The Shadow!

So the final piece of the puzzle is now in place.  The heroes have a villain to face off against:




Being as he's called, "The Shadow," I decided to go with a black on black motif.  There are a few ways to approach painting black that I've discussed before.  My preferred method is to lighten up black to a grey, but the alternative way is to use blue.  In this case you can see that I used turquoise.  I am exceedingly pleased with how the final result came out.  I was worried that I'd struggle with getting the right shade of blue, but using a turquoise worked a lot better than if I had used a straight blue.  Now to look at the cloak, starting with the inspiration pic:



The big question I had to ask myself is: What color is his cloak?  When I look at the above pic I keep alternating between grey and a very light/silky beige.  In the end I decided to combine the two and go with a beige base and highlight up to a grey:





The end result is pretty much what I was hoping to get, and I feel that it is a good representation.



If you haven't guessed by now it should be pretty easy to tell that I am a fan of Zombie Orpheus Entertainment.  I've had the pleasure and honor to meet the crew and cast on multiple occaisions at Gen Con, and when I asked if they would like to display them at ZOE-Con I was given a very enthusiastic response.  So stop on by ZOE-Con if you're in the area and check out these lovely pieces in person!

The Heroes Gather

If you've read the title then I'm going to assume you're here for the heroes.  Let's start with the finished (and alive) Flynn the Fine:




Out of all the miniatures from the Zombie Orpheus Entertainment group that I've done; this one is the most detailed.  I feel that he turned out very nice, and there are only a couple of differences from the movie costume.  On the right shoulder there is more of a guard rather than a ruffle (like on the left), and there seems to be an extra arm guard on that arm as well for some reason.  The other noticeable difference is that the face is clean shaven.  It's like the sculptor mixed up the two heads for Sir Osric and Flynn.

With the completion of the original party there was only one thing that needed to be done:  A group shot.



Seeing everything come together is one of the most satisfying parts of painting.  Each piece fits in its place, and then the whole group together seems to take on new life.  The only thing that's missing from this picture is a good villain.  Oh wait:



Guess what's up to be painted next?

A Surprise!

So I'm continuing my work on the Zombie Orpheus Entertainment models, and I get an email notification telling me to expect a package from Palladium.  Since I haven't ordered anything from them that means it can only be my Robotech miniatures!  This means I'll be getting my miniatures before my friend, and have an opportunity to get some of them painted up before the commission comes in.  Needless to say I was happily surprised.  I still have a couple of pieces to finish up before then though.  Expect an unboxing video within the next couple of days!

Now on to the completed Sir Osric:




There's a lot I like about how he came out.  The hair came out really good, and I'm starting to experiment more with shading and highlights.  Not sure if you can tell, but I'm making more use of shadows on the face, and have plans to be a bit more ambitious with how apparent it is in the future.  I feel very happy with the shading on Osric's tunic.  The sunburst turned out to be more tricky than I anticipated, and I would have liked my hands/brushes to have cooperated more.  Everything else came together pretty well.  The other points I have already pointed out.  This weekend I hope to finish up Flynn the Fine in his less dead format.

Working in Seclusion

Coming up for a breath of air, and to share the works I've completed.  Work is starting to lighten up a bit and be less tiring with the hire of additional help.  As a result I hope to be able to start posting more frequently in the near future.  I'm making a concentrated effort to paint during my, "downtime," and would like to share the fruits of my labor.  I've been busy focusing on more miniatures from the Hand of Fate kickstarter I mentioned previously, and I have picked up a couple of other pieces to paint while I wait for Robotech stuff, a commission as well as my own pledge,  to come in.

First up is the renowned Brother Silence (who is not an elf!):




After showing this miniature to a few of my friends I have always heard comments relating to his face.  It may be difficult to tell, but (to my eyes at least) the mini was sculpted such that he is performing a martial arts shout.  To a lot of people this looks off, but I happen to like it.  So many miniatures are stuck with their faces frozen in a very limited number of poses/expressions, and coming across a mini that has a very different expression can add a new layer to the piece.  Overall I'm happy with the mini.  I keep trying to work with the orange and yellows that I have, but I need to pick up some new ones as I feel limited whenever I have to paint anything near an orange tone.

