Approaching the Finish Line

The holidays this year have been a busy time, and even though I haven't had much time to paint I've still eeked out a little here and there.  For starters I managed to get the infantry for the last OGRE camo unit painted.



I looked at a bunch of Australian landscapes and found that there was a considerable amount of reddish-orange mixed with white and green.  I mixed up a bunch of ruddy orange to use as a base, and then did some drybrushing with bone to pick out the grains.  Once all of it was painted I used a little bit of grass flocking to add patches of green.  I'm pleased overall with how it turned out.

Moving down the list I was left with six skeleton musicians and an OGRE Mk. IIIb.  I opted to go for the skeletons first since overall they would be easier than the OGRE Mk IIIb.  I spent the afternoon on Saturday getting them all done in one fell swoop.




This completes the skeletons!  Now my only objective left was the Mk. IIIb, but with all the weather changes I had to grab a nap.  My intent was only to lay down for a little bit, but I came to several hours later.  I didn't pick up my brushes until later in the evening, and while I didn't finish it I made significant progress.



You'll notice that the white on the back portion of the IIIb is a much more solid coat than the front.  Some miniatures paints have a thinner consistency than others, and makes it a necessity to use multiple coats.  White is one of those colors, and if there is a darker undercoat it further compounds the issue.  The IIIb was primered with a medium-light grey, given a quick white basecoat of paint (two or three coats), and then I used a VERY thin black ink.  Normally thinning out an ink will reduce how visible it appears on the miniature, but as you can see it still shows up very visibly against white.  The arduous task in this whole process is the repeated number of coats to get a solid white.  Some areas take the white better while others require an unending number of coats.  The whole point of this process is to get nice solid separation between the plates.  Ultimately the white is the first part of a custom paint job for the OGRE, and the rest of it will be revealed in a post coming in the near future.

A Little Here, and A Little There

With Thanksgiving having just passed us by some of you may have noticed that nothing went up last week.  The reason for that is due to a combination of lots of driving for work, and lots of work.  In spite of my heavy work load I managed to get in some tidbits of work here and there.  Time to show off what I accomplished.

First, some business.  Let's start with a round of skeletons.



That's another ten down, and only eleven left to go!  Getting closer now!  I also managed to get a bunch of OGRE vehicles done in the Australian Camo.  This one was a bit trickier since I had to go back and re-match some of the colors from my earlier attempt.  The end result was a big improvement in my opinion.



I sat down and ended up doing all the vehicles from that group, which leaves me the infantry to do and I'll be done with that grouping of camo.  Here's what else I did:

A couple of light tanks



A trio of trucks bearing heavy weapons emplacements



And a little bit of fun.



When I first offered to paint these for my friend he told me that he had a turret that had been damaged.  I offered to repair it for him, but he told me that he had already took a soldering iron to the piece, as well as a touch of solder, to make it look damaged.



I put on a touch of black, some dark brown brushed over with metal, and a some splashes of inks/washes to try and give it a burnt/cooked look.  I think the effect worked out nicely.

Some other things I did were to help another friend get some of his models pinned.  Here's the grouping of the before:



I started it one night and finished it a day or two later.  Just in time for him to pick them up and for me to forget to take an after shot.  Maybe after they're painted.

I had assembled the plastic bits together for my Mei Fang box set, but I finally got them on their bases.



The bases are still a work in progress, but I'm using the same motif I use for my Rail Golem.

The other thing I accomplished was assembling my Ten Thunders crew, The Thunder, Box set.



Definitely Asian themed, and you may have noticed that they don't have bases.  I've got some pre-made inserts which are pretty cool, but don't look as good with them on there.  I may have to make up some custom ones to use.  We'll have to see!

The Last Steps of the Journey

I'm nearing completion of my pile of commissions.  I look forward to the end, and I'll be able to breathe a bit easier knowing I've accomplished what I was tasked to do.  I have some camo OGRE stuff to paint, an OGRE Mk. IIIb Custom (paint job that is), and some skeletons.



