Miniature painting

[Dhi]

Yes! I don't know if anybody teaches that anymore.

[Chanticleer]

Yes! I don't know if anybody teaches that anymore.

I have no idea. But the only times I see blending that gorgeous, it's almost always wet-in-wet...I know a little bit about it from working with oils and acrylics, but I've never tried it on such a small scale.

[Thorne]

They do; I wouldn't be surprised to find out there's a class on it at Reapercon, tbh.

So … on painting fast. Let me introduce you to Ma'al Drakar. Ma'al is a MASSIVE five-headed dragon. He makes the Colossal Red that WotC put out a while back look kind of dinky by comparison. Ma'al is a model eligible for the Goblin Challenge; a 'paint this thing in a week with a tiny brush' type challenge that I stumbled into and have done a couple of.



Ma'al is a little over a foot tall, with acres and acres of wing. I painted him in a week - including cleaning mold lines and gap filling - and filling all the holes in his wings - in a week, with a size 0 brush.

I'm not a fast painter. A great deal of the last day was spent in cleanup of messy bits and gluing heads and limbs on. Heads. Not necks.

[Pockets]

That kind of a transition can be easily accomplished with an airbrush. It's easier with an airbrush, which is why being able to make a subtle and smooth transition like that by hand is a sign of craftsmanship and skill Dhi.

[Chanticleer]

That kind of a transition can be easily accomplished with an airbrush. It's easier with an airbrush, which is why being able to make a subtle and smooth transition like that by hand is a sign of craftsmanship and skill Dhi.

In my limited experience, airbrush usually leaves tiny flecks and speckling which can frequently be seen by the naked eye, but which invariably show up in enlarged photos.

Wet-in-wet is smooth unless you've got a microscope.

Dhi, for whatever reason I can't see that big old dragon of yours, but I googled the name and WOW. That's a LOT of resin.

[Pockets]

In my limited experience, airbrush usually leaves tiny flecks and speckling which can frequently be seen by the naked eye, but which invariably show up in enlarged photos.

Then someone isn't thinning their paints enough for the job.

[Thorne]

In my limited experience, airbrush usually leaves tiny flecks and speckling which can frequently be seen by the naked eye, but which invariably show up in enlarged photos.

Wet-in-wet is smooth unless you've got a microscope.

Dhi, for whatever reason I can't see that big old dragon of yours, but I googled the name and WOW. That's a LOT of resin.

If you're referring to Ma'al, that's not Dhi's …
And mine isn't the resin version; I'd take time with something that put me back that much cash.
The PVC version is still expensive, but not as bad.

[Chanticleer]

If you're referring to Ma'al, that's not Dhi's …
And mine isn't the resin version; I'd take time with something that put me back that much cash.
The PVC version is still expensive, but not as bad.

Woops! Sorry. I still wasn't able to see it, though, for whatever reason.

[Dhi]

Ma'al is impressive, I love your dragons Thorne. Great eyes on all of them but I think the read head is my favorite. Is the opposite side all red?

[Thorne]

Ma'al is impressive, I love your dragons Thorne. Great eyes on all of them but I think the read head is my favorite. Is the opposite side all red?

Blue. The outside heads are lapis and malachite; roughly. Opal is the pinkish one, mahogany obsidian and onyx are the last two.
I wanted something a little different that still fit the Takhisamat theme.. ^^;

Woops! Sorry. I still wasn't able to see it, though, for whatever reason.

… odd. It's self-hosted, it /should/ show up … can you save the link out and bring it up that way?

[Chanticleer]

Blue. The outside heads are lapis and malachite; roughly. Opal is the pinkish one, mahogany obsidian and onyx are the last two.
I wanted something a little different that still fit the Takhisamat theme.. ^^;
… odd. It's self-hosted, it /should/ show up … can you save the link out and bring it up that way?

Apparently Safari doesn't love it because it keeps coming up with 'can't establish a secure connection.' I tried copypasting into Chrome, though, and that worked fine. WOW. Love the multicolor striping on the wings, and yes, the eyes are gorgeous. That's amazing.

[Sprikut]

Was taking a break from coldfront to work on a maximus for fun and really pleased with how hes turning out.

[Beorning]

Okay, so here's something from me!

For the first time ever, I did a conversion. Specifically, I converted this mini:



I really liked the character, but I needed her as foot trooper, not as a biker. Unfortunately, there's no version of this character on foot - there *is* a non-bike bounty hunter available, but it's another character. So, I decided to make my own mini!

What I did was that I discarded the bike and made a wall and debris for the bounty hunter to sit on - all on a foot trooper-sized base:





It's not perfect, but I rather like how it all came out!

[Chanticleer]

Okay, so here's something from me!

For the first time ever, I did a conversion. Specifically, I converted this mini:

What I did was that I discarded the bike and made a wall and debris for the bounty hunter to sit on - all on a foot trooper-sized base:

That is a creative, effective, and good-looking solution! I look forward to seeing it painted.

