The Bloody Star

While most of the Kabal Warriors in my Adepticon Dark Eldar tournament army were combinations of the ancient and more recent plastics, I did treat myself to a few that were completely new. 

I particularly enjoyed this pose, with the Agonizer and the back banner. 

Both elements made the figure seem even more dynamic, and it also gave me more opportunities for freehand and contrasting colors. 

When you're used to space marine style armies, it can be more difficult to have standout command figures.

It's a little easier to make a space marine even more "hefty" by adding trophies and additional markings,  etc.,  since you have a larger canvas in general. 

Anything which is more normal... or human sized creates more of a challenge. 

Dancing is Da Bomb!

Today we have one of the new Bombshell Babes for you, part of the recent kickstarter campaign.

Kev White always does a wonderful sculpting job, with a great balance of detail and "open canvas", where the painter actually gets to decide on some details too!

There is a definite trend these days towards figures which are crammed with all kinds of doo-dads and other things that will lock in a painter to a certain theme or colors.

I really enjoy these kind of one piece, easy to work with sculpts.  I can focus more on what I'd like to do, and less on dealing with 1,000 belt buckles.  You know what I mean... ;-)

She's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/222216780652?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

Steel and Hoof

Here's a figure that I was using for some spot demos in the GenCon dealers room.  I had a lot of fun with the mosaic tile base, and with all the shiny things!

I believe that she's a Sandra Garrity sculpt, which I had prepped for Marcon.

She's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/322223537996?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

Move Out!

It's been a little while since we've checked in on the Defenders of Paris, so we return to the standard infantry minis from the Bolt Action French series.

As with all the other French figures, I have stuck with the Ardennes theme.  The Free French and Partizan forces will get desert and more urban themes.

This force has been growing bit by bit, as more of the other figures that I paint involve more muted earth tones.  That kind of color synchronizing allows me to speed things up dramatically, since maximum efficiency can be achieved with each color that I paint.

So, if I am painting a mosaic tile base or something else that uses the same colors, I have many other things on hand that could use them as well.

I have also been adapting the airbrush to my Shaded Basecoat technique, which has been very fun!  That is something which I will try to post in future content.

Also, the wide variety of Bolt Action armies that are now under way need to have another kind of coverage.  This will be in the form of hangouts, as previously mentioned.

As I get more precise with the lighting, camera and other technical elements, Twitch is now something that I want to try out as well!!

Tinting the Future

Day three of GenCon was no less hectic than Thursday or Friday.  I was bouncing between the two booths, and lots of demos were going on.  Of course, we also had the traditional Running of the Circos, featuring Rich and his daughter showing off this year's cosplay.

At come point I might get to do something like that...

In the afternoon, it was time to get down to the business of airbrushing once again.  I wasn't able to get any pictures of the early stages, but the basic principle was the same as the other two spacescapes.

I used the Ghost Tints to create the intense dark shades, while I mixed them with lighter colors to get the juicy middle tones and other highlights.

It is the notion of working "back and forth" that I try to encourage with miniature painting as well.  As a watercolorist, I didn't restrict myself to working "light to dark", as it is usually seen.  I would also work dark to light, which is typically thought of as an oil or pastel approach.

And, you guessed it... I did the same reversal with those materials too!

Since my masking materials are long since lost in the ether of time, I had to make do with anything I could find.  While it was not ideal, a coin might just do the trick for creating the spectral halo around the stars.

I was able to hold the brush surprisingly vertical to the coin... another testament to the Extreme Patriot!

And thus a halo is born!

I did this to a few other stars, and highlighted some edges of the clouds.

I also did a little regular brushwork, which sharpened edges and made various areas come to the front and then recede.  The total amount of working time that I had on these paintings was around two hours, which I don't think I mentioned yesterday.

Continuing the composition conversation from yesterday's post, here's an image of the same piece flipped around, showing that a good composition can work from any viewpoint.  

While this is a little more tricky to show in miniature painting, holding your figure in a mirror can give you some sense of 'distance', or make it appear the way a stranger might see it.

