LOTD - Arjay's Land of the Diminutive

Spring Cleaning...

2012-03-05T03:34:00.002-08:00

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...

2012-02-12T01:45:00.000-08:00

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.

2012-02-05T01:10:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-25T22:36:00.000-08:00

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.

Four A Miniatures - Sea Demon #3

2012-01-23T04:54:00.000-08:00

I could just squeeze in an hour and a half's worth of painting this evening so I thought I'd try to finish the third of the sea demons... Didn't quite get there and after looking at the pics I'm not sure what to make of it, a little dull to be certain, almost like it's primed and nothing else... Will see what I can do with it tomorrow, it's the better halfs night to cook so I'll make the most of the extra time

Four A Miniatures - Sea Demon #2

2012-01-22T03:06:00.000-08:00

Thought it'd be nice to see all three of the Sea Demons painted up so I spent a few hours this afternoon painting up this guy. It was a much quicker and simpler job than on the first but I'm happy enough with it.

I used the airbrushed zenithal highlighting technique again, it definitely speeds up the painting process but I think it might encourage a bit of laziness. That said - certainly a great technique for tabletop standard PJs.

Old School Grenadier Pt. 3...

2012-01-15T21:53:00.000-08:00

After noticing a few things that I wasn't happy with I spent a little time today fixing them up - nothing major - the boots were pretty awful before so I added a little more depth to them by deepening the shadows, the same thing with the staff. I also found something that I hadn't painted at all so that was sorted also (photos are great for noticing things that would otherwise go unseen).

Old School Grenadier Pt. 2...

2012-01-15T05:05:00.000-08:00

Arrived home after 5 days in Sydney, 5 days which basically consisted of over-indulging in food and alcohol and little else... I should say that it was fun while it lasted but it's nice to be home but the truth is, I think I could quite happily make a career out of it... Ah well - back to reality.

Spent a couple of afternoons on the Grenadier miniature since getting back and thought I'd post a quick pic. Was one of those miniatures where the colour scheme was all over the shop and seemed only to be getting worse with each new colour applied. I was tempted a couple of times to throw in the towel and start on something new but I stuck with it and actually ended up being quite happy with the result. Once again it was painted largely with just VMC and VMA paints, I'm really enjoying painting with the Model Air paints with the only downside being that they dry a little glossy when brushed on.

Old School Grenadier...

2012-01-06T01:48:00.000-08:00

I really like Julie Guthrie as a sculptor, I think there's a certain elegance to her sculpts that few others can achieve. I'm not sure of the precise age of this sculpt - maybe from the mid 90's at a guess - pretty good for something 15+ years old. Originally from Grenadier's Personalities line, now produced by Mega Miniatures...

Anyhow this guy has been primed black and then airbrushed with mid and then light grey from the light source to begin the highlighting.

Was hoping to get a goodly amount of this finished today however some of that real life rubbish conspired against me... Flying to Sydney tomorrow so I'll get back to it next week...

'Four A' Miniatures - Sea Demon Warrior

2012-01-05T04:54:00.000-08:00

After reworking the monumentally bad base and touching up a few other areas, the miniature's finished.
I tried out some Green Line moss from Fredericus Rex for the first time and whilst it doesn't look at all like moss on a miniature this small I think it does work well as a semi-aquatic type plant. I also mixed up some pigments with gloss varnish to make some boggy puddles.

WIP - 'Four A' Miniatures - Sea Demon Warrior

2012-01-04T03:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not terribly fussed with anything the larger miniature producers are coming out with at the moment, I think most of the good stuff is being created by the smaller "boutique" studios. As long as Four A hold onto Paul Muller as a sculptor they'll continue to come up with cool miniatures like this guy - a Sea Demon Warrior (1 of 3).

This is still a work in progress, nearly finished but with a few tweaks still needed - in particular the base which is and absolute atrocity... Not much to add - it's basically a fun, relatively quick paintjob but using Vallejo Air Color as a brush on paint which I seem to be doing more often these days.

Latest Miniature Acquisitions - Kingdom Death.

2012-01-03T22:05:00.000-08:00

Whilst browsing Frothers I believe, I saw the latest Kingdom Death releases and was, once again stunned - the Flower Knight in particular was one of the nicest sculpts I'd seen in a long time - I reckon it'd be in my top handful if I was the type of person to compile such lists...

Anyhow, being a little short on cash due to Christmas related expenditure I decided I'd hold off for a week or two before buying what I wanted thinking that if the Butcher (another brilliant sculpt) hadn't sold out in a couple of months then neither would these. Ofcourse KD sold out of the Flower Knight in a ridiculously short amount of time and the Female Survivor wasn't far behind. The search was on...

I found the Female Survivor easily enough on CMoN and snapped one up but the Flower Knight was not going to be so easily acquired . After much investigative work (checking alternative stockists on KDs site) I contacted Taka at Full Metal Planet in Japan who had not yet received his allocation of KD minis and was able to secure the Flower Knight. :) It did end up being a little pricey but Taka's service can't be faulted - a great guy to deal with.

Both miniatures turned up yesterday (only opened the packages today) and I was certainly not disappointed - both sculpts are quite literally amazing. In my opinion Kingdom Death are at the forefront of keeping this hobby interesting, their more recent sculpts with the exception of the Sunstalker Infant are near peerless. The quality of the casting is faultless, even better than Studio McVey, it might sound more than I little wanky - but they really are a pleasure to behold...

