Jabberwocky Miniatures

This was the only miniature I painted for my Mom and was done in 2007.

On Friday, she lost her fight with ovarian cancer. I'll miss you, Mom.

Tuesday has arrived again--unfortunately, I was able to get precious little painting in this week. The Figure Painter Magazine dropped earlier this week and work kept me pretty busy along with a quick trip out of town to visit family.

Ugh. Freehand is hard. Definitely not my forte, but something I want to get better on--so the only way to do that is get out the brush and do it. The additions are quite early on yet. I've sketching in the trim everywhere I am going to put it. The majority of it is just basecoated. The back of the sleeve of the raised arm is the farthest along. The idea was (is) to fleur-de-lys along on trim, but at this point it looks like three spikey points...I've got a little shading/highlighting started on the back sleeve. I've been a bit frustrated so far on the sleeve because the fleur-de-lys pattern looks bad and on top of that, I fussed too much with the paint and it has gotten rough. We'll see how she progresses.

Happy Tuesday, everyone. Just barely Tuesday, but Tuesday nevertheless at least in my time zone! I finished up the cultist, adding the weathering pigments and some blood splatter along with a few touch ups. The base is plain, since the recipient will be basing it on his own.

I have started back upon Kristianna, but the first sketching for the freehand are...uhhh...rough. Not pleased at all with it at the point, bit hopefully with some patience, I can get it more to my liking. Depending on how things go, I'll finish her up this week and move on to the next project. I'm starting to get the itch for another display base, so I anticipate that will be next on the docket. Have a good week!

Ahh, one more thing. I created a Facebook page dedicated just to my miniature hobby--it's just another venue to display what I am working on at the moment. The content will largely be identical to what is here, especially from the miniature standpoint. I will probably keep any new tutorials here, along with the charity stuff and random musings. Feel free to give me a like if you enjoy what you see. The page is at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jabberwocky-Miniatures/188327428038989

Hello once more! I hope those of you on this side of the pond had a great Thanksgiving and survived Black Friday. For the rest of the world, I hope you were able to participate in some of the online deals out there.

I wanting to say thanks to Demi Morgana for deciding to follow along--it's been a while since I've had a new follower. I was beginning to think I was getting a little dull :) I've followed Demi for sometime on his blog, which began in 2010. He's a fan of things old and rusted. :) He has some excellent tutorials on his site--check them out especially if you are looking for some comprehensive step by steps on display style bases and weathering. He does some very detailed and excellent work! If you have a chance, go take a look at http://demimorgana.blogspot.com/

With the holiday, I was out of town visiting family, but returned on Friday evening and was able to put in some time on the cultist. The sessions over the weekend were focused on cleaning up things here and there and putting the last bits of freehand on the model. I initially was going to have a yellow hook, but switched the hook from yellowish to a dark red with a fade to black on the tip. I am waiting on the arrival of some pigment fixer along with some weathering pigments from Secret Weapon. Once that gets here, I'll begin the home stretch will some weathering and finally the blood effects with TCR.

As planned, I was able to get some addition work done on the trench coat. I continue to be frustrated by my photography on this guy, but I think you can tell that I did something on him :). This week I hope to get the skulls and hook done. Then will come the fun part--weathering and some (hopefully) good looking freehand! I'll be celebrating Thanksgiving with the family this week, but should get some time in to paint.

I hope everyone had a good week. I've continued to plug away on the cultist. I had a conversation with one of our local painter in facebook regarding rust, so I churned out a brief tutorial on how I was rusting the gun. First, the overall progress at this point:

As you can see, the majority of the areas are blocked in, with various stages of completion. The hook and the skulls are not started and, although it is hard to tell, the pants aren't either. They are so overshadowed by the stance of the miniature as well as the coat, that I don't think it will matter too terribly much what color I choose.

For the rusting on the metallics, I did the basecoat in VMA Gunmetal. I really like the VMA metallics and they are my favorite silver/steel metallics of everything I've tried. Next step is a quick wash of the old GW Devlan Mud. I think if you were looking for something super quick and more of a well used metal, you could stop here. The first step in the rusting is RMS Dark Skin dabbed on randomly. I went pretty light with it here, but you could go heavier if you were doing an older rust. Next is the workhorse of the rust effect, RMS Rust Brown. Applied it again randomly and rather heavy, concentrating in the recessed areas. The following pic was some RMS Clear Orange with a little bit of the Rust Brown added to tone it down just a bit. Definitely could stop here for an older, less used look. The final pic it I reapplied the orange a little more and then gently went back and dry brushed a little of the VMC gunmetal again to simulate areas where the rust had been knocked off. All in all, it's a relatively quick process (at least for the speed at which I paint...).

