Rackham Collection

Over at the Rackham Games forums for AT-43, a running topic has been started to show off collections. So I snapped this pick to place up their. figured as I haven’t had a chance to get any real painting done in a long time, although I do have a couple mini's on the bench, I'd stick the picture up here.

I greatly increased my Confrontation set size due to the huge sale over at Fantasy Flight Games on Black Friday. Yeah an early Christmas gift to myself.

Equanumous Warrior, Dragon & Goblin Ashigaru, Rat

I chose to paint this miniature in line with a different coloring scheme than is typical of the dragon army. The voids and smoke of this character seem to represent to me the teleporting/concealment of the Shadowdancer or Shadow Hand style characters from the D&D book, Tome of Battle. As such I chose instead to use a black and purple coloring for the smoke/invisible break in the character. Along with that I chose to go with a light green coloring for the eye to symbolize a kind of magical quality to the figure. The gray/purple seemed an adequately appropriate coloring for the rest of the figure. I don't think the painting was the greatest I have done yet. I was going threw it a bit faster than normal and I was mostly focused on the black/purple smoke effects.

Looking around the back of the figure the smoke effect comes through a little better. So I would call this figure adequate, and defiantly worth the experiment. Good for a D&D game though.



This was one of the more enjoyable figures I've painted. The skin was very interesting over typical human tones. The green really let me play with some highlighting of separate coloring to create a nice blemished skin tones rather than a uniform green with just a wash. His eyes and teeth came through really well as did the shield. I just loved the detail work all over this figure.

Flipping over to the back we get to see the tea kettle and cup he is carrying around. Both were a pleasure to work on. The hardest part was the clothing. The white pigment is of course easily able to cover up everything. So touching up with the white was painstaking as I didn't want to repaint the details too much. Although with the wash I am really glad with how the fabric came out.

Temple Purifier & Praetorian Guardsman, Griffin

Now we hit the batch of mini's I've more recently done and have yet to grass their bases. The Temple Purifier was my first real go at hair, the one morbid puppet not really counting. Also my first human face as well. All in all I think both came out really well. I didn't get the eyes cross-eyed and the skin tone highlighted well. The hair also showed a really good depth of color. I might go for a browner coloring next time and possibly black after that. His jacket and accessories are rather flat in color, done somewhat on purpose to draw more attention to the face. Although his boots do have a bit of coloring and highlighting done to help them look a bit more scuffled. Mostly though my focus was this figures face.


Looking at his back we can see the hair a bit better. I think the brightness of the uniform apt, if this guy really had seen a fight he would be in need of some new clothing as his would be pretty rough afterwards.











Let me just say this was perhaps the hardest of the armored figures so far I have painted. The number of slight raised surfaces needing red over the metal was a head ache. Especially given that a number of those were broken up with indents that needed to be metal rather than red. The cloak to was difficult, not for any reason of the model, but rather that the closest color I could find that I ended up mixing was a horrible paint. Much to thin and requiring many many many coats to become an even non blotchy color.



Looking at his back we can see a few details. Although really the detail is in the armor itself and thus was a matter for washing not really separate painting to bring out. I didn't do any of the dirtying dry brushing add-ons to this figure. Being an imperial guard I thought them as being very ceremonial in appearance.

Aberation, Army of Dirz

The Aberation from the Hybrid board game by Rackham. This is my favorite miniature so far. Perhaps not the best painted of my mini's (see Arkeon Sanath), it was the most fun to paint and a very interesting piece. As you can see in this head on shot, I used the same neon green/gold mix to paint the frontal facial plate. I also used it on a central metal piece in the back of the mini. This helps to draw your eye centrally to the mini on first glance and marks it as allied with the Scorpions of Dirz. The company painting of this miniature uses a purple toned flesh with a very lightened fleshy purple to highlight. I didn't much care for that look thinking it made the Aberation look less like a composition of mutated cloned human flesh and more like an otherworldly creature. I used amore pink/purple under layer then highlighted into a rotten flesh coloring on the surface. Heavy use of the neon green thinned out highlight was used to demonstrate the heavy doses of chemical enhancers this creature is always under.


These last four shot are from each side. Click to expand and see a larger version of each. First up the front on view once more, this time a little farther back allowing you to see more of the details.






