Pelgarth Bloodmasks - Final

Well here they are. I went back in and added additional highlights to most of the parts. They are nowhere near the quality I have produced in the past but I am currently okay with that. Working on more miniatures will retrain my skills and sharpen my brushwork. I hope you like them.

Considering Light and Location

So I thought I was done with my Bloodmasks. I applied the finishing touches, gave them a spray of dullcoat, and I was pretty happy with how they looked. Then took them to the game store for the first week of our slow grow for WoK.

Houston we have a problem!

See I forgot a very important thing about miniature painting. Consider where you are and the light that is at that place. The miniatures I had finished painted at home were painted OK and the highlights and shadows, while not especially well defined, looked good. At the store they were flat lifeless pieces of excrement. Ok maybe that was a bit harsh but the flat lifeless part is accurate.

Pelgarth Bloodmask - WIP 2

So still working on my Bloodmasks. The progress has been slow as I have been busy with summer school and distracted by H1Z1. I have managed to move forward on these buxom ladies. I have a lot of stuff on them that is incomplete.

Getting something done: Salias Yesod

Well, if you have spent any amount of time reading stuff on this blog then you know my one true love is Confrontation. I love the way that game plays out, the feel from the setting, and I have had some of my most memorable moments playing that game. So where am I going with this....lets just say I have a lot of unpainted stuff for that game.

My entry into the challenge

Yu Jing Spec Ops : aka Bruno Pontz Jones

So here he is. Bruno Pontz Jones. I know its a name hack from Kids in the Hall, but hey. This is not my best work but considering the distance since my last painted model I am far from disappointed with the results. I mounted him on a different base than what he was originally pictured. We are using a square grid for the game and I did not a round peg in a square hole if you get my drift.

In the end I stayed with the blue fins. Mainly due to lack of other inspiration. I may go back and fix them later if I come up with a better idea. The studio mini has white ones with a bit of turquoise showing at the base, perhaps I will go back in and do that. Not any time soon mind you, but it is a possibility in the future.

As a side not I hate it when I look at pictures while writing a blog post and see something I missed. I will definitely need to go back and paint the edge of the base back to black.

WIP 3: Yu Jing Spec Ops

A bit more work on the Spec Ops model that I am using for the Savage World game that our RPG group is playing. It's kinda hard to see what I have done with my current light set up. I have refined the armor with some additional highlights and done some work on the pants. I am not too sure how much more I am going to do on this model as working on it has made me anxious to finish it and move on to something else.

 I will probably work a bit more on the leather, the pants, and the metallics and call it quits. I may do something else on the back fins as I move in and out of love with them. Its a combination of the color not fitting the composition and not knowing exactly what direct I would take them.

For a warm up this model has come out pretty good I think, and I was surprised how quickly some of my skills are returning. We will see if I can maintain it across other models.

BTW...if you were wondering about the contraption holding the mini. It is a miniature holder from PK-Pro. I just got it and so far I like it. The wire with the skull gives you a place to rest your finger while you grip the base. The ceramic bottom rotates inside the metal so you can get a good angle to the model. There are two models one for 30mm and one for 54mm. I will try to do a full review of it after I have had the time to use it for a while. 

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WIP 2: Yu Jing Spec Ops, oh and a spew of random crap

That's right boys and girls, I am still painting. Not a ton of progress but I am working even though it is in 10-20min spurts. I am just having a lot of trouble maintaining focus for too long right now. At least I am putting paint on a model.

There may not seem like much progress, but trust me its there. Not only am I having to re-find my touch and technique, I am discovering that my eyes are starting to betray me. I am not "old" by any stretch of the word, but my eyes have never been good and after 33 years of glasses/contacts they are starting to tire. My eye doc suggested readers, but I am resisting that with every fiber of my being. Perhaps the intelligent part of my brain will cross the hall and slap the shit out of the stubborn side. For real though the more I paint the more I face that reality. My eyes take time to focus on the details, and at time I have to give distance to do so.

