Mooooooooonstone!!

This was a brute of a mini, an absolute brute!! Buuuuuuuut he’s done!!!

Not an easy model to paint: king, 3 pages and the throne. One of the trickiest hurdles though was in the casting – not the quality but in the choices the caster(s) made in how to cut the model for the mould. Simply put, this model should have been cast in more parts. Casting it in so few parts to save on mould real estate left several really tricky blind alley areas which were an absolute bastard to get in at to paint!! And there was a hell of a lot of details to this mini!!

But he’s done, finally, the last mini of 2023!!! This is the alt version of the Goblin King, a character I didnt think I’d ever paint as I (really) dont like the regular version of the king but this version is an absolute belter!!

I thought I’d try and be a bit more regular…….. in my project updates that is. My fibre intake is fine thank you very much!

After working on so many of the bigger Moonstone minis in a row, I though a smaller one would be quicker and easier to get finsihed………. WRONG!! They all take ages!!! Size has bloody nothign to do with it !!!

Anyways – gnomes are small. Gnomes should be quick to paint…….. sigh

Here’s where I’m at with one of the new(ish) gnomes for the Commonwealth.  There are 3 nordic themed gnomes Liv, Bjorn and some wee brat…. Olim i think.
Loved Liv when I first saw the previews and was well eager to get the paint on her. She is very small and as per usual packed with a load of detail.

She has been a lot of fun to work on and am rather happy how her hair and feathers have turned out 🙂

Back with a wee ‘ here’s what i’ve been doing’  post! Yeah I really do suck at being consistent – buuuuuuuuuut with a now…… (counts on fingers) 11 month old squigling in the house, things have been a touch………. FECKING NUTS!!!!

Still painting n loving the Moonstone (yeah yeah…… a modicum of credit to Gerry……. mumble mumble……. )  and even played in my first ever tourney (of any kind) at Adepticon in March! I didnt get tooooootally stomped and won one of my four matches. For the very most part the other players were absolute stars and a really lovely bunch of folk to meet and play with. It really a great game adn community that goes with – none of that WAACs shite or meta bollox etc etc. Just folk having the shits n giggle over a really fun ‘ whimsical’ game 🙂

Anyways……… few more denizens of Tauber finished now and again all big fellas. I do seem to be painting all the bigger models from the range and thats really why it takes me so damn long to finish one…… ahem…………. thats my excuse and its true 😛

Well that’s me all caught up for now, at least for the ones I’ve managed to finish!! Working on Liv the nordic gnome and the new alt sculpt of the goblin king at the mo so shall try n pop a few WiPs up when i get the chance 😀

As Adepticon draws closer, I’ve been trying to fill out my Leshavult for the Moonstone tourney there. Latest to get all finished up is Loubard the blind giant.
This is not the usual Loubard sculpt but rather the alt version which I was lucky enough to be gifted by a friend recently

Absolute belter of a mini to paint I really enjoyed this one.  I wanted to make him a little more in keeping with my other Leshavult and away from his possible Commonwealth ties so added in some tatts and made his trousers a little less bright and garish than the boxart version

Been an age, a right while……….but havent been idle!!! Been working my way through a reasonable backlog of the denizens of Tauber with a leaning towards the mystical followers, the cultists, the Leshavult!!

So let’s have a wee catch up with a surprise WiP at the end!!!

Few more Tauberites finished and taking their place amongst the New Dominion!

First up is Firespitter and his bellows…. b…. pal 🙂 Firespitter was actually the first released mini for Moonstone and he still really stands up.

he did take a while to finish up and candle OSL is ……… a bit of a pain to do but definitely worth it!!

But got him done we did!!

Next up is Vespa atop her Bane-Bug stead!!
I have a dislike of those clear flying stand thingys so with a micro arts base and a twig from the garden ………. Vespa flies again!

I really liked the box art for Vespa so based a lot of the palette on that. Using brighter and more saturated colours than usual on Vespa gave her a bolder and more dynamic look.
The wings of the BaneBug are clear plastic so painting them was going to be …… a differnet chalenge. After looking at pics of real world wasps, I glazed an orangey brown colour on using Tamiya clear enamel paints – not something i use very often

Well a very happy if belated Happy New Year to one n all!!
Oh things have been a touch of the busys since I last posted but Moonstone has kept on going (every Friday on Twitch) and I’ve finised a few more!!