This week's goal will be to begin work on the coat.

First and foremost, congratulations to all the winners at Monte San Savino over the weekend. Rusto took the BoS this year. I'm looking forward to seeing the photos over the coming week.

This week was once again saw limited painting, but I got a nice start on the leather on the cultist and have done some weathering on the shoulder straps.

Got a bit more done on the cultist and essentially completed the gaming base for Kristianna.

The trench coat is just based at this point. I've weathered the metallics on the backpack and done some preliminary work on the blacks of the rifle and backpack. It was initially based with straight black. I have added some RMS Stormy Gray for preliminary highlighting, but will take it up considerably to white or nearly so for the edging. I'm pleased with the start of the symbol of Nurgle on the hood, although this is just a warm up. I need to clean it up a bit, but I don't think it needs to be perfect--this is Nurgle and this is chaos! I'll also start the weathering of the hood, which will add to it. The blood splatters will be added once the model is finished. Tamiya Clear Red is awesome stuff, but if you varnish over it, the effect really gets lost. I'll likely do something more elaborate on the trench coat one I get it shaded/highlighted to my satisfaction.

The gaming base was a bit of cork with the front edges trimmed back with pliers, some scattered dirt along the those edges to "smooth" out the cork and a few pieces of static grass clumps from Army Painter. The red flowers help to "tie" the model to the base and are Grass Tufts with Blossoms from Noch.

Time flies once again! I am always surprised when the next Tuesday rolls around. This week I was able to get a start on the WH 40k chaos cultist. I did the majority of the work on the head, although I think I'll add a bit of nurgle iconography and some weather/blood to the hood. It's a bit out of focus, but you get the idea.

The latest Newbold Challenge deadline is coming up October 31st. Get your entries in while you can! It's a great cause. I'll be submitting my hound.

Wyrd has brought back their Rotten Harvest contest as well. The deadline for this is the 31st as well, I believe.

Well, it took me a bit longer than anticipated, but I finally finished up the hound. The base was left intentionally plain as the guy I am painting it for has some static grass across all his bases and I left that last part of the basing to him. The insignia on the flank of the hound was one of his design and again is present across all the units in his army--I think it is pretty cool looking. I tried to add a bit of flesh color to the white--it's tough to capture in the pic and will be next to impossible to see on the gaming table, but I know it's there. :)

This past weekend was a very good one for competition miniature painting. The Polish competition, Hussar 2013, is done and dusted. The quality there looks outstanding by all accounts. Congrats to Stefan Johnnson for the win!

Martin Goumaz (Dreamit Miniatures) took home the Slayer Sword with a wonderful skeleton at the Italian GW. Much controversy ensued, but it does often after each GW... Congratulations, Martin!

Unfortunately, it has been a busy work at work this past week. That, in combination with a sick child at home, has cut into my painting this past week. I was able to get some more work done on the hound. The base is nearing completion. The yellow/red on the shield is a bit vibrant yet, so I will weather it a bit and I am planning on adding an arrow or two to the base and perhaps a bit of static grass to match the other bases in this guy's army. I am hoping to get some work done on the skin as well as a bit of freehand, but I have a lot of family coming in this week, so we shall see...

First off, congratulations to David Soper on winning the Slayer Sword at the UK Games Day. He won with a beautiful Scourges diorama that he had been working on for years. I really like David's style of painting, but more importantly to me, his painting methodology, which I think is similar to mine (he just does it a lot better!). He won his first Slayer Sword in 1990. He took a few years off, like so many of us do, when real life, careers, and family come to the forefront and hobbies like painting take a back seat. He returned to the miniature world and has steadily improved. He is a meticulous and methodical painter. The scourge project literally has been years in the making. He started on it, shelved it for a while, and finally returned to it this year. I have a few such projects myself; started at some point, but then my interest waned for one reason or another and they have sat for years waiting for the return of the muse.