Up next is Daphne, and a few issues start to emerge:




Again one of the first things commented on with this miniature is the face.  Poor Daphne looks like she took too many blows to the face, and is sporting a broken nose.  When I was prepping the mini to be primed I was a bit concerned about trying to touch up the nose.  I didn't want to leave it like it was, but I was also worried that trying to fix it would break it off.  I tried to work around it as best I could, and hope that it's just a defect in my piece and not the mold itself.  This is one of the first miniatures in the line that looks different from her movie counterpart.  The miniature actually has bracers on her arms, which the character doesn't wear at all during the movie.  To compensate I painted the sleeves completely black (like the movie), and just left the bindings painted on for artistic effect.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  The rest of the sculpt holds up pretty well, and that was my only real complaint.  The shirt and cape both turned out very well.  I mixed up some Reaper Master Series metallics with some of their normal paint in order to get a bit of shimmer working, and the effect was quite successful.  Painting blue is something I'm still working at getting.  The shading and highlighting is become much more gradual, but it still needs a bit of work to bring out the brighter areas.  That being said I'm still very excited to be getting my blending to work out smoother.

Ok, last one for today is a work in progress of Sir Osric:




There is a lot that I'm liking about my paint job, but a few issues I have with the miniature itself.  The character of Sir Osric the paladin is clean-shaven in the movie, but the miniature itself is sporting a goatee.  My guess is that the sculpter put it on because the person playing the character in the movie also has a goatee.  The character also carries a shield and wears a cape, neither of which this miniature has.  I was tempted to sculpt them myself, but as I haven't seen other miniatures painted up online I've decided to leave it as is for now.  Paint-wise I love how his hair has come out, along with his shirt.  I feel like I've been hitting the highlights and shading pretty well on this one, and it's been a lot of fun to paint.  I still need to hit the boots and shoulder pads with a wash, and then pick out highlights, followed by the gloves, boots, and belt.  After that it's just the base.  Speaking of bases almost all of the miniatures have a really small footprint, and I have plans to mount them on bases to help stabilize them.  Even Brother Silence, who has the biggest footprint out of them all, could stand (pun not intended) to be put on a base.  Sir Osric is the worst, and consistently falls over with the slightest provocation.

I hope to have Sir Osric finished up soon, and then it's on to Flynn The Fine (alive version)!

Wild!

Trying to get back on the horse after being off it for a couple of weeks can be difficult, but still rewarding.  Today I sat down to paint up some of my Gamers miniatures I got from the Hands Of Fate Kickstarter.  Specifically the male and female Luster pieces:



One thing I've noticed about all the Gamers miniatures is that the sculpts are on the simple side.  This isn't a bad thing in my own opinion.  So many miniatures nowadays have an incredible amount of detail that they are both stunning and intimidating.  Finding miniatures that have a simple but straightforward sculpt is very refreshing, and makes for fun painting.



There was pretty much three stages to this pair.  Flesh, hair/eyes, and the red.  Painting flesh can be interesting in regards to shading and highlights.  Usually the more sculpted the flesh the easier it is to paint, which is the case with this pair.  I'm happy with how the flesh came out on these pair, and feel it works pretty well.



Painting anything close to platinum blonde can be quite annoying.  I want to reach for my yellows, but platinum blonde is closer to white, and thus requires really bright shades of white.  I ended up settling for something a bit closer, going for more of an idealized blonde.  The other rough part was painting up the eyes.  Eyes on miniatures is always difficult as they're small, and I had to take several shots at these sets.  I think they turned out ok though, but not my best work.



Finally was the red (and their gold sash).  I usually lay down dark layers and go up from there, but the first layer I put down was more of a mid layer, and the highlight was too close.  The solution was to go back with the darker layer and again layer up.  It ended up working out, and I smoothed things over with a red wash at the end.  All in all this pair was pretty simple to paint up, and was both relaxing and casual to paint up.

Gen Con 2014 Retrospective: Saturday

You may have noticed a bit of a delay between my last posts, and well, work has kind of exploded.  Not literally of course, but it's been so busy that I've barely gotten enough time to eat let alone blog.  So let's get my Gen Con Saturday under way shall we?

