The Mane Event

Three more Fractured Dimensions minis down... many, many more to go. These are manes (a type of demon) sculpted by Pedro Navarro.

Very small minis on 20mm bases

It's Deja'vu all Over Again

I seem determined to milk FD's dretch miniatures for every last drop of blog-worthiness. That being the case, it's time for one more go-round with these little miniatures.

My last post contained only one group shot from the front. I've gone back and added a pic of the group from the back.

I also took a sequence of WIP shots while painting that illustrate my method. (Actually, it's James Wappel's method. I'm just borrowing it.)

Primer

Basecoat

Highlights

Targeted Washes

Touch-ups to the mids and highlights

Details and Base

When applying the washes I try to avoid obscuring the highlights as much as possible. Even so, things look rather rough afterwards, necessitating a round of touchups. In the final step I used a dilute glaze of a purplish fleshtone to introduce a little color and give the skin a slightly mottled appearance.

More red oxide paste to blend the base components together

The Finished Product

Some more individual shots.

Finally, some detail-pics of what passes for flora and fauna down in the abyss.

That's a wrap.

Dretches 5, Dwarves 0

Continuing the sports reference, I've dropped the ball on this month's installment of the Helping Hand Challenge. The OW dwarf mercenary remains on the bench.

The Fractured Dimensions dretches that were first in the queue are done and pictured above. Great little minis. More on them, including some painting-in-progress pics, in a future post.

Be sure to check out the other HHC participants at Duke of the Blood Keep and Deviant Designs Deeds.

Dretch Test

I've painted one of the Fractured Dimensions Dretches as a test of the planned flesh-tone.  Sort of grey with yellowish green overtones. The result looks suitably unpleasant... almost waxy.

The markings on the hands and ears wound up a little more red than intended (almost like blood... not my intention). As demons are a chaotic bunch, I may vary the color, and possibly the location, of the markings on the other minis.

The paints used are shown below. Several different wash colors were used as well.

Christmas After Action Report

He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.

Christmas has come and gone. I thought I'd take this opportunity to stick my head up, prove that I'm still capable of producing a post every now and then, and show off some holiday swag.

First up are some Hangar 18 backgrounds; a gift from my brother Bob. Looking forward to putting these to the test. It's probably time to retire my ubiquitous construction paper for everything but WIP shots.

Chinese brushes. That's right... Chinese brushes. Long story short: Kolinsky sable brushes have become difficult to get on this side of the Atlantic due to CITES compliance issues and the unwelcome (and likely unwarranted) attentions of the Department of Fish and Wildlife. I only learned of this when unsuccessfully attempting to replace my tired Windsor & Newton Series Sevens at the local art store.

I have a client, an artist by trade, who, upon learning of my difficulties, kindly set me up with the brushes pictured. The bristles consist of a pliable outer layer overlying a more springy central core. They're larger than what I'm used to but they each come to a very fine point. I'm not sure what to expect but I'm eager to take them out for a test drive.

Lastly, I received my rewards from Fractured Dimensions' Infernal Minions Kickstarter. A whopping, great pile of metal (and a little resin) goodness pictured above.

It just wouldn't feel like Kickstarter without some bad news. In this case it takes the form of two missing miniatures and one set of two multi-part miniatures that arrived lacking heads.

Orcus

Demons

Devils and Miscellaneous

On the plus side of the ledger, these are absolutely brilliant miniatures. The sculptor, Paul Muller, brought his A game and Brett Zeleznik of Fractured dimensions did, and continues to do, a fine job in seeing the campaign through to a successful conclusion.

Fractured Dimensions has been around for a while, but these minis should really put the company on the map when they're released.

Restoring a few toes should fall within my sculpting abilities.

The casting quality is excellent overall. A thorough inspection revealed only one small miscast: some missing toes on one miniature.

Left to right: Heresy, FD, Otherworld, FD, Reaper

Two of the minis caught my attention as having a creepy-obese-clown-ghoul vibe. As I've been amassing a force of Muller sculpted ghouls for some time, they may wind up being re-purposed as undead. As in all things, time will tell. (Did someone say Zomtober 2015?)

Off to the landfill

This Little Light Of Mine

When Summer began, I had five miniatures primed and awaiting paint. The plan was to complete them all by the end of June. Where does the time go? It's September already and I've only just finished the fourth.

Quick I ain't.

Figure number four is part of Gamezone's Landwehr III blister. I see him not as a mere peasant but rather as a cleric/monk with a drunken-master vibe: the besotted agent of a higher power, following his calling armed with faith, an improvised weapon, and an ample supply of booze.

