Trying New Things

So a local painting club has started up, and I went ahead and joined.  I've been putzing about on things to paint, and didn't want to take my latest WIP out due to it being somewhat fragile.  Instead I grabbed some of my Sedition Wars models.  Here's what I accomplished in four hours:



There's a fourth model hiding behind the big guy.  Four models in four hours nearly done.  How'd I do it?  I was following the recommendations from a tutorial I picked up off the Studio McVey forums (Studio McVey produces Sedition Wars). 




The basic change I did was to use much thinner paints. I was really surprised at how quickly things started to come together.  I used to use thicker paints in an attempt to get a more solid coat, but using thinner paints gives the effect of a wash on top of coating.  The downside is that it can take multiple coats, but with how fast I was going it wasn't all that bad.




These are easily some of the best things I've painted, and my total time across two sessions was about six hours.  Six hours, four figures.  That's pretty damn good, and makes me want to grab more minis and try other quick paint jobs.




I've started painting the archers for my commission, and the going is a little slower, but that's more due to the paint style.



The blue is supposed to be dark, and what you see is two attempts I took at it.  Neither sat well with me and I have tried something else that seems to be working more effectively.  My plan is to use my painting club nights to do personal stuff, and then spend at least one day a week working on commissions.  Should prove effective.

Trophy Wights

As a Henchman for Wyrd Miniatures it is my solemn duty to spread the joy and love of Malifaux.  To do this I run demos mainly, as well as leagues.  Every now and then though, I run a tournament!  My first tournament for Wyrd is going to be called The Fetid Cup, so named for my good friend who took a job in another state.  I miss him a lot, and haven't gotten to play as much Malifaux since he left.  Fetid Strumpet is his username, and the tournament is obviously dedicated to him.  In addition to other prize support for this tournament I wanted to make up three very special trophies.




I thought it would be appropriate to use his three favorite miniatures from his faction, Resurrectionists.  Topping the list is his favorite character from the setting, and favored miniature, Molly Squidpiddge.



To say that Fetid Strumpet adores Molly would be an understatement.  He even goes so far as to throw a game in order to destroy any fake (not his) Molly that should be placed upon the board.  In second place is the well done sculpt of an undead showgirl, the Dead Doxy.



The Dead Doxies are a normal minion, but the sculpt is very well done.  It takes a lot more than what you'd think to make a good zombie miniature.  Undead showgirls aren't the only attraction, and one of the main minions used by the Resurrectionist master Seamus are the Rotten Belles.



I was very surprised at how well the models turned out.  It was a very simple paint job, and it had a nice effect.  I used six colors in all to paint the above models (not counting the black I used for the ring around the base).  So let's dig in!

I started off with a basecoat of Glorious Gold (Vallejo72056) for first/Molly, Chainmail Silver (Vallejo72053) for second/Dead Doxy, and Bright Bronze (Vallejo72057) for third/Rotten Belle.  For a little while I though that the base colors themselves did a fine job, but I wanted to do something a little more (this is a tribute to my friend after all!) so I added a wash of Sepia Ink (Vallejo72091). 

 

At first I had thought about using a black ink for the shading, but then it struck me that a medium to dark brown ink would be much better.  Glad I went with my instinct on this one as the effect was wonderful!  I was really surprised at how the sepia interacted with the chainmail, giving it a really rusty tin man effect!  Once the ink had dried I went over them again with a heavy drybrush of their base color.



Doesn't look like that much progress does it?  Just stay with me a while.  I've noticed over the years that when you use a wash and drybrush over it with the basecoat that you almost seem to lose the effect.  It is there though, I assure you of that.  You notice it as you add on more and more.  The final step was to drybrush over again, but this time use a brighter coat.  I used Polished Gold (Vallejo 72055) for first, and also for third.  I was able to use it normally on first place since I wanted it to look very gold, but on the third place model I used it very lightly.  Third place was supposed to be bronze so I wanted to make sure it had just a little extra luster to help distinguish it from the gold, and I'm quite pleased with the results as you can see.  For second place I used Silver (Vallejo 72052) in the same manner as gold.

