The mean streets get meaner

Disco Stu has found himself another lady!  She's packin' some serious heat as well!

She can take on a whole crow of brain eaters with no problem at all!

Walkers? Runners?  They are all toast!

Never fear, Sally is here!

Bring it, bugger!

Disco Stu and Da Preacha Man gonna lend a hand...

An 'old' glory

I discovered this figure buried deep in a batch of figures from our days playing D & D.  I believe this is from Old Glory miniatures.  I spent a few minutes updating the paint job on this guy.

I was bummed that I forgot to snap a few pictures before I started working on it.  The biggest change was in the rendering of the blood.  Since I did this piece, I developed many new techniques for that effect!

I also did more variations in the green flesh tones, and added more interest in the darks.

To top it off, I also used a few grass clumps that I didn't have back in the day.

He is also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321402788051?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

The results of mad science...

OK... so all the bright colors have been painted on the bases.  Now for the big experiment!

I knew before I started that I may not get the results I had been hoping for, since I was unable to find the kind of crackle medium that I originally wanted.

This was a stopgap measure... something that I found on Amazon and got a small jar just to try out.

The whole idea was to mix in the darker paints, in the hopes that the medium would provide not only random tiny cracks, but the extra 'dimension' of height.  No matter how well I could paint in a lava crack, it would always look painted on, since there was no sculpting involved.

Hoping that I might get this result, I mixed in the dark colors with the medium

I tried to apply it in the same places as I had set out earlier with the oranges.

I had no idea what was going to happen, or even how long I should wait before any sort of cracks should appear.  What would the result be?

Well, the result was very similar to other crackle mediums I have tried before, which was a bummer.  Whether it was applied thick or thin, the same kind of tiny cracks appeared.

That was nowhere near what I was looking for, so I will not even bother with the ice experiment.  I will just have to wait until I can find the Testors crackle medium.

However, this might still work for the decaying mural effect that I want to try!  That is one more experiment I am willing to try with this medium.

Needless to say, not every experiment works out the way you hope.  There have been many times where I tried something that didn't work out as planned or hoped, which ended up becoming the cornerstone of other techniques!

The moral of the story is, just keep on trying and see what happens!!

Never be afraid to experiment... part one

There was a great deal of discussion at Reapercon about using Crackle Medium in a variety of basing techniques.

For this particular experiment, the idea was to use crackle medium with the fluorescent paints to create a lava effect.  I began by priming the bases white.

The rest of this first phase is pretty standard.  Some white paint mixed with intense yellow and the fluorescent yellow.

Gradually, more of the regular yellow and fluorescent orange is added.  I am trying to set up a semblance of the patterns now, to see if I can take advantage of that with the Crackle medium.

More and more of the Fluorescent paint is added, strengthening the darks.

OK.  This was the last layer before I tried to add the paint/crackle medium mixture.

Stay tuned!

Casting a spell...

Here's another test figure from one of the painting videos.  I had considered this for the Object Source lighting video at one point, but realized right away that it was going to be way too involved to complete in the time that I had.

I ended up going with the Alastriel figure, so Trathus Varr sat around waiting for his final rounds of paint... as many test figures have been!

Now he is complete, and he is here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321401970767?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Arcadians revealed

I have been getting these new figures from Victoria Miniatures ready for some paint this week.  I thought you might like a few images of the sprues!

As with every other variety of Guardsman, the idea is that it's all interchangeable.

What's interesting about this particular set is the female proportions.  By that I mean the they have been scaled to be slightly smaller than the male counterparts (a future post on that coming soon!).

The torsos a wee bit smaller, the arms as well.  Not so much that it is blatantly obvious, however.

Victoria always makes every effort to keep things in scale, and it is done quite masterfully with the female Arcadian Rifles.

You can see that ample amounts of command and weapon options are provided.  Between that and the extra heads, you can really customize your squads.

Of course, ten bases are provided as well.  So, on to the assembly!

The on deck hitter...

Here's some more fun stuff from Secret Weapon Miniatures!

This is the bike version of the Flight Deck bases.

Here they are painted up.  You can go in many different directions with these, since there is some texture, but not so much that you must render it all.

That leaves a lot of room for freehand, weathering effects... and a miniature!

Lots of fun to paint these guys!

They would work with any sci-fi system that has bikes.  I don't know if Infinity does yet.  I know they have some robots...

These also go very well with the standard round Flight Deck series.

Speaking of series, the Sox just clinched a series win! Hopefully they can close this out, and continue to make more hay against the National League Least.