Another art chapter.

Not long before I shifted from 2D art to miniature painting, I was doing a lot of Celtic Mythology inspired paintings.  I am still trying to track down more of the images.

This one was probably the largest and most elaborate, although I can think of some others which would give it a good run for its money! :-)

This is one of a number of designs that I painted on Celtic drums (bodhrans) numerous times.

This one is Epona the Horse Goddess.  I painted a good portion of this by candlight during a big rain storm in our booth at the Ren Faire.  Not much else was going to happen anyway, so time to entertain the 'guests' trapped inside!

This is one of the very first images that I painted, called "The Caretaker"  It has puppies!

Big and Rich

Giant dudes like this get mighty heavy in metal!  It weighed a ton... makes one glad for Bones figures, doesn't it?

This thing was massive, obviously.  That made it very difficult to hang on to.  Having worked on some bigger Bones figures, it is really nice to have the lighter figure, but also a more absorbent surface.

That means that the paint will stick on there despite all the extra handling that something of this size gets.

And some dwarves to go along with him!  Dwarf Rune priest...

One of my favorite Reaper dwarves.

And a few buddies!

First with red hair...

And then white.

A fun batch that was painted some time around 2008-2009.

Sand castles

Time to play in the sand once again with these North Africa campaign color schemes for Memoir '44 vehicles.

It's an especially fun scheme to carry through.  It's all been practice for a Secret Weapon RAV 6 x 6 project.  Shhhh... don't tell anyone!  It's a secret. :-)

Anyway, it's going to be a lot of fun to see these guys mixing it up with the British Commonwealth forces!

At some point I will get some pics of these guys together with the Crusader tanks.

Off to battle!

An art thief

OK... I ran across some art and prints the other day while I was looking for a miniature.  Yes, I know that sounds really crazy, but some of the older minis have started to breed with the 2D art.

I have painted this Reaper miniature a few times over the years.  I finally have the chance to set the miniature and some 2D art in the same post!

For now, this is the only figure for which I have done this experiment.

Here we go... a drawing that I did on pastel paper of that same Lola the Thief miniature.

You can see that I approach painting the miniatures in the same way as I did my 2D art.  Building up a value pattern, creating a center of interest, working edges, and so on.

The biggest difference are the lack of a backdrop on the miniature (the base is not quite the same!), and not having to paint the "other side'. :-)

Those pesky Zombies

Just when you thought it was safe to walk the streets again, those darn Zombies have to go and ruin everything!

Brains are on the menu once again, but it seems like someone is rather oblivious to their impending doom.

If she would just check out the blood spattered newspaper at her feet...

She's here too:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321438576731?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

A fly in the ointment

Years ago, I thought that I would do some Mucha inspired art with the help of a few mask designs by Judith Rauchfuss.

See her designs here:

http://www.leopardsleap.com/

My favorite group of painters are the Pre-Raphaelites, but Alphonse Mucha is someone who I admired a lot.

The incorporation of the elaborate designs and text for his posters was masterful!  I still have some very large art books of his work.

I never actually got a chance to paint these, as they were right at the point where I switched over to miniature painting 100% of the time.  Early on, I had thought that I might try to turn these into miniature designs.

Once I realized how difficult casting was, that idea went by the wayside.

Once all the miniature painting (and all that went with it) took over, these fell further and further into the background.  I have completely forgotten about them for at least 5 years!

I ran across them yesterday looking for scrap mat board, if you can believe it.

Looking at them now, I still think it would be neat to turn them into sculpts!  Perhaps 54mm or 72mm.

Who knows... maybe someone who knows far more than me about sculpting and casting will take on that project.  I know a few sculptors at Reaper that might do some fun things with these characters!

As it is, I am going to try painting these in the coming weeks.  I hope you don't mind me putting the WIP's on here.  As I have said many times, my approach to miniatures is exactly the same as my 2D art.

You will recognize the techniques and the basic principles right away! :-)

Perhaps I might have a few of these completed for Convergence!  Yes, I am going there with Cathy, and the goal is to have art in the art show.  Believe it!  And they would be all new as well.

Wow! 

The forest for the trees

Back to the terrain hexes, and a bit of experimentation.

In addition to all the extra terrain pieces we needed to crate for the Western Front... I wanted to start trying out some ideas for Pacific Theatre terrain.  So, out come the aquarium plants!

As I mentioned in a previous post, we have learned by experience that we needed to create 'generic' terrain for unoccupied hexes.  It was becoming all too frequent that I would move a unit in a forest piece into something else, like a Warhammer Fantasy unit on a movement tray!

Rich had gotten some N scale trees, and we thought those could be handy for making general forest tiles.  I added to them with some Woodland Scenics realistic foliage.

Fooling around with Jungle hexes!  

The workshop...

Painting the hexes... trying not to make them warp too much.  Using a lot of oxide paste instead of watery glue seemed to help.

Ready for the additional ground cover flock!

Ah, yes.  clumping foliage, which tends to clump on my fingers via super glue!

More terrain pieces, including a mountain created by Rich.  He also painted one of the city hexes in brick red, which was a very nice change!

Check out this array.  Believe it or not, we would soon discover that many more pieces would be needed to keep the entire board covered in actual terrain.

All the forest hexes together.  When you see the battle pictures, it might give you an idea of just how cinematic the game now becomes.  It also makes the thought of advancing through it far more daunting!

Well, I want to say thanks for all the birthday wishes folks!  And, as always, thanks for checking out the blog!