Samurai Jack

The Honor of the Samurai return again with a Reaper BONES troll which has been converted for a Samurai Orc Blood Bowl team!

These are always fun conversions, sculpting the hair and his little diaper!  This team will have a slightly different color scheme than the old Hong Kong Phooey Orc team which I did years ago.

I stuck with a more standard set of colors for the troll itself.  However, I did try to mix in as many different subtle shades of purple, teal and even flesh tones.

Where possible, I put in some brighter yellows and light greens, since some of the armor plates of the actual Samurai style players will have that as an accent color.

He's just the first of an entire team coming in over the next few weeks, so stay tuned!

Orcs are my pin cushions

The Galadhrim archer figures had a more 'open' stance than most of the spear and swordsmen, so it presented an opportunity to have more fun with the leafy armor design.

While a lot of greenish hues would be needed on the golds, I did want to reflect some of the reds and oranges as well.

The open cloaks meant that I could show enough of that orange color to justify such reflections.

As I say over and over again, it is the reflections and reflected light that are essential to have NMM look the least bit realistic.

The sculpting and casting of the Lord of the Rings figures was not always the greatest, particularly in the early days.  Nevertheless, it was still very enjoyable to paint up the whole army, and get to use it many times!

Tiger Tiger, burning bright

The first views of the completed Tiger!  I had a lot of fun painting this one. :-)

I would definitely like to try another one and test out some foliage to give it even more sense of scale.  The tiny leaves should make appear more massive, despite the fact that it's a teeny little 15mm vehicle!

Having more broad, open surfaces here was a nice change from the more cluttered, small tankettes that I have painted previously.

Next up, some group comparison shots with much older French tanks!  Stay tuned...

The Phoenix Rises

Tonight we have a few miniatures from the land Down Under, the brainchild of Kevin Goh.  These are very finely cast, and offer some unique characters for your role playing or skirmish games.

This sorceress is among my favorites!

She stands on a 32mm base.  The pose is dynamic, but yet relaxed.  I am trying to come up with a Phoenix theme for her, since she is created by Phoenix Miniatures.

This character is quite unusual.  Many of the armor sections of these figures have a Samurai feel to them.  I will have to come up with some interesting color tones on the skin.  I suppose that the outer "shell" should be treated more like fur, or a beastman.

I will incorporate as much purple as possible into both the beastman shell and the more regular color on the interior skin tones to provide some color unity.

Stay tuned as I paint not only these pieces, but several more which have arrived on the Wappellian shores!

The Blood Star Rising

I painted a number of Venoms for the Dark Eldar army, continuing all the same freehand pattern along the way.

This one also included a banner, which I had also done on one of the Reaver jetbikes.  Not only was it fun to paint, but it also helped to make each vehicle unique!

Here's the other side of the banner...

The base was made from baked sculpey, and as usual, it served as a great counter weight to the Venom.

These views give you a better look at the base and the hull freehand pattern.

A Bronze Age slave girl figure was added to emphasize the torturous nature of the Dark Eldar.

This is not all folks, since more vehicles are coming!

Rusted and Ready

With the glazing and tinting complete, it's time to work back into those middle tones, and put a touch of weathering as well.

I like to take the new Secret Weapon Rust color and mix that with the Vallejo Flesh Shade wash.  This has a natural "sedimentation" effect that is perfect for rust effects, as that sinks down into the crevices.

To take advantage of this property, I focused my attention on areas where I felt that rain water or such things would tend to accumulate.

I also tried to get this mixture into joints between panels, and as rust streaks down the sides of the armor.

At the same time, I was taking some lighter shades of green and yellow to lighten certain parts of the camo pattern.  Not only would this create a better sense of shape and shading, it would make it easier to show off streaks and paint chips.

So, I attempted to concentrate these areas of lightest light colors in strategic places where I wanted to feature streaks and chipping.  There are usually obvious places on every vehicle where you would want to do this.

This image might show that effort more clearly, as you contrast how the green looks in this image as opposed to the previous picture.

And you can see how the rust and streaking can stand out much more.  That's important on something which is such a tiny scale.  Were this a 28mm scale vehicle, I might not have to push the extremes of contrast quite as much.

Getting there!

To enhance something like this vehicle, placing some kind of foliage on the upper surfaces of the hull and turret could truly make it seem real.  I will be adding such effects on future projects.

And now for a sneak peek at the finished results.  I will do a few posts on the finished images  as well as some comparison shots with a few other French early war tanks.

Stay tuned!

Time for Glazing!

Once I was done with the shaded basecoat phase, utilizing the "Primer Painting" technique, I had both sections of the Tiger ready for glazing.

Several different glaze colors are out on the palette... black, blue, green sepia and a few others.  These will be mixed together both on the palette and the miniature itself.

Another note: when I am glazing vehicles I don't exert as much control over the glazes, since I want more random color mixes to occur.  This creates some interesting variations that I can then turn into some kind of weathering.

Over the greenish areas of the camo pattern, some darker green glaze is applied.  I'm using the larger #8 round brushes, so it all happens very quickly.

In this image, you can see that an umber/sepia mix has been applied into the tan sections, but is allowed to mix in randomly with the previously applied greens.

The same concept works on the turret.  There were a few times where more black was mixed in with the green, which is as much of a tint as it is a shade.  It's an easy way to get some variety in the greens, instead of having to paint endless layers of lighter and lighter colors.

Just as I did with the hull, the glazes on the tan sections of the pattern are mixing with the greens.

Here's a quick view of the first layer of glazes.  More can be added to make deeper darks, or tint colors further.  This all takes a lot less time than all those layers of opaque colors, and there is less to remember in terms of "recipes".

I used one of the new Secret Weapon colors to apply some very dark shades, and begin to indicate where there might be paint chipping, stains, soot, and so forth.

I think you can see a lot of this on the rear of the hull, where I wanted oil stains and exhaust scorching.

I did the same process on the turret, using some of the pooled glazing colors as an indicator of where to 'build' on the staining and chipping.

I also added more dark shades to the commander figure.  This image shows how painting the insignia and number prior to glazing darkened those down nicely.

The view from above.  From here, I will work those middle tones that I mentioned earlier.  

I will also be adding some rust and other weathering effects.  In fact, all that will be covered in the final exciting episode, so stay tuned!!!