Saturday started off with me waking up at my own pace and deciding to casually head over to the exhibitor's hall with my buddy.  Before we even got out of the hotel we came across Luca from the RPG Classic, Chrono Trigger, just after she got her morning cup of coffee.



We get to the convention center, and we decide to cut through the events hall to get to the dealer's room.  On our way we come across a really awesome cosplay of the sisters Elsa and Anna from Disney's Frozen:



Today is my relaxed day, so I spend time wandering around the exhibitor's hall seeing what I can see.  One stop I made was by Palladium's booth to check out the sprues for the upcoming Robotech Tactics RPG miniatures game:



It was really nice to get a close-up look at these miniatures.  I can't wait to get my hands on my own copies.  The miniatures look pretty detailed and of high quality.

So I continued my journey and came across a Scout Trooper:



I stopped and got a picture as my friend had been disappointed that he hadn't encountered any Storm Troopers at the con so far.  I would later find out that he did indeed come across some Storm Troopers, but missed the Scout Trooper.

Time was ticking down to my 2pm Victoriana demo, but before I left the exhibitors/events hall I caught one of my friends in cosplay and was able to convince her to let me snap a photo:



It was a short rush to get to the demo area, but I arrived in time.  Victoriana is a fantasy setting in, shock, Victorian London/Europe, but it makes use of the traditional fantasy races.  It's a fun setting that I hope to run a game for some day.  I was in for a treat though as my demo was more gothic horror than high fantasy.  My group and I were trying to convince a landowner that our claim was legitimate (it wasn't), but it turns out that all the fuss over heritage was for a vampiric/Frankenstein-esq operation.

As a side-note: this is a reason why I need to blog semi-real time.  I've forgotten most of the good details from that game.  All I remember is that fun was had, and that I make a bad solicitor.

After the demo I get back to the hotel and decide to grab dinner at The Ram.  On the way we encountered a robotic/moving Dalek:



It was a very impressive feet and a great way to build an appetite.  Once we hit The Ram we sat down in the general seating area and caught the end of Star Wars: A New Hope while waiting for our food.  Something must've gone wrong, and we ended up suspecting that our order hadn't gotten put in or some other glitch because we were halfway into The Empire Strikes Back by the time our food arrived.  We had been joined by two other travelers who had ordered their food and gotten it before we got our meal.

On our way back, our evening having been cancelled, we passed a guy who looked suspiciously like Nathan Rice (Lodge from the Gamers movies).  I commented as such and my friend asked me if I was sure followed by a suggestion that we find out.  A quick dash backwards followed by an awkward hello, and it turns out that yes indeed it was him!



It was a great way to top off our Saturday night, and made the events of our dinner even more worthwhile.

UPDATE:  Forgot to mention that I ran into Andy Dopieralsk, also of Dead Gentleman fame, on our way back to the hotel, but he was in a bit of a hurry to get to an event he was needed at.

I rounded out the evening by watching Dark Dungeons, which turned out to be hilarious enough to justify buying my own copy the next day.

Gamers Kickstarter Miniatures

After a long wait I finally got my swag from the Gamers 3 Kickstarter, the most anticipated of which was the miniatures of the fantasy counter-parts from Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising.  The only non-Gamers 2 miniature I got was The Shadow, whom the group is shown dueling with at various points in Gamers 3:



Pretty standard looking bad guy, and not too shabby.  Let's explore the rest of the party then.  Both the male and female versions of Luster were included, and they look pretty accurate compared to their real-life inspirations.



Up next we have Flynn The Fine and Brother Silence.



Flynn the Fine is looking a lot better than his prior version, but Brother Silence looks a bit off.  His face is contorted in what I'm assuming is a martial arts yell, but it looks a bit ape-like.  I think it'll paint up nicely though, and hopefully convey what I think it's trying to.

Last up are Sir Osric and Joanna, both are the only multi-piece figures in the set.  Joanna is looking pretty close to the movie costume, but I get the feeling she'll be a little tricky to paint up.  Sir Osric is in two pieces, and is the most disappointing of the group.  He's got the sword, but is missing the cape and shield.  Both of those are with him throughout the movie, so I don't know why they got overlooked.  I'll have to sit down and try out a bit of grey stuff and see if I can't mold my own.



