Odds, Sods n ……Stuffs. A Medley of Mayhem

And It’s done! A long time in the making this diorama was one of those projects that was a real challenge and a great ‘leveling up’  piece and one that I am really really rather proud of now that its all finished. I scratch built as much as possible from materials on hand and/or from my garden. But let’s start at the beginning.

The miniatures in this piece are an older and very OOP vignette from Reaper Miniatures that my client wanted me to both paint and ‘fit’ into a larger diorama setting. This little duo plus a sanding stone was originally released and called ‘The Druid’s Stone’ and was based on a piece of art by the amazing Keith Parkinson. The sculpting was done by Sandra Garrity. So I had a starting point in Keith’s original art piece.

The plinth was made for me by the fantastic Richard Wharton at Oakwood Studios and after a bit of Dremel carving to deepen a stream channel I laid down the rough contours of the land first with sculpture block bark for the rock formations as well as some stones etc from the garden, bit of Milliput to blend things in and then covered and refined it with some modelling compound from #geekgamingscenics . The main standing stone is part of the original white metal vignette from reaper but it seemed a bit lonely on its own so I sculpted a couple of smaller ones in Milliput. Next was a layer of wet ground texture paint from AK into which was pressed some forest scatter from #rivalcrafts while still wet. After painting all this tufts, flowers and flock as per usual.

The trees……….. ohhh the trees………. (cont. in comments) I wanted to use birch trees and the client has a special thing for birch as well but couldn’t find any tutorials for making birch trees online that produced something I was happy with so decided to just try it myself. We have several birch in the garden so gather up birch twigs was no problem. They were then baked in the oven to fully dry them out and kill off any bugs, spores etc The branches are smaller twigs which I cut to size and pinned n glued onto a larger ‘trunk’ twig to make the main tree structure. The we needed some canopy so I drilled holes into the birch branches and inserted sprigs of seafoam for that. After construction was all done, gave them a spritz of sealant aka watered down mod podge, primed them and then painted them as birchy looking as I could. The foliage is from AK Interactive – Autumn birch foliage. Kinda of a loss mat sort of product with lots of autumn birch leaves in it which you tear off into appropriate pieces and work into the sea foam to hold it. All the extra leaves that fall off were saved and then used later on the ground for leaf litter. Once finished the trees were generously spritzed with mod podge solution and then inserted into drilled holes in the diorama and there you have it!!!

Finally finished up Darth Vader and got him off to the client. There was nearly tears sending him off!!

Really was a wonderful project though. Pushing OSL is often a tricky beast as to getting the amount and levels right. Too much it looks garish and cheap, too little, it has little to no impact.

With Darth that was definitely a concern esp with the glow from the lightsaber. Think I got the levels ok though…….. think – Lol

With Darth’s plinth base finished (see below)  twas time to get stuck into Darth himself.

Painting black……….. I generally enjoy painting black.  It does come with some caveats usually though.  Most noteably you need to balance the deeper black spaces and the highlights very carefully otherwise your mini who is supposed to be clad in black looks like he is wearing grey.

Secondly – temperature. Even though black (grey & white as well) is not a colour but a shade, temperature still can and does play apart. With all the heat and warmth coming off the base,  I wanted to ensure that Darth’s blacks would be cold to contrast against the warmth of the base. This meant using blues in the mixes for his garb.

Thirdly – not all materials react and reflect light in the same way. Darth has several different types of materials in his dress – softer leathers of his gloves and boots, the weird ass trousers he wears with their….. quilting, the rogher thicker material of his cloak and finally the super reflective shiny material used for his armour; greaves, helmet and cowl.

All of these differnt materials will react in a differnt way and therefore need to be treated appropriately.  So the highlights  on the cloak will be of a different and less reflective nature to the highlights used on his helmet for example.

I decided to work up all the softer materials first – bringing up the softer midtones and highlights to a certain point.  The cloaks’ highlights stopped shorter than those for his gloves and trousers as they have softer lines and flow to the slightly sharper apices of the weird trousers fabric. I also needed to note and make allowances for where the OSL glow from his lightsaber would later fall on the materials as well.

