MAXXxxx WIPs

[Zab]

Google translate does a remarkable job of making it understandable. I have added you to my blog roll, that was a great post

 

[MAXXxxx]

After a looong no-wip time I finally could paint some minis to round out the alahan army with some allies:
View attachment 29867


As for Kitty: she is still on my desk. Basically what's left: all the clothing + arms, so quite a lot, but only a few colors, so it should be manageable during next week before the weekend.

 

[Zab]

What the Hell?! YOU painted something? nice work. I like the guy with no shirt, he looks fit but slightly unwell Nice metals and wood on the cannon too!

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Max those are incredible brother. Really looking good. I love your style dude. One thing I have to say about your work is that you know just when to stop adding layers. I, and many others, tend to over do it, but you seem to be disciplined enough to know when to stop.

 

[Digganob]

Maxxxxxxxxxxx! I lost your wip somehow. It's ok though I have rediscovered your awesomeness.

 

[MAXXxxx]

thanks for the comments.

Bloodfather: here on CMON I can't decide if that means that you like what I do, or if I need to paint more contrast because it's not enough


Aaand the last piece of the puzzle has arrived from Ukraine, the mounted bard of Alahan.
This is where I'm at now (basically: blue armor, mane, skin is ready, leather straps, gold-trim, hooves are not)
View attachment 30074



Shipping is weird nowdays. It looks like Rackham minis are much faster than recent ones.
- I got a few Wolfen from cfwheeler from the US in a week
- The bard took a week from Ukraine (where there is war atm)
- everything else not so much.

So please make your bets in what order will the following arrive (my bets are in () ):
- Relic Knight KS minis (7)
- KD order from beginning of Juli (3)
- KD order from beginning of August (5)
- Helldorado KS missing blister (took from may till yesterday to get it shipped from the us) (4)
- Japaneese mags from hlj.com and cdjapan.co.jp (2)
- Infinity Gencon mini (should be sent in october) (6)
- Anime kit from HK (e2046) (1)

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Good to see you back at it. Those warhorses are smoooooth. My comment from earlier was definitely a compliment. Your contrast is always very good. My remarks were more aimed at how you obtain such smoothness by knowing when enough is enough. There was an interesting tutorial I read once that explained how, even with very diluted paint, if you add too many layers of acrylic it does something to the pigment that makes it appear too glossy. You are very good at avoiding this, and it results in the smooooothness seen above.

 

[KruleBear]

Those horses are sweet looking sculpts.

 

[MAXXxxx]

Good to see you back at it.

I wasn't really away
Work has slowed me down a lot (with traveltime it takes up 12 hours/day + needed about 8 hours of sleep, leaving less then 4 for any private life ), but what took time was finishing the Kitty figure and the artillery.

My remarks were more aimed at how you obtain such smoothness by knowing when enough is enough.

quite simple: I'm lazy, impatient and I give up at a certain point.
So it's not really knowing, but leaving it like that.

There was an interesting tutorial I read once that explained how, even with very diluted paint, if you add too many layers of acrylic it does something to the pigment that makes it appear too glossy. You are very good at avoiding this, and it results in the smooooothness seen above.

That's a true one. But it takes many glazes to that point.
The way I avoid it has 2 'secrets':
- wet-in-wet painting. The paint is not too thinned and it takes only a few layers to get it done. The Bard's horse above took literally about 5 steps for the blue, where each step was simply like: wet the surface with water + add a blob of paint + feather the edge between the water and paint, done. So I really just painted 1 layer of base, 1 or 2 layers of dark blue, 1 layer of base again, 1 layer light grey, 1 layer white, 1 glaze dark blue, 1 glaze black, end (last 2 were just to reinforce the shadows where I felt it not enough).
- Rackham paints , they fall apart so easily that they support the technique above really well.

(would be great to do a video to show the whole thing, but as it stands I have problems taking pictures of the minis, sooo not for now)

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

That is indeed an interesting technique. Do I understand correctly that you put water and water alone on the mini first? And then take a bit of paint and sort of fan it out across the surface? would love to see a video of this one day.

