From here to Infinity

Now, finally I was able to finish my second test model for Infinity. A standard female, Yu Jing fusilier. Tried to do here what I wrote about in my previous post on not going too far in lighting up the base colors, but instead focus on edge highlights instead, for instance.

Although it‘s not Infinity-painting-top-of-the-pops I feel quite comfortable with the regular color scheme an the general outcome…..hence it‘s not a clumsy khaki-drab colored WW2 kind of guy:-).

So next up will be the three fusilier models for each faction out of the Operation Kaldstrom battle pack. For those I grabbed some resin bases by Microarts Studios which I like a lot and really add to the flavor of the figures. But for now, this is the Yu Jing test.

Ok then, I will call this guy finished…at least I will not change anything on this model and take my lessons learned on what I will commence doing with my next PanO Fusiliers.

Now, what was worth the afford and has worked out (imho)?:

the black / grey areas

the edge highlighting

the „red light bulbs“

the pants

And what‘s not so hot?

the overall outcome of the blue armor. My next take on this will go under the headline of „less is more“ with just the darkblue – a mid blue – a blue wash – and edge highlights – done. At least that‘s the plan.

Will I go on and was this one fun to paint? Hell yeah. And the more I learn about Infinity and its lore the more I like it. Next stop: Ju Ying.

Work continued on my test model and I did all the highlighting on the trousers (VMC chocolate brown and VMC flat earth mixed with white) and all items that are black / black grey (VMC black and VMC dark grey). In addition I tried some edge highlights especially on the weapon and the black straps around the legs and those carrying the backpack. Last things to do will be the skin and hair and highlighting the red „dots“ (for lack of knowledge on how to call these:-))

Well, I have to admit I really do not know if I am 100% pleased with how all of these steps turned so far. Anyhow, this still is a learning process and I‘ll be keeping up practicing. Now have look yourself.

Now this is what I‘ve been up to with my PanO test miniature. After putting all the base colors on I couldn‘t stand but applying Soft Tone to the 2Tone brown trousers and still think that was the right decision as I feel comfortable with how to go on from there (having already built up the VMC Flat Earth side of the pants with addition of white to the color and just one step shy of the final highlights).

With the armor on the other hand I applied the base (VMC Dark Prussian blue) and afterwards mixed in more and more VMC Green Blue and finally pure white to get the color lighter and lighter until it was nearly all white in the end with only a hint of blue. And what I tried when painting the armor was to reflect light falling on metal…DISCLAIMER: this is by no means NMM painting but just playing around with reflection or rather what I feel it could look like. In the end though I decided to put on a very light blue wash (by Army Painter) to tie everything together a little bit more.

I call the armor ready by now…might come back to it when the whole miniature is finished and do some touch ups, but I will have it sit until then. Here are some impressions of my WIP on my first ever SciFi / Infinity model.

Now let‘s get to work on the models. First of all I have to say, these are way ahead in sculpting and production quality compared to any other ranges of metal miniatures I have come across so far. And this makes it a little intimidating slapping paint on them…in addition to all the beautiful work of Angel Giraldez of which I‘m sure that his art sells a lot of games of Infinity on its own. Anyhow, I decided to go down this route and here I am.

I started by painting all the base colors – as usual – for armor, skin, hair, weapons and cloth. Nothing fancy here.

Here you‘ll see in detail what I meant when writing about the zenith being too heavy. But I decided not to change or overwork it, but start painting.

Painting SciFi and these miniatures in particular I wanted to change from my common ways of putting paint on plastic  or metal figures. Now what does that mean in detail? When painting historical miniatures and uniformes I always tend to have the colors very „real“ and not going all in when ist comes to highlighting and brighten up the colors I use. Instead I try to work out the shadows to give contrast to the figure. Washes in earthy tones are my trusty tool here to achieve what I‘m looking for in the end.

Ok then, what am I planning to change then with the Infinity miniatures? Just some ideas:

– Using black and wolf grey as colors to prime the figures of the two different factions (black=Yu Jing / wolf grey=PanO)

– adding a zenithal highlight

– building up the light color tones from bottom to top (aka dark to (very) light)

– going very (high)light in the end

– using different colored washes (if needed) not only Soft Tone / Strong Tone

– edge highlighting

If I could apply these changes to my usual painting routine – or at least 2 or 3 of these – I feel it would elevate my skills and paining overall…at least that is what I hope….

Ok then, first things first. Here‘s a picture of the ready primed figures, waiting to be colorised.

The one lesson learned here already: Maybe zenithal highlights should better be done with an airbrush rather than a spraycan. The white, which is intended to do the zenithal may be too dominant and not subtle enough…

So, when it came to choose where to start best with Infinity I came across the Operation Kaldstrom starter set quite quick. This version of the game not being the „full Monty“ -with the CodeOne version of the rules – didn‘t bother me at all. In fact, it turnend out to be the best gateway into the universe of Infinity I could imagine.  Jam packed with miniatures for two of the main factions and loads of terrain in combination with the „learning by playing“ way to teach the game‘s mechanics all makes sense to me. So I got me the 2 Player starter set and – in addition – the two paint  sets from Vallejo for the Yu Jing and PanO factions…mostly because these include a figure each so I am able to test new ways of painting and getting to grips with the miniatures range in general.