The cloak in this limited version of Darth Vader is pretty lovely in its flowing and billowing but a bit of a shit to paint!! So with the volumes (usually shown by the contrasts b/t shadows, midtones and highlights) of the cloaks in place I brought the highlights on the righthand side up a little further as they will be lit and tinted by the glare fo the lightsaber.

I did the same for his trousers and gloves but as they are leather which is more reflective usually than the wool (or whatever Vader’s cloak is spun off) of a heavy cloak, I brought some of the apex highlights here up further.

When it came to the armour pieces – I needed to firstly make the highlights and midtones much more compact and secondly to bring them up to almost pure white due to their highly reflective surfaces.

In these workups i was more concerned with getting the correct reflections and highlights in place than with ensuring the black shadows were deep and broad enough to stave off the possibility of everything reading more as grey than black. This problem will be taken on and solved later in the glazing phase.

Here the goal was made sure the armour’s shiny reflective nature was tackled and read as such.

And that is where we are. There is still the question of depth and reducing back the amount of real estate that is grey rather than black to be tackled and that will be addressed and refined once all the highlights are in place.

I left the helmet till last as it has the trickiest of shapes involved – spheres. Spheres are a pain in the arse at times esp when it comes to reflective workups – nmm for example as the reflections act very differently and more complicated than flat edged items.

Once the helmet has been highlighted and of course also in relation to the lightsaber and its glare, then come the glazes.

A quick note on paints. All this was done with 4 paints. VMC black & dark sea blue ( as I said earlier, I wanted to ensure a cooler nature to the blacks used on Darth in contrast to the warmer base) and ScaleColour graphite grey and white. The initial base mix was a mix of black and dark sea blue and then the highlights came from adding increasing amounts of graphite grey and then white into this base mix.

Recently started up 2 new projects. One is my own and the other a commission piece.
First up is from the Nord faction from ParaBellum for their game Conquest-The Last kerfuffle of Kings and he is a brute beast and a red………. well……. a very big fella. Measuring in at about 16cm tall, he is definitely the tallest ‘mini’ I’ve worked on!!

He is part of Para Bellum artisan series and they brought in one of my favourite sculptors, Michael Kontraros to create him. The sculpt is stunning!!  Casting……. well, usually I am a complete whiny bitter little bitch when it comes to resin casts as it is my favourite medium for minis ( cast stuff not 3D printed) and therefore am really critical of bad/sloppy/amateur/lazy casts (yes FW & Raging Heroes, I am thinking of YOU)  The Ice Jotnar’s (should really be Jotun as Jotnar is the plural form but anyways) cast was nearly perfect. There were a few wee bits of cleanup but nothing that took more than a few minutes. Honestly one of the nest casts I’ve had in my hands. There was a few stories flying around that they had gotten a jeweller to do the casting etc etc. Fantastic sculpt & a fantastic cast. I was moist!

I’ve gotten a bit of work done on him now on stream (Saturdays are Jotun Days) and he is coming along. I’m doing his skin portion by portion as trying to paint all the skin at the same time would be a fool’s errand and exhausting. As I dont really keep a paint diary or a recipe list – I took a photo on my phone of the paints I’m using so I can make sure that the skin will be all painted the same, with the same paints and end up homogenous when done. I bring each skin section up to about 80% complete before moving on to the next section. The final 20%,  mostly a few final highlights and tweaks plus some glazes,  will then be done all at the same time to bring it all together and unify all the different areas.

The eyes…….. I hummed and hawed about the eyes for a while and in the end,  on a whim during stream,  I decided that something like that which the white walkers fellas in Game of  ̶b̶a̶d̶ ̶e̶n̶d̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ Thrones sport would make for a nice strong contrast against the softer more subtle blue tones of the skin. They were intense to paint!!!

On a side note – I have an affiliate code for ParaBellum’s webstore.  If anyone is getting into/expanding their Conquest army, use the code JANUINE at checkout to get 10% off their first purchase.  Money saved is money gained and all that pish 😉

Next up we have a rather special new project.  (Typing htis for the second time as the website just crashed >< )  This is a commission piece for a viewer in the States.  Darth Vader! This is a limited edition alternate sculpt of Darth for Star Wars: Legions that was only released at some con in Chicago in 2019. Its resin rather than their usual plastic (yay) and the cast was near flawless. Literally took me 10 minutes to cleanup. Weirdly enough, considering how much I love Star Wars (Solo was a crackingly fun movie ALRIGHT?!!) this is my first Star Wars mini to paint!!

