WIPs 220415

Slower progress this week and no unboxing/gaming...

Martin is as done as he will be, I had a go with the osl but lost patience (the bendy malformed weapons didn't help!).

I had a good session on the flesh tone project - I started with the same base tones for all three (GW Kislev + VMC Iraqi Sand) then darkened it a little, particularly on the men. These have a lot of hours left.

This guy is great! A Mistmourn Shaman from the new Super Dungeon Explore, the soft plastic was easy to clean up, a couple of thin coats of (vallejo white) primer and I was away. I've put some base colours down, I want the whole model to be duller eventually. The wooden mask and green flesh have had a bit of shading/highlighting as well. It's Salute on Saturday, my first visit, can't wait!

Works in progress

The state of the desk... most of this was done over a week ago before a holiday...

The Riot Girl promo, from Aetherium. Almost done, this was a test model and I messed up the priming. That said the trousers and top came out nicely. I'm not happy with the cloak (I'm never happy with cloaks, need to watch some guides). There's a little touch up left to do and some decisions to take on basing.

The flesh tone challenge 3 - built and primed, waiting a long session to start.

More Aetherium, this is the sniper promo model. Mostly just base colours so far (taken from the cool art in the rulebook), with a bit of shading on the hair and cloak. There's a long way to go on this.

Escape and the difference backgrounds make! The orange is more or less done but washes out in the picture whereas the flesh only had one pass but looks good already... the other Escape models have all been 'finished' at about 90% done, this one may be similar. There are always elements of these sculpts I enjoy painting - here the flesh and overalls - and elements that don't seem to work (the canister looks like it's glued on too high, the blades/rods are fuzzy on detail and despite multiple hot water attempts would not straighten). 

The aim for the week is to complete the Aetherium and Escape models, and get a start in on the flesh tone work. But then a box from Soda Pop/Ninja Division just arrived...

Workbench 010415

The daily painting session is producing just over 1 completed model a week so far this year (though of varying quality...) The latest finished is a warrior priest (Edan, the Cleric) from Legion of the Cow Predictably this was another Kickstarter derived miniature, one of a handful I bought from their project last spring. I don't have any wip shots from this but the resin cast was very good, easy to clean up, very detailed.

Geralt - almost.

There were three elements I wanted to try to capture on this model - the contrast between cloth types, the osl from the flame and the motion of the piece. The latter handled itself - this is a very good sculpt. I'm not happy with the flame - the red to black transition is too harsh. And the cloth is kind of okay, but the jerkin looks too glossy and the shoulder pads too matt.
I wasn't going to let myself just stick this one on a clear base (and I didn't buy it as a gaming mini anyway - although when Mantic's dungeon saga ships it might have a role there), so I painted a rock grey...

Currently in progress: along with a couple of mini's from Aetherium, I'm still working through Taban's Escape models, these two are wip (and with all these I've been trying to match the card art):

That's gonna be a lot of nmm... 

Next up: I've been trying to have one challenging model on my desk in parallel to the tabletop standards etc - I've mainly used Kingdom Death stuff for this so far. The paint jobs on these have been aspirational - none have hit the target yet but they've been getting better. I couldn't decide which to choose next for this so I'm going to try having three on the corks at once - and make it a skin tone project:

The challenge...

So here we have an Ax-Drune from Mierce (resin), the Kickstarter exclusive Male Barbarian from Minx Studios/Legion of the Cow (resin) and the Kingdom Death Architect Pin-up. That's a lot of flesh...

Where it's at (aka Kickstarters received)

A few 'done' models from ongoing projects...

Myth - got this from the Kickstarter, have played (and enjoyed it) a bit, mostly low level solo play so far. I'm working through the heroes/agents before tackling the darkness minions, trying to paint to a 'tabletop' level. The game tiles from Myth are pretty and the bases the models come on are ugly, so with a little knife work they're all going on clear bases.

Escape - another Kickstarter, I've only played this once so far, also solo, it looks to have potential but I decided to paint everything and then dive in. The miniatures with this were hit and miss, some came out perfectly, others are weirdly proportioned or not so well moulded (or assembled - the pvc on this one was all pre-glued). While working through these I've been trying to figure-out/learn/practise some basic techniques, so there are a lot of attempts and non metallic metals, osl and little bits of free hand - the models had enough character to practise on but were not so good that I minded a few failed attempts. I have just a couple of the character pvc models left, the Puppet Master and then the bots. Oh and a load of resin I picked up with it. And all the bases need doing... quite a lot of work before this one gets played.

These are from Bombshell Miniatures, very nicely sculpted and produced metals. I have a load of these plus the space ship they Kickstarted, and the Counterblast rule book - which reads nicely but hasn't seen the table yet. 

Mantic/Deadzone - I went in big on this, and although I've only played half a dozen times I think it's a great game. The Reb's, Plague and (restic) Enforcers are all painted and the characters have been sitting on my desk getting occasional attention when I have too much of an appropriately colour on my pallet. These three are the latest to get that treatment (and yeah, all the DZ stuff is on clear bases). The new hard plastic Enforcers are looking very nice but are still sitting on their sprues, this will probably be the next big project after Aetherium.