Friday, April 30, 2010

Malifaux, Guild - Perdita

I finished up my latest guild master, Perdita today. She's an alright sculpt but my primary brush crapped out on me mid painting on this model so I was using a larger brush than I typically do. Also the sheer amount of hair I found ridicules. I’ll be basing all my masters on the similar candle laden grave base. Gives consistency. I did some more lighting effects. I’m not sure if it came together better or worse. My expectations may be to high who knows. I did put some lighting effects across Perdita’s hair. Hoping to make the miniature more impressive from the back, rather than the bland hair job she is now. I did notice while editing these pictures I seem to have clipped some paint from the hat brim on the back while basing her. I’ve not sealed her yet so it will be an easy fix.

The deep recess that her left arm makes with her body and hair was a pain in the ass to deal with. As I said already I was using a larger brush than normal and it was giving me all kind of fits to try and paint down into this area with that thing. Oh well at least she is done. The rest of the Ortega family I hope will give me less trouble once my new brushes arrive.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Malifaux Terrain - Acid Pool


So I finished up my first attempt at terrain for Malifaux. I did a Hazard terrain for the game Specifically an acid pool for 3/6/kill damage for use in the tournament on the first. I made two in case we need to have 10 tables, not that it's likely but who knows. If you look close you can see the base pond this is based from in the last post picture. I've adde dsome bumps repainted it, and added some static grass around the edges. It came out pretty good. I've got some more elements for the game coming but most of those are showing up finished. The treasure chests.... well those arn't and I'm not sure they will get here in time either. I have some hero quest chests to use in a pinch though.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Malifaux Tournament





















Alright so the painting has taken a back seat the last couple weeks. First up my good brush totally crapped out on me. So it's done. I had to order new brushes. Sadly I ordered them with some Confrontation preorder stuff so they didn't ship out till the 12th, and didn't arrive until the morning I was leaving for a wedding in Mexico. As such I have been home all of 1 day with working brushes. I got Perdita's base finished and her attached. I'll get some photo's up soon.

Couple that with me running/organizing a Malifaux tournament for the 1st and I've been pretty busy of late with other gaming issues to do much painting. I was able to pick up 14 copies of the Nature's Wonders HD play set. Although not strictly 30mm scale, picked up the farm set and everything is a bit to big but the windmill is serviceable, the elements being trees and rocks work great for gaming terrain. Specifically I was making the purchase for a tree. My local Wal-Mart had them on final clearance for $1.00 each. So I filled up a cart load. The trees will work great as a bayou trees. My store only has the Warhammer trees for use and a couple pine. Neither really inspires swamp in my mind. Included is a large rock formation a couple boulders and a pond. I’m working up a couple ponds to look more like acid pools. I put some bumps across the surface using glue, and I’ll be adding some static grass around the edges to finish it up. I think I might also add grass and mush effects to many of the ponds and try and turn them into bog rather than simple water effects. Add a bit of a muddy water coloring as well. Thus turning the ponds from water/uncross able into bog severe terrain instead.

Along with these terrain elements I have 4 metal chests on order from e-bay. (finger’s crossed that they arrive in time.) I’ll paint them um and base them on 30mm bases for the Treasure hunt tokens. Also on order for terrain features are two graveyards, two soulstone veins and two ancient monoliths. Again I hope they get here in time. I want the terrain to have many new elements for this tournament that the players coming to participate in won’t have seen before at the shop. I’ve gotten together little intro packs for the players as well. So far I’ve got soulstone bags for the first twelve players. I’ve printed and cut out, but have yet to card and sleeve 12 sets of 15 strategy/scheme reference cards. I haven’t decided if these will be a tournament resource or another grab bag giveaway. This will likely depend on if I have to buy sleeves or if I can get matching set out of the stores box of loose free sleeves.

Anyway on the painting front look forward to the Convict gunslinger and Perdita in the next few days. Hopefully I will get my painting groove back on and get some more up here quickly as well.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Malifaux, Guild Witch Hunters - Executioner

Finished up the last of my Witch Hunter miniatures today. This one dosn't come from the crew box but is a bit of a melee tank I picked up to compliment both the Witch Hunter Crew box and the Ortega Family crew. Both seem very shooty so having a bit of a beef tank seemed appropriate.