I originally intended to have him going toe-to-toe with an Otherworld type II demon thusly:

I experimented with a few things on this mini; most notably OSL (object source lighting). This took a couple tries as initial attempts using Vallejo florescent yellow paint produced consistently awful results. In the end I went with a more subtle look and P3 Sulfuric Yellow.

 

I'm in line for a DVD on how to paint OSL from a recent Kickstarter campaign. It can't get to my door quickly enough. I'd really like to add this technique to my bag of tricks.

With the changing of the seasons,  I'm eager to move on to some new miniatures. (Plus I still have that pesky fifth miniature to deal with.)

Summertime Blues

Things have been pretty slow around the paint cave lately. That being said, I have finished one mini recently: Otherworld Miniatures' type II demon. The blue and olive scheme seen here was inspired by a Hugh Jamieson illustration. As for the miniature itself, it's a great example both of OW's commitment to quality and Paul Muller's flair for sculpting the denizens of the underworld. More on the last point later.

 The olive paint didn't behave quite as expected. The first time through I shaded by adding dark brown and highlighted by adding Reaper's Bloodless Skin. This looked OK in terms of light vs dark but a bit weird otherwise. I suspect that by adding a warm brown to the shadows and a cool zombie flesh-tone to the highlights I had violated the rules regarding color temperature.

Long story short, I glazed away most of my work with the original base color (GW Death World Forest), shaded with a cool color (P3 Coal Black), and highlighted with a warm (Reaper Bronzed Highlight). Big improvement.

As for the wisdom of photographing an olive miniature against an olive background, I throw myself on the mercy of the court.

 

 

 

 

Returning to the talented Mr. Muller, I am currently backing Fractured Dimensions' Infernal Minions Kickstarter. All the new sculpts made possible thereby will be sculpted by Paul Muller. The campaign has entered its final week and, while it long ago hit its modest funding goal, it's been barely sputtering along for a while now.

WARNING: URGENT APPEAL TO FOLLOW

I urge anyone who shares my appreciation for Paul Muller's work to check out the Kickstarter. Look past the ho-hum concept art and general complexity of the page and focus instead on the amazing greens already completed. Then consider the potential for even more if a few additional stretch goals are achieved. 

There's good value to be had at the $95 backer level and above. Please, give it a look.

Crunch Time

I have pledged on the Otherworld Miniatures forums to paint at least one OW miniature per month throughout 2013. I haven't missed a month yet but my on-time performance has been nothing to write home about.

Punctuality is not one of my virtues it seems (at least within the realm of miniature painting).

Pictured above are some minis intended for May & June (hoping to get a jump on next month). From left to right they are: a cleric/monk from Gamezone, a gnome from Center Stage, A medusa from OW, a demon from OW, and a cyclops from Heresy. The cleric/monk & demon will be paired up for May while the medusa and cyclops are meant for June. 

The gnome is the odd-man-out. (or is that odd-gnome-out?)

A great little Patrick Keith sculpt from the recently concluded Torn World Kickstarter. I removed his integral base and sculpted a replacement. A lot of detail in a confined space on this one. Should be fun.

Center Stage's current Tome of Horrors Complete campaign is picking up steam as it nears its end. The work of sculptor Drew Williams has been especially impressive. Check out these WIPs.

Nice. They may call them tsathars but they look like bullywugs to me. Hopefully CSM gives Mr Williams as much work as he can handle.

Shadow Demon Blues

The shadow demon is complete and The FF Project has gained another member:

(L to R) Blindheim, Shadow Demon, Forlarren

The mini allows a nice contrast between the very simple scheme on the actual demon and the abundance of color on the base. The colors used on the demon were Reaper Military Blue, P3 Frostbite, and GW Chaos Black.

The three-part WIP photo below shows the base in various stages of completion: A) black wash and grey/white drybrushing over grey primer,  B) the basic colors glazed on followed by some selectively applied washes, and C) highlights and some stronger shadows where needed.

Revisiting the construction of the base for a moment, the Reaper treasure mound was too large for the base until I reduced its size with my trusty motor tool. I had a pretty good idea of where the demon should be mounted and tried to work things out so that point wound up at the base's center. This required the removal of everything behind the chest. The resultant void was filled in with green stuff.

The coin-pile was extended to the front edge of the base with some stretched plastic sprue cut into disks and embedded in more green stuff. 

And finally a few more pics of the end result: