2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Backward

So I was starting to pick up steam and get back into the painting groove, but then I got sick.  I would set up my paints and palette, then just stare at my desk.  I'm better now, and managed to get a touch of painting done last night.  Here's the result.



Kang, from my Arcanist crew.  I like how he's coming along so far, the pants turned out great!  The thing I'm not sure about is his eyes, and I may have to redo them.  With luck I'll be able to get him finished up tonight, but that's not a guarantee since I plan to pick up some models that need to get assembled and based for me to use tomorrow night at my semi-weekly Malifaux night.  If I get some time though it shouldn't be too difficult.  The gloves, hammer, and base should go by pretty quickly.

The other thing I'm hoping to do tonight is to get some pictures taken and do a massive blog update within the next couple of days.  I failed to meet my six miniatures in two weeks goal for this past two weeks, but I'm hoping to catch up this weekend a bit and churn out a couple of Railworkers.  With the nice weather coming in I hope to get more models assembled so I can get them primered.  Overall I have approximately 8-10 miniatures left to get painted before I can breathe easy before Adepticon.

A Conversion By a Friend

Last night I had a friend over to play a game of Malifaux.  We got everything set up, and were getting ready to get things started when he tells me that he wants to show me his latest creation.  Turns out he didn't want to spend the money on Avatar Nicodem for Resurrectionists.  Instead he came up with this idea of zombies clawing their way towards their dark master.  It started with a little conversion he did with the regular version of Nicodem.



The above is a slightly different version of the alt sculpt of Nicodem.  Rather than the standard zombie arm/hand he went and used some sort of other monster arm.  It's still a Wyrd miniature, but it doesn't matter.  WOW is that amazing!

You might think that a huge arm is a bit over the top, but this was just the start.  Why summon one zombie when you can easily summon a horde?



I saw him put that piece on the table and I was in awe.  Avatar Nicodem, the living dead at his command.  Just beautiful!  In the past I've mentioned how much I enjoy custom paint jobs, but this model is absolutely wonderful.  You can have a lot of fun with miniatures, and making putting things into your own style/vision gives them a life wholly their own.  It just goes to show that whatever level you paint at  you can still make a piece that's eye-popping and attention getting.


Compare the above mastery to my own A-Nicodem:



My model is just the sculpt as sold.  The only thing I could say to have done to it is made a semi-custom base using grey stuff and a mold.  I fully believe that people would, "Oooooh," and, "Ahhhhhh," over my paint job, but my friend's piece will catch eyes from across the room.  Anytime I enter or attend any kind of painting competition I've found that the pieces that get the most attention are ones that are professional quality paint jobs, or very custom pieces like my friend's.

Let's take a slightly closer look at the bottom piece.



If you look closely you can see two lightly colored circles on the base.  I asked about these and was told that they were magnets, and are an additional measure to help regular Nicodem stay connected to his Avatar base.  It may be a bit cosmetic though as regular Nicodem has a lot of weight that was added to the bottom.  The way that Nicodem was positioned on the base makes it heavy on the sides, and very prone to tipping over.



The base is compromised of basing material and various arms from different models used by Wyrd miniatures.  Wyrd seems to have garnered enough customer support that its customer base is buying their models to use as spare parts in conversions.

The pictures I have presented today hardly do this model justice.  The current plan has my friend in our group heading for Adepticon, so if you plan on attending look for us in the Malifaux area and you can see this great piece in person!

Still Kicking

I realize things have been a bit silent on here, but that should start to change.  Last week I finished my first week at my new job, and now I'm starting in on my second week.  With Adepticon coming up pretty fast (less than 60 days!) I'm starting to put more time and effort into painting.  Two days each week dedicated to painting, two to games, and the fifth is a wildcard.  Weekend time will be used for additional painting if there aren't already plans going on.

That being said I'm still painting in all of this chaos.  I've finished about four or six new pieces since my last update, and I think a preview is the least I can do at this time.  Later this week I'll get a photo shoot going and post completed pictures.

A couple of Mannequins for my Colette crew:



Mei Fang and her Totem, Emberling:



Hope those keep you satisfied for a few more days until I can get more pics uploaded!

Dance Like No One Is Watching

So my goal for the coming months is to finish six miniatures every two weeks.  I'm leaving it to every two weeks since the way I figured things those six miniatures will fill out crews I'm planning to take to Adepticon.  I started my first goal/set with the remainder of my Collette crew for the Arcanists.  Before I dig into the first bit of progress I'd like to show off a finished Cassandra.




I like the way she turned out, and at the prompting of some friends I attempted to add pin stripes to her dress.  I think that overall it turned out looking really nice!  But this brings me to my next thought.  Originality.

A lot of what I paint tends to follow a the studio paint job.  There's nothing wrong with the studio paint jobs, and a lot of the time I buy miniatures it's because I want to paint the same thing.  However I keep seeing people who paint things their own way, with their own spin, and have turned out some really awesome ideas!  I've been kind of envious of it to be honest, and I'm wanting to experiment and try some of that for myself.  Which brings me to my first attempt.