So, the client wants this mini as a display piece rather than as a game piece which is aces.  I decided to build and paint the base first as the light from it would have an effect on Darth himself. I settled on a lava base scene as am sure Anakin/Darth would love the chance to revisit Mustafar (meeeeemories!)

For the plinth I wanted a very dark wood that would complement the overall scene. I’m not a huge fan of painting the plinths black so if at all possible I will choose a wood whose natural colouring will fit in with what is on top. For this one I decided on a wood that can be a bit tricky to source – African Blackwood. Once turned and polished African Blackwood has a really lovely dark veneer and sheen with a slightly warm feel. Perfecto!
The mini comes with a rocky base topper as it is so it was just to expand on that and bring it out to cover the plinth top.
I used the rock base that came with, some resin rocks from Spellcrow and mordant earth crackle paint from GW to form up the scene. Then it was to the painting.  The base progressed along these lines:

As this piece has a huge amount of black it was going to be important to try and set the different blacks apart as well as have them work together harmoniously – so I decided on a warmer feel to the base with the lava and the rocks there (I added a very soft charcoal feel to the rocks by using some warm beige mixed into the black on the rocks as well as the hot colours of the lava) to contrast against the colder more jet blacks (planning to use blues in the black for Darth) that would be used on Darth Vader.
With the base complete it was time to build Darth and get him primed up for painting. I primed him just in black forgoing my usual lateral second prime with white for picking out detail and sketching a light source as a)  its Darth Vader, he is all black anyways and b) there wasn’t really going to be a main light source from above.

So after a question of how I plan my projects by one of the viewers over on Twitch (short answer – I really dont, a least not formally or on paper) I decided to try something out. A video project diary series detailing and trying to plan a project a bit more formally and organisidly……. (thats a word ok!!!)

Anyways – the first two…… ‘episodes’ are done and up on YouTube already. Have a look and whatnot. I have about 10 episodes planned from Intro to completed project planned…… We’ll see!!!

Finally finished! The longest, biggest and most detailed piece I’ve ever worked on! 15 months from start to finish!

This really was one heck of  journey. I worked on this piece from time to time, never rushing just tickling away at it when time allowed.

I was always going to be a long project but the depth of it was where it really shone for me. I tweaked some older workups i use, Invented some wholly new ones where i felt it needed and experiemented as much as I wanted.  I threw caution in the bin adn just went for it. It wasnt a commission piece but something i wanted to learn as much as possible from working on adn there were/are a whole bunch of ‘firsts’ in there!
It is a narrative piece and there is a story in there but what that story is and whether its the same as the story i saw in the making isnt really important. Whatever story the viewers get from it is the one that matters 🙂

Anyways – enough jibber jabber. Photos!  I hope you enjoy this as much as I did both in the making and the finished piece. If you have any questions at all about it – techniques, details etc etc – please feel free to ask away 🙂

Not exactly an old project per se…….. but a new one from an old work.

So, I have never sculpted before. Greenstuffing and the like on conversions and filling gaps on minis is about as far as I have travelled into the world of sculpting. I did make a tiny hedgehog or two for bases but thats the sum total of my sculpting experience!!

While going through some old sketchbooks and the like I came across a few drawings/doodles I did of faerie-kin some 16 years ago.

So for no real reason whatsoever I decided I wanted to have a bash at sculpting a bust!!
Never sculpted before? No problem!
Not sure where the hell to start? YouTube!!

So after a bit of a fiddle around on YouTube and a few videos watched from folk who know a hell of a lot more about what they are doing than I……… I decided to get stuck in!

First up – make an armature! I had a box of SuperSculpy Firm lying around that I had bought before and as its a medium that does dry out but instead is baked it seemed perfect for me as I was not going to be finishing this project anytime soon!

For bigger and thicker sculpts with SSF,  you need to have a core of tinfoil apparently.

Armature……. Check!!

Next up, I learned from the You of Tubes (actually most of what I learned was from one guy  – a sculptor called The Dark Lord. very rec/mnd) is to create the base form or under form or something like that.

Need to cover the armature with a thinnish covering of the SSF and get the basic form shaped out and then on top of that we’ll sculpt the actual features and so on.

well ok then……

Well that didnt seem tooooooo bad. And comparing it to my original drawing that I was going to try and make a bust of…… I was pretty happy! Shape seemed ok and resesesmbled the drawing well enough…… aces. I also marked in the rough areas for the eyes, nose and mouth.

I was still missing a few things though. The real sculptors had a few tools that I didnt have and looked rather handy. I already had a fair wee selection of tools like clay shapers and various pointy, sticky, pokey tools but a tool called a ‘rake’ or a ‘hoop tool’ looked rather handy as did a ball on stick device thingy…… couldnt find them in my local craft shop soooooooooooo just made them myself with some violin string and a few old dead cut down brushes! Making my own tools now…… I was beaming!
I was also missing eyes. YouTubey people were using glass eyes…. makes sense as the piece needs to be baked and plastic would probably melt in the oven.  To Amazon we go!! ……… yup glass eyes on metal pins…….found them…… I now am in possession of over a 100 bloody glass eyes of various sizes….. I only needed TWO!!!

Next up…… let’s schedule a 12 hour stream on Twitch to get really stuck into this sculpting! So to celebrate one year of Twitch Partnership,  said long stream was scheduled and it went………… rather well!!  I dug out my old Prince August moulds from when I was a kid and we did some metal casting of a goblin catapult first, which went well; didnt burn down the studio or pour molten metal on my person so that was good.

Then was the time to get into the sculpting. A few tasty craft stouts defintely helped! Buuuuuuuuut was really happy with how it started to turn out!

That was about 6 hours or so work I think……..

Overall the bust was really begining to take shape. Primary features were in place and startig to look……… not shit and was still looking at least related to the original drawing!

I had beamed and self congratulated a little too early and quickly though………. I had not yet got to working on the ears………………

‘Ears’….. quite simply put ….. are BASTARDS!!!!

Jesus merciful hour! Bloody ears!!

On a subsequent stream,  I went about sculpting the ears…. wow…… I hate ears!! fiddley, fandingely feckers!!! Finally they started to take shape and once again look…….. well……. not too too shit!!!
And this is where Diabhlai the faerie-kin sculpt is now at!!!

Overall, I am really really happy with how this project has started and is progressing. As I siad I have never sculpted before and it is something I’ve always wanted to try but always just put it off and put it off.  It’s coming along and I think is begining to look pretty fun if not good! But most importantly, I really am having fun with this!! Any questions, please do ask but a bit of a caveat……. I’m NO Sculptor!!!

We all have a ‘few’ of those stalled projects. The ones that were started in best faith and then. well……. got put on teh shelf one day and there they stayed for…… a while!! I have several of such projects and decided it was time to jump back in and bring them to finish. One of said projects is Hamelin, Bard of Twilight from Mindworks/Kimera.

Such a great piece that I decided on a more involved dioramatic base. Base got built and primed and there it all stalled!!

Time to get it off the shelf and on the desk~~ !!

I wasnt too happy with the base colours I had laid down with an airbrush before so decided to paint over the whole thing again. Using a mixture of W&N Galleria tube acryllics and Scale75 artist paints I went for a warm cream buff/beige as the base hue

Then with thinned down browns and greens I added in some staining to the stone to show dirt, algae, lichens, mosses etc. Paying closer attention to the steps that would lead down to and be under the water line, I increased the green staining there, feathering out the strong filters.

For the brickwork, some of which would be under the waterline I started with a dark base and lightened it up to a  pinkish terracotta hue and then added in some yellows to the beige/white stone for an extra layer of staining, age and interest

With the base top now fixed and sealed to the plinth, it was time to start adding in some detailing and elements. I darkened the bricks under the waterline, added in some grass tufts and weeds and then with thinned down wood glue (do NOT use PVA. It is crap and will reactivate when the resin is poured into canal leaving you with a ruined base under the resin water. PVA reactivates and turns back to white.)  added the ‘silt’ for the canal bottom. A further coat of thinned down wood glue was added later on to seal the silt down.

And this is where we are now!!!

Tank Girl is finally finsihed!!!  https://www.instagram.com/p/CNkRK3HHYmR/

The model is actually ‘Valerya’ from Hera Models but I fancied painting her up in the vein of one of my favourite comic book characters – ‘Tank Girl’ by Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin from back in the day

Had a real blast working on her and used the project to really push myself forward:  trying out a few new techniques as well as trying to improve on some older ones.

I even went the lunatic route and fashioned a tiny band-aid for her cheek as the comic book version is always sporting several plasters about her face!!

So bit more work on the base and we are starting to see the base take some serious form!!

So with the layout is pretty much locked in and sealed with three coats of wood glue & water solution (1st coat 50/50 and then 2nd and 3rd coats about 72/25 glue to water) I added some more under-dressing to the base.
This is certain details and dressings that go on before the primer and form a base for later top dressings such as moss, lichen and other flora as well as pushing some rubble and dust into corners to break up the clean angles of the built elements.

I also added in some vines to wrap around some of the architecture. These are dried and preserved ‘vines’ I got from rival crafts. They look great but were an utter bastard to place and glue down esp when my Superglue decided to be lazy AF and not cure quickly!!

With all the things sealed, glued down and ready it was finally time to bring it together with some primer.

I primed first with black (Stylynrez ofc) in two layers and then a light coat of white over that to pick out the details.

Priming at this point deos more than just get the piece ready for painting. It flattens out all the different coloured elements and materials from the build so I can see more easily if there are any mistakes made in the build or any areas that need more underdressing, filling and so on. Also shows up any areas where glue has left noticeable tidemarks or ripples so I can then either cover them with some fine grit or sand them done and then reprime.

With the priming done I place the scene back on top of the walnut plinth where it will eventually go. Again could check size and fit and get a better idea of how the final piece will look.

We’re jumping into this after the main figure has already been nearly finished but I want to focus more on the diorama portion of this project.

To catch up – Hamelin (plus his 4 wee….. ‘associates’) is a 72mm (i think) model from Mindworks & Kiimera which was gifted to me a good while back by a very very kind viewer of my twitch stream.

I’ve done a lot of Hamelin himself’s paint on stream to the point that his now about 85% finished.

With the wooden base made I turned to what I was going to sculpt the top from. Iniitally I tried to find some XPS foam (extruded polystyrene. EPS can bugger right off)  but I couldnt find any anywhere even on Amazon but then I came across a product called Sculpture Block!!!

And this stuff is the business. Very easy to work, holds detail a charm and doesnt melt with superglue!!!

So i sized a piece up to the walnut base and cut out the main form

With the main structure now shaped, trimmed, refined and glued together it was time to use filler on the sides to even out the outside ‘blind walls’

I used 151 all purpose filler which you can get in any euro store/poundland etc etc. This will homogonise the blind edges and sort the corners that had got a little nicked and eroded from handling. Once the filler (or spackle as them across the water call it) is fully dry, I’ll use a nail buffing block to sand down the roughness and then smooth it out.

Once that has all been done it will be time to seal the whole thing with a few coats of thinned down wood glue.

Oh a final note – the what looks like stilts that the base is up on – is a drying rack. very simply 7  long nails driven though a board. makes it much easier to glue and clamp things together and also to workl filler into the sides and then dry without anything touching or interfering with the piece.

Definitely not my usual type of mini to paint buuuuuu thought would start of the year with something a little differnt!

After finding the scalebro.com site I picked up a couple of the Tales of Meowland series by Alexander Kovalev. The sculpt and the casting are top notch and required little to none prep barring removing the gate nubs and assembly.  Its not often resin minis arrive in such primo condition

The first of the 3 I bought is called Meowgelior, the wise and ancient keeper of the forest ….. or something 😉

I painted him almost exclusively live on stream and was so happy with the wee fella that I sculpted a wee hedgehog pal for him and build him a wee dirorama base atop a plinth.

And this is the final piece – first mini of 2021 to be finished!!!
I promised him as a giveaway mini for my channel at the end of the month but am kinda wishing i’d kept my mouth shut!!