This shot shows the right side of the Aberation showing off the twisted up shoulder and torn flesh and melded attached machine components. I think the joint in the shoulder coming threw the flesh along with the nails of the shown foot both are excellent in this mini.



The back view defiantly shows off the almost matrix like metal plugs along the arm and back of the Aberation. To each of these plugs I added the neon green mutagenic juice to help espouse the feeling of drugs and corruption infusing this creature.





This shot is of the left side. This shot shows off the melding of beast and machine, highlighting a number of interaction points. Including a piece of stretched skin extending over a raised spinal blade in its back.

Pest of Flesh, Army of Dirz

These were a simple joy to paint. My first real attempt at speed painting. I did all four of these from start to finish in around 2 hours. I basically base painted the flesh and bone, then applied dry brushed layering and highlights over that, washed in some black, applied a second dry brush coat of highlight, then did a very thin wash of neon green to appropriate areas.

Their small size defiantly aided me in getting through them quickly. I basically did these on the side with left over coloring from the Aberation (coming soon).

Arkeon Sanath of the Dirz

This is perhaps the best of my works so far. I only say perhaps because I love my Aberation (coming soon). I do think this mini came out the best. The use of neon green mixed with a gold made for a very good scorpion poison colored green that I think fits the theme of this army REALLY well. I look forward to using this color in the future as well.

Seen in this picture as well as above is the green bottle of mutagenics that the Dirz use to amp up their fighters. Effectively super soldier drugs. An outward application is a slight green glow emanating from the eyes of Arkeon threw his helm. This is faint in the human soldier who simply use before a battle, later pictures with creatures will have a much stronger application of a thin neon green around the eyes due to them being consistently pumped with it.

Here we can see the shoulder guard styled like a scorpion in skeletal form. For this I chose to use the stylized neon green/gold mix that creates a sort of green mother of pearl coloring that seems to me to tie in close with the scorpion totem of the Army’s of Dirz.

Of note in the last picture is the bottom of the cloak. I overlaid a thinned out brown color over the green of the cloak effectively giving it a very dirtied/worn look that I feel fit this desert berserker well.

Morbid Puppets of Archon

For today I pulled out the two morbid puppets I've completed so far. I have about 4 more of these half way done, but these two were finished first. I chose to use a sort of sickly or decaying ash covered grass field for their basing as they are the marching armies of the undead of Archon. This was my first attempt at trying to put forth rust and wear on weapons and armor. Considering these mini's didn't take me NEARLY as long as any of the others and came out looking pretty darn decent I'm happy with them. Their not perfect, but they do the mood well enough.



One thing I am really wishing I had done originally with all the skeletons was to prime them in black. As it is I primed them all in gray so now I have a much tougher time using an ink to fill in the ribs and bones with black as I come back to them. Live and learn for sure.

This second morbid puppet has far better bone tone to it than the first. A deep and strong underlying black coat is surely the cause for much of this. Also the model was more open allowing me to get at the various surfaces a little easier.

Griffin Inquisitor & Eschelius the Ardent

Here we have my further work into the Griffin Inquisition faction of the game. I love Inquisitor of the Griffin as a model very much. Although as one of my first works (the first in fact) it didn't come out as well as I would have liked. Fortunately I have a second copy of this model that I will get back to in time, once my skills are better.


Eschelius the Ardent was an interesting piece to work on. It was the most I've had to assemble a mini before, coming in at 4 pieces (2 arms upper and lower body). This marked my first attempt using "Green Stuff" and I think it came out rather well. I made the mistake of assembling his upper and lower body together before I'd painted him. So the cloak was in the way for much of my painting. Although it also covers up any mistakes in painting that I made under it. Although this photo doesn’t show it to well, Eschelius is my first attempt at eyes. I think the white might be TO white for the base of the eye. Perhaps something a bit more off white next time, but they came out well enough. He doesn’t look cross-eyed anyway.

<.< Year of Mini's In review. Part 1

So it's been a long time. I got married to a wonderful woman, yay Megan. The planning of such an event expanded to crazy proportions. Thus I'd not had time to come back too this page, or even paint to much in the last year. I have however gotten FAR better pictures of all my painted mini's. So I thought I would start placing those up here starting with my oldest to the newest. With a few comments on them as we go.

Here we have a Templar of the Inquisition front and back. Already posted up this mini before.



This is the other Templar of the Inquisition from the same 2 pack of miniatures.