Mixing it up

Those who have watched me paint in person, checked out the blog, or watched on the videos knows how much I love to make semi-transparent middle tone colors.

These are, in effect, my "airbrush", the layer that does massive amounts of blending and smoothing.

The shaded basecoat and even glazing phases are more brutish than the typical approach to mini painting.  Mixing lighter standard paints like those on the left with one (or lots!) of Mr. Justin's Secret Weapon Washes create these semi- opaque colors.

Since they have that transparent nature, they are excellent for lightening subtle midtone areas, like those on this horse.

It's something that I have been doing on all the horses, the riders, and so on.

This works on everything from faces on standard 28 mm figures, all the way up to vehicles and large creatures.

I used this technique on the Sand Buggy that was posted earlier, especially on the wheels and the metal surfaces.

At some point, I have to get the giant version of this green Hangar 18 backdrop!!

The road to Adepticon 2015 begins HERE!

The baddest buggy in town in the special release Mercenary Sand Buggy from Wild West Exodus!!

It's available at Adepticon 2015.  You can purchase this light support vehicle after registering for Adepticon.  Check it out here:

http://www.cvent.com/events/adepticon-2015/event-summary-ec700157f5894ca891500186aec58ca9.aspx

By the time Adepticon "rolls around" so to speak, the Second Wild West Exodus kickstarter will be in its final week.  Four all new factions are being added.  Dark Nation, The Watchers, The Confederates and The Golden Army will join the other factions for control of the continent... and the world!

I will be doing some size comparison shots in a second post later tonight!  Stay tuned!!!

There is also a charity raffle for a Wild West Exodus starter box!!

http://www.adepticon.org/?p=9503

Face of the Dragon

More like Dragon Knight.  This was a dismounted character figure that I painted for the Easterling army back in the day.

In fact, I am pretty sure it was originally a war priest, but I added a shield so that it would be a Dragon Knight leader.  I kept the Eye of Sauronand dragon motif on the cloak...

I guess if I want to get in any games of LOTR at Adepticon, I am going to have to get back in touch with the game!  Yikes!  It's been WAAAAAAAAAAAYYY too long.

Aussie rules

Aussie rues Football is not the only great thing created in Australia.  Let's not forget about Victoria Miniatures, a fantastic line of figures that expand the possibilities for your guardsman armies exponentially!

I made an entire tournament army for them last year for the 40k Championships.  Check out my Road to Adepticon series for that journey!

There's a host of unique designs... check them out here:

http://victoriaminiatures.highwire.com/

The Highland Moss Guard are simply fantastic.  How do you top this "voxcaster"?  Wonderful.

Each figure is incredibly poseable, coming in various parts... torso, head, arms/weapons, legs, and so on.  There's no end to the ways you can combine them.

They are also fantastic for converting figures from a certain other company, as they are designed to be interchangeable. 

The kneeling poses are very fun.  Not only do they make a dramatic individual figure pose as I did here, but they are perfect for gun crews, such as this heavy mortar team:

http://victoriaminiatures.highwire.com/product/heavy-mortar

The APC vehicles in these scenes are from Secret Weapon Miniatures... the RAV 6 x 6.

The ruined tank pieces are also from Secret Weapon miniatures.  They made my kneeling poses look even more dramatic, crouching behind them...

There are eight different versions you can choose from, such as these Victorian Guard:

http://victoriaminiatures.highwire.com/products/victorian-guard?pagesize=12

Look for these great miniatures at Adepticon!!!!

Victoria Miniatures is also providing this special figure for Adepticon 2015, Colonel Elisabeth Deitrich:

http://www.adepticon.org/?p=9416

Zombie snowmen

It's been a while since you have seen some Red Box Games minis, so here's a few :-)

This sort of undead stuff means that you can have all sorts of fun with color combos.

I did a lot of semi-transparent glazes on the dead skin, purple over green, gray over yellow, and so on.

Size matters...

Here are some new views of the massive sea creature from Mierce Miniatures.  There was no one angle that showed all the craziness of this figure!

These views from above give you a better glimpse at the freehand pattern.

As I mentioned in some of the comments, I went back and forth on this as I was painting the pattern.  I worked it darker, then went back into the lighter colors, and so on.

Since the head had to be painted separately from the body, I had some "unifying" to do once those were joined together.

This view shows the contrast I was attempting to get between the more greenish colors of the anchor and wooden prow against the higher chroma, warmer colors of the head.

I eventually decided to make the leg "armor" a similar set of colors to the prow in order to spread that 'base' color around.  It was highlighted with a very light blue, in fact :-)

Here's the first size comparison.  Yes, that is a Minotaur next to him!  The base of that "tiny" Minotaur is 50mm.  Yeah... HUGE!

It's interesting how this backdrop emphasizes the cooler colors of the base, anchor and prow.

I have one more set of images coming from this guy... a "family" shot with a wide variety of Mierce Monsters to give you an overall idea of size.

Again, the water effects was layer after layer.  I wanted to be careful, working in thinner applications.

I was worried that if I made a clump too thick, it might never cure on the inside!

On to the next monster!!!!

Colossal vehicles...

OK, continuing with the "size matters" campaign, we have a giant transport vehicle for the Mechanicum army.

This is the Triaros Armored Conveyor.

These innocent looking pieces don't show you just how huge it is.

Each of these pieces is a massive hunk of resin and they are very heavy.  This will surely be the heaviest thing I have painted thus far.

Aside from getting my brush into certain areas, I had to do this in sections, since the pressure of my hands holding these heavy resin parts is enough to scrape off paint as I turn them around and around.

Even these tread sections are in two big parts... the inner workings, and the outer shell.  These are not yet attached, as this is still the Shaded Basecoat process.

All of these pieces have since been tinted and shaded much darker.  Glaze after glaze applied, just as I did with the Krios and other Mechanicum figures.

There will be a dramatic difference when you see that phase play out, adding depth, shading, and more to this gargantuan vehicle!  Stay tuned...