Soooooooo let’s have a gander!!!

With all the Moonstone that I picked up at Salute, twas a bit of a task who to paint first! But in the end I decided on the wonderful Sir Hogwash and his warthog which chat promptly named ‘Chops’ !!!

Chops is now mostly done barring a few soft glazes later on.

A wee short entry here but one I that I’m dead happy to be making!
So Salute was last weekend and myself and Mrs Jan flew over on the Friday for it. Was to be my first ever Salute and I was well excited!!

Friends n viewers convinced me to bring some minis over to enter in the painting competition so I brought a few of my fav pieces in my travel case.

Salute was so much fun! Got to meet up with a whole pile of viewers from my Twitch channel IRL for the first time and got to meet with the BoW team again!

I entered Tank Girl which is my favourite piece I’ve done, the Hamelin diorama piece and I brought my New Dominion troupe from Moonstone as well. Tank Girl & Hamelin didnt make first cut but then as I was coming back from a cheeky smoke break, I saw my friends rather aggitated and furiously beckoning me over………….

Apparently this had happened!!!  To say I was(am) thrilled is somethign of an understatement!!!  Salute was my first ever IRL competition and I got a Gold! I was also so very happy that it was with Moonstone. I have had so so much fun painting these minis up and they have been a real breath of fresh air and quite a different track for me from what I usually paint.

I knew before going that I was going to be buying more Moonstone but…….. I might have gotten a little carried away!!!

Moonstone Fridays on Twitch are back on the menu boys!!!

Huge thanks to all that came and supported and met up over the weekend  – was a really honour meeting you all 🙂

Finally finished up Baron Von FancyArse & Eric the squire!! With these too fella complete that means the 2P starter set (+ Ribald the troll) is now all finished!!! (Scroll down for the ‘family’  photo)
Let’s have a wee look at the final two members first though 🙂

Baron took a bit longer than the others I think – most probably due to the fact that the snotty wee sod is dressed plate armour….. well mostly.  When I started on Moonstone, as with most projects, the first question I needed to make a decision on was non-met or true-met for the metal elements. The overall aesthetic and character of the Moonstone minis led me to think that they was suit non-met workups best.  And well with the Baron, this came back to bite me firmly on the ass!!
Overall though he was a really fun paint although I am never painting bloody feathers again!!  (I say this every time I paint feathers!! )

Onto young Eric the squire aka Eric the brave.  Eric has a lot going on on him. A backpack with all manner or crap hanging off him!! Plus blonde hair……… blonde hair is, imho, the trickeist of hair colours to get right with red hair being the easiest and brunette somewhere inbetween.  I needed to work some pinky red into Eric somewhere as that’s the unifying colour I choose for the Commonwealth humans. The shield was a lot of fun to do though mind and a lot easier than you’d think 🙂

So that is all the Moonstoners done for now. I has none left to paint…………. until next weekend of course………. Salute!!!!  With GoblinKingGames being there, I know I will be stocking up on more of the fabulous denizens of Tauber…… of yes ……. let’s not forget the obligatory photo of the finished starter box (+ Ribald)

Defintely getting quicker at these wee fella!! This one only took me about 3 days!! Hey ……. thats good for me!!

Anywho – Friar Flavius for the Commonwealth. Like Grub, he was not not one that I was particularly looking forward to painting and like Grub,  the more I worked on him, the more I liked him. That was until the bat/club/smacking stick………. that was a pain!!

I tried a new flesh workup out as well. Think its worked out rather well. Its a mish mash of about 3 or 4 differnt paint companies mind  – Reaper, Sacle75, Vallejo & Nocturna.  Non-Met as usual for the Moonstone minis as it jsut suits the aesthetic better, I think,  than tmm. He was pretty straight forward a paint. no surprises or tricks up his chainmail sleeves. I ended up having to tone down his codpiece a little though as the initial workup had it jumping out a bit too much!!

Been getting a grand bit of progress on the 2P StarterBox of late to the point that the New Dominion/Goblin side are now finished!!