As a side note, this blog might move a bit away from just a hobby blog and into a more personal nature. The times I do get to leave something for you I tend to feel better afterwards so maybe there is some therapy to be had here. I will try to at least have something for you to look at, but it may be old stuff or something interesting I find online. Having said that, you might get post about minis, my rp group, World of Tanks (by the way, thanks to TSP for taking me into their clan), programming work for school, or in the future even some EQN Landmark (I can not wait for this game).

Anyway, I have continued on with the armor a bit and started to work more detail around the mini. The cloth is still pretty much basic and the leather has had some more work. As you can obviously see, I also painted the fins on his back. Now, I doubt this will ever get used in a game of Infinity, but in the game they have many minis that have those type of protrusions. They describe them as something that helps soldiers with a combat drop ability (kinda like a paratrooper but more high tech). It adds a bit of color distraction as is, but I am not sure I like it. I might change it or I could just say f-it.

That is about it for now. As always thanks for taking a look.

WIP: Yu Jing Spec Ops

Here are some WIP shots of the Spec Ops model I am working on for a RPG game. My character is a charismatic talker but not a slouch in combat. He is more than able to defend himself in a fight as well as use his charm or witt to best his enemies. Our group will be a band of mercenaries for hire so I wanted a muted scheme befitting of someone ready to undertake a covert op.

 What I have here is fairly preliminary. The green has had some highlighting and shading done, but is far from finished. The the rest of the colors are simply a base with some initial shades for definition.

Eldar Re-Paint WIPs

     My hobby time the past two years has been extremely limited. My decision to return to school as well as the birth of my son have cause quite a drain on my free time. That is probably the number one reason why I have had limited activity on this blog. This summer I decided to take a break after 2 full years (summers too). That should allow me more time to paint and hopefully put some stuff up for you all to look at.

     So, with the recent release of the Eldar codex I have enjoyed working with that army again. We have a saying locally "I don't paint like that no more.", and to some extent that is true. I am not trying to say there was anything specifically wrong with how I used to paint in particular how I painted my Eldar, I have just learned skills and techniques that will make painting new models much easier and reach a better result.

Quick Hit: Some NMM color recipes from Brush Brothers

The guys over at Brush Brothers have a really nice write up on NMM silver and gold. The tut is not really in depth but the recipe is written so it should be easy to understand.

I hate that I have not had time to write my own content but I definitely wanted to share these.

Take a look.

Quick Hit..Monkeyman7x's True Metallic Metals

I usually don't do this, but I think this is a really good article on how to do True Metallic Metals. For the most part there are two ways to approach painting metals. True Metallic Metals (TMM) or Non-Metallic Metals (NMM).

Non-Metallic Metal is a process brought over from other art forms where instead of using metallic paint (paint containing small metal flakes), you paint using normal non-metallic paint. NMM is a fairly difficult technique to master and looks fantastic when done correctly, but unfortunately it looks really bad if done poorly.

True Metallic Metals is a process as varied as anything in miniature painting. It can be as simple as a metal base coat, a wash, and then a highlight, to the process in Monkeyman7x's article. As varied as the technique is the results. The results from TMM is not really any better or worse than NMM, both look spectacular when done well, but TMM has the benefit that when used by less skilled painters the results are better,

Anyway, here's the link to the article. I have seen others before, but I think he does a good job of breaking it down into steps that anyone can manage and recreate.

Monkeyman7x's True Metallic Metals

Some Quick Work

I finally managed to finish a figure. I have been replaying Fallout New Vegas and I also wanted a figure that I can paint and not really worry about how it looked in the end. Let me rephrase that. I was not going to be concerned with it looking spectacular or matching the color of an existing force. With Fallout on my mind I pulled out one of the cultists I have from the Dark Vengeance set.

More after the jump...