And so another commission begins and this one is a bruiser!!
This is Dhalya from Kimera. A insanely beautiful piece sculpted by Ebroin. Both beautiful and a complete pain in the arse to prep!! There are a lotta lotta pieces and they all interlink and lock.

So after getting all the usual prep of degating, sanding, filing and the like done and then washing her, next up was to get the pins in and she requires quite a few!!

I first primed her in all her seperate parts with two coats of Stylyrez black. Then came the fun steps……….

Once the model was reassembled it was time for the second and third coats of primer.

This seems like a lot of extra work and in some ways it is – However, it is work well spent for a number of reasons.

So the black primer is done to ensure all parts of all pieces get two coats of prime. If assembled for the start, due to the complex nature of the model, some areas would be missed and/or not get a good even coat.

The second and third coats are primer are done in grey and then white respectively:

Something a wee bit different than I usually tackle but ohhhhh it’s a peach 😉 with Adepticon fast approaching time is getting short to finish this piece off for the Creature Caster’s Resin Beast competition.  He model is The Suzerain of Desire but have reimagined them as Balor of the evil eye and his queen, Cethlenn. finally starting to see forward progress and direction. Coming along but oh so much still to do. Experimented more and more with this piece and am learning oh so much! Pushing everything I would usually do to the side and trying new paths. Loving the journey!nAbout 2 weeks left or so. Top marks to @creaturecaster for such an intriguing sculpt. The tenderness in that embrace is something else!
hope you like the progrsss so far

This has been one hell of a busy month!!! Finally got the final member of the giveaway DnD adventure part all done and dusted. Have really had such a blast painting these guys. Lovely characters and such awesome sculpts from Otherworld Miniatures. So here he is – Lenathorn the slightly bewildered!!

Also finished a few days is the Ork ScrappaDakkaThingy Jet Racer!! I originally bought this model to show a few differnt techniques and work up for viewer and also used it to make several PDFs on painting for my Subs.
Took a fair while to finish up but now he is all done and will also be given away at the end of the month to the TopD.

Big love to the BoW boys for showing off those UV resins from greenstuffworld on a XLBS!! Got some and they are awesome!! Used the fluor green one for the promethium puddle under the racer and the leaks on the Nos Bottle on the back of the racer. They glow in the dark when you shine a UV light on them!~!!!!!!!

Finally got our 4th D’n’D party member and a few snaps taken!! And here he is  – La’reean Tal,  elf outcast, thief and all round grumpy git!!
He was a little trickier to paint than the previous three and once again I wanted to stick to a more natural and simple palette for him. He’s a thief – no bright bling or flasher colours for him! Unless he was wanting to get pinched by the Watch ofc! Miniature is from Otherworld again and the base from MicroArtStudio

With La’reean finished, it’s onto our 5th and final of the party members. What D’n’D party would be complete without a magicuser?!

Colour choice was oddly a bit tricker with this one as I want him to fit in and be homogenous with the rest of the party but magic users usually seem to dressin quite pop colours. So I went with the trad red but toned it way back and worked in the darker range of the colour. Starting with a brown/black and gradually bringing in a rich dark red. Only using a brighter red for the apices of the folds and the front of the hat.

Still lots to do but should hopefully have him done in time for the birthday stream and giveaway

Right so Pt 2 …… again…….. as someting went wrong the first two times and Pt2 deleted/didnt upload >?<  Anywho…. where was I……… Ah!! With Loretta Amata our cleric zealot all finished and stomping on the old religions, I turned once again to the Twitchers and asked my #1 troll who should be next for the paint. He, ofc picked the Fighter, knowing that was my least favourite!
She is clad in plate armour with a chainmail hauberk and a heater shield (derpeist name for a shield ever – bloody Victorians 😉 )

One of my sponsors, the nice folk at Pk-Pro had kindly sent me the Scale75 metallics sets so thought twas a good opportunity to give them a try out..

one of my sponsors, the lovely folk at Pk-Pro had very kindly sent me the Scale75 metallics sets which I havent tried before so thought twas a fine time to give them a bash. I did her plate using the emerald and cobalt alchemy paints to give the armour a nice greenish tint and then to contrast used some of the paints from the copper set on her sword hilt and the cross nose guard on the helmet. For the mail I went back to Darkstar’s steel and graphite paints. The S75 metallics are really nice but defintely thinner and need a second base coat compared to the darkstars which usually base with a single coat. The colours are really nice though and lend to doing tmm with a more nmm technique.