With Doug taken care of, there was only one gobbo left on the Dominion side in the box. I had left Grub till the end as I really wasnt that keen on his sculpt…….. the weird thing was that as soon as I started to see some progress on him, he actually started to grow on me. I tried to get him totally done in a day but he ended up taking day and a half in the end.

With all the goblins done it was time to move on over to the commonwealth side.  Starting with Flintlock. Love this mini but damn he just refused to get finished!!  Kept finding more thingys on him to paint!!  And then i decided to paint one on of the rocks at his feet as a Moonstone!
I think he came out nicely in the end though!!

On the sly n side I got stuck into The Vicious Midget (Doug the Flatulent is being painted on stream as voted for by viewers) – diamond wee mini this fella and apparently a wee s#!7e to come up against in the game!

He was quick enough paint – only 4 or 5 hours all told I think. Similar old beaten nmm as on Ribald but on a muuuuuuuch smaller scale!

Anyways – here be the midget!

Ribald is all done! I really had such a blast working on this ‘friendly’ looking troll.
Looking back now I am really glad I abandoned my initial idea of trying to get the Moonstone minis painted up quick as possible and jsut to use as game pieces. They are just far too nice nad characterful to not spend the extra time giving them a fuller paintjob. I’ve even entered Ribald into this years “Eavier Metal ‘Eadbanger paint competition.

As to the paint.  I tried a one or two new things out on Ribald, as I try to do with every mini: try something new, take a risk, experiment.  Each mini is an opportunity to push myself harder and further as an artist. This year so far has been a belter for growth I feel. I’ve already (I think) finsihed more models than I did in the whole of 2020 (37 models done so far -from 28mm to 75mm, from vignettes to busts to diorama)  and the improvements in my painting have been both noticeable and palpable, which is a great feeling.

For Ribald I tried a different way of doing a more battered metal in nmm. A lot of nmm we see in the community has and still is all about smoothness of transitions and smoothness of materials as well as correct application of light and shadow. But what if its a metal that is old, uneven and was never particularly well-wrought in the first place?
So,  with Ribald, and how his armour was already sculpted, I tried to do this more battered and less reflective metal plate justice through nmm. Usually I would have just opted for tmm as it lends itself very easily to older metals when used in conjunction with washes, filters and effects to tone done the inate reflectivity of the metallics paints (I’ve done a few YT videos on the subject folk might find useful) and if metal is highly or at least moderately polished and smooth, I would use a nmm approach.  But with the Moonstone minis and their overall aesthetic,  I felt that nmm was more suited to their look.
Some miniatures (and ranges) lend themselves better to one or the other – for example – Kingdom Death works better with an nmm approach and tmm often deosnt really look as good on them as it would on other lines. The original Judgement minis (the 54mm scale models before they fecked the whole thing up by lowering the scale and letting creature caster take over the aesthetic) definitely looked a lot better with tmm work than nmm. Of course this is all just my take on things and how I see them!!

Anywayssssssss – I think a more rough and textured nmm approach suits the overall look adn aesthetic of the Moonstone minis so I (starting with Beaky Bobby) wanted to tweak and adapt a slightly different nmm look for them.
As usual I paid particular attention to light, shadow and over contrast as that is core to making nmm workups a success but this time I also paid equal attention to the texture of the armour. Stipple & smudge, makeup brushes and  more …… aggressive brush work played a big part in this. And it seems to work – we break up the light reflections so that they are not reflecting from a perfectly smooth and polished surface but rather from a more rough, pitted and eroded surface.

As to the skin of the troll and also of the goblin. I tried a differnt approach here which was at very quite monochromatic but then brought to life by utilising differnent coloured filters and glazes. I detailed this in the last post so I wont go on about that here!
A very quick note on the basing – as these are ultimately going to be used on the tabletop, I wanted a definte homogenousness of base.  So rather than basing e3ach mini individually and with basing materials,  I opted for cast resin bases  – as the whole quick paint to play idea was out the window, by going with scenic resin bases I could claw back a little time. After looking through a lot of different companies I finally settled on the rocky terrain bases from model display products for the gobbos n trolls and the regal stone bases from the same company for the humans. Havemt decided what bases for the gnomes yet. Fauns and faeries will be on woodland bases and so on.
A quick note on the quality of the bases. MDP are to be HIGHLY recmn’d  – the quality of the resin and their resin casting is near flawless. I was really impressed when the bases arrived (apart form the bastarding customs tax I got charged on a 20gbp order >< ) the details are all really sharp and there was not a single airbubble to be found on all the bases I ordered. really top quality product – 10/10
So I’ve blathered on for ages here so I’ll shut up now! More pics of Ribald below and please,  if you have any questions,  feel totally free to ask in the comments or PM me 🙂

