Working hard

Here are a few quick shots that I took as I was working on the recent Victoria miniatures.  You have seen the finished results, but not the more interesting tandem techniques of Shaded Basecoat and Glazing.

Those of you familiar with the Shaded Basecoat know that the idea is to apply the first layers as rapidly as possible, working from the middle tones up to the highlights.

I don't pay much attention to 'staying in the lines', as you can see :-)

It's all about setting the stage for those eventual glazes.

It goes for freehand as well, such as the plaid.

Yes, for the bases as well.  At this point, I am starting to add those glazes.  I may put 3-8 layers of glaze on a given area.  That's not always just to darken it... that can be for tinting as well.

The tinting in the glazing stage is what makes those simpler, lighter colors work in the Shaded Basecoat stage.

More glazing... more tinting.

Just about finished.  You have already seen the completed pics.  I added a few Secret Weapon weathering powders to the bases and to the figures themselves.

Pieces and parts!

As you have already heard... lots going on for Adepticon!  Lots of Victoria Miniatures and Secret Weapon products.  You can see the bike bases and the barrels.  I have some fun posts coming your way on those barrels!!

The tin above had enough parts in it to make almost 40 Highland Moss Guard.

A box of Sisters.  Not all of this will be used.  Quite a bit less of it in fact.  Way less than I had anticipated.

Some of the painted Secret Weapon bases just waiting for minis!

Hoping to have 4 ten man squads... gonna be interesting!!

Another squad nearly assembled.

Painting en mass!!

Psst... don't tell anyone, but these will be posted in a few posts next week.  It's a secret, just between us. Be veeeeery quiet.

Uniform code

Last week the shirts came in, courtesy of Off World Designs!  Wage commandeered one for himself right away, of course.

I have mentioned a few times that creating the inserts for the various jewel cases has been more of a challenge than I thought.  Originally, I was planning on two different case sizes.

Instead, there are five, and one more might be needed.  The selection was much broader than I thought, which is better in the end.

I was trying to avoid sending dozens of individual cases to the same person, since I don't necessarily like fooling around with that many myself. :-)  Since the larger capacity ten and twelve cases require a larger paper format, that created extra hassle on the design and printing end.

They are quite helpful, though, when it comes to organizing the disks into a tidy space!

It was suggested that some kind of material be used to cushion and stabilize the disks into these cases for shipping.  This has been tested out in shipping, and it does the trick nicely.

Most of the boxes going out will not be quite as massive as this!  I learned that all 53 titles amounts to over 3 pounds of disks (even more with the jewel cases)!

This Row of Knowledge looks a lot like the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Shirts!  Many different sizes.  It's very fun to see the designs so large, after the tiny format of the Dice!

So, work continues.

A change of pace...

OK, a little something different, now that the all on blitz is happening for Adepticon.

Here we have Legolas, I hero that we used in many of our earlier LOTR games.

It's always fun to do an exercise in greens such as this.  Even more so when the surrounding colors are going to be yellows and browns.  So, that means a lot of playing around with color temperature, saturation and such.

He is also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321345551138?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

Doin' some hard time

This unlucky bugger is headed into the fray with nothing but a used lasgun, a shiv, and some prison tats.

He is part of Victoria Miniatures Penal Guard.  As with the other variations, it is a 10 man unit, with command and weapon options.

I am including a unit of these guys with my conscripts to emphasize their lowly status in the theme of my army.  There are lots of fun little details that accentuate the prisoner status.  Chains, collars... some ankle jewelry and such.

Many more of these guys on the way!!

Their bases will probably have the most debris on them, since they are true cannon fodder.  They are not much more than a little mortar in the defense perimeter.  The more you kill, the more padding there is for the Aegis defense line!

Of course, Chenkov might just call in another batch if the ranks get too thin.. :-)

A size comparison to the Highland Moss Guard.  And a link:

http://victoriaminiatures.highwire.com/product/penal-guard-10-man-resin-squad

Going Regimental...

Time for another color test figure.  This one is a different clan with a red tartan.

I had to jigger it around as I was painting it, but that is the whole point of color test minis!

I will be coming up with at least 3 more tartan patterns.

Once again, many thanks to Victoria for creating these wonderful figures!

Here's a comparison to the other tartan pattern...

It really will make it easier to distinguish all these guys from each other!

Ride 'em... doggie?

This is the unit that I have been wanting to create for a long time now, and have been eagerly anticipating it!

Thanks to Victoria Miniatures and her fantastic Rough Rider conversion bits, that vision is now possible.  You can purchase them in sets of five or ten.  You get the legs, the power spears, and the other arm for the reins.

I will be customizing these even further with additional Victoria bitz.  I am using the torsos heads and packs of the Highland Moss Guard, along with a few other command bitz, seen on the right.

At first I was going to put them on horseback, but I saw that I would have to purchase a bunch of them, and that some uniqueness/story would be lost.

To contribute more to the Celtic theme, I went with the Irish Wolfhound concept.  In order to gain more variety, I am using some Games Workshop wolves, a few Gamezone wolves (from CoolMiniorNot), and even a Reaper dire wolf for Mogul Kamir.

While I will be sculpting saddles and blankets later, I blue tacked the riders onto the wolves temporarily in order to assemble them.  Here is rider #1 (on a Secret Weapon urban rubble base).

I was very happy that the command torsos worked with these guys!  The hope was to give the unit a more elite appearance by using the command torsos and heads.

Next, another rider who will also have a banner on his weapon... hence the vertical angle.

One more pose.  I have already done the basic assembly of the riders (more pics later), so I will more on to basing and sculpting the saddles/blankets next.

The blankets will present more areas of tartan, and thus give a splash of color.  Otherwise, the gray of the wolves, browns of the base and drab greens of the armor would be too boring!

Stay tuned!!!