For her heater shield I decided on some simple freehanded livery – the hell I was gonna be freehanding a lion rampant or some such fiddley heraldry so went with a single jade green (from Pro-Acryl) bend and a maltese cross in the upper corner. Still looked a little plain so using the S75 metallics again added in two thin lines to echo the other bronze elements on the sword and the helmet. All done was time to pop her on to her microarts’ base and Genevieve DelaCroix was finished!!

So thats us all caught up…… almost! With Genevieve done twas time to move onto adventurer #4. One of my mods was given teh power of choice and he decided that the elf thief should be next…… the grumpiest looking elf I’ve ever seen!! Even grumpier than Elrond! I want to go for a paler skin tone for the elf as all his leather armour is going to be done in dark brown/grey/black tones. He is a thief afterall. Bright armour would be kinda daft for him. So this is as far as we have gotten. And he has rope…… more bloody rope. I really hate painting rope!!!

D’n’D was somethign I have to date never had the chance/pleasure of playing in my youth nor adulthood. Way back when in school, there was some derpy kid a year below me who tried to get D’n’D going but we soon realised he hadn’t a clue what he was talking about so the whole thing fell apart.

I’ve had in mind for a while though to put together and paint a wee D’n’D adventure party to paint. Great mate of mine over on Twitch, M0rt75 put me onto Otherworld Miniatures for some nice old school metal minis for it.

So, I ordered up a few of the classic classes’ minis;  a cleric, a fighter, a magic user and a thief and those nice folk at Otherworld threw in a ranger for freebies when they arrived!

The sculpts are lush!! Really impressed with the quality. Dead on sculpts, cracking casting (barely any flash, gates etc to clean up at all) and some nice old school metal for the heft!

The only change I really needed/wanted to make was the tabs. I hate tab/slottabase minis so I snipped off the thrice damned tabs, filed down the feet and drilled in a pin each so they could be mounted on some snazzy bases from……..

So with the bases painted (I usually paint the bases before the minis bcs…… reasons!!) I set to painting up the minis on stream.

First up was the ranger who has been named Medb Ní Foraoise (Maeve, Daughter of the Forest)
What a gorgeous mini to paint. Really nice change of pace for me as well to what I usually paint.

With Medb finished, one of my subs decided the next to be tackled was the cleric. Another lovely sculpt, I just loved the juxtaposition of the holy cross in one hand and the brutal flail in the other. With the cleric i wanted a more drab, plain palette; going with creams and worn browns for her clothing. The only really bling been used was on her two crosses which i did in a slightly dirtied gold/bronze. On a side note – I chose a base which had one of the metopes from the Parthenon showing a scene of the battle between the lapiths and centaurs from Greek mythology which represented the battle between civilisation and barbarism and also a mosaic of a greek hoplite. Having the cleric standing on pieces of art from the old religions seemed to suit her character.

Recently had an awesome commission come across my desk which was a seriously cracking blast from the past adn my youth – Some Dredd minis from Foundry!!!

Judges Dredd, Anderson & ofc the quintessential bad guy Judge Death!!

The 2000ad range from foundry is now OOP but Warlord now has the rights andfollowing on from their superb Strontium Dog release, a Judge Dredd game is in the works and on the way.

Anyways…………..

Here’s the ones I got to paint for a client. Had such a blast on these 3! Aprt from getting rid of the horrid retro metal tab bases so I could mount them onto some MAS bases. That part was a pain in the files 😉

Well that was bloody irritating – somethign turned all the photos on their sides. Fixed now I think……….

Been working on this chap for a wee while. One of the best commissions I’ve ever been asked to do but crikey he’s taking a while!!

Still WiP and still a bit to do but as I was sending some progress photos to my client I thought I’d share them here too 🙂

The bases, Corax’s flight pack and the dying son of horus are all magnetised so Corax can be slipped out of his display base and used in game or all put back together for display. The POWER of magnets!!!