These trophies will be given away as prizes for my very first Malifaux tournament!  Come on out and play if you want a shot at one of these beautiful pieces!

I haven't neglected my commission though.  Painted another two wights for the growing hoard.




I may have mentioned before that the Wights are supposed to have black armor, but painting black so that it looks good is a bit tricky.  Either you use a dark grey for a highlight or a dark blue depending on how you want the shade to show up.  For the wights I've been using an Imperial/dark blue, drybrushing it with chainmail, and then washing it with a black ink.



If the black has too much blue showing up I just wash over it with another thin coat of black ink and that usually does the trick.  If these wights look like they're standing funny then give yourself a prize!  Both wights had problems with the ankles, and I had to re-glue and pin both of them to some extent.  The pins fit in with the bone though so that worked out nicely.

Coming up on Friday I plan to do a large amount of painting.  Or hope to anyways.  With luck I'll have a nice pile of freshly painted miniatures to talk about Friday night!

Changing Seasons

Things have been a little bumpy in real life for me, and my work on miniatures has slowed down a bit.  I'm hoping to get things back up to speed over the next several weeks so please bear with me.

Still working on Wights, and here's a couple more for your viewing pleasure.




This brings my total up to seven out of sixteen.  The Wights are becoming a little tedious, and I want to mix it up with some OGRE miniatures.  I've got stuff ready to be prepped and primered, but I couldn't find the bases I was going to use for the infantry.  Sounds like I have a trip to Armored Gopher Games in my future.  In the meantime I'm going to keep working on The Babylon Project, and the rest of the Wights.

Building a Better World

This coming Wed is the start of a second Malifaux league that I'm running at a different store, but the store is a little light on appropriate scenery.  I was asked to make some if I could, and as it turns out I can!  A few years back I got into Castle Molds and making dungeon sets for my tabletop games.  Well I cast a whole bunch of blocks, but ended up not using them all. 



That's nowhere near the blocks I had or used, just a small sampling.  I spent my weekend shuffling blocks around both at home and at my FLGS.  Here's a close up of what will become a part of the ruins.



I'm making these pieces so that they could be scattered about the play area however you want, or you could place them in such a way so that they appeared to be apart of the same structure.  While I still have some work to do before Wednesday I at least managed to get the pieces assembled and mostly glued. 

 

The "mostly glued," is because I need to follow a specific order of operations to create some effects that I want, like water effects.  I got six small pieces that will spice up the battlefield nicely along with some obstructions to add a bit of texture.  Let's start off with the medium size pieces: A piece of fencing, a large window from a chapel, and a corner well.



These are slightly larger pieces.  On the left is a more gutted area of a keep.  There is a wall fountain on the right.  The one in the middle is a wall section that I have some special plans for.  The eliptical shape in front of it will be filled with a colored polymer to give it a watery effect.  Once that is done I'll be glueing it to the wall so as to create a mystical portal effect.



Obstructions!  You can see some fallen pillars, benches, an octagonal well, and a sarcophagus.




Obviously these are rough projections.  The next step in the process will be primering and painting the pieces; as well as taking care of water effects, rubble/grit/dirt texture, and overgrowth.  So much to do and so little time.

Malifaux Business

Painting miniatures, making conversions, and assembling bases is fun, but what do you do with them when they're completed?  Why you play with them of course!  I'll be running a Malifaux League at Armored Gopher Games starting on June 28th and going through August 9th.  More info over at Wyrd's Forums.

Any miniature company faces the issue of mispacking models, and how they handle it is a very important aspect and really shows their level customer service.  In the past I had to contact Wyrd for a missing set of arms for one of my Necropunks.  This was from a blister of three punks.  They provided a very timely reply and the whole process took a week or two.  Not bad for something that cost them close to half of what the blister cost itself (they paid the shipping).  I bought another player's Collette Crew at the last Adepticon, but didn't discover that one of my newly acquired Coryphee's was missing an arm:



I don't know when it went missing, but now I'm stuck with an armless model.  Wyrd has put up a new form for missing pieces and I've decided to use this to see if I can offer a lesser amount of money in exchange for an arm.  If we can't work something out then I may try my hand at sculpting a new arm for my Coryphee.