*I've since discovered that Maelstrom Games is also a stockist for KD which is worth noting...

10mm of Goodness from Copplestone Castings...

2011-12-28T07:47:00.000-08:00

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...

2011-10-24T05:13:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-10-24T03:18:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-10-05T23:14:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-09-29T05:27:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-09-27T02:54:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-27T03:44:00.000-07:00

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....

2011-01-18T02:58:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-12-18T21:37:00.000-08:00

Before heading off to England I made a start on Frodo. Not too bad a sculpt at all considering the age - just a few little issues with Frodo's face - probably made worse by my painting ;) I'm pretty happy with the pony though...

Before and After

2010-12-18T20:14:00.000-08:00

I had a 'Before and After' section on my old site which seemed popular at the time and it was definitely something I enjoyed so I've resurrected it... The first miniature this time around is Frodo, a miniature from Citadel's Lord of the Rings range from around 1985.

2010-11-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

I felt the base looked rather bare and lacking in contrast after looking at the pics so I put a little more into it. I added some more grass, darkened the shadows and also played around with some pigments for the first time.

Sort of done...

2010-10-30T22:37:00.000-07:00

Here's a finished miniature complete with base - wonders never cease...

This is a great little sculpt by Tre Manor - fantastic musculature for such a tiny miniature and nice movement too...

I was confident that this was finished but after seeing this pic I'm not too sure - I might put a little more work into the base - it seems a tad bare - maybe a bit more grass or something, we'll see...

2010-10-23T00:46:00.000-07:00

I was relatively happy with how Yarry was looking but my girlfriend wasn't so sure... She quite liked the majority of it but the face bothered her - the eyes look funny she kept saying. Sure, he didn't turn out quite how I'd envisioned but I was satisfied and had decided to move on... That is until the girlfriend reiterated her earlier point... Another couple of hours later and here's the result...

Still not sold on the face dear or can I move on?

2010-10-22T21:53:00.000-07:00

I know - no posts in 3 months and then 2 in a day...

I've admired Sebastian Archer's painting for years so it wasn't too much of a surprise when he ended up being a pretty decent sculptor too. This goblin is from his own line of miniatures - Guild of Harmony Miniatures... This guy's pretty much done now (apart from the base ofcourse) although I'm still debating whether or not to include the shield...

On closer inspection - I might try for a little more contrast on the face - it seems a little flat. It is a pretty small sculpt though so I won't knock myself out...

2010-10-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

Still no base but he is pretty much finished with that one small exception... That said, now that I have big photos of Yarry to look at I'll more than likely find plenty of things to fix up before that bloody base gets done...

Almost done...

2010-07-25T04:43:00.000-07:00

Work conspired to keep me away from the brushes recently but I finally got some time to myself over the weekend and managed to get a reasonable amount done.

I initially wasn't sure if this figure was a great choice after such a long break from painting but in retrospect I think it was the best possible choice. It's such an amazing sculpt and very pleasant to paint - the perfect choice for someone getting back into the swing of things...

Just the metallics, a bit of polishing and then, of course the base to do now. Not sure yet what I'll come up with but I guess there's no rush - 6 weeks of convalescent leave coming up due to an ankle reconstruction so plenty of painting time coming up...

Still at it...

2010-07-12T05:20:00.000-07:00

Still mucking about - getting reacquainted with my paints and just painting in general...

Not sure about the colour choices now that I see them in a photo but hopefully it'll fall into place.

2010-06-29T23:29:00.000-07:00

I had the good fortune of finishing work at lunch today so I decided to faff about for an hour or so with the hope of getting the face a bit more right (or is that less wrong)...

Thanks to Lotina for the comment - the face is a little less pale IRL but certainly benefited from some additional shading to the temple region. The eyes still aren't quite right - the whites are slightly too white but I might move on now and revisit the face later if it's still bothering me...

Oh yeah - bigger pics this time around as well. Bigger but not too big - not quite ready for that level of scrutiny yet... ;)

Slowly but surely...

2010-06-29T04:31:00.000-07:00

I have to quit looking at other versions of this figure until I'm done, it's really not helping... I look at them and I know how I want this to look but it's not quite happening.

I guess the problem with this figure is that painting it technically well isn't enough, if you can't get a definite expression happening you've failed. That's what I'm battling with at the moment. I think I've almost got impassive down - not really what I'm after...

Far from perfect but very satisfying...

2010-06-28T06:10:00.000-07:00

I wasn't entirely certain that I'd enjoy painting again after such a long break but thankfully my concerns were unfounded.

I'd like to expand on how I feel about this but it's been a long day and my brain's not cooperating - maybe tomorrow evening...

A Bad Choice?

2010-06-27T04:50:00.000-07:00

Yarry by Enigma Miniatures

Always loved this sculpt and bought it soon after it was released but due to the amount of fantastic versions already out there I always put off painting it. Probably the main culprit is Gloom's effort - one of my absolute favourites.

Anyhow - maybe not the best choice as first miniature after a 14 month break but I'll give it a crack.

LOTD - I'm Back

2010-06-19T04:33:00.000-07:00

After a lengthy hiatus I'm finally in a position where I can consider picking up a brush again. I must say - I'm a little anxious to see what 14 months off has done to my painting, hopefully I can still keep my paint in the lines...