All in all I'd say the miniatures were a worthwhile buy.  $20 for six miniatures in metal is a pretty low price at a time when companies are switching to plastics due to the high cost of metal.  The sculpting is good and will paint up nicely.  One downside across the minis is a bit of a fuzzy/unrefined look that seems to be from the casting/mold process.  This could go away after they've been cleaned up and painted, or it may not.  I'll just have to paint them up and see.

Gen Con 2013 part 3

The final post about my Gen Con experience this year is a special one.  Since I was only going to have one day to get in the same amount of fun as I would normally do across four days my Gen Con would have to focus on a specific thing.  The big reason I went this year was to reconnect with friends from across the country.  I got to see my friends from Zombie Orpheus Entertainment, and Athena Hollow:






I also got to meet a bunch of new friends like Sarah Moore and Amanda Maul of Gamer Chick, and Lola Hart:




Being around other gamers is probably the biggest highlight for me each year at Gen Con.  So many gamers of so many different styles coming together for four days of camaraderie and having a great time.  That's why I made the drive out to Indianapolis Indiana, and spent an incredible day running all over the convention center.  The people.  My friends.  I'm already looking forward to seeing them all again next year!

Gen Con 2013 Part 2

Continuing from my last post I plan to reveal more of my Gen Con adventures.  This post WAS supposed to go up last week, but in an attempt to feed my narcissism (and that it was free), I snagged a free hair transplant to try and ward off my thinning hair.  The result looks like it'll be good, but has left me feeling kinda of out of it in the head.  Ok, enough of that and onto the costumes!



The above pic is a group of friends dressed up as the main characters from Journey Quest.  You've probably heard me talk about it before, and I still recommend giving it a watch!  I took that pic when the group arrived at the Zombie Orpheus Entertainment booth.  Christian Doyle, the actor who plays Perf, was a bit incredulous at this would-be imposter:



Which one is which I couldn't say.  I actually caught two of them earlier one while I was standing in line for my Robotech exclusives.



Speaking of line shots I snagged a great pic of a Stormtrooper who looks like he had been pulled from Tattooine in order to do some line/aisle control.



I was stuck in line and didn't get a chance to ask him questions, but I'm betting he belongs to the 501st.

I was pretty zonked out on Saturday.  There was so much to do, and looking back I don't think I was fully aware of how overwhelmed I was.  For example this Little Bo Peep costume:



Was not actually Little Bo Peep, but Kaylee from the series Firefly in her dress from the episode, "Shindig."  I felt so bad at having missed the obvious reference, and the dress was so very well put together.

In my wanderings I headed over to the Cool Mini Or Not booth, because if I go to a gaming con I have to spend time with/around miniatures.  Word on the floor had it that there were three cosplayers for their Relic Knights line, which I helped kickstart the plastics for, but only one was there.



While I was there I decided to snap some pics of their studio paint jobs starting with the Shattered Swords faction:


Doctrine:
 

and Cercei Speed Circuit:


While wandering around the event hall I came across a terrific pair of cosplayers sporting costumes from the War Machine miniatures game!



That would be Grand Scrutator Severius and Taryn di la Rovissi you see standing there.  They were very nice, but Severius got upset when I told him that I played Khador.



I managed to flee far enough away from certain doom and damnation that I encountered a Game of Thrones cosplay for Melisandre, priestess of light:



This was a great looking costume!  All red velvet/crushed velvet, and very regal looking.  You can't see it as well in the picture because of the raised hood, but the hair was also a wine-burgundy.  I was assured that this is the book version and not the TV version.  Gotta love attention to detail.

The last costume pic I have for today is of a fierce barbarian!



I really liked this costume, and I'm glad I stopped to take a picture.  It's a cosplay of the person's barbarian character which is always awesome to see!  People put a lot of love and life into their tabletop characters, and seeing them come to life is pretty exciting.  Nearly the entire costume was homemade, and the little accents like the face paint, hair coloring, and feathered jewelry really made this one stand out.  I even managed to get a random passerby to stand still long enough to capture all that fierceness together with me.



After all that I was out of juice, and this had only been about three and a half hours!  I think that next year when I go I need to set a day aside where I can go around and take pictures, talk to the cosplayers, and learn so much more about them!