First Two Daydreams - Final Pictures!

 Much like with the Malifaux Ice Golem, I got creative with Secret Weapon Miniatures' Crushed Glass Bundle with these Daydreams from The Dreamer's crew. I used a technique similar to building up the snow exploding out from underneath the Ice Golem's fist in order to build up what I'm intending to ideally look like a "barrier between worlds" - as if these guys are partly in the 19th Century real world and partly in Malifaux. I glued clear chunks of dried crushed glass/clear resin cut to shape as small upright pillars, and then filled in gaps and built up the shapes with additional coats of crushed glass/resin mixture. I went back with acetone over the "barrier" to melt it all back to translucency and applied a mixture of Yellow and Green Games Workshop Inks. To tone the saturation of the inks back a bit, I used a trick I read about elsewhere and brushed on household bleach along the top edges of the barrier to cut back the color a bit.

 

 The Daydreams themselves are the Black Friday sale release in translucent pink plastic, but at suggestion from my wife I went and washed them with SW Amethyst Wash and then a mixture of that wash and Vallejo Model Air Intermediate Blue directly painted into shade areas. I used leaf litter from Secret Weapon as well as Gale Force 9 static grass to round out a new "dirt" color recipe I tried.

 

 With these figures, I'm trying to tie most everything together color-wise: the wood planking is a new recipe, but it mixes in some of the steps from the dirt colors and is shaded with the same Amethyst as the figures themselves; the leaf litter, grass, and dirt are all washed with a GW brown wash color, same as one step in painting the wood planking. The only thing that doesn't tie in elsewhere is the green-yellow barrier, so as to stand out more.

 

 

Feedback and suggestions appreciated, as always!

Ice Golem - Final Pictures!

 The snow effect used on the base was achieved with Secret Weapon Miniatures crushed glass, presumably designed just for snow and ice effects - it's the Crushed Glass Bundle, which comes with "Realistic Water" resin to apply the loose crushed glass and seal it in place. I can actually sculpt it and layer it the same way I use my other basing materials. Great stuff!

I motivated myself toward getting final pictures of the finished Ice Golem:

 One thing I really liked when laying down the snow effect was that it was translucent - a first layer I mixed with white paint to represent solid snow; the second layer I left as-is for fresher snow. The best thing about it, I think, is the seepage of the Realistic Water around the edges, which makes it look like meltwater esp. on the edges on the base and the low mound on the paving. I used a less "wet" mixture for the outward-exploding snow (mostly cemented clumps of the previous white paint mixture), and just gave it a light coat of paint-free mixture to even things out.

 He's by no means showcase quality - I could've spent lots of hours on the ice crystal effect, say, and straight painted him entirely instead of using washes, but I was aiming ideally for speed. The most involved part was the highlighting and general tidying up. I really like how the eyes show up on the side-view pictures, since I used light flesh tone instead of white.

Comments and criticisms appreciated!

Children of December Based and Primed!

I've got my old DIY spray booth set up and now have the base for the Ice Golem as well as the rest of the Children of December crew primed and ready to paint! They're all mounted on Secret Weapon bases, and although it took some finicky pinning with 20 gauge beading wire (couldn't use my usual paperclip method due to the ultra-tiny feet), they're all reasonably securely fastened.

Status Update!

  My family and I moved to a new house and are still in the process of getting the place situated. My prior posts about GenCon were about the last regular access and hobby time I had. We've got everything completely moved and while my painting and hobby supplies take up about a quarter of the basement floor, it's not much resembling a "painting" area at the moment.

 That said, I'll be posting some stuff upcoming: better pictures of the Malifaux Ice Golem, the base I'm starting work on, the rest of the Malifaux Children of December crew, some quality supplies I picked up from Secret Weapon Miniatures while away at GenCon, and a few other odds and ends. I'm thinking I might do some actual product reviews (now that I have various odds and ends I could review) and I really want to get back into the posting of work-in-progress updates.

A lot of stuff in the works, and not enough hours in the day!

