Progress

So time for my first blog post following the challenge.  This should technically be my second blog post, but I have a good reason for missing it.  Here it is:



Last weekend I was in the Chicago-land area participating in my other hobby of running.  I got to run 3 nautical miles on the Great Lakes Naval Base, and it was a wonderful experience.  The base was great to see, and part of my run took me right up to the shore of Lake Michigan.  I will definitely be doing it again next year, and with luck I'll be doing the 10 nautical mile run!

But you didn't come here to hear my tales of running.  No no, you came for the minis:



I've started to resume my usual practice when I have a commission of this size, which is to spend at least 30 minutes each night painting.  It may only result in one layer, but steady progress helps me go forward.  I also end up spending more time than the 30 minutes.  So let's dig in:




The first two pics are the base layer of dark green and a bit of highlighting.  One of my big worries was how the colors would look, and I felt that looking at the color here that these guys could be right out of an episode of Robotech.  There is something very satisfying about getting a color right when painting.




One of my standard tactics is to do a wash or two.  Usually I'll do it to help smooth over the layers, add some definition to the recessed areas, or to help darken a color that is too bright.  When I asked my friend what color he wanted I was told dark green, and that's what I'm going with.  If you look closely at the pics you'll see that there's two styles of shading.  In one of them I'm doing a bit more lining/highlighting, and the other has me trying to shade plates more to help create a sense of lighting.  After some consideration I have decided to go with the more lining/highlighting style.  It's what I'm good at practiced with and I feel that it looks better overall.




These last pics show off the progress I've been making.  With the green done I've started on the white part.  I've said it before that white looks better as the top layer/highlight of whatever you're painting, so the, "White," that you see is actually a grey called weathered stone (also one of my favorite colors to use).  Up next will be me putting in the actual white, and moving on to the misc items (feet, gun, visor, and so forth).  Look for finished pictures next week!

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)!

Putting the Pieces Together

Every hour is one step closer to Gen Con, and I'm continuing the time-honored tradition of trying to get as much painted as possible.  It seems like every year I tell myself that I won't do this, and I have only been successful once...kinda.  Right now I'm trying to get the last few figs for my Relic Knights Cadre painted.  The big showpiece for my faction, The Shattered Swords, is Sebastian with his Relic.  So far I've managed to turn this:



Into this:



As awesome as that looks it's not yet done.  There's still a shield and a front console to be attached (I had originally meant to do this post on Monday, but got sidetracked), as well as Sebastian himself.  The console and shield are done, and I have plans to paint Sebastian and his cypher Rook tonight.  Then over the weekend I plan to hit up two more pieces, one of which isn't even fully based or primed.  Did I mention it's going to be a photo finish?

A Knight and his Bird

I made some good headway on my Relic Knights over the weekend.  Finished up my first Questing Knight with his Esper, Mallory and Quill, from the starter set:





I'm very happy with how Mallory came out with one exception: His cape.  I painted his cape along with the capes for the Swordsworn, and Isabeu, but while painting Mallory himself I ended up making the highlights on the cloth around his shoulder a little brighter than the cape.  I went back and tried to lighten up the cape, but the more I look at it the more I see myself fixing it when I next break out those colors.

Some of you may have noticed that Mallory looks a bit stunned.  While I did not intend for him to end up like this, I did intentionally leave it that way because it makes me think of Batman:



There's a small gap between Mallory's lips, and I put a little black in there with the hope that it would look like he was making a warcry.  Instead his mouth is now locked in shock and astonishment because it makes me think of Batman.

Quill came out well overall:




I was wanting to do more with him, but couldn't figure out where to actually add more pizazz.   I left the eyes white as the fluff is that Espers are pure energy from one of six aspects that takes a solid form, and the idea of him having energy eyes pleases me.

Over the long weekend I started work on the Paragons.  I got the base coat done, and then washed, and I started to put the next layer of grey down, and it was tedious!  Thankfully I can see that it's going to look pretty damn awesome:




That's about three hours worth of work.  I've been dragging my feet on the second one because I'm worried it'll take an equal amount of time and I don't want to do it in two sessions.  Looking at him earlier today though I think he will be easier to paint since he is in a standing pose as opposed to Mr. Action-shot up there.  Maybe I'll give it a go tonight...