[Beorning]

Thank you!

On my side, I'd like to thank Sprikut for his advice regarding making the scenery bits. It was invaluable!

[Sprikut]

Looks slick! You ended up getting some plasticard it looks like? :)

[Beorning]

Yeah, that's what I used. Thanks for the suggestion :)

[Beorning]

So, does anyone have anything new to share? You guys working on something?

Me, I'm still assembling :) Today, I actually broke my personal record and assembled eight Infinity minis in a span of two hours or so. I kind of cheated, as I chose eight *easy* minis - no poses with weapons being held with two hands etc. Still, I'm quite pleased with myself :)

Having done a little headcount, it seems that I have 50 Infinity minis ready to play and additional 13 in various stages of preparation...

On another note: in your opinion, which games / manufacturer has the best fantasy minis? I'm developing a need to paint something from the fantasy genre. I've been looking at the Warhammer minis, but they, somehow, I found them unpleasan to look at.

I wish there was a fantasy equivalent of Infinity, i.e. a fantasy skirmish game with minis as good as those of Infinity...

[Pockets]

It's not a skirmish game and it's not even a wargame, but if you want something eye catching in the fantasy genre, checkout Creature Caster.

[Beorning]

I've seen these! They are absolutely awesome, but very pricey. I think I'd want to learn to paint better before buying one of these...

BTW. I'm kind of wondering whether these figures are stricly for childless people. I mean, can you imagine keeping one of these in the house, with children present?

On another note - have you guys heard anything about something called Dark Age? It seems to be game / miniature line based on Gerald Brom's designs. A futuristic - mystical - postapocalyptic skirmish thing about with monsters, robots and cyborg cannibals... They have a webpage and sell through CMON. Some minis are very nice! I wonder if you guys know anything about it?

[Chanticleer]

I've seen these! They are absolutely awesome, but very pricey. I think I'd want to learn to paint better before buying one of these...

BTW. I'm kind of wondering whether these figures are stricly for childless people. I mean, can you imagine keeping one of these in the house, with children present?

On another note - have you guys heard anything about something called Dark Age? It seems to be game / miniature line based on Gerald Brom's designs. A futuristic - mystical - postapocalyptic skirmish thing about with monsters, robots and cyborg cannibals... They have a webpage and sell through CMON. Some minis are very nice! I wonder if you guys know anything about it?

Dark Age is interesting. There's nothing else like it out there that I'm aware of...Semi-erotic macabre/horror. But that's Brom for you. I painted up a small force of these figures to tabletop standard several years ago for a friend. Pretty nice detailing, easy clean-up (in some cases almost no mold-lines). The figures are directly based on some pieces of Brom's work, and some super-patient folks have directly reproduced them.

One of my favorite examples (I didn't paint this!):

[Beorning]

The sad thing is that this game isn't easily available... especially in Europe. I feel like I'd have trouble finding people to play it with...

I asked this game about in my local gaming shop's FB group and the responses seem to be along the lines of "I've seen some of these on painting blogs, but I had no idea anyone actually tried playing it" and "A niche system, not sure if it's worth getting interested in at all". Hm.

[Chanticleer]

The sad thing is that this game isn't easily available... especially in Europe. I feel like I'd have trouble finding people to play it with...

I asked this game about in my local gaming shop's FB group and the responses seem to be along the lines of "I've seen some of these on painting blogs, but I had no idea anyone actually tried playing it" and "A niche system, not sure if it's worth getting interested in at all". Hm.

It's not terribly popular in the US, either. I've only managed to play it at some of the larger gaming cons where you could be assured of finding people into practically anything.

System isn't bad. Isn't incredible, either.

[Sprikut]

I played some Dark Age. In general it felt fine. Not the most engaging game but solidly reasonable. The biggest problem I had was major distribution problem and very high price. A start set was something like $70 for 5 models.

[Pockets]

I've seen these! They are absolutely awesome, but very pricey. I think I'd want to learn to paint better before buying one of these...

BTW. I'm kind of wondering whether these figures are stricly for childless people. I mean, can you imagine keeping one of these in the house, with children present?

On another note - have you guys heard anything about something called Dark Age? It seems to be game / miniature line based on Gerald Brom's designs. A futuristic - mystical - postapocalyptic skirmish thing about with monsters, robots and cyborg cannibals... They have a webpage and sell through CMON. Some minis are very nice! I wonder if you guys know anything about it?

Um... if price is a concern, I think you're in the wrong hobby. The cheaper the dollar price the crappier the mold and the substance it's printed in. But yeah, some of the Creature Caster stuff is definitely not to leave around if you've got children. I've been commissioned to do three of them and they've all been fairly clean assembly with minimal moldlines. Another option if you're looking for something fantasy is Mierce Miniatures. The models are a bit pricey, but they are GORGEOUS sculpts, very clean, and I've only had a problem once and they sent me a replacement part no questions asked.