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Hello once again everyone. It feels like it’s been a hectic month in the world of miniatures, especially with the release of the new edition of Age of Sigmar, among other things. But while those are things you can look forward to us painting in the future, let's see what our bloggers have been up to this month.
Red Dragon by Neil Parker
A few years ago, I backed the Blacklist Miniatures Fantasy Series One and Stretch Goals (Don’t mention the Series Two as still not completed!). The Fantasy Series One however has a great selection of miniatures ideal for fantasy roleplay adventures. I’ve recently bought my first airbrush so I thought the Red Dragon in the Stretch Goals was a great way to get started. I wasn’t sure the miniature had enough detail to work with but it turns out it works.
I started with a base white primer from Vallejo, followed by Nuln Oil from Citadel to get into those cracks. Then I finished the airbrushing with a red and left it to dry overnight. The next day using a dry brush I applied some orange-red, then a deep red, then more orange-red over highlight areas, then used Ushabti Bone and Screaming skull for the bones, eyes and teeth adding highlights. I applied some Citadel Fuegan Orange wash to lighten the red of most of the top part and then added a dry brush orange to lighten up edges and ridges. A little black line in each eye helped bring it to life. The photo in my camera doesn’t do it full justice, but it was quite a quick and pleasant job in the end.
Hekaton Land Fortress (40k) by Ross Coulbeck
Now, this is a story all about how my life got flipped-turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, I'll tell you how screwed up painting a Hekaton Land Fortress.
Ok that last bit didn’t fit. So sue me. Yep, I messed up. I haven’t painted big vehicles in so long all my instincts were telling me the wrong thing to do. Therefore I shall explain what happened so you can avoid making the same mistakes.
Ok, first I did make one good call. This thing has some cool windows and I knew to get the best effect I should not glue them on, paint the inside then glue them once it’s finished. This is the one good decision I made.
Next, time to spray, so as usual I spray it White Scar. Wrong. This is a tank which has innumerable gaps, crevices and hard to reach areas. Spraying it in white means I have to paint all of those, and boy did it take some effort. If I’d sprayed it in black instead I could have left some parts as deep shadows.
Second mistake, you know why I spray in white? To get the most use out of contrast paints. So I started to apply contrast paints. Wrong. Contrast paints like curves, grooves, things to flow into and highlight. You know what they don’t like, large flat surfaces. You end up with tide marks and have to cover things several times to make it look even remotely good.
Third and final mistake, old paints. There comes a time when a paint’s time has come. You haven’t used it all but you’ve revived it so many times that it's not really the same paint any more. Maybe it's become too watered down, or gone the other way and become a goop. Whatever the case, it’s time to accept that you can buy a new pot of the paint even if you haven’t emptied the previous one. Both the black and the metal colours on this tank were in a bad state to begin with and it made painting that much harder, on top of the other mistakes I was dealing with.
So you might think I am unhappy with this miniature? Not at all! It’s my tonka truck! While I could have done things much better, I powered through and recovered, through some extreme layering in places. The fact that I was suffering because of my own decision meant my annoyance was directed towards my bad planning rather than the model, the model is awesome. Long live the tonka truck!
Final Girl Season One Miniatures (Final Girl) by Northern Invasion Stu
This month, I have been working on something a little different. Having hobbied my way through the Fallout board game miniatures over the past few months it seemed like a good opportunity to move onto something else that I have been enjoying playing recently whilst I was on a roll. Final Girl is an amazingly thematic modular gaming experience where you take on the role of a final girl as she seeks to defeat a crazed killer or some kind of monstrous entity across a variety of locations.
Final Girl comes complete with lots of lovely little meeples but one way to enrich the experience is to pick up the Season One Final Girl Miniatures Set. This month I chose Hans the Butcher and the two final girls that are included in the Camp Happy Trails feature film expansion for the core game, Laurie and Reiko, and I put some paint on them.
For my Final Girl miniatures, I really wanted to try to get a dark gritty look to reflect the horror theme of the game. The miniatures are slightly smaller than those that I am used to painting but thankfully they come as a single piece so there is no fiddly assembly required. The Final Girl miniatures are well-made and have lots of details that really help to bring the game to life.
To achieve my gritty look, I firstly primed the models black and then applied a heavy dry brush of Grey Seer being careful to only make contact during downward strokes of the brush. Following this, I applied a light drybrush of white to the highest areas. I then thinned down my paints and started to block-in the different areas of the models paying attention to the box art and character cards. Because of the pre-shading effect of the dry brushing, it meant that the heavy shadows would contrast well with the lighter parts of the miniatures.
I am really happy with how the models came out and especially with the eyes on these dinky little girls. I have been playing Camp Happy Trails quite a bit this month but I already have one eye on the next feature film in the list of expansions that I want to play for the game so we may see some more Final Girl miniatures in future blogs.
Thunderforged Titan (Shadow of Brimstone) by Sam de Smith
I'm still stuck in Shadows switching to Gates of Valhalla before going back to Valley of the Serpent Kings next month.
So, all 20 cm of the Thunderforged Titan!
I started with Colour Forge Ghoul Grey primer (my new go-to), all raised surfaces Shadow Grey, then drybrushed the whole model Vallejo Stonewall grey. Then, all (!) recessed areas were painted Dead White before drybrushing the areas around Electric Blue (blue, blue, electric blue) and the rest of the model with...yup, deck tan. Then, 50/50 electric blue and arctic white was used to edge the glow. The cloth was a base of model air mahogany followed by leather brown, whilst the rock was simply deck tan over primer with some mahogany in the recesses. For the ice, the areas were painted with GW nihilakh oxide and the snow is gw Valhallan blizzard, fittingly enough. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot of serpent men and Conquistadors to tackle...