The ranks nearly filled

Look out Sebastian!  More spiders headed your way! :-)  While my original thoughts regarding the use of these beasties during my games centered on having them popping out of terrain, I see that they can do something else, if need be.

There have been many games where there was simply no way for me to effectively get at archers ensconced inside buildings, or at least standing on walls.  Very frustrating.  At least now I have something that is guaranteed to get up there and go after them!

This is just about it for the regular spiders.  I need to sculpt myself a spider queen and some broodlings at some point...

A little color, a little freehand...

I snapped a few pictures as I painted the sci fi base of sculpey and polystyrene tubing.  The colors were very basic.  I began with a dark brown/blue mix, and lightened it with a greenish grey, until it was almost white.

Then I dug out 2 washes from Secret Weapon.  Soft body black and concrete.  The concrete was is especially interesting, since it is semi opaque, and lighter.  It is very fun for bases!

You can see here that I have put down a few layers of the glazes on the base, choosing certain areas to darken more than others.  Aside from regular shading, I am trying to create just enough contrast for a bit of the freehand to show.

Now for some rust, using my normal watered down Calthan brown...

Then the freehand designs, making sure that they don't get too bright.  I water down the colors to help insure this happens!

And your final base!  The miniature on this is coming soon!

Polystyrene tubing and sculpey in action

I needed some bases for one of the freehand videos, and here are some images of the process.

The bulk of the bases are baked sculpey, as usual.  You can also see the polystyrene tubing.  It makes very nice conduits.  I normally use a few different gauges.  

You can also bend the tubing for some interesting angles.

The tubing is very easy to bend.  Just be sure to vary your angles !

A few pieces are glued in place.  Once the glue dries, I snip off the excess.

An image showing one of the packages of tubing.

For rivets, I slice of very thin pieces of the heavier tubing.  Using a very sharp and pointy exacto knife, they are glued in place.

The bases are just about ready!  You can see many more articles on basing in that section of the blog.  All kinds of fun stuff!

A little hint at what's going on the bases. :-)  The next post will show you the base I painted for the test figure of the first freehand video... stay tuned!

A practice Mantis warrior

Here's one more practice Raging Heroes Mantis demonette for the video.  These are definitely some fun flesh tones!

The bases were a design that I sculpted for CoolMini as part of the Groundwerks line.

Here she is with one of her sisters!

Their kickstarter is coming soon... keep some pennies saved!

Mantis demonettes for flesh tone videos

Much more prepping of minis today.  Among the mass of metal, resin and plastic, I finalized the Mantis warriors from Raging Heroes, which will be used for the demonette flesh tone video.

Here are some bases for them...

There are not a lot of parts to deal with to get the Mantis assembled.  Typically one arm and the head.  You can interchange the heads from one mini to the next if you wish.

I used some oxide paste to fill in the areas around the chaos bases.

These Skaryaa figures are being used to demonstrate copper/bronze NMM.  There are many different ways to assemble them.  You can have the shield, a second sword, or have her pointing.

I have used a great deal of magnets on the undersides of these bases!  At least I know they are strong enough to hold the miniatures to the sheets of metal I have on the empty paint jars :-)

The Mantis figures primed, as are the bases.

Same for the Skaryaa, Blood Mistress. 

I have the last practice Mantis miniature painted, so I will post images of her tomorrow!

A base to stand on

Here are the two bases for the Brunhildes on horseback.  These were made with my usual carved sculpey technique.  This is also be the subject of a Kickstarter Video :-)

My first layer was a very simple brown, using that craft paint you have been watching me use in recent weeks.  I then took some of the GW 'dry' paints and started to mix those in, utilizing a bit of drybrushing...

More drybrushing, making sure to vary the hues from greens to reddish yellows.  I also marked out which of the tile pattern would be white.

Now for some actual color!  Continuing with the same Empire-esque color theme I have been using all along, I made some red accent tiles.

I did a little bit of lighter shading on the tiles... the red in particular.  I mixed in some vomit brown to do that.

My favorite part... doing the glazing and shading!  I put a few sepia tones, a black, and a concrete from Secret Weapon.

Using my beat up liner brushes, I carefully placed selective glazes on certain areas to darken them.  Don't be afraid to wipe away excess wash/glaze with your finger or a paper towel.  It can create a very nice random staining effect!

I didn't try to go for my darkest darks the first time around.  I did 2-4 layers of glazing where I needed things to be darkest.  You can see that I started to add a few cracks as well.

Now you can really see the cracks, as I did some subtle highlighting on them.

I will add static grass and other flock once the minis have been attached.  I hate it when the sculpey dust that I am drilling out for the pins gets caught in the static grass!!

Riding into town in style...

Here is the most recent offering from Raging Heroes.  The amazing Brunhilde on horseback!

This is one of the set ups for the figure, with the helmet and shield.  It all goes together very well for a nice hunk of metal. Everything is very solid, and it fits nicely on a standard cavalry base (a post later tonight on those bases!).

All of the details are finely rendered, which is the norm for Raging Heroes.  Obviously, a nice dynamic pose!

These will be among the figures used for the Painting NMM Videos... Gold, Bronze, Copper, etc.

Not to forget the other way you can have your Brunhilde, we have the banner bearer version.  Very nice!  The joint where the banner meets the figure is great to a long pin, which means that it will be very stable.  You can see I used one of the other head options, of which there are four, I believe.

So, I am going to have some serious fun painting these!  I already painted the foot version:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2013/03/brunhilde-joins-her-sisters.html

Now you know why I chose this for the gold NMM. :-)