These skeletons were done with more of a, "Slop-n-Go," approach.  The basic idea is to cut down on painting time for a large pile of models that are very similar.  I've used single colors and followed up with a touch of drybrushing and a wash.  Here's a before:

 

And the after:

 

I used two different shades of brown, one for the leather and one for the wood of the spear, and chainmail for the armor and studs.  I then used a black ink with a mixture of 1 drop of ink per 2 drops of water.  This allowed me to add some dark shading to the leather and wood while not being too dark to obscure the color.  It also helped give definition to the armor and weapons which both received a bit of drybrushing to bring out the edges/highlights a bit more.



While they may not be much they're still decent enough to look good on the table.  It also takes me about 2-4 hours of time to do a batch of five.  This is ideal since it allows me to get a large number painted in a small amount of time.  There's 31 total skeletons, and if I keep at it I may be able to knock out the lot within a couple of weeks.

I put down a base layer for some turrets (mobile and stationary) for the OGRE cam.  I'm going off the Australian Disruptive Pattern I did a demo of for one of my early posts.



After going back and looking at the colors again it turns out that the green is too green.  It should actually be tan.  The thing with that is that it looks slightly green to me.  I tried using a sepia was to see if it would tint the green enough to achieve a compromise.



Well it did what washes do and added definition, and even made it look a little dirty (nice touch of realism to my eyes).  Sadly it is not tan enough.  I'll have to fiddle with colors a bit and see what I can come up with.

Kirai As A Gift

About a month ago I went up north to visit with some friends, and while there I found out that it was one of their Birthdays.  Well with not much to offer in the way of gifts I asked what my friend would like.  The response was to paint one her miniatures, Kirai from Malifaux to be exact.



We spent some time discussing colors, and fleshtones, and things of that nature, but I was also asked if it would be possible for me to do some freehand on the back.  Specifically a Sakura Tree (Japanese Cherry Blossom Tree).  I accepted the challenge.



I feel like I succeeded pretty well!  I admit to being a little jealous as this Kirai is better than my personal one.



While it could be pointed out that over a year has passed by and I've gained a few new tricks since I painted my own I'm still a little jealous.  I'll take comfort in the knowledge that my skill is increasing.

I figured I'd share how I ended up doing the freehand.  First we'll start with the robe itself since that was painted first.  This is the robe, sash, and obi (belt) with the base colors and a wash of blue ink. 



Once the wash was dried (you can tell that it wasn't when I took the picture by how some of the recesses shine) it was time to give it a couple of highlight coats.



This is the part where I get nervous.  The robes like this look really nice, and for a normal miniature I could have left it here.  However I had to plod on, but first I needed a plan.  I felt that the best way to do it would be to layer up like normal, except instead of shades I'd go with objects.  First was the tree trunk itself.



Ok it looks a little rough, but I knew that it'd change pretty quickly.  I've actually got three layers of brown.  I used a nice dark brown as a base, followed by a mix of the dark with a medium brown, and topped it off with a dash of the medium brown.  Next up was the flower blossoms.



You can begin to see how things are going to take over.  Lots of little dots that would have some shading to them later on are able to cover more of the tree and take away some of the rough edges.  This is what I had first, but felt it could use a little more.  My favorite images of Sakura trees are ones that involve the cherry blossoms blowing in the breeze, and with that I decided to do the same here.



That looks MUCH better.  I actually ended up adding a lighter shade of the pink to the blossoms, but you couldn't really tell I had.  Sometimes I run into that issue, where I try to add a lighter layer on, but the shade isn't that much of a difference and is really difficult to see.  Instead I mixed a little of the lighter shade in with some white and used that instead.



I was really pleased with how it turned out.  It looked like I wanted it to, and I was happy that the lighter shade of pink turned out exactly like I wanted it to.

Here's Kirai in full:






With Kirai done all I have left is this motley group of models for a different friend:


I think it'll be somewhere between three and five weeks depending on how my work schedule ends up going.

The more I look at Kirai's face the less happy I am.  While that's supposed to be a blood splatter it ends up looking like a beauty wart.  My friend agreed with me, and so I went and touched it up.



I can sleep easier now.

The Last of the Wights

It's been a bit of a long road, but I'm finally done with the unit of Wights!



