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:

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Many blogs that I enjoy feature ongoing projects bound together by a common theme. Prehistoric Pulp at Laughing Ferret, Folk Horror at An Evil Giraffe, and Secret Project at 28mm Victorian Warfare are prime examples of this sort of thing. Not wanting to be left out in the cold, I'm initiating The Fiend Folio Project; miniatures inspired by the first edition's Fiend Folio.

Some will be direct representations of entries from the book, others may wind up using those entries as a starting point only. I won't pursue this to the exclusion of all else but will instead revisit the project as the mood strikes me.

I actually got the ball rolling last year with a forlarren and a blindheim. This year's first work in progress is a shadow demon.

This uses the body of a Wyrd sorrow, the head from a RAFM night-gaunt, and the wings from a Reaper succubus. I made a base using a Reaper treasure pile and attached the mini; concealing the pin with some green stuff.

 

Hopefully a fair representation of the subject as rendered in the original (plus horns).

Now for some paint...

Shine On You Crazy Demon

The new year has arrived (several weeks ago I'm told) and it's time to get cracking on a fresh crop of minis. Last year's goal of painting and presenting something by Otherworld each month suffered an eleventh hour setback... I missed December. I am therefore kicking off 2013 with what was meant to be December's offering: a black pudding and grey ooze by OW accompanied by Fractured Dimension's superb Juiblex (AKA Joiblexx, Slime Lord of the Bleak Fens).

The Juiblex sculpt is by Pedro Navarro. Pictures of the green can be seen on his blog. Very Lovecraftian and true to the original Trampier illustration from the Monster Manual.

No major conversion work on this one; just a couple tweaks. Initially, how to handle the base was a head-scratcher. In the end I shimmed the mini up by about 1/8", attached it to a standard 40mm base, and sculpted the lower portion as though it was about to flow over the base's edge. Hopefully this blurs the distinction between where the demon lord ends and the surrounding environment begins.

The mini comes with four "vomit pieces" that can issue from various orifices. I used one of these as-is, a second one that was chopped down, and a slime blast from Armorcast. This last piece was smaller than the others so I used an eye as its attachment point. All three pieces were pinned.

 The paint was achieved through multiple washes and extensive glazing. A good deal of purple and flesh-tone was applied over the green base. The eyes were first painted white and then red so they would really pop.

The mini received an overall coat of gloss varnish so it would look slimy. This looked awful. I then went with matt varnish followed by gloss on just the eyes. Much better.

The OW minis were very straightforward by comparison. Again, lots of glazing and some gloss varnish (which looked fine in this case). All that remained was to round up a green slime and ochre jelly that I painted last year and Juiblex, The Faceless Lord (AKA Joiblexx, Slime Lord of the Bleak Fens) was ready to hold court.