The Coryphee Duet.  The studio paint job looks pretty nice yea, but it wasn't what I wanted.  Looking at all the dresses that there are in the crew means that I'd end up making them all generic, the same, or having to spend a lot of time customizing them.  I ended up with the latter option.  My choice of colors in this instance was mainly due to wanting to try slightly different shades than what one might find normally.  This meant no red, black, or blue.  Purple may be skirting the line a bit I admit.  Speaking of purple, let's take a closer look.




I wanted to go with a two color style here, using a dark purple for the corset with lavender to add some definition to the dress.  The off color I used was red, but not cherry red.  I wanted it to be a nice burgundy, closer to the color of wine.  One thing that this particular color combo drove me nuts with is the pantyhose.  For both of the duets I wanted them to be wearing hosiery that was a similar shade to one of the colors featured on their outfits.  I tried red, brown, purple, and finally black.  Even with the black I had to go over it with Sepia wash to help make it flow better.  There is no real trick I used for the hosiery either, just used a wash over a very light gray.

You may have noticed that this model is not standing on the larger base it was before, and there's a reason for that.  In the game of Malifaux you can field two Coryphee who then dance together to form the Coryphee Duet.  While I could purchase two different sets of the model, I felt that using magnets would be a nice touch.



The bases are custom made using styrene strips that I scarred with a razor saw to make them look like wood planks.  I ended up having to use a dremel to make a large enough hole for the large magnets.  For these particular models using the larger magnets was a good choice, but for future models I'd prefer smaller magnets. 



The purple coryphee I put on a wood box that I cast using some grey stuff and a hirst arts mold to make it easier to transfer her to and from the bases (the magnet is on the underside of the box).  The blue coryphee has enough surface area contacting the base that I was able to put the magnet directly into the model.




Last but not least is my blue coryphee.  I love how her dress came out.  Turquoise is a color I like, but have a hard time finding uses for it that don't make the model look horribly gaudy.  The yellow is a nice compliment, and I am very happy with how the whole scheme came together.  I'd like to think that the pair of them work well together colorwise.  Both of them are distinct enough, but together they still draw the eye without clashing.

Up next: Collette, Arcanist Master!

Are You Watching Closely?

Ok folks, since my last blog post a lot has happened in my life.  The big event is that I got a new job which I start mid-February, and it involves considerably less travel than the one I am leaving.  What this will hopefully mean is more time spent painting and blogging, and less time being exhausted and waiting for the weekend.

But with that aside I have a fun filled update with the things I have been working on.  First and foremost are my completed Mechanical Doves:



These are totems for the Arcanist Master Collette, and her entire crew is one I'm painting for Adepticon.  The theme for her crew is stage performers/magicians, and the Doves reflect that beautifully.



The Doves themselves are actually quite simple and easy to paint, but I discovered that the bases for them were far more complex, and they became the focus of my painting.



Lots of little touches, swirls, and details.  I ended up putting down a lot of freehand on the book and cards in the above pics.



The book, scarves, and wand all turned out wonderfully!  They are distinct enough that you can make them out, but still sit well together without hurting the eyes to look at them.  One gripe I have with the sitting Dove is that I completely missed the fact that there are multiple scarves, and I could have done them in multiple colors rather than one complete chain.  Ultimately it isn't that big of a deal, but I had the model completed and sealed before that thought ever occurred to me.

Doves aren't all that I've been working on.  Having been gifted a Sonnia Criid Avatar for Adepticon I decided to sit down and get it assembled so I could primer it when the weather warmed up enough.  I discovered that however cool this model is, that it was going to require a lot of work just to put it together.

 
 

As you can see in the above pics there are a LOT of gaps, and the resin parts don't sit well against the metal.  A few parts didn't match up full at all!  Between cleaning the flash, mold release, and putting grey stuff on the model I've already put in about three or four hours of work on this model. 

 


Of course this means that once it's painted it'll really draw attention and be totally worth the time and effort.


At various points here and there I've squirrelled away some time to start assembling miniatures from Sedition Wars.



Pictured above is the AI Drone, and it's very difficult for me to remember that name as I keep thinking of it as a hover weapons platform from the PC game X-Com: UFO Defense.  One thing I have encountered is that there is a little bit of warping on my pieces.  I received an email about this even before I received my own copy.  The warping occurs while the boxes are exposed to temperatures, and while you can't stop it from happening there is a way to fix it.

Unlike last time the pieces I'm showing now are characters from the game.  There's only one of each of these, and are clearly intended to be in the spotlight.




Very dynamic and heroic looking, I love it!  Once I've gotten my Adepticon models painted I plan to spend a lot of time with these guys as well as continuing The Babylon Project.

One thing I'd like to address here is the approach of assembling models before, or after they've been painted.