 

[MAXXxxx]

yes, you understood correctly. Only pure water is used and even that is mostly to avoid the forming or rings before you could feather out the paint.

A video that shows mostly what I do(but with Vallejo paints): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwmoO5Wmkns&list=UU4v0PX_JnMm8QxsPHKIoQXw#t=424
it's in german and from Picster.

The only difference is that because of the properties of the paint I use, I don't even really need the watering part.
Ohh and a fair warning, the technique works beautifully with oldGW (no idea on new), P3, R, VMC, VAC, CdA, but for some reason is really problematic with VGC (almost to the point, where I can't do it at all with VGC, with the exception of the inks).

 

[MAXXxxx]

Japan has won. The magazines arrived here today, just a week after I ordered them.
Meanwhile KD is nearing the 6 week mark and the RelicKnight-KS minis are in worse shape than ever.

 

[moetle]

Great looking stuff Max! I'm going to try that technique here soon.

 

[MAXXxxx]

I'd need advice.
I'll soon have an 1/8?(about) kit, and I want to do a 'base' for it. For that I have a bowl I bought earlier, that can hold about 0,5l liquid.
What I'd want to do is to fill that with some kind of resin/filler that has a milky color. I'd want to go as cheap as possible, so buying a liter of transparent resin and tinting it with some off-white is out of question.

So the questions are:
- what can I use as filler (to make it cheaper)? (it would have to be white or off white, transparency is not needed)
- what kind of glue would work with ceramics + the filler? (I suspect wood-glue or superglue won't work)
- is it a good idea to have an off-white filler, then a cm or so high tinted resin to give it a transparent liquid look?

optional extra: - if I'd take an extra step and would try to make it look like morning cereal in milk, what would you use to simulate that? (something that's convincing, but doesn't biodegrade)

 

[Digganob]

First thought that comes to mind is white weatherproof silicone at lowes. Can get as clear or white. About 4 to 6 dollars a tube.

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

If you heavily water down some PVA glue, it should keep it's color without drying too clear. This should give you the milk look. I base this theory on the fact that I once left out my PVA /water mix for a week or two and it remained fine

 

[Webmonkey]

use actual milk!!!

Seriously though, I think I'm with Bloodfather on this one. Some good ol' fashioned white glue. It usually dries fairly clear, but if you mix in a few drops of white paint, it should work.

 

[MAXXxxx]

I think digganob's solution will be good.


View attachment 30150

Here on the upper right you see a bowl that I should fill up almost to the top. With the shrinkage because of drying (and the price of wood-glue in my area) there is no way I could fill it up effectively with PVA.
Water-effect / pva can go on the top few mm, but on the whole... nope, would be too expensive and would take a year to dry.


Aaaand on the left there is a simple army-base for the Alahan force. I started building it around the same time as the figures, but was put aside until they are finished. Every figure that I painted has a place, so at least that part is planned
I kept it extremely simple, both build and paint. Especially as it will have to fit in a bag when I bring it home on an airplane (meaning no hills and such --> the simple build). The painting basically follows the bases of the figures, so nothing special there either.

As can be seen some parts are still wet, so what to do after it dries:
- add magnet-strips to the wells (and to the figure bases), so they remain more or less in place. There is no need for rare-earth magnets, but a bit will help.
- And the fun part:
- vary the color with pigments here and there. Not to make it more real, but to bring in interest of colors (mostly different yellow-browns, orange-browns and red-browns).
- add vegetation, 'lots' of it. Mostly the flowers, long grasses and simple static grass that are on the figure-bases.

 

[Digganob]

Oh yeah, thats going to look great when you populate it. Can't wait to see it.

 

[MAXXxxx]

you mean something like this? (wip15 or them)

View attachment 30156

edit: I have no idea how I'll take proper pictures of this monster when it's ready