Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Exiting the Ice Age


One more round of Ice Queen for you today.  This really was the ideal figure for the Painting Blue video, for so many reasons.  So many different types of blue were mixed for that video!!


What made it that much more fun was sculpting the ice base for it.  That allowed me to play with the variations in the blues even more.  Of course, it meant that I could make a video about sculpting ice bases as well :-)


Moving from purplish hues to teal makes this one a favorite of mine.

She is also here:


Tree Warrior from Raging Heroes


These guys turned out to be just right for the Glazing video.  I have a few of them around now.  I put them on 40mm bases just in case I ever had need for some treekin!


I also sculpted some foresty type stuff on the base!

He's also here:


Monday, May 12, 2014

Assassins creed


The Death Cult Assassins were always a favorite of mine.  I used them very differently in the old 4th edition version.  Now in 7th, I guess you could toss these into just about any army.


This gal got a few touches of paint after being a tournament veteran for a while.


She is also here:


The Lady in Blue


Here's another one of those minis that we used to have as NPC's with our old D & D group.  This fair maiden was part of my Bard's traveling fan club.  I think there were three of them total.  Graygar the Glorious wowed the ladies with his dulcet tones.


He was also the Bard of 1000 Disguises.  He would grab a few tree branches so that he could 'disguise' himself as an Ent, and then walk around calling for birds to land on him.


Anyway, it was fun to ad a few ore touches to this grand old Ral Partha mini!

She is also here:


Sunday, May 11, 2014

The mean streets get meaner


Disco Stu has found himself another lady!  She's packin' some serious heat as well!


She can take on a whole crow of brain eaters with no problem at all!


Walkers? Runners?  They are all toast!


Never fear, Sally is here!


Bring it, bugger!


Disco Stu and Da Preacha Man gonna lend a hand...


An 'old' glory


I discovered this figure buried deep in a batch of figures from our days playing D & D.  I believe this is from Old Glory miniatures.  I spent a few minutes updating the paint job on this guy.

I was bummed that I forgot to snap a few pictures before I started working on it.  The biggest change was in the rendering of the blood.  Since I did this piece, I developed many new techniques for that effect!


I also did more variations in the green flesh tones, and added more interest in the darks.


To top it off, I also used a few grass clumps that I didn't have back in the day.

He is also here:


Saturday, May 10, 2014

The results of mad science...


OK... so all the bright colors have been painted on the bases.  Now for the big experiment!


I knew before I started that I may not get the results I had been hoping for, since I was unable to find the kind of crackle medium that I originally wanted.

This was a stopgap measure... something that I found on Amazon and got a small jar just to try out.

The whole idea was to mix in the darker paints, in the hopes that the medium would provide not only random tiny cracks, but the extra 'dimension' of height.  No matter how well I could paint in a lava crack, it would always look painted on, since there was no sculpting involved.


Hoping that I might get this result, I mixed in the dark colors with the medium


I tried to apply it in the same places as I had set out earlier with the oranges.


I had no idea what was going to happen, or even how long I should wait before any sort of cracks should appear.  What would the result be?


Well, the result was very similar to other crackle mediums I have tried before, which was a bummer.  Whether it was applied thick or thin, the same kind of tiny cracks appeared.


That was nowhere near what I was looking for, so I will not even bother with the ice experiment.  I will just have to wait until I can find the Testors crackle medium.

However, this might still work for the decaying mural effect that I want to try!  That is one more experiment I am willing to try with this medium.

Needless to say, not every experiment works out the way you hope.  There have been many times where I tried something that didn't work out as planned or hoped, which ended up becoming the cornerstone of other techniques!

The moral of the story is, just keep on trying and see what happens!!