Ghosts of the Past

Now that we are back from GenCon, I can get down to the business of rebuilding the studio which was mangled in the frenzy of GenCon prep :-)

I can also show some images that I was able to get from my time in the Badger Airbrush booth!  Cory was very generous with his booth space for me in the Witchborn Booth, as was Ken.

Of course, the first night in town we must claim a slice of that territory for our own... and "Wappelize" it!

Then it was down to business Thursday afternoon.  After Caleb had done his nifty tank demos in the booth, I sat down to do something that I knew I hadn't done in a while... painting spacescapes with an airbrush.

After some recollection and some calculating, I realized that it had been 17 years since I had last done one of these!  Yikes... it started to become Total Recall at a certain point.

In addition to this huge time gap, I thought that I would experiment with the Ghost tints, to see how closely they would resemble my old Dr. Martin's dyes that I used to employ on my watercolor spacescapes.

I hadn't gotten to try the new Extreme Patriot brush yet, so I used that all weekend long.  To make the brushes easier to switch out, they all had the quick change devices on them, which is a very nifty gadget!  I wants me one too!

And here is the Ghost Tint.  I think there are at least ten or twelve in the set, with a huge range of colors.  They are super transparent, but the color is very intense and saturated.  This is what made me think of the Dr. Martin's dyes.

However, the Ghost tints are acrylic, so they can never be damaged by water like the old dyes!

I fooled around with the various blues and purples, starting over a piece of white hot press watercolor board.  I let the transparency of the Ghost tints work for me, building from light to dark with each pass.  I loved the Midnight Blue tone for getting the deepest darks.

I also tested out a few tricks, such as mixing lighter opaque colors with the Ghost tints.  This worked out very well... even better than the same tactic with the old dyes.  

They also work well with a brush, and can even be blended with your finger.

This also became an impromptu art lesson, so we tried to do the "Composition Game" by spinning the piece around.  It was a trick that I was taught many years ago.  You take your painting and hold it up to a mirror or upside down, etc., and see what the arrangement of the shapes, light and dark pattens, etc., will look like.

It should be just as interesting from any angle or view, even if it doesn't make "sense".  That's a quick and easy way to see how well balanced your composition is!

On Friday I decided to try a new tack on the brushwork by adding a planet, as well as seeing if I could do the spectral glow around the smaller stars.

This is another quick demo within a demo, where I tried to show how the Ghost Tints can even be mixed with regular airbrush paints, and even non airbrush paints!

You can see how many incredible colors I was able to create by mixing in the Dried Blood Ghost tint with a bit of sienna 'regular' paint.  Very rich, very intense, and perfect for future minis!!

I didn't have any of my old masking sheets with me, so some coins had to do for the effects around the stars.

I used a brush to add a few horizon line highlights to the planet, and some 'sparkle' effects on the stars.  This is a subtle way to create the hard vs soft edge contrast, which creates depth in your paintings.

A hard edge next to a soft edge will make that surface recede to the background, making your painting have 'distance' despite the fact it is nothing more than a flat piece of board.

This is six o'clock on Friday.  Two more days to go, so stay tuned for more!!

I also painted for many hours in the Witchborn booth, where I saw all kinds of fun demos going on around me.  Here's a link to the site:

https://www.witchborn.com/

The Horde

The final day of GenCon looms! 

It's been very interesting to occupy a tny space on opposite ends of the floor all weekend.   Aside from the vast distance to traverse,  there's a very different feel to each end. 

The Entrpenure Section, as it's called,  is a new area carved out of another room.  It's not until you're in the front area when you notice how much brighter everything is compared to the back of the room.

I've had lots of different miniatures with me in the dealers room,  along with plenty of BONES  minis. Those are really perfect for quick impromptu demos!

The spontaneous demos will take on an epic scale at Reapercon in a few months.   We're hoping to set up another Fort Wappel there, and who knows what kind of madness might take place! 

Many BONES minis will be harmed. ;-)