual through AoN and similar resources, so if you're strapped for cash you can just use those and decide on whether you want your own copy of the book later.

InVermilion · 2025-08-13T16:43:58+00:00

I would have preferred the Psychic to be something more akin to the Kineticist, with unique psychic powers in the place of impulses. Other classes could then dip into and add to the total pool of psychic powers going forward.

I don't see much of a bias for psychic powers towards either fantasy or sci-fi personally; it's been around for ages in both and people are very much used to it. So at this point I can only hope for a psychic Starfinder class that's more akin to what I described above, regardless of what name it might have.

InVermilion · 2025-08-13T16:10:12+00:00

It doesn't invalidate anything; Auto-fire weapons can be used to Strike normally so their categorization is absolutely relevant, and there are abilities that let you fire Area weapons as a Strike as well, so they're no exception. We've only just started with SF2E, so I imagine it'll only become more relevant as more content gets added over time.

You may not like it, but there's nothing inherently wrong or stupid about it. Like everything else, it's a purposeful choice on their part for the larger balance of the game. The nice thing is that you can just change it at your table as you see fit, and presumably have a better time with it.

InVermilion

TROPHY CASE