Rotten Harvest 2013

The results are in!  I didn't place unfortunately, but felt like I put forward a good showing!  Here is the finished product:






The model is Phaedrus Chiruge, and is a limited release resin sculpt.  You'll see the model when Sedition Wars comes out with its Arms of Sorrow campaign.  This piece took me about 15 hours to paint, and it is easily the piece I have painted to date.

I started off with the fleshy-gooey bits as a base since I like to paint, "inside out."  Following the same process that I did before, and I'm still amazed at how easy thinner paint goes on and how nice it looks:



I had originally planned to do the inner-torso of Phaedrus differently, but once I hit the above point I realized that I would need to make it more noticeable so the detail could stand out more.  When I originally envisioned this I had thought to make the carapace metal, but that was several months before I sat down to paint it.



When I actually sat down to paint Phaedrus I kept thinking the plating should be bone.  After getting some of it painted metal I consulted a friend who also said they should be bone.  This resulted in my going over it again.  I was worried that the metal would be too shiny and bleed through, but I think I did a handy job covering it all up:




That's the base of layer of bone with the first wash.  I love using GW's Seraphim Sepia wash as it adds a nice tint without needing to be watered down.  In fact I can honestly say that I have yet to come across a GW wash that needs to be watered down.  In the above image you can now see the inner-torso in a more pinkish flesh color. 

Here is Phaedrus nearly complete:



At this stage all that was left was to go over the tubing, eyes, and touch up any details.  One of those (spotted by another friend) was that there was a mold line on her left bicep.  If you checked the finished image above you'll see that I managed to correct that little oversight.

The base I used was just a simple base from my Sedition Wars box.  I had debated about doing something special for it, but resin is brittle.  I actually ended up snapping one of the tentacle appendages during painting.  This makes me glad I decided to go simple rather than try something that might've made the miniature un-paintable.

All in all I ended up putting in a lot of love for this piece, and it easily shows.  I'm very happy with the end result, and still have a lot of fun looking at where she sits on my desk.

Feeling Accomplished

It's good to have goals, and it feels great when you accomplish them!



That's right, I finished all the archers up for a commission I'm doing for a friend. You may be asking why some of the archers have different bases, but that'll come later this week.  I tried out a new type of paint to get a particular basing effect.

It is a big relief to have all the archers completed.  These particular ones by GW were an early forray into plastics, and as you can see there is little to no variation in the sculpt.  This leads to a very boring repetition of painting the same model again and again and again.  The only exception is the command group:



These three were actually metal figs.  After painting so many of two different sculpts these guys were a lot of fun.  Plastics have gotten much better since then, but there's a noticeable difference between something hand sculpted and 3D sculpted.

Not only did I finish up my archer goal, but I even got started on another commission for a different friend.



Mei Fang is coming along fine, and I have high hopes of completing her and a trio of Fire Gamin before Saturday.  After that I've got a small grouping of OGRE minis to finish up before I start a secret project.

Weekend Goals

Lately I've been a bit on the quiet side, and part of that is due to a heavy load at work, and the other part of it is due to my entry in Wyrd's Rotten Harvest contest.  My entry in that is a 15-hour piece I painted up, and will showcase here after voting is closed and winners announced.  Until then you can sign up on the forums and vote for your three favorites from each category, as well as best of show and best base!

In spite of that I have a pile of commission work I aim to finish in short order.  Recently an update from the Relic Knights kickstarter came through asking to lock in shipping address by 11-10, which leads me to believe that shipping will start soon.  So faced with a pile of shiny new minis to paint, commissions, and a secret project I've decided to up my production level.  For this weekend I plan to finish up the remainder of the archers from the first wave of commissions I got before a wave of OGRE minis.



Seven down and twelve to go!  I'm feeling fairly confident that I'll get through this goal.  My primer is just about empty, and while I wait for my order to come in I'm going to work on another commission for some Malifaux figs.  With luck I'll get the four miniatures (a Mei Fang, and a trio of Fire Gamin) painted up before the following weekend.  Yes I am feeling ambitious.  Lots to do and less time to do it in.  My laundry list beyond that is an OGRE Mk. IV, six missile tanks, 2 super tanks, six sets of infantry (six bases, three to a base), the aforementioned models, and a Shadow Omega.  I may do a little bit of Earthforce painting to warm up to the Shadow Omega, but I don't know for certain yet.

Brony Mecha For The Win!

I recently talked about a special commission I was doing for a charity raffle, and while that raffle just closed the other night I still have pics to share!  You may recall that the last shot of the Celestia Mk. III was looking just about done right?



Turns out that the general consensus was that it needed more punch to it.  I went back and added in some more details.  The difference is astonishing:





So how did I end up thinking that top pic was done?  My original intent was to paint the mecha up AS the ponies themselves.  If you've seen pictures of the new My Little Pony you'd see that the characters have a primary color with one or two secondary colors.  With that in mind I went ahead and tried a minimalist look, which as you can see above didn't work so well.  Stylized was the way to go, and that's exactly what I kept in mind as I painted up the Luna mecha (which I call Brony 2):





Now that looks sharp!  I was really happy with how Brony 2 turned out.  I pretty much got the colors just the way I envisioned them, which isn't always a thing that occurs.  I'm sure you've noticed that there's a couple of symbols on each.  All the symbols were done free hand.  The Solar Empire symbol on the Celestia Mk. III looked like it would be the more difficult of the two from a theory perspective, but after painting both it turns out that the Lunar Empire symbol was the more difficult one.  I have no rhyme or reason for why as both symbols were equally complex, but I can say I spent twice the amount of time on the Lunar Empire symbol.  I feel that both turned out reasonably well, and this was a bit more challenging than my normal freehand, so yay for advancing my skills!

The raffle overall was a success, having raised a little more over its goal.  Congratulations to Erin and to Squeeky!