Army Exchange Work in Progress Shots

I did more than just these tonight but I didn't get pictures of one thing and the other isn't quite all together yet.  So you're stuck with my WIP shots.

I coordinated an army round-robin kind of thing.  For those who signed up, here's how it is going.  The first person sends out four minis to each person in the round along with a color scheme.  Each person has two months to paint them and send them back.  Then the next person does the same thing and so on.  This one takes more of a time commitment than a simple single miniature to be done in two months. *

WIP - Isiri 01

These are from a Reaper Warlord Darkspawn army.  I'm not familiar with this army so I was at a loss as to how to paint them correctly.  I got some great advice from my buddy Shakandra so I have a much better idea of how to make these look right.

The fluff said they had either violet or purple skin.  I can't remember right now.  But the color scheme for this army is flame red so I needed to make the skin not clash.  That's why the subtle.

The skin color uses undercoating.  That means I put a coat of purple down and the brought the skin tones up on top of it.  That tints the skin colors without having to mix the purple into every layer.  I like this.  It's my newest favorite technique.

The hair isn't finished.  That's just the base coat.  I'm going to take it up to a very light cream white so that vivid marigold is only in the deep shadows.  That's another technique I'm liking but still practicing.

Once skin and hair are complete it's on to armor.  Armor will be a neutral because of all the colors on there already.  And I'm tempted to use my 'bad guy' leather colors.  I found that using the tanned skin colors really creep me out when used for anything but skin.  However using them for leather on the bad guy figures just makes them that much badder, in my opinion.

* For those not familiar, a miniature exchange is generally a double blind.  You send your name to the coordinator, sometimes with a preference as to what you want.  The coordinator matches up people.  So the person you're painting for is not the person painting for you.

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Added a few photos

I suddenly realized that I could put more pictures on here.  So I put up some pictures of the current incarnation of my modular dungeon in a sample layout.  They're older so none of the coolness like the fountain have been incorporated yet.
They're down and to the right.
Down and to the right.
Down and to the right.
Sorry, channeling Oliver Stone there for a moment.


Edit - Look for Collections.  Those are where the pictures are.

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Colored bottles, an exercise in varnish

A fella on the Hirst Arts forum was showing off his latest projects and he had these wonderful bottles on the crates.  So I pestered the heck out of him until he gave me all the details.

In a nutshell:

1. Glue beads onto a straight pin
2. Base with white acrylic
3. Paint with ink
4. Varnish

Well, I've got beads.  The trick is finding the correct size and shape to look like bottles.  Luckily I had been working on trying to make bottles much earlier in the project and had a bunch of beads from the local dollar store.

For whatever reason superglue isn't liking me these days.  I just can't get it to work.  I think the house is too dry for it to adhere so I may have to experiment with that but not right now.  So I used regular tacky glue.  While this fills in the gaps between the beads so they look more cohesive it takes longer to dry and I seem to end up with crooked bottles.  Those are going in the back.

Two coats of white craft paint make the proto-bottles a nice smooth white.  It also reinforces the glue bond and fills in the spaces even more.  Since I'm trying to look like they're one unit this is a good thing.

On to the ink.  I do have Reaper inks and haven't really had a chance to use them much.  This was a great opportunity.  It took two coats to get it looking smooth.  I probably could have done a third coat but didn't for two reasons.

1. I didn't want the color to look too opaque
2. I'm lazy

I let those dry really well.  Because I had other things to do.

On to the last step - varnish.  The originator used three coats of Future Floor Wax.  If you haven't used this stuff in your terrain and other miniature making adventures you're really missing out.  Great gloss finish and tough as nails.  Downside is that it is really thin so if you're looking for something to stick on the surface you're going to have some issues.

So begins the Great Varnish Experiment.  The idea is to give the bottles a decently thick layer of clear so the eye is fooled into thinking the bottle itself is clear.  I decided to try out the layers of Future vs. straight acrylic craft varnish (gloss).  The craft varnish is much, much thicker so it sticks to the surface and leaves a thicker result.  At least, that's my hypotheses.

Without further ado, here's the current state of the experiment:

Colored Bottles Varnish Test

Let's go left to right.

That bottle is actually painted with two coats of Reaper Clear Plum.  The Clears are pigment in a clear base.  So I thought I would give it a try.  That's with one coat of the acrylic varnish.

The odd blue-green bottle is two coats of Reaper Clear Viridian and again, one coat of acrylic varnish.

The deeper green bottle is two coats of Reaper Green Ink and one coat of acrylic varnish.

The lighter purple bottle to the right is two coats of Reaper Purple Ink and two coats of Future.

Personally I like the hard gloss of the Future.  But the acrylic varnish gives a thicker clear coat.  So I think I'm going to combine the best of both worlds and do two coats in the future:  one of the acrylic and one of Future.

I was wondering how the Reaper Clear colors would turn out.  They're much more opaque than the inks but have a richness that will work for more pottery-like bottles.  They still have enough of a clear feel that they might work nicely.

So tonight I'll hit everything on the board with one last coat of Future.  Then I get to start painting caps and such.

The glossy surface is also just crying out for me to try out decals as well.

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I'm working on it, honestly

I was finally able to get back into the swing of painting last night.

My exchange mini is pretty much done except for the darklining and some cleanup work.

The floor tiles for my colored fieldstone tutorial are ready for their last bit of paint.  Then I can take the larger one and figure out how to paint an oil spill, which was my original intention for painting up a few extra tiles after I decided to have a lantern with spilled oil.

I made a few bottles for the magic shop and they're all base coated.  I put the first coat of ink on some of them last night.  I'm going to work on those as time permits.

