A touch of Spring

Since some of us are finally starting to get to actual winter, I thought I would remind myself of the crazy March like weather we've had, bringing back springtime allergies and such!

I've been waiting to show you the group shots of the Raging Heroes Treekin for a while, and now is as good a time as any!

It's fun to see them on some different colors of Hangar 18 backdrops.

Also, the foliage on the Treekin was purchased from Hangar 18 Miniatures.

This leaf foliage can also be painted, which was very handy.  That allowed me to blend 3 different foliage colors together!

Let's see them on green!

Now it's really spring!

After seeing how well this worked, I am even more eager to sculpt some elaborate tree bases/dioramas and foliate those in a similaer manner!

As always, stay tuned.  It's gonna be a wild and crazy 2016!!

Happy New Year!!!

The first post of 2016!!!  Lola Darkslip from Reaper Miniatures starts off a new year.

This time around, I had some handy leafy foliage that I had gotten from Hangar 18.  It allowed me to continue the foliage that was sculpted into the figure itself.

I had a lot of fun with this piece, working with a number of subtle browns, inserting some green here and there :-)

She's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/321964170589?

New and Shiny

The new year is upon us!  We all hope for the best in 2016.

It has been a brutally hectic year for me, with work hours that are beyond insane.  Some of the things I had planned on mitigating such circumstances have taken strange and unexpected turns.

I have had the good fortune to be introduced to unbelievable amounts of incredible new sculpts from rising miniature companies far and wide.  This is keeping things very fresh, despite these long hours.  Something entirely different from the last figure rolls across the painting table!

Hopefully I will be able to continue expanding on this, and do some of the other new things in 2016 as well.  We have been working on the formats of the Google Hangout classes, which require a lot of thought.  I realized that it would be better if I sculpted larger scale sample surfaces for people to paint, for a number of reasons.

First, these bigger samples will be a lot easier to see, both in person and on camera.  Second, it will allow me to target very specific surface types and techniques in those confined time frames that plague any kind of class.

You will still be seeing lots of Reaper minis though... 2016 and well beyond :-)

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/221982173527?

Sand Castle

This is one of the last remaining figures that were painted during the creation of my instructional video series.  Urban Mammoth kindly donated some Viridians, which I used in the Raging Reds and Shades of Grey videos, along with the Freehand Designs video.

I used this figure and a Viridian sniper for the Hiding in Plain Sight video.

I have a number of half hour preview videos on you tube.  There were 53 all together, covering a wide variety of painting, basing and terrain techniques.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myke97g1D_4

You can find those painting videos here:

http://www.kingshobbiesandgames.com/James-Wappel-s-The-Painting-Pyramid-s/130.htm

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221982104912?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

Orcs on the Field!!

Today we introduce the Orc team from RN Estudio.

Here's a link to the website:

http://www.rnestudio.com/apps/webstore/products/category/919130

Let's start with the biggest of the big... the baddest of the bad.  Mr Troll!

No Orc team is complete without Black Orcs!!

How about some blitzers!!

I still like to toss the ball around, even when I'm playing Orcs, so I gotta have some throwers...

And then there's those old reliable linemen... or should I say cannon fodder!  Don't let them know...

Pesky little Goblins to hop over the line, sneak through a gap with the ball, or perhaps toss a bomb!  That outta clear a space!

This team is not without some serious star power, represented by these lads.

Just like the Lizardman team from a week ago, these are extremely well sculpted and cast!  It's very easy to prep them, with minimal mould lines and minimal individual parts.  In fact, nearly all of them are one piece casts, which is ideal for blood bowl!

Things get rough out there on the field, so we don't need lots of dainty pieces!!  Give these guys a try!

Sheriff Jane

Meet Sheriff Jane from Reaper Miniatures!

Lots of fun with subtle browns, tans and even blue-greys on this one.

For the coat, I did a mix of Reaper Brown Liner paint with a light flesh color.  This created a very different sort of greyish brown.  The intensity of the pigments in the liner paints causes interesting results when you mix lighter colors with them.

You would normally expect a much warmer brown to result from that mix, but you get that nice, cool, deep grey-brown instead.

It becomes even more neutral when you surround that with more saturated colors, and warmer tones.

She's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/321962131793?

Terradon Terror

This was a fun conversion that I made many years ago for my Lizardman army.  I think I made about six of these conversions... using an I-Kore flying lizard critter and a GW skink.

It took some doing to get them to sit on these versions of Terradons, but it was a lot of fun to see them all together!  I painted each one in different colors, and this is the last one remaining.

This was also an experiment in painting plastic aquarium foliage.  Now that I have all the different paper foliage, life is getting a lot easier. While the plastic foliage is very resilient, it is not as easy to paint as the paper foliage!

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221980874305?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649