So the second Moonstone I decided to work on was Ribald the troll or 배불뚝이 (pot-belly) as my wife calls him! Another lovely sculpt with all the humour, whimsy and irreverancy typical of the characters of Moonstone. I had a general idea of where I was going to take him and this time I had no illusions of a quick to tabletop paint job. Beaky Bobby put paid to that!
I very rarely plan out paint jobs but instead get a general idea of palette and just set to it and see where it goes.

When I’m happy with the initial sketch and tones of the face, I then turn to the rest of the skin and work it up to the same rough stage as the face.  Dark/shadow base under colour which I then next work up to mid tones and then onto the highlights.
This initial skinwork usually ends up very monochromatic when executed in this way but that’s fine as the point is establish the dominant skin colour and tone as well as working the volumes of the model.

So, with the volumes and the dominant skin colour in place, it’s time to add in some secondary and tertiary colours and tones.  The importance and job of these additions are pretty obvious when one sees them in place at the end. We are adding in character and a sense of life to the model.  The plain monochromatic finish of the first stages leave the character looking rather lifeless and devoid of any real character and background. If could just as well be a green statue rather than a romping stomping clod of a troll!!

With the orange/brown glaze filters in place and FULLY dry, we can move on to more popping colours. We are going to bring in some pinks and then a more reddish pink into areas such as the nose, elbows, fingers, knuckles and toes. Again a series of very thin glaze layers are applied until we are happy with the satiation and vibrancy of the effect.

First Moonstone mini is complete! My initial idea was to do these minis up quick and simply. After all this is a game I am actually planning to play and one that maaaaaay be a gateway game to get my wife into tabletop gaming.
So, thought I,  quick simple paintjob, one mini per sitting. Get them done and ready for the table. (terrain will be another thing esp after seeing about tabletop world has to offer……….. bugger)

So I started with Beaky Bobby, a goblin ….. apothecary (? ) ftom the New Dominion faction – let’s get him done. no frills, no fannying about, no getting sucked in……..

Quick leather workup to start – by the numbers dirty old leather trenchie……….. so far so good……..

Next the mask…….. then it all went Pete Tong. …….. I got sucked in……. and a few paint sessions later ….. Beaky Bobby was done…… all in all …… probably about 7 hours of work. Faster than usual but ……… ah feck it……. they are gorgeous minis!!!

So here we go! Postman dropped off the goodies the other day.  I’m not going to go into detail here about the contents of the box(es) too much as I already did a quick unboxing video over on YouTube ( https://youtu.be/XjYXdsyj2rQ )

Here we shall be focusing primarily on the painting and modeling side of Moonstone.

So have all the minis so far built and primed!!  The prep on the minis wasnt too bad. Its a really nice and high quality resin that they are using (yay) however I suspect the moulds may be getting on a wee bit as there was a lot of flash which on such delicate and beautfully sculpted models is a right pain in the arse.  Very few mouldlines or mouldslips which after having just prepped a FW model…….. was very happily received!!
Minis went together pretty nicely and I am really glad they went with high grade resin rather than white metal or cheap plastic.

For priming – broke out the priming airbrush, my faithful H&S Infinity and gave them 2 thin coats of Stylynrez black primer followed by a light lateral highlighting with some Daler Rowney white ink.

Thats kinda it for the minute except to say a big thanks (no really) to @avernos for showcasing these minis and game on the weekender and also in the playthrough vids. Am really excited to get into this game and lsoe myself in the whimsical world of Tauber.

Will be painting the Moonstone minis every Friday live on my Twitch channel if anyone wants to stop by and check it out. (3pmBST)

First up is ………… Beaky Bobby!!!