Fancy photos and a new start

My apologies for being a day late--no excuse really, Tuesday just got away from me.

Congratulations to the winner at Gen Con over this past weekend.  Jessica Rich (Brushmistress) continues her winning ways, nabbing yet another Best in Show!  Lots of goodness came out of the weekend; I haven't seen as many pics on the web as I would like, but there have been a few making their way out there.

I did a bit of touch up work on the mummy to make the OSL more accurate and for the fun of it, photographed him on a black background to accentuate the OSL effect.  I think it came out well for a gaming miniature.

 

 

Now that the mummy is officially "done", I have started on my next model, which also will be more of a "high tabletop" quality range.  Obviously, the term is very subjective, but to me this means a simple standard size base with minimal frills, a good degree of highlighting/shading, and not futzing over every little blend.  I have the French Infantryman in the queue as my next "display" quality model and will be doing on the Sedition Wars nanozombies as well, which I also plan on being "high tabletop"

 

Kristianna is a boss for Reaper's Warlord game and belongs to the Crusaders faction.  My experiments on her are going to be more detailed freehand on the red as well as using inks on my metallics.  So far, she is for the most part just basecoated.  I don't typically start with the metallics as I do the highlighting and shading, but was really interested in seeing what the inks do with the metallics.  It has a ways to go yet, but I am liking the start of the back of the raised sword.  The sword of was based with VMA Silver.  I put down black ink in the recess of the blade to help with that strong contrast so vital to a convincing metal object.  The lower half of the sword was then painted with VMA Gunmetal and further shaded with thinned down black ink.  The shading on the top half of the sword was done with blue ink initially, followed by a blue/black ink mixture (best seen on the rear view of the raised sword).  The front half of the sword has the blue ink, but still needs the blue/black.  The lowered sword has also gotten the initial blue, although I think I am going to scrap that and added a bit of red and black ink to represent some reflected colors from the surrounding cloth.

 

The golds were based with RMS Russet Brown mixed with GW Shining Gold 1:1.  I have done some very preliminary shading with Purple Ink.

 

 

 

New job and a completed mummy

I was finally able to finish up the mummy.  This one will be primarily for the tabletop, so I didn't spend a long, long time on him.  That being said, I paint slowly, so there was a good eight hours into him.  I wanted to play a bit with OSL as well.  It was marginally successful, I think.  I like the eyes but am less satisfied with the hand.  The skin tones were done with Reaper Master Series Dark Skin as a base, shaded with RMS Green Liner/Dark Skin then highlighted initially with RMS Tanned Skin and finally top highlights with RMS Palomino Gold.  I kept the top highlights relatively subdued as I imagined him dusty and dull without the reflective sheen of healthy skin.  The white on the wrap was based with VMC Deck Tan, shaded with RMS Bone Shadow, and highlighted with RMS Leather White and VMC Ivory.  I think I got a nice "natural" white recipe and will probably use that on the white uniform for the French infantryman.  Thanks to DPowell over at WaMP for his article on various ways to do white.  Let me know if you are interested in the recipes for any of the other parts and I would be happy to supply those.

 

 

In other personal news, I have taken a position as one of the proofers for Figure Painter Magazine.  I love the magazine and was pleased to have been asked to proof the articles prior to publication.  I am very excited about it!  Let me know if I missed anything in the next issue of FPM ;).  Unfortunately, this may impact my frequency of posting here, but we shall see...

Games Day Germany finished

Wow!  Congratulations to Roman Lappat for his Slayer Sword at Games Day Germany.  The pictures are now beginning to roll in and it looks like the quality of the pieces this year was incredibly high.  Roman won this year with a massive diorama with over 127 minatures...I think that is more than I have painted in my life (and I am no spring chicken).

This upcoming weekend will be GenCon.  Best of luck to the painters headed out that way!

The past week has seen some work on a tutorial, a bit of prep work and the mummy is nearing completion.  I still need to do some more work on the metallics and fiddle with the OSL.  I'm not happy with it at all at the moment, especially the hand, but will keep at it. Once I have the paint where I would like it, I'll start in with the pigments to dirty him up.

Finally, hello and welcome to Walter for becoming a follower of my blog.  Thank you--I hope you enjoy your stay!

Painting Buddha has arrived

I got a wonderful surprise in the mail yesterday!  My long awaited package from Germany--the DVD painting set from the folks at Mastermini.  Rather fitting for my 42nd post, eh, Mr. President (inside joke for those of you that have been following the painting revolution at Masterminis.net)?  I am very much looking forward to digging into this six disc compilation.  I'm not sure how many total hours are on the discs, but it covers the painting of two models along with the display base from two stellar artists from start to finish.  You can pick yours up at http://www.paintingbuddha.com/.

 

 

If that wasn't enough, Wyrd has released it's latest Chronicles, which you can find at  http://www.malifaux.com/Downloads/Wyrd_Chronicles_Volume_7.pdf.  It covers their new releases for the upcoming Gen Con event this year and is more advertisement than usual.  It still has some nice fluff, but I'm missing the step by step paint articles I've seen the past couple of issues!

 

I was also able to get in some work on the blues for the mummy.  RMS Ultramarine Blue was the base.  It was shaded with RMS Blue Liner and highlighted first with RMS Ultramarine Highlight and then UH mixed with Linen White.  I also add some initial metallics.  The gold metallics were done with GW Shining Gold mixed with a bit of RMS Russet Brown and the steel metallics are VMA Gunmetal mixed with black.

 



Let the metallics begin

I've made more progress on the mummy.  Much of it is just basecoated, but at this point I've got the mini covered with paint.  I've sprayed some Dullcoat on him to "save" my paint job.  This helps with accidental bumping and minor chipping during the remainder of the paint job.  I'll do this in anticipation for adding the metallics.  I try not to add much Dullcoat over the metallics as it really tones down the reflectivity (as it should).  Sometimes I will put down my metallic basecoat and preliminary shading, then go ahead and add the Dullcoat, finished up with adding another very thin layer of the basecoat and the highlights to bring back the reflectivity of the metallics.

The skin has begun to get some additional work.  I started with RMS Dark Skin, shaded with a mixture of Dark Skin and RMS Green Liner, and then Dark Skin and RMS Yellowed Bone.  I wanted to see how the Green Liner would work with the reddish brown of the Dark Skin; a bit of complementary shading as opposed to using a darker brown.

The wrappings are RMS Yellowed Bone and selectively washed with VMC Smoke.  I've done some preliminary shading with RMS Stained Ivory and picked out some highlights with Linen White.  The waist wrap is VMC Deck Tan, shaded with RMS Bone Shadow, and highlighted with RMS Leather White.

I was excited to see another follower has joined the ranks!  Hello and thank you for joining me, Thrym!  I've enjoyed his work over at the Reaper forums--he did a cool little "cut and reposition" project one of the Bones werewolves.  I've not had a chance to mess much with the Bones, but am definitely looking forward to doing some conversions/mods with the Vampire set I picked up a few months ago.