Who Wants Pictures?

There are so many to post too!  Relic Knights is in production, and should finish up a few weeks following the end of the Chinese New Year.  What this means is that I have a couple of months to get stuff painted before I dive into a pile of anime-styled minis for a while.  In the meantime I've managed to finish up the last piece of my commission and some various odds and ends.  We'll start with the last piece of my commission, the Shadow Omega:





This one wasn't too bad to paint.  It starts with a medium grey layer that gets stippled with black dots.  I top it off with alternating black and blue-green washes.  I then picked out various highlight colors along with the engines.  To get the right balance for the Omega I did up a bunch of my own Shadow vessels for practice:





It was definitely a lot of fun to paint the shadows.  It's always nice to do something simple yet straightforward.

I've had a couple of Samaritan soldiers sitting on my desk for months now.  They only had a basecoat and a wash, and I kept telling myself I'd finish them up someday.  With my commissions being done I decided to finally do so:



You'll notice the pool of blood on the one Samaritan's base.  This is my first time using Game Workshop's Blood For the Blood God.



It certainly gives a good blood effect, and it can be a handy paint to have at hand if you're in a hurry.  I'd rather use a 2-layer effect of light red over dark as I feel it achieves a richer look.  The shiny effect can also be added with a paint-on gloss coat.  I'll keep it around as it has its uses, but for my bases/blood effects I feel more comfortable doing my own.

With Adepticon just around the corner I'm starting to gear up to compete.  Thankfully there's not a lot of models I need to get painted (most of them were done last year), but I have a few to show off:





I've gotten so accustomed to doing commissions that it feels weird to see my own models getting painted.  I admit that I have a lot of fun painting my own models following a commission.  Not painting my own stuff for a while because I have to be responsible has helped to keep me interested in painting over the past couple of years.  I just have to figure out a good balance.

One last peak before I go.  I started work on my Guild master Sonnia Creed, and it's easily one of the best faces I've done so far:

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.

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.

Surprise Gift

So the start of my week has been very good.  My previous post with the Mound of Dead Bards received praise from Matt Vancil, and I got a little present in the mail.



T'ankwa, a female half-orc barbarian, was a Berserkon Kickstarter  backer reward.  I love getting exclusive minis and this one is going towards the top of my list to paint.

One of the first things I notice about this sculpt is that the musculature is VERY well done.  She's definitely strong.  The muscles aren't super huge, but they aren't so small as to just blend in either.  She's definitely a tough lady that you wouldn't challenge to an arm-wrestling competition.  The face is ambiguous enough that you could paint her up in normal skin tones as well.  I'll have to decide how I want to paint her.

Some downsides to her is that her ax is really tiny.  When I first looked at the piece in the plastic I thought it was just flash.  The proportions between her and the ax are really close, and it's kind of a shame since the ax fits her well.  I'm going to try and get it attached, but if it breaks it breaks.  She can still pull off the bicep-flex pose really well, and whether or not she has the ax, this model is very cheesecake.



Above pic is for scale.  She's small enough that she could be 25mm, but is close enough to the Sedition Wars to be in in the same scale of 28mm.  Behind them is another up and coming model for me to paint:  The Nightmare Edition Lord Chompy Bits, who is 32mm scale and a HUGE model for even that scale!  Right now I have a lot of awesome on my table to paint.  I might put T'ankwa towards the top as I imagine she'll go by pretty quickly.  Nightmare Chomps is also a good one to paint, but the 2nd wave of Sedition Wars kickstarter minis is coming soon.  I think I'm going to have to paint quickly!

Happy Package

With the second wave of my Sedition Wars kickstarter supposedly hitting late June/early July I've been trawling through the Studio McVey forums.  A couple weeks ago I came across a thread where they were showing off some of the character sculpts from the upcoming expansion/stand alone game Arms of Sorrow.  AoS is compatible with Battle for Alabaster, but it is its own game as well.  Well, Mike McVey was going to have some resin sculpts at a miniatures convention called Salute (a wargaming convention held in the UK), and had let drop that people could send him a message to get some as he might have leftovers.  Even though Salute had come and gone by a couple of months I sent a message anyways.  He still had a few left and I was able to get my hands on them early!



Commandant Grist is the battle-hardened, Gnosis-suit wearing sculpt you see above.  It's a simple yet elegant sculpt.  A model like this with too many fiddly bits can become frustrating to paint as each of the smaller items ends up requiring its own attention, and it just begins to add exponential amounts of time the more little bits are on there.  Nice and simple but with plenty of variability to add more colors to keep things from becoming too boring.

While Grist is cool (and I am a big fan of robots/power armor/mecha), this next model is the one that really caught my eyes, ripped them out of my head, and held them against the screen.



Phaedrus Chiruge.  Oh my goodness!  Holding this model was incredible!  There is a level of complexity in this sculpt that pictures just can't do justice to.  I don't know that I've ever held a sculpt with such intricacies as this one.  There is a *LOT* of detail on this model, but unlike other, "detailed models," this one is a little different.  Rather than an amalgamation of bric-a-brac/equipment, the detailed bits are the same.  Muscles/tendons, ripped skin, carapace/plates, and so forth.  The details on this model will be consistent, which means less color swapping.  It'll still be time-consuming, and perhaps it's a personal opinion, but this kind of detailed model is one I take to rather easily.

Notice that guy in the background?  Yea, that's Lictalor Strongbow (well, that's the character's name, the mini itself is Arthal Nightblade from Reaper Miniatures).  I haven't glued either Phaedrus or Grist to their bases, and Lictalor is helping to keep Phaedrus on her feet.



Sedition Wars is done in 28mm scale, while Reaper Miniatures is done in 30mm. "Heroic Scale."  Heroic scale is about 32mm, but the two scales are close enough that they are practically interchangeable.  Scale can be pretty important as it helps to add to the overall illusion, lest your mighty ancient dragon the size of a mountain that has terrorized the kingdom for centuries stands only twice as tall as your character's minis.  Here's another size comparison:



In the background is my Drago (in need of arm repairs) to help give a better sense of scale overall.  Lictalor is standing on a 30mm base, while Phaedrus, Grist, and Drago are on 50mm bases.  Drago is standing right behind Lictalor, and you can see how much of a difference in scale there is.  I've worked in both scales before so I'm not worried, and am still rather excited to add more Sedition Wars to my collection.  I look forward to both the second wave (which has a lot of the exclusive miniatures), and seeing more for Arms of Sorrow.

Getting Back On The Horse

Following my accident a couple of weeks ago I noticed a drop in my interest towards miniatures and miniature gaming.  Part of me was worried that I had lost my passion for this hobby that I had been such a big part of my life.  When little bits of inspiration or the desire to assemble models came up I let myself dive right in.  I've assembled my Skorne Battle Box that I got from Adepticon, along with the Regault Battlepod, and I've even got some pictures from a tutorial I'm writing up for a later post on making a simple wasteland base.  However one thing has started to overshadow my other interests.



I had gotten my Sedition Wars: Battle For Alabaster mid-late January, and while I got some of the models assembled I ended up pushing it off to the side to focus on Malifaux.  Last night I grabbed a bag of miniatures from the box and put them all together.  For something so simple it was rather exciting and fun!  Right now my main goal is to get things assembled and start playing.  Once that's done I can start throwing paint at these guys.  Especially with news of an expansion already circulating.

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. 

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.