I should have been productive, right?

Gotcha!  I have been.

All the figures for the Crusaders army are painted.  Well, the monster has just a couple of little touchups to be done from when I cut off the integral base (giving myself a blister, I might add) and I only saw them when I was painting his new base.  That's not bad and shouldn't take more than 10 minutes, including time for the paint to dry.

I also was able to finish up one of the Mega Miniature figures I had partially done.  I like having a few of those handy so I can test color schemes as well as use up paint on the palette.  This one was 99% done but I was stumped on what color to paint a final detail.  My online painting friends helped me out, as usual.

I was also going to try doing some freehand design work on her dress.  I put down the first line and realized it wasn't going to happen.  I painted over that.  Now she's just going to dry overnight and I can varnish her tomorrow and call her done too.

My goal this month was to finish painting up the Crusaders.  Technically I met that goal but they don't have their scenic bases done.  I'm going to hold off on my next big project so I can finish those, paint a couple of figures that have been in queue for a while, and generally get caught up.  The next army is already ready for painting so once it comes time I can get right on it.

The terrain painting is also getting done.  I have a few more of the arena pieces done and I did some pre-painting on pieces so I can assemble them without really futzy paint work.  Actually I had to do these pieces in this order.  They have gates that are far more fragile than you would believe when those gates are cast out of plaster and not resin.  So I glued them to clear plastic backing and now they're nice and sturdy.  So I had to paint them before gluing them to the plastic or it wouldn't have been clear plastic any more.  Make sense?

Next up, building more terrain; painting some figures that need to be done; casting more bricks to make more terrain.

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I can't help myself

I had to go to the hobby store to return one last thing from Christmas.  I also knew I was getting a piece of fabric to make pillow covers.

Ooo.  And glitter was half off and I have a couple of projects that will use glitter.  Yes, glitter.  Don't look at me like that.  They're going to be cool.

And Christmas merchandise was 90% off so I picked up a couple of velvet poinsetta stems.  Because it was cheaper than velvet ribbon.

So of course I spent more than I had in return money.  Who's surprised by that?

But I was actually good in that the only 'extra' things were the two poinsetta stems and they were pocket change.

I shouldn't be allowed in hobby stores.

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Back to painting .. stuff

I've had some time here and there so I'm trying to fill it in with useful projects.

I have a few more of those arena pieces done and some others in various states of being painted.  I'll try to get pictures this weekend - no promises.

I also realized that I had a self-imposed goal of finishing up those Crusaders this month.  I happened to look at the calendar and saw there isn't much of the month left.  So I picked up my paintbrush and finished up the sergeant.  There wasn't much to do, honestly.

Then I put the basecoat on the monster/Guardian Beast/Doom Kitty.  I'm going to do a slight experiment with colored metallics in that I'm using the dark blue metallic as my darkest 'silver' and working up from there.  It's looking good so far but I can see that at least one wash is going to be needed to blend the transitions a little.  The dark blue metallic paint left a bit of a gloss finish.

I was thinking about putting small wires into the bases of the models so color-coded beads could be used to track various effects and damage.  Yeah, that's out the window now.  It's an interesting concept but more complicated than I want to do and it has the potential for being too delicate.  I'll stick with the tried-and-true methods of tracking.

This morning before work I glued together two more arena floor tile sections for my arena.  They aren't glued to the foam base but they are in the required 6 inch by 6 inch section.  I saw at least one more of them sitting on the bar so I'll have to poke around and see if there's any others waiting for foam.  I know the ones I did base only have the darkest color of paint on them so it will be easy to catch up.  In total I need 36 of these floor tile sections to make a 3 foot by 3 foot arena.  I don't remember how many I have but I know it's not nearly 36.

Now that I've done some more casting I can make the rest of the arena pieces, start in on my challenge build, and work on another build I was doing for another project.  Yes, I've been putting off building things.

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Crusaders and terrain

Two things that go well together, right?

Well, yes they do as a matter of fact.

The terrain is part of an arena set I'm making for a friend.  I posted some of mine earlier with blue marble detailing.  His has the tried and true 'black and gold' detailing.  The Crusader figures are in the picture for scale reference and because they look cool.

Froggy Arena 07

Froggy Arena 04

Speaking of Crusaders, here's shots of just the guys.

Spearman 02

Archers 02

Not the best, I was using daylight since I wasn't about to set up my very unhandy lighting rig for these.  But you can get the idea.  Yes, I strung the bow on the archer.

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And then there came the screeching halt

Well, at least on the miniature painting.

I've picked up doing some Hirst Arts casting so I can finish some projects so that's time that I'm not painting.

I'm also painting up some arena pieces for a friend so that's more time I'm not spending on miniature painting although I am painting.

And I haven't been home for lunch so I have no natural light in which to take pictures of the things I have done.

That brings us here.  Which is kind of nowhere.  But somewhere.

I think I need some sleep.

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Sergeant is progressing

I guess his name is Sir Conlan but heck, like I'm going to remember that.

I decided to try and get fancy and paint some of the faction symbols along the bottom of his cloak.  I'm giving myself a C+ for the effort and I'm not painting over them.  They look like I tried and that's all that's important.  If anyone gives me grief then they better have a decent paint job to hold up in comparison.

I need to paint a few more bits as metal and then do some detail work but overall he's going much quicker than I thought he would  And that's even doing his armor in two colors.  I looked at some of the paint jobs on the Reaper site and found out that some arm pieces are supposed to be metal.  So I paint them like metal.  No biggie.

I'm still keeping the paint jobs simple so that they show up well and I'm not killing myself trying to get them done.  I'm quite pleased so far and they'll look just fine on the table.

So it mostly looks like detail work is left to do on him and then he's ready to set aside for varnish.  I was not expecting that.

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And the archers are done

The archers are done except for their coats of varnish.  None of the models have their bases done - they're just painted and waiting for the actual scenic stuff.

I made life simpler for myself by limiting the number of colors on them.  There's still a fair amount but I reused colors when I could so that there are actually fewer than the color cards would suggest.  The cards list the color for each 'item' so the same color can be used many times and just not be obvious.

I'll try to get pictures tomorrow when there's some natural light to help me get a good picture of them.  They're kind of a different faction within the army so they look a little different.  But they're all on the same side.

I painted a little more on the sergeant tonight.  His face is done (see previous entry) and I started on his cloak since that's the farthest thing in on the figure.  Standard logic holds that you paint from the inside out.  So I did.  The transitions are still a bit abrupt but I can look at it tomorrow and see if it matters, really.

I do want to do some freehand on the cloak but since it's a repeating emblem I'm going to cheat and try to make a stencil.  Fill it in with a watered down color and then I can paint it in as I like.  There's a special effect I'm going to try for.  Let's see if I can do it.

Otherwise he's going to use most of the same colors as the other Crusaders.  Just in different places since he's fancier than the mooks.

Once I get started with him I think I can get him done in a few night's sittings.  I've gotten used to fiddly bits over the last year or so and they no longer stress me out.  I can paint up a belt buckle like no one's business.  I'm quite proud of that.

I'm still considering a 'work in progress' for the monster since he's pretty cool.  But I'm not sure how helpful it will be to others painting him since he's not a very complicated figure.  I'll take an informal vote and see what the prevailing opinion is.

OK.  Off to sleep.  It was a good evening's work.

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