Currently on the painting table

On the painting table: Batman Miniature Game!

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Grogspar: Finished Mini

Hey guys. Those of you that have been following along with my little journey and multiple painting tangents may remember the Boson Grogspar I was painting for my friend Jamie Bell aka Northblade to give to him at Templecon this year. He was unable to attend due to unforeseen circumstances so the mini went home with a fellow canuck to be delivered. I decided I wasn't going to post final photos until Northblade had the mini in hand and he recieved the good Boson last Saturday. Here are the photos of the finished mini for y'all to view:




This mini was a pleasure to paint. The first it is always enjoyable to paint a mini for a friend who you know will appreciate it no matter how it comes out. The second reason being it was just a fun sculpt with some cool detail and features. I was really happy with how the skin came out on Grogspar. The stripes on the shirt were one of my first attempts a "free handed" detail but I was very happy with the results. I don't love the metals and wish I could have done them over but alas there wasn't time. All in all I am very happy with how the mini came out and that I was able to avoid buying an entire pirate army to paint for myself. Mr Bell hope you are pleased with it and you still owe Zack and myself a beverage for your poor betting skillz :p

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Where Did May Go?

Hey there all. Well like the title says I have no idea where this month has gone. I really have had minimal time to work on any of my hobby projects. Here is were I stand on my current projects:



I have been doing a little bit of work on the blister which as been sitting in the basement for a few months. I also got around to cleaning a min unit of bone grinders. They were then primed and basecoated via the airbrush. I then painted the base colors on the fur and loincloths. I also filled the gaps on the witch doctor I assembled months ago. He also got primed and had some base colors applied. I am trying to decide what color the cloth on the witch doctor will be. I am leaning toward either purple or red. I did a little (emphasis on little) on Grim himself. This was mostly basecoating some of the metal sections. I am not sure when I will have painting time again but I am looking to get another few games in with THG later this week. So far my record is less than stellar but I am hoping that by dropping the MK from the list it will improve things for me.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Hunters Grim: Part II (Muggs and Krump WiPs)

I wasn't able to get as much done on The Hunters Grim this weekend as I was hoping. You see the weather here in the Northeast was lovely this weekend so I spent a fair amount of time outside doing yard work and playing with the boys. I hate yard work more than cleaning PP plastic kits but I had no excuse not too :)

As I said previously I am leaving Grim until the end so I can really focus on getting his skin the way I want. I would normally jump right into the 'lock but Muggs and Krump are so characterful that I am really enjoying painting these little fellows. Here is where they currently stand:


 
Krump in his current state. I basecoated all the metal sections with VMA steel paint. I then painted the yellow metal sections using VMC brass paint. The yellow metal section on the axe was painted with VMC bronze. I then painted the wraps on his feet and left arm using P3 rucksack tan. I love using rucksack tan as my base color for light colored leathers. This will receive a  wash with GW sepia wash and s quick highlight and be done. I started to basecoat the skin with my trollblood skin tone but didn't put enough on the palette and still need to do his left leg, fingers on his right hand, and belly. It is a shame that Krump is the "unimportant pyg" as he has so much character and I think he is my favorite of the three Hunters.



 


Mugg received similar treatment as his boy Krump above. His shoulder pad was painted with bronze instead of brass (my change this still). He received similar treatment with rucksack tan but I didn't paint the wrapping on his feet with it since his paints will be the light leather. These will either be a dark leather or more of a whitish cloth. You may notice the glove in the second photo has some subtle highlighting. I was playing around with something to try and have his gloves be black similar to Krump's coat but not going through the same process. Looking at the photos I realize I didn't paint the axe blade connection point yellow metal as I intent so will have to do that at a later point.

I don't think I will get back to these guys tonight but if I do I will be finishing up some basecoating and then laying down some of my shade washes. My work week starts tomorrow night so I hope to get more done on them before progress grinds to a halt for the week....we shall see. Hope y'all had a great weekend and catch ya soon.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Hunters Grim: Painting Begins

I started work on Grim and the boys Tuesday evening. The first hurdle to get over is always cleaning and assembly (my least favorite). I powered through this grind and finished this Thursday am while the boys were at preschool. All in all the minis were cast pretty well. There were some legit mold lines on Krump. There was also some flash and mold lines on Grim. Muggs was the cleanest of the unit right out of the blister.

I have decided to leave the knick knacks off for the time being and I have also elected to leave Grim's head and arms off for the initial painting. 

I picked up a new larger needle set up for my Iwata airbrush to use primarily for priming and basecoating. I primed the unit with Vallejo Surface Primer black.


 
Next I basecoated the trench coats on Grim and Muggs with my new airbrush. I only used the new one to get a feel for the trigger and such otherwise I would have used the Iwata I think. I used P3 bootstrap leather for this. I didn't paint Krump's coat at this time as I wanted to try and have his coat be like a black leather.


Here is Krump after his coat was worked on. I got in a bit of a groove and forgot to take photos of each step. I painted a layer of VMA black to have a nice smooth basecoat. The next step was highlight with VMA German grey followed by VMA medium sea grey. I then did some line highlights with the VMA med sea grey to pop a few edges and then I washed the entire coat with an old ink wash I made from a brushthralls tutorial. I probably could have just used GW Badab black wash but went with the old ink wash instead. I have to say I am pretty happy with the coat right now.
 
Next I basecoated Grim's skin with P3 trollblood highlight. I have a few new things I want to try out for my albino skin but I am keeping trollblood highlight as the base color. Hopefully the new changes will work out well.




 

I did a little clean up work on all three members of the unit. I cleaned up the over spray on Grim and Muggs' coats, basecoated Krumps backpack and trap with P3 bloodtracker brown, and laid down a layer of black on the metal sections.

This is where my progress has halted for the time being. I am heading to the FLGS later today to try out the Hunters Grim for the first time and I don't want any wet paint. Next up will be to basecoat the skin on Muggs and Krump as well as lay down my shading wash on all the bootstrap and bloodtracker sections. I hope to get some quality paint time this weekend so if all goes really well I may be able to the pugs done by Sunday night. I am going to take my time with Grim himself as I really want to see if I can nail that albino skin tone.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

New Toy!

The other day I mentioned that I ordered myself a new airbrush well today it showed up. I was anxiously awating the UPS guy all day today (of course he was running late) cause he was bringing my new toy. Here is what I picked up:





I also picked up a few other random items I want to experiment with but that is for down time (ha).