I prepped and primed the four figures I'm painting as part of an army painting 'round robin'.  So those are just waiting for paint.  And I slipped a troll into the bunch to be primed because I could.

And lastly I did get the parts from Reaper to start making the display base.  I need to make some templates to get started but I have the initial measurements and will be refining them as I work on the design.

Somewhere in there I get to go to work.  I wonder when...

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Magic Shop Cabinets Are Done!

Finally I sat down and finished these things.  I know I could have used colored paper and not painted the drawers in place but I like how the base coat of paint unifies things.  Otherwise it would have really looked like pieces of card stuck to a piece of wood.

Magic Shop with Cabinet Labels

I have a 'price chart' for the things in the cabinet where each color is a different price.  That will go up when the whole shop is assembled.

Now I need to make a balance scale for the counter, since I have things that need to be weighed out.

And I'm making bottles.  Every mage needs empty potion bottles!

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Not going to cross post this time

Howdy!  I haven't introduced myself yet because I haven't had anything to show.

I just posted a big ol' post on my blog about my latest project.  It has pictures and everything.

Here's a teaser:

Exchange Mini Display Base WIP - With Mini

To give you an idea of scale.  The stone piece is a 3 inch diameter circle.  The figure is in what they call '28mm scale' which means it is supposed to be 28mm from feet to eyes.  A quarter will come to about the middle of his chest, if that.  So it is kind of 1:60 scale.

I do like working in 1:12 and 1:6 but right now I'm doing a lot in the 1:60 size.  Pretty much all of my current projects are on my blog but I hope to get back to the larger stuff in the near future so I can share it here.

FYI - the stonework is from molds by a company called Hirst Arts (and/or Castlemolds).  They're like Lego for castles.  Way addicting.  And the miniatures (both wizard and Mr. Rat) are from Reaper Miniatures.  Wonderful products and the best bunch of people you could hope to meet.

So I hope I've introduced myself properly and showed off the latest projects.

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Another quick update

No pictures - the camera isn't here right now.  Yes I know.  Lame excuse.

My painting has been put off to the side due to some vision problems.  Some very, very annoying vision problems.  But they seem to be clearing up so that's good.

I did take the time to put the drawer fronts and knobs on the cabinet units that are going behind the counter in my magic shop.  Three units, 15 drawers each.  I'm still not quite sure how the final painting is going to go but I did the cabinet base color as 'goose feather'.  It's a kind of tan.  Everything goes with tan.

I just picked up a media player last week or so and have been trying to see if I can use it to watch/listen to movies while working on my craft table.  Overall it seems possible but I have to find a way to keep the player at the right angle so I can actually see the movies when I look up.  Probably another Hirst Arts build in my near future.

My buddy James over at Skullcrafts sent me a box of basing goodness that showed up at my door this week.  I took the 'Mystery Box' with me to paint night (it was delivered that day) and we all got to dig through the packing peanuts to see what was inside.  There was quite an interesting selection of supplies.  My mind is churning through how I'm going to use them for my next project.  Well, and for any of my projects.

I didn't want to sit idle because I couldn't paint minis so I finally started painting a Hirst Arts gothic arena that I'm sending off to a friend.  I have about 2/3 of the thing built but none of it painted.  So I put the base coat on about 10 pieces.  The base coat always takes the longest since I keep finding white spots that need paint.  Eventually I just give up and try not to see them any more.  I'm at that stage now.

I'm making the decorative arena pieces for him.  He already has the basic arena so these will add to his set.  That means painting in the same colors as his first set.  I'm using craft paints instead of my normal latex but it isn't turning out too badly for me.  I actually like the base color he has (pewter grey - kind of a greenish-grey) and may have a quart mixed up using color matching.  I used that on a small fieldstone piece and really liked the effect.

Ooo!  I can show you something!

I'm part of a miniature exchange on the Reaper forums.  An exchange works like this:

1. Someone decides to coordinate an exchange.
2. People sign up to paint a mini for someone else.
3. Coordinator sends out assignments.
4. Paint the mini, send it to your victim partner.

You don't know who is painting for you since it isn't the same person you're painting for.  Very fun stuff.

Well, these darn vision problems have kept me from finishing the mini for my partner.  I messaged her and she's good with holding off until I can finish it decently.  She only really has display minis (I like to check out what my partner posts on the forums so I can decide what mini to paint) so I decided to make a display base for her mini.  That's beyond the requirement but I thought it would be cool.

She took me up on the offer to see the work in progress shots I have.  Currently I've shown them off to a few people but haven't posted them for general consumption.   Now I can post them here.

Exchange Mini Display Base WIP - Side

You can see under the winding stairway to the sacks and Mr. Rat having a snack here.  Stair support is just scribed balsa stained with Reaper Pro Paint Wood Shading Ink.  Very handy stuff.

Exchange Mini Display Base WIP - Front

You can see the stairway here with the view of Mr. Rat.

Exchange Mini Display Base WIP - With Mini

And finally here's the mini temporarily tacked into place just so I could take a picture.  This mini has been nothing but a pain in my, err, side.  I needed to remove him from his base so he would fit on the stairs.  He lost a foot in the first attempt.  A friend of mine took pity and sent me one with the base removed.  And then his staff broke just in front of his hand while I was painting.  I wasn't even being particularly mean to him!  Got that fixed then my eyes went.

What's not showing here is a lantern on the floor in a puddle of oil.  And a lantern hanger on the center column.  Kind of setting the scene.  My feeling is that Mr. Rat is going to get zotted in very short order.

That's the fieldstone I painted in that pewter grey.  Then I did more to it so I could get the colored fieldstone.  I'm 2/3 done with a tutorial for that.

Overall I'm pleased with the composition of the mini.  I think it tells a story when you look at it as a whole.

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