Sunday, August 3, 2008

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.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

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.

Friday, August 1, 2008

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.