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 Follies

My life is starting to settle back down a little as I move into the fall season.  I usually get more painting done during the fall and winter months, and I hope that trend continues.  I've picked up a bunch of commission work, and plan to focus on that for a while.  Part of that is more OGRE models:



I have a handful of heavy tanks, OGRE's, and a few miscellaneous buildings and vehicles.  I've been tasked with a new round of camo to try out ranging from simple to complex.  Expect some step-by-steps in the weeks to come.

Intermittently I decide to pick up my own stuff and attempt to paint it.  I had an attempt at that this weekend.  Having picked up the exclusive Gen Con Robotech miniatures I've been pretty eager to get Max Sterling painted.  Unfortunately Max had other plans:



A model going to pieces isn't anything new, but this case was different.  I had already assembled him once, and had him fall apart into several pieces before I even primered him.  To have him fall apart again while being painted is quite aggravating to say the least.  It's been years since I've had a miniature do this.  Having assembled miniatures with few/small points of contact but have held up better makes me concerned about the integrity of the model.  Part of the frustration comes from having to do a lot of touch-up work.  When a miniature is glued and primered, inevitably you end up painting over where the joint is glued.  Once the glue gives it usually takes paint with it, and you can't just re-glue it and get back to painting (not if you want to keep your brush from being ruined at least).  In the rush to get some exclusives at Gen Con it's possible that the sculpt is a bit off.  Needless to say if/when I re-assemble Max he's likely to be a show piece rather than used for the game.

My final piece for today is the beginning of new scenery for me:



Just some simple packing material that looked ridged enough to be used as hedges.  I cut out some cork board for a base and just glued them right on top.  All I have to do now is see if some extra bits of foam will take spray primer or melt.  Once I know that I can begin painting.

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.

Nytmares Come Alive

A long time ago I picked up an exclusive model from Wyrd.  The Nightmare Edition: Lord Chompy Bits.  He's an alternate version of one of their standard leaders, and the model is incredible to both look at and hold.



He stands at almost four inches tall, and is all pewter!  Why has it taken me so long to get this masterpiece built and primed?  Well there are some issues I needed to overcome in order to get to this point.  The first one was what to use for his base.  I didn't want to use just any old base, and I had spent a lot of time looking at different bases as well as trying to come up with ideas.  It wasn't until I came across War Gama's booth at Adepticon that I finally found one I was satisfied with.  So I was ready to go right?  Not quite:



What you're looking at is one of my first two attempts to assemble LCB.  There are two main pieces: the lower half, which only has a tail which was easily attached, and the upper half, which consisted of four different arms, the shoulders,  a front torso, back torso, and the head.  The end result is that balancing the top half on the bottom half resulted in him becoming very top heavy and pitching forward.  I ended up calling on the same friend who helped me assemble my Nicodem Avatar.



I had told my friend of my plight, and he rigged it up so that there's a center pole holding the upper half aloft.  However this left a large gaping hold where the torso should join the pelvis.  With so many pieces on a such a large model there was bound to be some gap issues.



I decided to attack it head on, and ended up putting some grey stuff inside along the join before finally filling out the front.  I needed to add lots of filler where the shoulders topped the torso, and around each of the arms.  Also had a hole in the tail to cover up, as well as some extra support I put in where the tail joined the pelvis.  I think the only area I didn't use grey stuff was the jawline as it still looked natural to me.



The touch ups I put on are ok, and a casual glance won't see them, but lets take a closer look at the main gap:



It's a little rough, but not bad.  I think it'll be less noticeable once it's been painted up.

While I had my greystuff out I decided to make a little gift to thank my friend for helping me out:



Just a simple tophat for him to use as a marker.  The process was a bit simple.  I started with a flat and thin oval which I curled up the sides on to use as the brim, and at the same time I did a flat tipped cone where I put in indentation to give the hat some life/depth.



After letting them dry I made sure that the tip of the cone was flat enough, and then I drilled a hole into it so I could use a pin to help hold it to the base.



After some glue and a couple of hours to let it dry I got out a little more grey stuff and did a little ribbon around the join.  Overall I'm rather pleased with how it turned out, and I'm sure my friend will be delighted to see the results.