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?

Unboxing Robotech RPG Tactics

It finally arrived!  My wave 1 Robotech RPG Tactics Kickstarter pledge:




This is by far the largest box I've gotten for a kickstarter, and it's only the first wave.  While it had some space inside, there was still a lot to be found waiting within:



Once I got it all out it took up a pretty big area on my bed:



While I have another wave coming with a bunch of expansion stuff, this is definitely the lion's share.  This was a good buy, to be certain.  In the above pic you can see a couple of prints I got for adding on a Homecoming pledge onto my original Battlecry pledge.  Both pieces of art are ones that I like, and they were printed on semi-glossy paper that has a good feel to it.  They will look great on my geek-wall once I get them framed.  There's also the art print I got from my Battlecry pledge, and it is a great piece as well.  So much art!

Ok, let's take a look at the inside of the box:



That's not a site that I feel comfortable with.  It looks like the sprues were just placed in their haphazardly.  Considering the amount of shifting/turning that can occur during shipping this could become an issue.  That being said, my box arrived shrink-wrapped, and not a single piece was off the sprue, so my concern may be misplaced. 



The books and cards were undamaged, and on the bottom of the box, so they weren't affected by any shifting.  I haven't done a base count yet, but I should.  Normally I'm not as worried about bases as I have a good stock of pre-made bases as well as extras.  The bases for Robotech are different, so I'm going to have to manage what I have.  One problem I did notice was that the bag of RDF dice was open, and the dice had spilled all over the inside of the box.  At first I didn't think anything of it, but after counting I noticed that I was missing two, and one of them had an extra drop of plastic on it that must have been a manufacturing defect:



I've sent off a message to the Robotech Kickstarter as I imagine it's a simple fix.  So there's a lot of stuff in the main box, but I also got some extra stuff.  There was a plethora of additional/redundant models, which means my collection is going to be pretty awesome to start with:


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The 76 base box of Robotech retails for about $100 USD, and comes with approx 40 miniatures.  The add-on for the kickstarter adds on another 36 miniatures in wave 1 alone (there's more to come in wave 2!).  One thing that I'd like to take a moment to point out, and congratulate, Ninja Division & Palladium books on is the inclusion of these:



Instructions!  Over the past four or five years miniatures companies have been making the switch to plastic.  Some companies like Reaper have left their plastics fairly simple, but plenty of others have gone more complex.  There's nothing wrong with having a complex assembly, but a lack of instructions can be very frustrating for many hobbyists.  I have seen many complaints on the lack of instructions included not just with kickstarters, but with plastic miniatures in general.  Companies are starting to get the message and rectify things, but I wanted to give a hearty, "Bravo!" to Palladium and Ninja Division for including these from the get go.

You may have noticed a couple additional add-ons on top of the main box.  I got these to either round out my forces (I'm liking the number four in the case of Robotech) or because I wanted to have a different loadout.  One case of this is the Artillery Battlepods:



  I got a group of four with the main box, and I have a feeling I'll try to magnatize the weapons, but I wanted the heavy particle cannon.  Originally it was going to be included as a bonus, so I picked up an extra set of artillery pods, but it turned out that they could fit it on the sprue so now everyone can have the joy of heavy Particle Projection Cannons!



Continuing with my need for groups of four I picked up an additional set of Destroids so I could field up to four Excalibers Tomahawks, and four Raider X's Defenders.  All that is left now is to trade my services for other Robotech miniatures to round out other groups of four as I need at least two more Spartans and two more Gladiators.

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: Sunday

So it goes without saying at this point that I need to do these updates in a more timely manner.  Work and personal life have been surprisingly busy, and I think I'm just now starting to recover.  Onto Sunday then.

The last day of the con is always the most tiring.  Everyone is burnt out, and everyone is preparing for their trip home.  I normally don't have much to do on Sunday, but this year I was able to get in on the first official Relic Knights tournament.  I had managed to get the last few pieces painted up the night before I was to come out to Gen Con, so here they are starting with Sebastian:




Sebastian wasn't actually that difficult, but he took a while due to his massive size and surface area.  His Relic stands astride an 80mm base, and for reference I haven't put a model on a base larger than 50mm.  I admit that he is a lot of fun to look at, but wherever Sebastian goes he is accompanied by his Cypher, Rook:




This little guy wasn't that hard to paint up actually.  Very straightforward and enjoyable, although I still felt the tension being so close to Gen Con when I painted him.  Up next is Navarre Hauer:




This is a model that turned out ok, but I'm not as happy with the sculpt.  It looks like there's lots of activity, but he just didn't appeal to me.  He was still a good model on the table.  The final miniature I painted up is Cordellia Clean, sort of:




Not bad looking right?  What isn't done you ask?  Well, when I originally assembled this model I left off the backpack with the intent of painting it separate before gluing it on...and I kinda forgot to do that.  Otherwise she looks pretty good to me.  I tried out a pink skin tone, and that required mixing up a pink wash.  While the result isn't bad, I think I need to try for some darker shardows in the recessed area.  I've also been getting a lot of comments on how much I've improved in a short time, and this makes me feel pretty good.  My goal currently is to improve my highlights and lighting technique.

Ok, so how'd the tournament go?  We started off with eight people, but people left after the first two (of three).  We had a three-way tie for first place, and the point spread landed me in third.  My painted miniatures won me a battlemat for Relic Knights, which was cool but I already had one.  The guys at SPM were cool enough to let me trade it in, and I used the credit towards my own copy of Super Dungeon Explore!  Expect a bunch of Super Dungeon Explore models in upcoming blog posts while I wait for Robotech miniatures to arrive for both myself and my friend (who is commissioning me to paint them).

Another successful Gen Con completed.  Much fun was had, reunited with many friends, and played many games.  Gen Con 2015 will you be as good?

Obligatory swag pic: