Thursday, May 2, 2013

The life of a mini painter :-)



Minis everywhere!!!

For months now, I have been prepping minis for the painting videos.  These images represent a small poriton of what I have been working on!

I have already posted pictures of the big Ultraforge demons that were prepped before Adepticon.  While I was at Adepticon, I purchased some more of the big birds for those videos.  I am priming a few of those today.  One of the eagles has been discontinued, so I replaced it with the Griffon (I will do a post on that).

Some of the videos will have multiple minis in them, so I can show some of the techniques a little better.  There are a few topics (such blood, freehand, and so on, where the focus is not on painting the flesh, armor, etc.)  

I also wanted as many options open to me as possible, so there are two different minis for a few videos.  When I do the 'storyboard' figures, I can determine which is the best. :-)

I am still waiting on my box of Reaper Bones figures to arrive.  That has some fire elementals that I figured would be fun.  I purchased a few of the regular ones just in case the box is delayed for some reason.


You can see the crazy unicorns that I had to convert into regular horses.  It was made more difficult by virtue  of all the goat stuff they sculpted on the front legs and face.


You can also see the skeleton cavalry that I got for the bones video, ghosts for the glowing vids, the trolls for green flesh, and much more.


This image has one of the Syl-Iriah figures in the front of the scene.  Another one came in today, so I will be prepping that.


Once I had the bases made and all the extra gravel brushed away, they went into these boxes.


More minis!!


Here's some of the Urban Mammoth figures for a freehand video...


A big collection, but still only a part of the whole.  They are waiting for some primer.


I did an experiment with the craft paint I have been using on the big terrain pieces.  I am tired of using up lots of my good miniature paint on cork and rocks.  So, something new to test!  It really worked like a charm.  I mixed a tiny bit of black primer with it, along with a bit of dark purple.  The coverage was fantastic, and it got into all those crevices so easily.


Now to prime the minis.  I mixed white and black to get better holding power than the white offers.  Where  the grey is lighter, that's where I will be doing the lightest colors.  I may even go over it again with white in some cases.


Since these images were shot, two more big boxes of Raging Heroes minis have come in, with tons of amazing figures for the videos.  I have already been prepping those.


10 comments:

  1. Are you planning to do any tutorials with the Tau, like the vehicle camouflage and maybe kroot as reptilian like flesh tones. I would be mainly interested in the camouflage more than anything and I'm sure a lot more people would find it useful as well. I don't want to throw more minis on the pile but it's just an idea. Thanks.

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    1. For legal reasons, I am not using any GW minis. I am only using figures from companies who gave me direct permission to do so :-)

      This was decided before the KS ever began, and given what GW has been doing to people in the last month or so, I am very glad!!

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    2. Ah I see, at least you took your time with thinking about that before blurting it out like myself. And yeah I agree with you GW have been a bit persnickety lately. Any how thanks for getting back to me, I completely forgot that you only had permission for certain companies. Good luck with painting those minis, it would sure as hell take me a long time to do all them. :D

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    3. He he.. :-) Many of the figures are "practice" minis, where I can see how long it takes to get through all the important stuff, timing it for the videos, etc. I may not have to use all of them, but it is definitely better to have them ready than to have to wait around for more!

      Some come from overseas, so that would be an issue :-)

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  2. That's a very large amount to do that I would be overwhelmed to even take on. What is the large black block that you show with the pin vise on? It is a rubber like material to make pinning easier or another material? If you could kindly let is know where to get one that would be great. My hands kill me after drilling into metal minis after 10 minutes.

    Enquiring minds like to know :)

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    1. That is called a Jeweler's block. It's hard rubber, mostly self healing. I have been using it for many years. It is great for pinning, but also for filing. That will keep your mini from bending, etc., as you file things like sword blades and so on.

      It is also fantastic for using a razor saw, as I do to get the Reaper minis off the broccoli bases!

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    2. Oh how I loathe taking off the Broccoli bases. I use side cutters to take the majority off, then dremel the rest. Needless to say I am getting quite my fill of a tin diet that way. Thanks for the pointer, I'll pick one up and give it a try.

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  3. So is it just craft brush on paint you use to prime? How long does that take you by hand!!

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    1. The Craft paint was only used on the bases, since those materials were so absorbent. It took several hours to prime everything by hand, but I was able to make several, different custom shades of primer, and all the surfaces were covered equally. As we all know, those darn spray cans seem to leave huge gaps, no matter how many angles you hold the can.

      There is minimal to no waste as well, which means I can get 3 cans of spray primer out of one jar of brush on...

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    2. So is it a specific brush primer or do you just mix it to your specs? Sorry for all the questions I find your approach fascinating!

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