It's for the birds... Odin

OK, another colossal big guy from Eastern Front Studios!

This time, it's Odin.  I think the plaque is 4 inches across, to give you an idea of size.

Obviously, a big pile of baked sculpey carved away to create the ice base!

I will be doing an ice pile on one of the kickstarter painting videos "Painting the Blues away", since that will be a great exercise is painting many different shades of blue!

The freehand was very fun.

The Big Guy...

The Big Head...

More freehand...

Big Bird!

Touch this and you will get more than warts...

Time for another piece from the archive... a giant toad!  This was from Eastern Front Studios.

The base is a wooden plaque that is probably 6 inches across.

I think this is one of the first things I ever painted using my book of reptiles, amphibians and bugs as reference.  Eventually I would use it as a guide for all of my Lizardman army.

Since this was so huge, it let me choose a much more complicated pattern, which was fun!  You get a good look at that here.

I made the rocks, lilipads, etc., from sculpey.  Once that was baked and painted, I glued it to the wooden plaque.

My, what big teeth you have!

Close up of the base.  I painted several transparent layers on the 'water' part, using some gloss varnish in between each one.  This was faster and easier than trying to do it all with one of those water effects products.

Sci-fi Vestals from Raging Heroes!

As the Raging Heroes Kickstarter draws ever closer, here is something to whet your appetite.

I have a few squads of these Sci-fi Vestals from Raging Heroes for my Wyches.  They are very highly detailed minis, which is why I am using a number of them for my painting videos.

The faces and hair are very cleanly sculpted and cast, which is not always the case with other companies for whatever reason.

The view from above...

Here she is with the first color test of the squad...

These are really amazing minis, so I will keep posting them as I get more painted!  Stay tuned!

Ladies, start your engines!

As Adepticon nears, it's time to race to the finish!  This is the first color test for the Reaver jetbikes.  As I have mentioned before, I had to change a lot of my original plans for the various units.

My first thought was that each unit would be a different color, to represent the various racing teams.  However, there is just not enough time for 8-9 different color test minis!  So, I had to go for a unifying  color scheme.

Initially, I thought this would get boring, but as I do each unit type, I see that the variations in the units dramatically changes how the color scheme and freehand work from one piece to the next, which is very cool!

As you can see, I have been continuing the freehand that first started with the Grotesques.

I will be doing this same set of colors and freehand on the Venoms and the Raider.

The blood effects on the bladevanes were a lot of fun, and something new for me.  All of my previous efforts involved splatter and other patterns that were created by gravity.

This time around, the blood would defy gravity a bit as it was pulled along the surface of the bladevanes.  There were many things I hoped to achieve with this part of the painting, but the appearance of motion and speed was not somthing that I had in mind! :-)

I don't know why it did not come to mind sooner, as the soot and scorch mark effects I have done on other flying vehicles certainly did something quite similar.

Just as it was with the first Grotesque, this first piece had a few areas that were painted more than once as I tried to figure out what would be the most feasible, and easiest to replicate many times.

As I was working on this, the game was on!  The only thing Baseball likes more than watching baseball (even a spring training affair) is the Sox beating a certain other Chicago team 15-3.

Wild horses... painting unusual stuff part two

Here are some more of those unusual figures from Maidenhead Miniatures... and Australian company.

They had a ton of centaur figures.  Some were bigger, some were smaller.  This one was mounted on a 40mm round base (I think it was called a Heavy Centaur).

These are based on 25mm squares.  Obviously, the light centaurs!  They could certainly be an interesting D&D creature.

One of the originals...

Here is one of the original Grey Knight terminators I had made way back when I fist started the Demonhunter army.  This guy was made at the same time as the original squad of terminators that I created using regular plastic space marines.

I had to do a lot of sculpting and converting to make that work.  The helmet, psychic hood, actuators and so on all had to be sculpted from scratch.  The armor plates were all sculpted in the same Sacred Chalice fashion.

I also added the long flowing purity seals.

You can look back through the old Demonhunter posts to find that original squad that won the Golden Demon at our first Games Day back in 2007.  There are pictures showing the construction, I believe :-)

As with the previous versions of these terminators, I had some fun painting the marble floor reflection on the legs!

This figure is available on Ebay right now:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321090367647?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

Some stained marble :-)

Here was another fun experiment.  After seeing Cathy's Papa Nurgle figure that she is working on, I wanted to give these colors a try.  It was a mix of several light colors to begin.

I had a very light tan and a very light teal color out on the palette, and painted the entire base with them, with only subtle differences in the shading.  This was to set up all the glazing and shading that was to come afterwards.

This time, however, I would be doing even more shading to get the deepest darks.  I was testing a few new glaze colors.  You have to be careful when you take this approach, as it can be very easy to kill off your middle tones... and even your highlights!

For the shading, I was mixing GW glazes with Vallejo inks, watered down blue and grey Reaper liner colors, and so on.  I used some Secret Weapon concrete wash, which is always interesting, since it is actually a lighter, more opaque wash.

When mixed with other colors, you get some very interesting results.

If you look at some of the other Nurgle bases, you will recognize what I did with the ooze surrounding the rocks.  I love mixing the fluorescent paints with the gloss medium!  It just looks so toxic!!

It is important to have a nice layer of shading and other 'set up' colors beneath that mixture, as it gives it so much more depth!

I also had some fun with the impaled skellie...