James Wappel Miniature Painting

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

The Tomb Kings army so far...

OK! Here is a bit of a "Family Portrait" to show what the army is looking like as a whole... sans display board. :-)

Now that several of the movement trays are painted and units completed, I wanted to snap a few shots to see what it all looked like on a table, as opposed to the Tomb board. Pretty different when they are on a table, aren't they!

Lots more to come. In fact, there is a pile of stuff coming for the Tomb Kings that is just about as big as what you see on the table here.

Now to the pictures:

WIP images: Shaded Basecoat technique on the Tainted World Eaters Decimator

Here are a few quick images to illustrate the use of the "Shaded basecoat" technique once again. For those who are not familiar with this term, you can check it out in the "how to" pages of the blog.

The first image shows the size of the brush which was used to paint everything thus far. That is the whole point of the technique... to get pigment on every surface as quickly as possible.

These next few images were taken not long before I started the glazing and tinting process. We start with the torso...

And now the legs:

Here is a view of the base and a few of the weapon arms:

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Finished Skeleton Archer unit with movement tray

One more unit polished off! In addition to the new horse units, I am painting more Carrion and sculpting a third Stalker to complete that unit! Tying to get color variations in each of the 20 archers took some doing, that's for sure!!

Second Imperial Fists Rapier

Despite power outages and a mysterious Internet blackout, I have the second Rapier for you!

This one was a bit different from the first version in that the "driver" can come off the vehicle and stand on a base. Very tricky, since his stance was very wide for the back of the Rapier.

Monday, August 6, 2012

When the lights go out: part Two

Well, I had expected to be finished with this second Imperial Fists Rapier by now, but Com Ed had other plans. On the nicest weather day since May (temps of under 80 degrees, no wind, not a cloud in the sky), the power cuts out. It stays out long enough to completely screw with the painting of this piece.

So, it was time for drastic measures:

I grabbed the lights that I had used on the Tomb Kings army board, thinking I could attach those to my magnifier light. No dice there.

So, I tried to tape them to other surfaces:

Finally, it was time to break out the candles again...

At least the power is back on.

Finished Necropolis Knights

OK! These guys were finally finished off, and their movement tray painted!

The Endless Voyage

Well, Cathy and I were lucky enough to get tuned into the live landing coverage of Curiosity just in time! It was an amazing thing. Very special.

I could not help but think what it would have been like to have that instant access "back in the day" when the Viking landers made it to Mars. I certainly remember how excited I was back then!

Astronomy has been a major interest of mine for as long as I can recall. Here's an example of an 8th grade Science Fair entry...

I think I managed to save some of my drawings from that display board. The blue flower wallpaper was not! To this day, I still have the HR diagram memorized :-)

That set me on a major Astronomy art kick, as I was inspired by Chelsea Bonestell and others. This was an image I painted in the mid 90's of a terraformed Mars called "In the Shadow of Olympus" It is the city of Tharsis, on the edge of a nifty ocean.

OK, so there are no plate tectonics, and minimal magnetic field protection...

My apologies for the small size of the images, and the watermarks. The original images are stored on a different computer.

Here is a tiny sampling of the spacscapes I have painted over the years. Now you know why I try to sneak them into my miniatures. :-)

This was called Fire Falls