One of the things I love about seeing other people's painted miniatures is that there's usually a story, or unique feature that has some personal sentiment or insight.  It's a nice personal touch that really accentuates the style.  One of the distinct characteristics of these wights have been their green weapons.  The way I heard it from my friend is that they're not magical, they're corroded.  It takes a long time for a corpse to rot away to just a skeleton, which is what these wights looks like they are.



In a fantasy setting the technology hasn't had steel for very long which would put many skeletons as being alive during the bronze age, and bronze is an alloy of copper.  Think that copper doesn't corrode?  The Statue of Liberty is copper-plated, but the color that everyone sees is the effect of oxidization (corrosion).  As a result I got to have a lot of fun painting corroded weapons.



One thing worth noting is that while Malifaux is a skirmish game, Warhammer Fantasy (of which these wights are from) is an Army game.  The big difference is in model diversity.  A skirmish game uses smaller groupings of miniatures, and tend to have a larger variety of models.  An Army game uses a larger amount of models grouped into different units, and this leaves you with multiples of very similar models.  The end result is that people sometimes get bored.



I got a little bored and decided to pay an homage to the friend who commissioned these wights.  I run a tabletop game, and his character is an elf with a very particular shield.  Not only have I painted the symbol from that shield on the drum, but the color I used for the skin of the drum is called Elf Skintone (Vallejo 72004).  The extra freehand is free of charge, and a nice little Halloween treat!



All that remains now is to finish Kirai, the last unit of camo OGRE models, approximately 30 very quick and dirty skeletons, and a custom paint job OGRE Mk. IIIb.  With luck I'll be done by mid November.

Edited to reflect accurate metal.  Copper instead of bronze.

14 Down, 2 to Go

Just a brief update as I work my way through the week.




The Wight wielding a sword is not the standard for this unit.  Back when Wights were used in Warhammer Fantasy you could field a unit of Wights or you could have one lead a unit of skeletons.  The sword wielding wight is sporting some differences from the other wights.  He has a higher amount of detail than the other wights which is a hallmark of a leader piece in any Warhammer game.  I think this guy might be destined to lead that unit of skeletons that are waiting for their touch of paint.

With these two down I'm nearing the finish line on the unit of Wights.  I'm hoping to have things finished up by the end of the week, but the weather may have something to say about that.  The sudden shifts from cold to warm and back again have been making me very lethargic.

Step By Step

Each time I sit down I get a little closer to having my commission stuff completed and set aside.  Tonight I have a trio of wights (including their leader), and a preview of what I've got going in progress.  Let's start with my favorite out of the bunch:





The wight leader turned out very nice.  Simple and straightforward.  I ended up touching the edges of the helm and face around the eyes with the base color I used for the eyes to help achieve a very nice OSL effect.  How 'bout those minions though?




Looking good!  This leaves me with four wights left in the group.  With luck I'll have them finished by next Saturday.

In the meantime I've been dabbing a bit of paint here and there on a miniature I'm doing as a Birthday gift for a friend.  I haven't done too much yet, just a base coat on her kimono and obi:



I did spend a couple of hours on her earlier this evening though.



All of it was spent on the skin, face, hair, and bow.  Very tedious and precise work, but with good results.  I was asked to add some special touches to her kimono, and that's all I'll say about that now.  With luck I may get to show off my skill later this week!

Endure, and In Enduring Grow Strong

My productivity levels have been way down the past few weeks due to weather changes.  For some reason the shift from warm to cool makes me want to lie down and go to sleep at 3pm in the afternoon and not wake up till the next day.  In spite of that I have managed to get some painting done within the past seven days.  In my last post I mentioned a commission, and I happened to finish up the pieces from that commission.



Again, nothing fancy.  One thing I'm concerned about is that you can't quite tell that the Wight's tabard is supposed to be a dark blue.  It was a dark grey-blue before I hit it with a light wash, but now it's almost black.  My friend was ok with the result, and I think there is a bit of a difference when you look at it in person.

Here's the comparison of my finished version of the spearman compared to his.



I'd say it's a step up at least.  I also managed to start painting the next set of three.  With luck I'll get some motivation and finish them up in the next day or two.



Or, y'know, the weather will make sure I can't do more than sleep and work.