The Ancients

This figure was a nice exercise in balancing Non-Metallic Metals with muted earth tones and greens.

It was also an opportunity to do a little freehand!  I wanted to reflect the profile face from the base onto the shield.

That turned out the way I had hoped... these views show the base as well, made from a Green Stuff World texture roller.

Here's an article showing some mosaic tile bases under construction:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-new-realm-of-basing.html

The Temple Ruins

Here's the next texture roller design from Green Stuff World.  They have a very large (and growing) collection of textures which cover all sorts of genres.  The fantasy theme rollers are outstanding and now the Temple texture joins the group!

I made a small series of bases, once again focusing on the simpler cork and sculpey method. A few extra bits were added to take advantage of the theme, such as the broken pillar chunks from Secret Weapon Miniatures.

There are a few sets of the pillar pieces, and you can see that it does not take very much to create a little more "story" to a base design.  Now this cavalry base can support one of those Templar style knights with elaborate freehand and other techniques.

Notice that I experimented with orienting the cork and sculpey at an angle.  To me, it gives the long, narrow base a little more heft and counterbalance.

Just as I have with previous designs, I tried to make a few levels on the bases.  It's pretty easy to establish these different heights by placing one piece of sculpey onto the cork.

To tie all the 'broken' pieces together, I used the Vallejo Oxide Paste, along with a variety of gravel and sand.

Adding those additional pieces to the sculpey texture really completes the look of the bases, especially the larger versions.  This is a 60mm base.

This group shot shows a nice set of bases (for any number of game systems) which was created using one rolled out sheet of sculpey.  As I mentioned in the last post, I normally use the grey extra firm sculpey for these sheets.  I didn't have any at this time, so I made do with the regular white sculpey.

One has to be aware that the white sculpey is more fragile than the extra firm, but it does allow you do make more interesting 'breaks' in the sculpey.  More subtle chipping along the edges can also be achieved.

Here's a link to the site:

http://www.greenstuffworld.com/en/textured-rolling-pins/365-rolling-pin-hobby-roller-temple.html

Hunting Expedition

Now it's time to see some finished images of the Matilda test vehicle!

If you recall the step by step articles, there were a number of experiments conducted with the AMMO paints and pigments.

It was so different working with the oil based products!  Most of the time, I was just seeing what a particular type of paint might be able to do, so I focused more on pushing the limits of the materials.

In the future, I will be working on several tanks and vehicles all at once, which is a better way to take advantage of the oils and their slow drying times!

I have a whole army of Italian vehicles set to go, along with all the German units, so that should be a great opportunity to try more techniques.  I'm also using the oils on my regular infantry, in yet another grand experiment.

I also have an entire Soviet force that will be winter/urban in nature, so we'll see how many different ways we can winterize vehicles.  I'll probably be using a lot of the white Filters, and even mixing the white powders with pigment fixer to scatter that around the vehicles.

I was especially happy with the way the various mud products mixed with the leaves and grass.

This was the one vehicle I had visualized for that effect, and now I can't wait to see what other crazy mixes I can develop!

An yes, there are still some BEF infantry that go along with this tank, so stay tuned!!

The Ranger

I seem to remember painting this Ranger figure for our role playing group many years ago, so it was interesting to work on that same figure again with the knowledge that I have now.  This had been prepped for Marcon, as it is a Sandra Garrity miniature.

There was probably not much freehand on the first version, because it was more difficult at that time to tone down the design in recesses.  I have a few ways to do that now.  

In this case, I used a Vallejo transparent brown paint to create not only some shadows, but to alter the color as well.  This pushed it towards warm, as opposed to the usual cooler dark blues which I have used in many instances to shade such areas darker.

The base is yet another Green Stuff World sculpey base.  There are many more designs yet to be featured on the blog!

The ground level view gives you a better look at the underside details. It was a lot of fun to balance all the warmer reddish browns with the yellowish greens.  To get a little bit of contrast to all that, the color of the base is more of a cooler flesh tone pink.

Blood and Brides

Here's another fun conversion for the Adepticon Dark Eldar army from a few years back.  I wanted to make a unit of Hexatrix Blood Brides, but I thought they should be much different from the usual Wyche figures.

Fortunately, I had some old Warhammer Fantasy Dark Elf figures around, and all it took was swapping one of the knife hands with a plastic gun hand to do the trick!

She's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/322279220899?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Pass Rush

We return to the Blood Bowl pitch with another member of the Samurai Orc team.  This time, a Blitzer!

The new method of sculpting the armor was even more helpful on figures with this kind of positioning of their arms.  When I first converted figures for another version of this team, I did the sections of armor one bit at a time, and that led to some odd angles.  Instead, I was able to make one long strip and work my way across all in one shot.

That created a much more consistent texture, which was ultimately a lot easier to paint than the first team!

Lucky Charms

This 54mm figure was part of a demo at GenCon, showing how to maximize various shades and tones of brown, making them more of less saturated, or more green, yellow, etc.

This is illustrated here, as you see the differences in the hair color and the skirt.  One is more muted and reddish, the other is more saturated and warmer.  The top is more of a greenish brown by comparison.

I tried to incorporate greenish tones wherever possible, even on the skin tones.

These shots show the scale of the figure, and demonstrate how the grayish tones of those bases are designed to set off the figure... despite the relatively muted colors of the figure.  Still, I wanted to add the rust colors in order to bring down the oranges that you see in the hair.

One last look at Lucky!