Plodding Right Along

The travel brochure made no mention of this.

Limited progress is progress nonetheless. In that spirit I post many pictures and a few words on what currently occupies my paint-table. (The short version: lots of basing, experimenting with new materials, very little paint.)

New toys: mica flake gel & red oxide paste

Minis attached to bits of cork

Red oxide paste used to conceal tabs and texture cork

2nd mini from the right is not attached & will be painted separately

Grit, gesso, green stuff, & first use of mica flakes (fungal growths?)

And then there were five: guy on the right is a double from my KS rewards

A mouth full of metal

Mouth gouged out & a newly sculpted tongue

The view from the flip side

Testing to see if 25mm base will result in a top-heavy miniature

Extra ballast in the form of fishing sinkers

Mica flakes as leaf-litter and the return of the cockatrice

Left leg is shorter than the right, hence the Captain Morgan stance

More nearly forgotten minis resurface

For more info in using mica flake gel see James Wappel Miniature Painting and 28mm Victorian Warfare. I'm very pleased with the material so far but will reserve final judgement until I actually see what it looks like painted.

Speaking of which, it's time to get some paint on these guys. Peace.

Paint Table Thursday: Grist to the Mill

On the Table: OW Dwarf, FD Dretches, & Reaper Peryton.

Yet another snowstorm has me stuck home today... Spring seems very far away indeed. I'm inside, out of the weather, prepping some minis.

Six minis to be precise. The OW Dwarf Mercenary is next up in the Helping Hand Challenge. The FD Dretches are the first of my IMotOP Kickstarter rewards to go under the brush, while the Reaper Peryton is a recent acquisition that is just too cool to languish on the lead pile.

The Peryton originally showed up as a Bones-only sculpt, which was a disappointment: I absolutely loath the material. Its release in metal is a welcome development and seemingly part of a trend which has seen some of Reaper's Bones-only minis get the pewter treatment. Hopefully this practice will continue.

A lot of unwanted metal in the mouth and a mold-seam over the fight eye needed extra attention.

 
The Dretches are Paul Muller sculpted gems; a huge amount of character in very small packages. Right now I'm toying with the idea of basing two of them on one 25mm base. The prospect of the smallest of the lot peering around his dumpy comrade's shoulder seems too good to pass up.

The Conventional Approach: Everybody Gets Their Own Base

What I'm Leaning Towards

Dumb & Dumber

Low-Tech Cephalopod

Being a re-visitation of Naval November with feeble excuses offered as to the author's failure to fulfill his ongoing obligations...

Cut to the chase... Roy over at RoyW's Hobby Blog came up with Naval November last year. I liked the idea and put together a wizard/familiar combo in line with the theme.

So far, so good. The sticking point was that NN came right after Zomtober and participating in those two events back-to-back badly impacted my previous commitment to The Helping Hand Challenge. (The fact that I'm a slow painter and a general loss of interest stemming from my costly involvement in the Center Stage Kickstarter debacle only made matters worse.)

It felt wrong to produce a LOOK WHAT I PAINTED!! post featuring the pair while The Helping Hand Challenge sat neglected. Consequently, only the fish familiar saw the light of day back in November while his boss was allowed to cool his heels (or tentacles in this case) until The HHC was caught up.

As I'm nearly caught up, it seemed a good time to finally unveil the pair as originally intended.

The wizard began as Bombshell Miniature's Edo Underling #1. In keeping with the pulp sci-fi theme of Bombshell's Counterblast line, the mini holds an enormous ray gun. Nothing against pulp sci-fi or ray guns, but that needed to go. After much filing, carving, and pinning, it was replaced with a suitable staff from a Reaper mind flayer (a staff with tentacles, no less).

There are some awfully cool minis in the Edo faction. As there's always a little more room in the lead pile, I picked up a couple other items at the same time as this one.

The markings were cribbed from the mimic octopus... an amazing animal optimized for deception and a fitting inspiration for a wizard specializing in illusion.

Beyond that, he's still something of a work in progress on a conceptual level. If nothing else, I see him and his kin as foes of the aquatic undead from Zomtober.

Good or evil? The jury's still out.

Under the Sea

We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y'ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.
H. P. Lovecraft

Under the sea, under the sea
Darlin’ it’s better
Down where it’s wetter,
Take it from me
Howard Ashman

Before Zomtober 2014 shuffles off into the night, there's time for one final post. The mermaid is done and pictured above with the rest of this year's crop. Only four of 'em to be sure, but for me that's a major accomplishment.

