10mm of Goodness from Copplestone Castings...

I was looking around over at Frothers a couple of months back when I came across pics of some new 10 and 15mm miniatures by Copplestone Castings. Mark Copplestone was one of my favourite sculptors back when I first started painting so it was cool to see that his recent work in the smaller scales was as good as ever.

I ended up buying the 10mm Heroes and Halflings and the 15mm Northlander Characters... Even though I'd already seen pictures of the miniatures I was still amazed at the quality (both sculpting and casting) when they turned up. The 15mm were impressive enough but I have no idea how he manages at 10mm - they're as good as a lot of 28mm stuff...

Anyhow, gushing aside, here's a 10mm magic user on a little scenic base that I painted up mostly over the course of an afternoon. I quite enjoyed painting at this scale - it all comes together very quickly which is nice when you're such a slow painter like myself...

In-between work and being hacked to death in Dark Souls I managed to get a little more of the latest RBG dwarf finished. Still some polishing to go but it's pretty close to done.

It's been interesting playing around with NMM again. So many beautiful examples of the technique out there (especially Nakatan - definitely one of my favourite painters these days) that it can be tough getting a satisfying result when comparing it to the work of others but I'm giving it a crack...

You Will Die...

As if I didn't have little enough time to paint already - I had to make things worse by purchasing this bloody game... 

Whilst I'm certainly not a gamer I will still pick things up for a little after work stress relief if they sound particularly cool,  Dark Souls probably wasn't the wisest choice... The game's been punishing me for about 7 hours now with no stress relief in sight. That said - it is horribly addictive and I guess enjoyable in its own fashion.

I included a couple of videos - one a cool compilation of bad guys (mute it though, the music is god awful) and a second of some painful scrote narrating his journey through the tutorial stage - it is amusing if you can deal with the guys 'nails on chalkboard' voice...

It's always interesting taking photos during the paintjob, things that you thought fine look rubbish and vice versa. With me, I think I stop looking at a part of a miniature once I've decided it's finished and can therefore miss things that I'm forced to look at in a photo. With this guy I was quite happy with the face and had considered it finished but I can now see that the lining around the eye is too dark and I'm either going to need to lighten it or create a bit more contrast around the nose by darkening the shadows. I'm also not entirely sure the fur works, I think some nuances of another colour are needed. and maybe some deeper shadows. I do like the shield though so it's not all bad.

On a side note - I believe this is one of the dwarf sculpts Tre discontinued from the RBG line. No idea why, it's a great little sculpt, far better than I thought it was before starting on it.

IP stuff from my current effort...

I'm working on another Red Box Games miniature and just thought I'd show a few steps along the way for what it's worth.

I mentioned in my previous post that I've been trying the priming technique where the miniature is primed black and then lightly airbrushed a lighter colour from the direction of the "lightsource" to place the highlights in the correct locations and begin the blending process (check out Thomas David's Miniature Mentor video to see how well it can work). I used it a little differently this time around as I only wanted the black to remain in the deepest recesses because the miniature is so small.

I also finished the base first because I keep painting miniatures only to put them aside without basing them (kind of a pointless exercise). A good idea in theory but I'll probably just end up with a heap of miniatureless bases lying around instead... 

Nothing special here - just a bit of stick from some place, "Knead it", miniNatur grass and some foam moss...

Clemundr Hawkeye by Red Box Games.

I've developed the annoying habit of getting within a hair's breadth of finishing miniatures only to abandon them. I know that it'd be so easy to put a few hours work in and finish them up but I just can't be arsed, there's just a total lack of interest. It seems that I need to complete a miniature within a few days or I might as well not bother.

Onto the miniature in question - I bought a bunch of Red Box sculpts a while back (one of which I've already painted) and thought another of the line would be the perfect choice for a quick paint-job that I could actually finish in short-order. A couple of days later and here it is...

I tried out the technique (not sure if anyone's named it yet) of priming black and then airbrushing a lighter colour from the direction of the 'light source' to facilitate the process of highlight placement and blending. It may be a little more helpful on larger miniatures but it's still a very useful technique even on something as small as a RBG miniature.

For a quick PJ I'm very happy with how it turned out, this was in large part down to Tre's great sculpting though.

Hogarth the Colossus

Well work continues to conspire against my painting but nevertheless, I have managed to finish another miniature.

This miniature's been in my collection for more than 10 years now and over that time I've promised myself I'd paint it on many occasions and incredibly enough, I finally managed it. It's tough to get into any sort of rhythm painting a miniature every 6 months or so but I am happy with this effort, I feel that my painting is heading in a better direction now, with greater potential for improvement. I guess time will tell though.

Before and After Frodo....

Due to being at work during the Christmas stand down period I unfortunately didn't get too much painting done but I did manage to finally finish my 'before and after' Frodo.

At the moment I'm basically rediscovering the hobby so this was a fun exercise in reacquainting myself with painting in general and messing around with some of the new materials and techniques which have become popular since I stopped painting...

Anyhow here it is - Frodo as he is now and as he was when I purchased him from my LGS.