It encourages me that perhaps in the future, I'll get remotivated on some of these to finish them up. If you have not been to David's site, you can find it at http://sproketsmallworld.blogspot.com/

Additionally, I'd like to congratulate one of my followers here on the my little blog, Avicenna, for his Golden Demon as well for a stunning rendition of Radagast the Brown in the LoTR category. Well done, man! His pics can be found at the Jolly Bodgers blog at http://www.jollybodgers.com/

Next off, I wish the best for the thousands of US government employees and the millions of others that depend on government subsidy for basic needs affected by the shutdown today--I hope our leaders can get together and resolve this quickly...

I started up a Reaper Warlord piece for an fellow at the LGS. He is trying to put together an army by early November. He does fantastic freehand, and like me, wants his pieces to be more than "tabletop" standard. He has typically been a character painter, and I believe this is his first army project. I offered to paint up one of the solo pieces in his army. He graciously accepted and I picked out the Hound of Judgement that belongs to the Crusader faction. I am keeping the colors in line with the army colors, which are blue and white, with black and green accents. This is fairly early on yet, but you can see I've started the blends/OSL in addition to the base coat colors blocked in, as well as some basic colors for the base as well.

As happens not infrequently, I got distracted once again from my current projects by another project. I do tend to cycle through various projects and will usually have several things going at once. This particle project is part of a group project at my LGS. One of the guys offered up the chaos cultists from the Dark Vengence 40k set released earlier this year by GW for anyone to paint. I picked one out and decided to do some conversion work which was quite fun. I made him into the war band communication specialist and added a backpack with some antennae. He'll be a follower of Nurgle, so will be nice and grungy.

I have another couple of items in the queue as well; another Reaper called the Hound of Judgement and a bit of pulp goodness from a new(ish) company called Blackball Games. They took over the rights (if I understand correctly) to the AE-WWII line. I will be doing a sort of paint-a-long/SBS on one of their American Rocket Troopers. Should be fun!

The second creative event is underway over at Ian Newbold's site. They are taking entries until October 31st. It's for a great cause, so go ahead and enter! You can find the link on my charitable projects page.

Goblinaid continues apace as well. I think there are 43 goblins available for purchase! They can be purchased individually or in packs. I'm continuing to hold off as there are yet more goblins coming! Again, check out my charitable projects page for the link.

I would also encourage you to check out Anne O'Leary's page as well. She is in the middle of a very nice give away contest! You can find her page at http://fortwitter.blogspot.com/.

I'm posting on Tuesday like I originally set out to do!

This past weekend, I went to our local con called Recruits con. It a small con geared primarily toward gamers. There used to be a painting competition years ago, but that eventually fell by the wayside. There was a paint and take this year that I spent the bulk of my time at. It was great to see lots of new painters (both young and old!) coming to the table. I was able to peruse the vendors in about 15 minutes and spent most of my time gawking at the various tables.

Here is a shot of the whole gaming space:

While at the paint and take, I worked on trying to do some texturing. The preliminary results are promising, but I have a ways to go yet. The sleeves are quite far along, the lower dress, not so much. Earlier in the week, I was able to do some freehand work on the head dress, which I was fairly pleased with.

I am hoping to continue the texturing on the bottom half of the dress and do a bit of basic freehand on the sleeve edges as well as the black scarf thingy. I need to practice some NMM and this is a gentle way for me to do it, hehe.

This weekend is Euro Militaire, which is one of the premier European painting competitions. Each year brings loads of stunningly painted miniatures and I always look forward to see what the best of the Europeans has to show.

Kristianna has gotten some more work done and is getting pretty close to getting the core done. I'm toying with doing some freehand, but overall she is getting there. Depending on the amount of freehand I put into the dress, I will fiddle with the blends/contrast on both the black and the red parts of the dress.

A quick congratulations to David Powell for his BoS win at the Capital Palette in Washington, D.C. last weekend. Well deserved win for his outstanding hockey player piece! He won himself a trip to the Crystal Brush next year. You can find a detailed collection of pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/novaopen/sets/.

This weekend is Recruits Con, our local con. I'll be attending this year and am planning on getting some shots as well as a bit of paint time in. It is a fairly small affair, mostly for gamers. There is a paint and take, but no formal paint contest, unfortunately.

Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to paint this week. I am hoping to make up for that in the upcoming week. I was able to make good progress in Kristianna's face, though.

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.

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...

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!

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.

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