WoK Piggie: Final

I managed to finish up the piggie I have been working on. I am fairly pleased with where this model ended up. I did not finish the base because I am unsure where this one will ultimately end up. If I end up actually playing this game and build this force, I will want him based the same as the other models so I did not base him at this time.

My ability with the true metallic metals is still evolving. On uneven surfaces I am ok, but I know my work on large flat areas (such as the swords on the back) still need a lot of work, I am just not really sure how. For now they are done.

 More pics after the jump...

Wrath of Kings WiP: Part III

Managed a productive weekend of painting relatively speaking. Managed get the metallics finished and the back padding of the throne is done. At this point I need to decide what color I am going to use for the horns, tabbard, hooves, and body of the dwarf.

As for the metallics, I feel ok with where they are at. I am still learning the true metal metallic methods, and it is coming along.

 Of course, more pics after jump...

Wrath of Kings WiP: Part II

Here is some updated pictures of where I am at. I have not done much, but I am still making progress. I darkened the leather on the gloves as the consensus over at Dragon Painting forums was that the gloves were too close in tone to the skin. After looking at the model and the pictures I agreed so I toned it a bit darker. 

 More after the jump

Airbrushing Base Colors: Part II

 So I promised some WIPs for my Chaos Marines and I was able to spend some time on them this week. Just as I show here, I have been working with using my airbrush for mass base coats. I am still tinkering with the process, but I am fairly pleased with what I have here. This is pic below is the finished product and what the rank and file of the army will look like.

After the jump I have a walk through on how I did the base color.

An Experiment...or rather, "Don't Leave Your Models at the Store!"

So, this post is actually a bit overdue. In response to the title, one of the guys from the FLGS has a bad habit of leaving his miniatures at the store. So to teach him a lesson I took two of his Grey Knights. I had a pretty good idea what he was planning on having in his army so I made sure to not take anything that was essential.

Now, Evil Homer had asked at one time about a way to do black metallic armor. I had several ideas of how he could have gone about it. I actually did some tests on a Necron to see what my ideas would look like. I was fairly pleased with the results, but I knew he wanted to use it on Marines and I was not sure it would translate over well. In came the Grey Knights.

Since that time though I believe Evil Homer no longer has the army he was intending on using the technique for. Even though Evil Homer no longer needed the recipe, I decided to use the ill gotten Grey Knights as my test subjects. I figured the owner would not learn a lesson if I simply gave them back.

One small note that I want to include. These models were assembled when I acquired them, and I did not do any cleaning on them before painting. That means the bolters are not drilled, and there is flash visible in several places. One of them was already primed and some of the detail has been obscured because of it. Before I start with the steps let me give you some info for those following along at home. VMA= Vallejo Model Air, VGC= Vallejo Game Color, and VMC= Vallejo Model Color.

Slowly Working

Well, I had a week off from work and very little hobby time. I decided to renovate my shed and replace a sliding back door with a set of french doors. Both went about as well as could be expected for a 95 year old house, but unfortunately they took more time then I wanted to spend.

Between some spare minutes and a easily officiated local tournament, I managed to finish a model. Well almost finish should really be what I said. It is about 98% done, but I noticed a few things on the pictures I would like to fix. Those will have to wait till later. I want to move on to another model.

Airbrushing for Base Colors

      Well I started this day with the idea I would write a short post about how you can cut a huge chunk of time out painting your rank and file by using an airbrush. I did some basic models to give you examples the only problem is what happened on the paint table did not transfer well in pictures. Even so I will put up the steps with a few explanations of how I did it as well as some things you can try with your own models. Here are the models after priming and the base coat color sprayed onto them.

Rackham Animistic Shaman on a Brontops...WIP2

I managed to squeeze a bit of time out to get some work done on this model. I have not had a lot of time for anything hobby related so I really have not got much done. I blocked out a few of the colors and did quite a bit of work on the skin of the brontops. I still have much more to go. As you can see I have not done anything to the rider yet.