Mini ADD strikes again

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/.

Trying to get back on track...

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.

 

 

More Kristianna WIP shots

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.

Small update

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.

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!