Taking off like a rocket! Rivet Wars Kickstarter

I promised you Rocket Bikes, so here you go!!  I think there is also a hero character in a side car, but others would probably know better if that is the case...





I will be doing a post late tonight about my own Kickstarter... stay tuned for that!!!

Return to the trenches: Rivet Wars cavalry

Here we go folks, rejoining the Allied faction in the heat of tiny battle.  This time we renew the fight with cavalry from Rivet Wars, the new Coolminiornot Kickstarter program.  These guys are really fun!  There are plenty of areas to do some nifty little freehand work and such...









What's next?  How about Rocket Bikes!! Stay tuned...

Back in the red again?

OK folks, just a wee bit of a break from the Rivet Wars kickstarter.  I wanted to show a few of my old Demonhunter red terminators that I painted back in 2008-09.



Of all the colors I have painted  Grey Knights over the years, I suppose red would be my favorite.  I always saw them as more evil than good, and thus the more demonic red suggested as such.







After many hours, and lots of frustration, I think I have been able to create enough graphics to redo my Kickstarter proposal.  These are not incredibly fancy, but it seemed like they would be very important to clarifying what I was trying to do!  It was incredibly time consuming, but hopefully it was worth it!

I also hope you have something fun to announce here in a few days...

Getting to know the Rivet Wars grunts!!

Let's get to know some Allied infantry, shall we?

While the vehicles and cavalry could almost be painted with a standard approach, the ground pounders required something different.  It was similar to my shaded basecoat technique, but my normal glazing was set aside for the most part.

Painting the eyes is very important on these guys, as it really makes the whole miniature.  There was special effort taken to put "angry" faces on what would normally be considered a cutsie kind of thing.  So, I tried very hard to make the eyes as expressive as possible.  Given that the rest of the face is very flat, it is even more vital.

Of course, the eyes are much bigger here than normal, thus creating more opportunity.  I am hoping to have some step by steps soon!

Here are a few images:







My next post will bring out the Cavalry!!!  Stay tuned...

Introducing Rivet Wars!!!!

Some of you may have seen the latest Kickstarter program from Coolminiornot.  It is called Rivet Wars!

Here is a link:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/rivet-wars?ref=home_popular

And a little introduction:

Rivet Wars is a miniatures boardgame that springs forth from the warped imagination of Ted Terranova - set on a world that never quite left World War I but with crazy technology like walking tanks, diesel powered armor, unicycle vehicles and armor plated cavalry!


Don't let the cute visuals fool you, it's a world full of angst, war-torn camaraderie and dark humor.

When you see it, you will probably think the same thing Cathy and I did when these arrived for painting... they are the most unusual minis you will ever see! :-)  We also thought they would be very fun as a result.  It's hard in this day and age to come up with something so unlike everything else...

This post introduces you to a few of the miniatures.







Here we have a few images that show the entire "Ally" force.  The tanks are particularly fun!


Needless to say, I had to develop all new painting techniques to paint these!  I have more posts coming with multiple close up images of the vehicles.  Unlike conventional 23 mm figures, these don't have lots of little surfaces, particularly on the Infantry.  I will try to explain some of the things I did on those guys as well!





So, go check out the Kickstarter and see for yourself!  Stay tuned for more here...

Brewmaster Grymm from Stonehaven miniatures

We have one more Dwarf from the Stonehaven Miniatures Kickstarter.

This is Brewmaster Grymm.  He goes about his own business.  When it is convenient, he serves other as he sees best.  The Brewmaster is slow to warm up to new acquaintences, and quick to hold a never ending grudge.

Wash the blues away: Finishing the Dragonforge bases

You know what time it is!  Yes, time for glazing!

Here is an image of the bases as they were set up for this stage.  As usual with the shaded basecoat, I have gone lighter than normal, so that I can do the rest by shading darker.

For the metal sections, I used a blue.black glaze.  My first layers were more watered down.  Subsequent layers were more pure glaze, and much darker.

Now it is time for the stones.  I have a few colors out on the palette: a black, a green, a sepia, and a brown.  The idea is to alter my glaze colors in the same way as I did the original colors.

Here's a close up of the palette.  I also have a few batches of watered down glaze.  This is very helpful for doing those initial layers of lighter glaze.  Again, it is very important to think of this as more of a watercolor technique.  Shade lighter at first, since you can always go darker!  All it will take is a few more layers.

It is much faster to apply these transparent colors, as opposed to the same number of opaque layers.

Here is another trick I like to use on rough surfaces such as this.  See the paper towel on the left?  Yes, dabbing away the extra glaze works very well for creating interesting textures.

Here is an image that shows the completed glazes.

Now it is time to get some rust action on the metal sections.  On the left part of the image, I set down a blob of Calthan brown.  The foundation paints have an interesting quality when you water them down.  It tends to break down the paint, instead of thinning it.  This is very useful when you want to create some random looking washes.

In this image, you can see that I have applied the first layer of "rust glaze".  I focused on the crevices, as that is where the rust would occur most frequently.

I did the same for all of the bases.

I added some lighter layers of this rust by adding some orange to the Calthan Brown.  It was watered down again, so that it would sink into the recesses.

Here is where I left it off.  There are some more details I will add on once the miniatures are added.

I hope this little 'how to' was useful!!