The above model is composed of multiple pieces, and so far you can see the torso, leg, arm, and head have all been assembled.  The model, when finished, will be holding aloft a sniper rifle.  The final product will doubtless look amazing, but if I assembled the whole thing then painting parts of the torso and face would be insanely difficult.  Therein lies the crux of the matter.  If you fully assemble your miniatures before painting then they're ready to go and fun will be had, but sometimes you can't assembled them fully (or at all), and still be able to paint them.  What it ultimately comes down to is personal preference.  Sometimes I'll assemble a model fully if I think the piece won't be too difficult, and at other times I'll leave it in multiple pieces so as to make painting easier. 

Gift From a Friend!

Got home late last night, and after a long day of driving a friend swung by to say hi and give me this:



Sonnia Criid's Avatar for Malifaux!  This is a very talked about piece, and while I haven't put it together yet I plan to soon.  The artwork on the front of the box is a very good representation of what the miniature looks like.



The base insert is all flame, metal, and resin.  This is a piece that will definitely be worth putting time into.  Sonnia Criid is a master for the Guild faction in Malifaux, and one of the master's I plan to play at Adepticon this year.

Sedition Wars: Unboxing

Been working overtime this week, but I'm still managing to get some paint on my minis.  A little dab here and there is all I got, but I'm getting close to finishing my Doves.



I have a friend who is good with graphics and images.  The offer has been put forward to do color correction on my pics in order to get a better idea of the paint job.



I will have to consider the offer since one thing I hear a lot is that my miniatures look different, and better, in person than they do on my blog.

Here's what I've been waiting for though.  Been chewing at the bit for this for a while now.  SEDITION WARS!!!



The above image is what I got in the box they mailed to me.  It has the base game, extra set of specialized dice, an alternate Kara Black in resin, a signed lithograph, and the first part of the extra minis from the kickstarter. 

I picked up my package yesterday after having to wait as I wasn't home when the mail man tried to deliver it (it's a large box, and stuff doesn't get left at the apartment).  Then it sat in my vehicle all day while I worked, and then on my bed when I got home and ran around finishing up loose ends for the day.  I finally opened it up though.



There is a LOT of stuff in this game.  50 plastic miniatures that are really awesome sculpts.  Dice obviously, but the rewards of the kickstarter as well.  You'll notice a bunch of green, red, and blue plastic counters.  These were originally going to be cardboard, but them being in plastic was one of the stretch goals, and I think it'll be pretty sweet.


I gotta come clean at this point.  I came across this kickstarter towards it's conclusion, and hemmed and hawed over contributing.  After some number crunching I figured that I'd get around $100 miniatures for about $100.  Then I got caught up in it, and had way too much fun looking at the sculpts.  I don't know much about the game (something I plan to change), but my thought was, "Alien Zombie Apocalypse in space!" 

The two factions are the Vanguard



and the Strain



The miniatures are in 28mm scale which puts them at about the same size (a little smaller perhaps) as the stuff I already work on.  The sculpts are really wonderful, and my main motivating factor for getting in on this was to have a set of sci-fi miniatures that could be used in multiple areas.  This set fits the bill perfectly.

One of the other rewards was changing the bases from just a generic plastic clip to actual scenic bases.



There's about six different styles for the 25mm, and just the one style in 50mm.  They're not too invasive, and can have plenty of things added to them if you wanted to make them more dynamic.  I think the bases being scenic was one of the things that really influenced me to get in on this.  I like miniatures, and making bases for them is fun, but when you get a lot of miniatures all at once the thought of making scenic bases for them is intimidating.  Having bases pre-made is a really large bonus.  Even if you don't paint miniatures it still makes a very nice visual difference.

So let's take a closer look shall we?

First we'll take a look at one of the bigger ones, the Cthonian.



This guy caught my eye as he's part alien, part robot.  This is a winning combination in my eyes.  The arms aren't attached because I'll want to paint them separate, otherwise it'll be a nightmare to paint everything.

Up next is a standard Samaritan from the Vanguard.



Standard looking space warrior.  Just what I wanted.  There's actually multiple sculpts for the Samaritans, two male and two female.

Last one I assembled (it was late and I was tired) is Strain Scythe Witch.



That looks really awesome!  The only point of contention is that part of the injection mold is on her claw shooting out.  If you look closely you'll see a chunk that's missing when I tried to trim it off.  The plastic is still holding up ok, but I wouldn't be surprised if that pieces breaks off at some point in the future.

My initial thoughts on Sedition Wars is that the models are great, and the value for what you get in the base box is well worth the cost.  The sculpts are really solid looking and perfect for any space adventure/setting you may have.  One thing I will say is that there are a LOT of mold lines.  These models will take a good bit of tender love and care to get them ready to be painted.  They do stick out a little even if you're not a painter, but thankfully they tried to get them where they'd be out of the way (like on the underside of things) for some of the models.

Painting my Arcanists for Adepticon is going to be a little more difficult with these guys standing around.