I picked out the 40mm base insert with the little bird to paint it up more like a raven or the like. Seemed fitting for the Executioner. I was very glad of the time spent on this model. I think it came out really well and I got it done over a single day. I especially liked my color choices for his gear. I think the combination of steel and brass looks very good. I painted on a few signs of heat in the vents and the like. Not sure I care for how those particular elements came out. But overall it looks very good.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Malifaux, Guild Witch Hunters - Group shot


Here is a compiled group shot of the Witch Hunter Crew.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Malifaux, Guild Witch Hunters - Samael Hopkins

Finished up the last of the Witch Hunter crew miniatures, Samael Hopkins. He was an interesting piece. A lot of armor like details across the miniature coupled with small detail elements made it a very interesting model to paint. I enjoyed work on him very much. Only took me a day to paint him up but it was very worthwhile. I think he will be a very complimentary piece on the field with the Witch Hunters, as well as any other Guild crew I may field. He will be especially valuable with an Ortega crew. His high damage potential along with his mobility and caster neutralization will help balance the crew for multiple encounters.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Malifaux, Guild Witch Hunters - Sonnia Criid

Finished up Sonnia Criid and man did she come out well for me. Her face isn’t the best one I’ve ever done. But the rest of the model really shines I think. The runic tracing along the blade and the overall shadowing along its length looks great. I think most impressively is the lighting effects for the candles on the gravestone. They came out looking really great. The last photo really shows this effect well. I think she will be a great centerpiece for the crew and shine very well.

Just the overall color use and composition came together very well in my mind. I can’t wait to get her and the Witch Hunters in for a game soon. They should be very interesting and fun to play a game through with. A far cry different play wise from Pandora at least.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Malifaux, Witch Hunters - Witchling Stalkers

Got all three Witchling Stalkers done, they came out alright. I just wasn’t very impressed with these models compared to most of the stuff Wyrd puts out. There was so little detail and their whole bottom was just blank. Coupled with the guy holding a sword low and in front the sword was made about four times as thick as it should have been where it was in front of the body. Still I think I made a good effort at getting this unit done and ready for play at least. No real painting ooohs or ahhhs to speak of with it. I did paint the face/hand wrapping slightly different coloring for each to help with game play differentiation.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Malifaux, Guild Witch Hunters – Purifying Flame

Today I have the totem for the Guild master Sonnia Criid, leader of the Witch Hunters. I rather enjoyed the quick work on this little miniature and think the results where well worth the time put in. The base choice really makes it pop giving more meaning to the position the flaming skeleton is in. I think I spent about as much time painting the base insert as I did the totem on this one. Really fast guy to do. So tiny. This is my first attempt at lighting effects. I put some blue reflection across the base to represent the flames light from the Purifying Flame. The effect is… meh ish. It is there, but it is not all that well done. I shall try again in a future model I’m sure.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Malifaux, Hans

Finished up Hans the same evening I got Pandora done, my first Outcast for the game. I wanted to get some ranged support for Pandora and the crew as an option. Seems that Hans should fill in for that very nicely. when I first saw the model picture I thought he was holding a cigarette in his left hand. Turns out its a billet shell for his rifle. I very much enjoyed this model. I painted his body completely before attaching the arms and painting them. This helped me to get the details where the rifle rests done without having it get in the way. I really liked the way his pants came out. I wasn't very sure when I got started how I wanted them to look. Initially the dark grey wrap on his shoulders was the same coloring as his pants. I added a black wash to the shoulders to darken it and the two came out sufficiently different. Since I will be using him with my Neverborn force primarily, at least as far as I can tell now, I based him on a Victorian base insert. I’m still waiting to get basses for all my guild models. So I won’t be able to get them based until a bit after I get them all painted.
My plan is to pick a base style for each faction and stick with it. So far its Victorian for the Neverborn, Graveyard for the guild. Outcasts will be using a mix mash of bases, and some specific sub models might get other bases based on strong theme. Like the hag and her lizard men would defiantly need to go Bog for their base. As always click the pic for a larger version of the image.