All done bar the base.

I spent an evening fixing up a few things - the lighting on the hairline, fixing the mouth and chin (added a cleft), some of the shadows on the shirt and neatened up the trousers as well as some general 'polishing'. I also repainted the shotgun as I wasn't happy with the metallics.

I have to thank Chris again for sending this to me, Kev's sculpts really are a pleasure to paint and I couldn't have asked for a better miniature to get me back into painting after such a long break.

Between spending time with my new daughter and tidying the place up for Australia Day I managed to get a few more hours work done on the miniature today. It's close to being finished now with just the base and some general touch ups to go.

I'm re-familiarising myself with a lot of techniques and mediums (I perhaps went a little overboard with the application of pigments to the shoes and trousers) and strangely I'm finding that every time I get back into painting after an extended hiatus my technique changes dramatically. I can still paint but the way I go about it is totally different from the last time I painted. I think I may have to stop watching Miniature Mentor videos as that may have something to do with it. I generally watch them with a view to getting my head around the painting process but it seems I also emulate the artist to some extent rather than just going back to my old way of doing things...

It's time once again for my biennial blog post...

So many applicable clichés but I'll restrain myself...

I guess I needed a kick in the arse if I was ever to get back into this miniature painting caper and thankfully one was delivered by Chris Bailey (Laurence on CMoN). Chris was kind enough to send me a parcel full of miniature painting related goodness in the hopes of rekindling my interest. Early days but it seems to have worked and here's a little evidence in the form of Ray from Hasslefree  - one of the miniatures he sent... It's only a WIP but I thought I'd include it in a post nonetheless.

Early days but after 18 months without touching a brush I'm really happy.

Spacewolf test paint-job

I'm considering painting up some stuff for the OZ Golden Demon this year (as I do most years) but this year I've gone so far as to actually paint up a test piece for a Spacewolves squad... If I do decide to go ahead with it I'll probably neaten up a few things on this piece but I am relatively happy with how it turned out.

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: