Seeing Red

 

EDIT 05/28/16

Mortal Arrow will only be distributing Fractured Dimensions miniatures until the end of this month (May 2016). A word to the wise: get them while you can. 

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The Fractured Dimensions' bodak is complete. Actually the painting was done a while ago, the application of matte varnish and picture-taking (simple tasks) proved challenging.

Army Painter's Anti-Shine has worked well for me previously but here it fought me tooth and nail. The initial application dried glossy in spots. The second wasn't any better. I thought the weather might be to blame. ( horror stories of humidity adversely affecting matte varnishes abound, and it has been very humid here of late.) I thought too that the fact I was using an old bottle of the stuff or that I wasn't shaking it sufficiently might be at fault.

I armed myself with a new bottle of the product, waited for the humidity to break, and got good results... on everything but the minis bright red kilt. This stubbornly refused to cooperate despite repeated applications. Eventually I got a result I could live with and called it a day. (Still, I wouldn't call it matte.)

The Kilt in Question

To its credit, Anti-Shine dries crystal clear. Five or six coats of any other matte varnish I know of, would have ended in hazy catastrophe.

I then took some pictures and the fun resumed. Cut to the chase: red background (my initial choice) = glossy red bits while purple or off-white backgrounds = reasonably good results. Same camera, same lighting, same everything. Eventually I got where I needed to be but Lord only knows what unrecognized principle of physics/digital photography was causing me so much trouble.

Bottom line: outstanding mini, great fun to paint, some delays getting over the finish-line.

Oooo! Brassy!

I was trying for NMM brass with the metal bits. Everything but the kitchen sink went into this paint-wise. Colors used pictured below (plus GW Sotek Green & Vallejo Ivory for the verdigris).

Base & Highlights

Shading

Bases painted separately

    More pictures:

 

  
Two points in closing:

1) FD may call this guy a bodak, but he works better as a death knight from the old Fiend Folio IMHO. I'm going to consider him as such and use him to jumpstart my long dormant Fiend Folio Project (maybe).

2) FD's Dispater is next up (the base is already done). There figures to be a good deal of red involved here as well. Wish me luck.