I thoroughly enjoyed the event and would like to thank this year's organizer, Simon Quinton from Brummie's Wargaming Blog, for his efforts in making it a success. Well done, Brummie.
 

Returning to the minis, I'm pleased at how the colors used tie the four together as a group. Thematically, I was working more of the "evil cult" angle as opposed to your classic "zombie apocalypse". As such, I view the poor unfortunates in chains as unwilling sacrifices to some sort of Dagonesque entity whereas the mermaid is a willing recipient of her god's dark blessing.

I have other minis languishing on the lead pile that would work well with the "sea-horror" theme. Perhaps I should have my head examined but I feel another project coming on.

All that remains for the moment however are a a few more pics.

A very merry Zomtober to all and to all a good night

Zomtober 2014, Week 4

Is it Sunday night already? Drat!

My week four submission (Reaper's Aerakallis, Vampire Mermaid) is progressing nicely but won't be done by midnight I fear. It has reached a good point to share a work-in-progress picture though.

The two minis pictured above use James Wappel's shaded basecoat method. The mermaid has the base colors blocked in and highlighted. What remains to be done is the application of glazes (i.e. carefully targeted washes) to establish the shadows followed by touch-ups and a few details.

The finished zombie on the left shows how glazes really make the highlights pop. Get the shadows sufficiently dark and the highlights look nice and bright by comparison. Painting the negative spaces, as Wappel puts it.

As long as I'm dropping names, the base uses Delaney King's tinted greyscale method as its foundation. For bases, I find it produces great results and, unlike most things involving me and paint, it does so quickly.

I shall endeavor to finish her up, take some pictures of her individually and with the group, and put together a Zomtober wrap-up post by week's end.

PTS V: Multitasking Mayhem

Facts are facts... I'm a dreadfully slow painter. Taking on a single hobby project with a hard deadline can stretch my meager time management skills past their breaking point and I'm currently up to my armpits in three of the darned things. What was I thinking ;) ?

On the table:

Four Zombies and a Linkboy: The lost sequel to Three Men and a Baby

Project 1: The Helping Hand Challenge. This month's entry: the linkboy. Status: 50%. Due: Tuesday.

Project 2: Zomtober 2014. Status: four minis based and primed. Due: one mini each Sunday in October.

Project 3: Ahklut. Status: No progress since my last post. Due: hope to get it assembled and based ASAP to lend support to Paymaster Game's ongoing Kickstarter. Only eleven more days.

There's something you don't see every day. LINK

What's Eating You?

Is it Zombtober already?

When last we met, the timely completion of the final two zombies from Heresy's UNDEAD009 seemed well within reach. Well, things took a bit longer than expected but they and Studio 2's Revenant are now done. The class pictures:

The minis are meant to represent the Revenant and Coffer Corpse from the Fiend Folio. The Revenant is presented there as a buffed-up zombie with a penchant for strangulation and the Coffer Corpse as a buffed-up zombie with a penchant for strangulation. What can I say? They're zombies.

In their respective entries, it's mentioned that the Coffer Corpse will sometimes use weapons while the Revenant is shown wearing a hooded cloak. Minor distinctions they may be, but hopefully they provide a little distance between each other and from garden-variety zombies.

As in the past, generous quantities of grey were mixed into most colors for a sombre undead look. Even normally bright, cheerful colors like the yellow on the Revenant's cloak respond well to this treatment.

The paints used on the cloak

Studio 2 actually calls the Revenant a Doombringer and produced it as part of last year's Hell on Earth Kickstarter. I wasn't a backer but came across a retailer that was.

 

 

 

When prepping the Revenant, something seemed amiss with the right side of the face. Once primed it was apparent that its cheek was missing and its teeth were exposed. A nice touch.

The lunging zombie perhaps seems a little out of character when compared to the other three shuffling zombies from the blister. The rat making a snack of the other is a hoot (a real rib-tickler... literally and figuratively).

 

 

 

This should conclude the Revenant/Coffer Corpse portion of the program but a final chapter may be in store. Hasslefree just obtained some minis from the now defunct Oddity Miniatures. Among them is a bloated zombie that would make a fine (if corpulent) Coffer Corpse IMO. It isn't available yet but I'm keeping my eyes peeled for its eventual release.