Back From the Dead! (Again!)

 It's been over a year since I last posted anything on this blog and, well, suffice it to say I wasn't exactly in the painting mood any more for a long, long while for a number of reasons. Recently, though, I've been spending time with a good group of friends who convinced me to go to GenCon with them. I found out there was a painting competition and although I had missed event registration by a long shot (I think it was July at this point) and I've been working a job that occupies roughly 6-7 days of my time on most weeks, I figgered I'd make the best of it and even see if I could crank out an entry to put in!

 In no particular order, I'd like to throw out a few "thank you's" from GenCon (albeit belatedly): to my wife, Jennifer, for lots of support and well-wishes; friends Jason, James, Will, Charlie, Paul (and Wendy!); Lyn Stahl - you rock!; Meg Maples (of Arcane Paintworks and Privateer Press fame); Drew Williams, sculptor extraordinaire; Izzy (I'm horrible with names, but you were very kind and an awesome artist!); Justin McCoy, aka 'misterjustin' of Secret Weapon Miniatures - it was great to finally meet you in person after all these years; the folks from Reaper Miniatures (Shannon Stiltz, Jen Kaufman, Martin Jones, and several more I'm sure but I suck at remembering names); and the awesome gentleman painter at the Privateer Press booth who critiqued some of my figures. If I've forgotten anyone from that crazy week, there's no offense intended - I feel I was in amongst a lot of great company; a little fish in a very large pond, as it were.

 And yes, I did finish a single figure entry, a Reaper Miniatures Wraith Harvester... mostly in the 3 days leading up to the painting competition deadline, where I got to sit at the GenCon demo tables upstairs and hobnob with greatness. My entry didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, but it made it past several of the initial cuts so there's that - I also got some good feedback on it and I'm fairly sure I know why it didn't turn out as well as I had hoped (and more importantly, how to improve on that in future). And then there's the "old school" converted Games Workshop Chaos Lord of Slaanesh that I painted several years ago and put in just for the hell of it as a second entry - oddly enough it ended up on the shelf right below the single figures that placed, which I'm to understand means in the selection process that the figure I painted up specifically for the competition was rather underwhelming compared to one I just put in as an "afterthought."

 With any luck I'll post some pictures soonish here and make this "hello again" wall of text worthwhile, but not tonight - It's late and I've got work in the morning.

Slaanesh Chaos Lord, leading the Disciples of the Four

Here's pictures of my finished GW Chaos Lord w/ Mark of Slaanesh and "Blissgiver" Daemon Weapon:

 For starters, I'm glad I was able to repair damage from my first attempt at using waterslide decals on a figure - his hood, specifically. It turned out a little wonky texture-wise from all the stripped paint, but I painted up the rough patches to look like more warts and scarring along the lines of the rest of the figure. (Guess this means I can now go and finish up a way-old tutorial on making custom decals/insignia, yay!)

 I painted the Daemon Weapon with a slight purple tinge, with the metal going up to a white metallic color - same as the round decorative insignia pieces on his torso. I figgered since it's supposed to be a "Blissgiver," some exotic coloration was called for (outside of the grip, which I tried to paint up as being made from tanned human leather).

 With the hood I had a hard time settling on a color scheme - I was originally going to paint it white/pale, but that was just too heavy with negative connotations in my mind (think Southeastern US white supremacist group-esque) and so I ended going with pale pink. That later changed with washes and such to more of an appropriate (in my mind) fleshy color, so I'm going with fluff that the hood is made also out of tanned human leather.

 I painted the grip of his scourge and the holster of the bolter to look like tanned human leather as well, since the orangey-reddish base balances out the other colors in theory. I'm curious to hear how folks think they turned out.

 I've been painting this guy up in fits and starts for a long while now in trying to drag my way out of a depression and a whole lot of being overwhelmed with life in general. I'm not quite there yet, but at least I've got a finished figure to show for it!

 Overall, I'd say I put the most difference in contrast in this figure compared to anything else I've yet painted - a lot of areas go from near-white (or even pure white) for highlights to near-black colors for shading. Again, I'm curious as to how folks think that turned out. He's going to be the (current) centerpiece of my tabletop CSM army-in-progress, so I figgered I'd give him some extra attention over the rank 'n' file - probably make him one big shooting magnet, but c'est la vie! (Props to Secret Weapon Miniatures, too, since I think the converted base from the older Urban Streets line turned out nicely.)

Feedback - the more detailed the better - would be appreciated!

Commission Giveaway Contest, Revisited

 Well, some good news I got today is that the Speculo Killer figure painted for doom_of_the_people (after he won the Commission Giveaway Contest) is now safely in his hands after delivery by USPS.

 One slight downside is that despite creative packaging and a lot of well-wishing, the figure arrived tipped over on its side inside the box - that essentially means it shimmied loose from being bound upright through holes drilled in a piece of hardboard that itself was hot glued to the bottom of the box. So much for marking the box "fragile" and labeling all four sides with which direction was "up" - it could've been worse, though, as I'm to understand all the only problem in transit was a somewhat bent monofilament blade (that was easily bent back to shape.)

 The great news I got today - well, for me and doom_of_the_people, anyway - is that "It looks awesome and definitely lived up to [his] expectations." (I was especially leery of the commission getting there in one piece because the figure itself was pretty fragile in sculpt, had a separate wrist join that was flimsy from the start, and was a decent amount of good faith on both ends. I'm very glad it worked out nicely!)

Infinity Speculo Killer WIP

Work continues on doom_of_the_people's Commission Giveaway Contest figure, albeit with another commission I'm prepping in fits and starts in the background and a few other things going on (we adopted a puppy last week, for instance, to "replace" the one that died of parvovirus a few months ago - I never realized how much adjustment it takes bringing a new animal into the house!)

At his request, I've done a fair amount of weathering and sun-bleaching effects on an "autumn"-style color scheme. The underlying armor panels are brownish-yellow and orange-yellow, alternating in parts, and the whole figure has been lightly airbrushed with an off-white - I'm still getting the hang of it, but it's a fun thing to play with. It was a lot paler until tonight, when I had the inspiration to add some additional cool coloration that ought to tie the warmer (if muted) browns and autumn colors in with the soon-to-be-glowing monofilament weapon and a few other (surprise!) Object Source Lighting effects. I used an initial glaze of GW Shadow Grey brushed towards the crevices across the figure, followed by a Shadow Grey/VGC Sepia Ink mixture to delineate the panel lines and such a bit more - I'm aiming for a look of grime deep-set in the crevices of the armor, or possibly dust mixed with oil.

Anyhow, here's the figure as of this evening:

I've already started with basecoating the Secret Weapon Miniatures base on which she stands, which ideally will end up looking like broken concrete - I plan for the pipe to be oozing something vile (with continued approval, of course).

Top Sekkrit Projekt for Secret Weapon

Now that I've got the bugs worked out in the process (it's been a while to get to this point, but I think I've got everything necessary hammered out for assembly-line production), I'm in the midst of designing stuff for a collaborative release between misterjustin of Secret Weapons Miniatures fame. I don't want to say too much, as he doesn't know I'm posting this (*muahahaha*), but sufficent to say my current side project ought to go perfectly with his recently-released line of Tech Factory bases.

As an aside, I've mentioned a few times now that my recent Renegade Psyker figure is mounted on one of his pre-release molds of the Urban Streets II series (except for the "psychic explosion" and the "random debris" on top, the base decoration is essentially "all his" - it hopefully goes without saying that I recommend his Secret Weapon Miniatures stuff since I was willing to use one of his "test blanks" on a "color test" display-quality figure and I'm kinda picky in how I accent (accessorize?) my painted stuff. I haven't done an "official" review of the bases, though, because the ones I've got from Secret Weapon (and am planning to use in future additions to my 40K Chaos forces) aren't technically the "official" released versions.