Back to the paint again.

Sorry for the long delay between posts. I took some time off from painting, then left my camera at my inlaws over Thanksgiving. I had gotten back into painting mid november and have been working to up my production pacing since then. As I was getting back into the miniatures I started off with some sci-fi work. I'd been playing a lot of Star Wars Saga edition, and was inspired to work on some power armored soldiers.

Although I don't play G.W.'s 40k I picked up a box of Space Marines to paint. I was in the mood for some power armored figures and had been seeing a number of space marines out on the tables in Crossroad games. Although I don't follow any of the chapter or typical painting scemes, I wanted to do some of my own designs. I tried to apply some decals, but failed misserably. I'll have to figure out how to apply them later on. I was inspired by the Outcast Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout III for the color sceme of these figures.

Lastly I did real fast paint job of a Star Wars miniatures figure, after reading the latest novel by Karen Travis. 501st Imperial Commandoes. I was inspired to get some commando's painted after my favorite Star Wars series.

Star Wars: Saga Character

So here is a quickly repainted Star Wars miniature for the Saga game I play in. We started during the clone wars and I am playing a Clone Commando. See LINK for a shot of the mini I painted to start the campaign with. A couple sessions ago Order 66 came down in the game and my clone went traitor. So at the first stop our group made I sent the group noble out to pick me up a pancho and some red paint to work up a disguise. Hence I paint job on this mini. I'll be using him for the first time tonight, should work pretty well. It was a pretty fast repaint, not a lot of details to pick out on the Star Wars miniature line of mini's anyway. Especially the commons. Took me about an hour or so all in all. Had some fun with the base. Pulled out some train modeling scenics that I havn't touched since I was in grade school. The look cane out pretty good.

Operation: Purifier

Today's mini is the Seneschal Purifier from the Hybrid board game by Rackham. As the more experianced hand in the team of Purifiers sent down into the Hybrid labs to purge them of abominations I opted to show his age in his hair. Wanting to show some grey hair I chose to give him that salt and pepper look of black and grey witht eh one stand of grey hair to represent the toll facing such horrors has caused this man.



It may not be readily apparent but this time of the year in Maine the weather has become very humid. As in the best humidity level I have seen in days is around 75% humidity. As such I am having issues with my sealent. I keep getting that nasty old fuzzy look on everything I seal. I've been trying diffrent ways to help keep the air mosture down as the mini drys. Everything from only spraying them at 1pm (least humid part of the day) and then putting them in a small room with its own AC turned on to dehumidify the room while they dry to brush on sealer over the particualarly bad spots while keeping a hot lamp on them while they dry. Although those steps have improved the issue some. They haven't been able to eliminate it. Coupleing this is the fact that I am using a new can of sealer, so I'm not entirly sure its the humidity level that is responsible for this issue.

Operation: Hybrid

Today I'm posting up a series of shots of my three Scorpion Hybrid mini's from the Rackham board game Hybrid. I enjoyed working with my new set of Reaper master paints on this. I was trying my hand at a little blending, mind you with only 3-5 shades of blend. The reaper pro paints come in groupings of three shades. A base, the color and a highlight. For the purple of their cloaks I think the highlight was a bit off from the darker colors causing the shades to stand out from each other to much. I should have done some intermediate shading between the color and its highlight to sort of phase that in more as right now you can see the a color line as I switched shades. It worked much better on the mettle though allowing me to do some shading with metallic paints. I think this was giving them a much better look as the bottom of weaponry and armor could be darker than the portion on top in the light.



Although the purple highlight and coloring needed more shades to really blend well together these three where and experimental paint job and a bit of a learning experience so I'm not too upset with how it came out. It is not amazing but I still think it looks better than a flat purple with a wash. It's more stylized this way and looks pretty decent on the table.



As always you can click on the photo to see a full size version.

Lt. Francesca Fortuna

Started on this model last night with brush on primer. Again I have mixed feelings about resin miniatures. They go together great, if you assemble it all at once, but super glue seems to dry much to quickly. While trying to glue the two feet pegs in I placed glue in both holes, then lined the mini up, when I got the second peg seated in the whole the first peg had already bonded fast, not yet down flush with the base. Makes basing a little more difficult if your not ready for it. Here is the first shot, a work in progress as I neared completion on the head. I think this is one of my best faces. Eyebrows, hair and even pupils are all on this face. A lot more detail, on this then I am normally able to.

First of four shots on the completed model.

Second shot of the mini.

My favorite shot onthe mini, really shows the laser coloring and a neat "actiony" shot.

Last shot showing the back of the miniature.

AT-43: Grim Overseer

So I got this little bugger in the mail yesterday. Got it wrapped up this afternoon. It was definatly a lot of fun to work on. It was my first go at a resin miniature and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot. Resin seems to hold detail very well, and has much cleaner lines and assembly than their metal counterparts. Only thing odd was painting the primer on seemed a little wishy washy to me. (Didn't seem to apply very well) But once that dried painting it was easy enough to work with. I have included a series of shots, as I worked on the miniature. The first shot is of the pieces after primming them, I painted them all pure black (Reaper Pro Paints).

In the next shot you can see the face a little better along with the eyes. The eyes are just blood red in all the sockets, the primary eyes got a hit of phoenix red to highlight them.

Here you can see the finished assembly. At this point I had added the metalic coloring for the blades, toes and some highlights.
I did two photo's at this stage as the flash in the second shot really demonstrates the drybrushing I had done over the black.

Lastly we have two completed shots with the rust brown wash and black over wash to help tone down the redness of the model.

Repaint: Star Wars Republic Commando Sev

So the left is my repainted mini with an original version on the left. I wanted to go with a more dirty, mid battle look. The old black ink wash I had sitting on my desk did a pretty good job of that. Picked out some more of the texture on the mini, as well as leaving behind a much more dirty/sooty look over the rest of the armor as well.