Blackjack - Reaper Miniatures

I've seen a few miniatures over the last year or so painted using a monochrome colour scheme with accents of bright colour (usually red, blue or green). I always thought that it looked pretty cool and when I purchased this miniature, decided that it'd be perfect for trying the technique out on.

There's maybe a few things I'd change - the red is a little overpowering for one but I quite like it on the whole.

RBG Dwarf.

Finally finished off the RBG Dwarf I started back in September of  2011.  It's such a great little sculpt, no idea why it's now OOP but I guess Tre's minis are all varying degrees of excellent so maybe he thought it the least good of the current dwarves.

The base was inspired by Ben Komets' work on his Miniature Mentor video although next time I'll try for the floating tile look which he achieves so well. I had actually finished a base for this miniature before I'd even started on the figure but as often happens with me - the miniature would not fit on it when I tried to put it all together and had to start again. Quite a happy error though as I think this one looks far better.

A Little More Spring Cleaning.

I quite enjoyed the feeling of clearing away one of my long-term, half finished projects so I decided to revisit one that's been bothering me longer than most.I purchased Gurm not long after it was released and started on the painting soon after it arrived in the post but nothing went right and it was soon abandoned. That was possibly 8+ years ago now. For the next unfinished project I thought it'd be a good idea to choose the miniature I was least likely to ever return to and this was an easy choice.

Once again I didn't strip or re-base the miniature, I just continued on from where I left off. Nothing much worth mentioning about the paintjob other than the armour - I used a variation of the hairspray technique minus the airbrush. It was a little tricky trying to stop the hairspray from 'activating' whilst brushing on the subsequent layer of paint but I found that heating it with a hairdryer so the paint dried immediately helped. The rest of the technique then proceeded as it normally does with out too much difficulty.

And as it was for the best part of 8 years:

Spring Cleaning...

I guess most people who've been painting for any length of time will have half finished miniatures lying around, waiting for that inspiration that never comes. Unfortunately, I have more of these projects than I generally care to confront but over the weekend I decided to delve into long forgotten shoe boxes to see just how bad the problem was. I won't go into numbers but it was a tad depressing so I thought it best to do something about it and what better way to be rid of unfinished miniatures than by finishing them, well one but it still proved cathartic....

The lucky miniature was Nord Kegbreaker by Reaper Miniatures. No idea how long ago it was started but it must have been a while back because I (thankfully) came to the realisation of just how bad a cyanoacrylate and coarse sand base was many years ago. My guess is pre-2005 but who knows...

I decided it'd be fun to work with what was already painted rather than stripping and re-starting so the face and beard were basically just tweaked with a few glazes of various colours and whilst the base pained me greatly I also made do with it as best I could...

Before

After (hopefully obvious)

WIP - CAPT Kara Black - Sedition Wars Pt. 2...

Slow going on this one due to being too knackered to be bothered with painting after work at the moment... Thankfully (?) some mechanical problems with the car gave me the perfect excuse to stay home today and get a little painting in.

I'd decided a while back that I'd try for a brown leather look on the vest - similar to an aviator's jacket. I'll probably add some subtle edge highlights here and there but I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out. The colours for those who might be interested are - VMC leather brown, VMC camo black brown, VMC dark sea blue and VMC desert yellow.

WIP - CAPT Kara Black - Sedition Wars.

I was looking forward to finishing up Inigo but with the deadline fast approaching for my WAMP challenge entry I decided that it was time to make a start. 

It's always a pleasure to work on miniatures like this - beautifully sculpted and cast - McVey's resin along with Kingdom Death's is peerless.

The face is almost finished - just some more nuances of colour to add here and there, same with the hair. I was however at a bit of a loss as to what colours to use on the uniform - was thinking of a dark brown to get away from the official version but ended up going with VMC dark blue grey - different enough but still blue just because it works well...

WIP - Inigo Wilde by Statuesque Miniatures

Well I was going to make a start on CAPT Kara Black for my WAMP challenge entry but the milliput was taking too long to cure so I thought I'd get cracking on Inigo. I was hesitant to paint it because I've never painted black skin and wasn't sure how to go about it to get a realistic result... I had a look at some of Ali McVey's work for inspiration and came up with some colours. I ended going with VMC cam violet brown, VMC leather brown, VMC German cam black brown and VMC dark sea blue. Early days but I'm happy with how it's looking thus far.