Brambleten Attempts to Paint

[Bramblten]

Not done much painting recently, about halfway through Keysha's Keytar.





I do most of my basing using my Basius pads, but I decided I needed a little more variety and after liking the job I did on Keysha's base, I found a wood effect GS rolling pin. I also picked up a metal effect one for those pesky sci fi folks that just look wrong on gravel or cobbles etc.





I got a little overexcited about using them so didn't let the GS set enough before trying them out, so they stuck a little.














The wood effect is a little more spaced out and deeper than I'd maybe have liked, but for a first try it's not bad. I've put that base away with my Colette crew for now, saves doing another at the time whenever I get to them

 

[Sicks]

I like the metal effect one alot but the would one has quite big gaps, might look better on a tree or something though

 

[Bramblten]

@Sicks - I agree, it isn't quite as nice as I'd have wanted - would have preferred it to look more like Keysha's base in terms of closeness of grain.

I threw my painting plans out the window today, and instead spent (according to the Netflix achievement that popped up on my xbox at the end of my session) 10 episodes of House painting today, so thats maybe five and a half or 6 hours focused on painting something I shouldn't - Black Widow. She's not Keysha, and she's not a Halfling, so she shouldn't be on my table.


Yet, here she is, just needing touching up (paint wise) and metal work. Not my best work, but for a gaming piece I'm happy with her so far.





I used the same black method as I used on the Commissar, but added a few layers of blue ink to tone it down a little. I wanted there to be a degree of highlight, but not a full on PVC/Latex shine to her suit.











At the moment she reminds me a bit of the Russian lass off Strictly Come Dancing, which isn't a bad thing, given that Widow is Russian as well.


I've decided to go to the dark side with her weapons, so instead of my usual metals, I get to play with these beasties.

 

[Bramblten]

It's a little bit shocking, but I finished something!





Black Widow is now counted as done and ticked off the list. Things I enjoyed - generally, how the suit turned out. Not overly shiny, but still some highlights and a nice contrast against the skin.





I also like that I tried NMM on her, for both the pistols and the stingers and belt. For a first go at NMM, I can see that it still has a long way to go, and probably that she wasn't the best miniature to try it out on in terms of having a decent surface area to work on.





However, it has promise, so it's something I definitely want to pursue in the future.





The highlights in the hair are a little heavy and it's far too shiny thanks to the number of Inktensity washes she got to tone it down in brightness, but that is currently being cured by some Matt Varnish (giving Coat d'arms a go in place of my usual Vallejo).





She's currently the lowest pointed Avenger (actually the lowest pointed model full stop) in the Marvel game but she was also probably one of the quickest to paint up, except maybe Panther so it makes me feel like I'm making progress. Plus, she only took most of a season of House to finish, in a week, which is a step up in pace so another positive sign.

 

[KruleBear]

Congrats on a finished mini and attempting nmmm. I also think those are some of your best eyes.

 

[Bramblten]

Thanks KruleBear. I wasn't 100% sold on the eyes to begin with as they don't look quite right to me. However, I left them as they were without messing with them and they're starting to look alright to me now I've had a while away from painting her.

I've been informed that I'm busy next weekend, so that means Keysha has to be finished this weekend, so I really need to get a crack on with her.


While I do that, here are the items that have turned up so far from my April binge.


Majority of my Joker crew, Ms Marvel and a free Bat Signal.





Infamy One Shot #2 - Hannah Mullet (bust and regular figure) and Henrietta Jekyll. Oh, and a free second set of Infamy postcards.





Ltd Ed Flint, Resin regular Honour (looks so much more dynamic than the KS Honour) and some pretty dice.





More bases to replace crappy Knight Models bases and enough plastic sprues to make the dark gods happy.

 

[Bramblten]

Some quick WIPs at end of play today. Still got to finish her face, tidy up the skin, glasses and ear rings before attaching the keytar and strap.


I was planning on just doing the bikini yellow but threw some green in to shade it and decided it was quite a nice look so blended it in to the bottom of the bikini and added a darker shade of green to shade.

 

[three little pigs]

Hey the black widow came out pretty good, I'd definitely be happy with it.

 

[Bramblten]

Cheers three little pigs. I am happy with her, but I know in the back of my mind that she can still be improved on in places. It's a fine line for me when stopping painting a mini between giving up and stopping, or finishing because while I think a model needs more work, I think it needs more work to get it to a standard I can't hit quite yet.

Apart from a couple of touch ups and some more ink work on the base, Keysha is done.




















Usually I just use one palette for a session. This one I used 3.





I think it's now time to build some stuff as thanks to the IK: Renegade box, I don't have any more space in my cupboard for new toys.

 

[three little pigs]

Cheers three little pigs. I am happy with her, but I know in the back of my mind that she can still be improved on in places. It's a fine line for me when stopping painting a mini between giving up and stopping, or finishing because while I think a model needs more work, I think it needs more work to get it to a standard I can't hit quite yet.

Apart from a couple of touch ups and some more ink work on the base, Keysha is done.

Singing from the same song book, I have to stop because I cant/dont have the skill or touch to get what I can see in my minds eye, it's frustrating but I console myself that it will come with practice... well i hope it will :fingers-crossed:

 

[Sicks]

I am jealous of your cupboard full of goodies, although if I had it I would probably never get it all painted

 

[Bramblten]

@three little pigs - I agree. Practice is the way forward. I know I need to both up my speed and up my quality, so I'm going to start mixing in some units as well as the solo figures into my schedule.

@Sicks - it's only the bottom and middle shelf, the top shelf is a couple of layers of DVDs and a layer of comics. That does mean I don't have space for my box of ArcWorlde metals and bag of bagged minis though.

I cleared the desk last night and got some proper pictures of Keysha, who I am now calling done.


























The gang so far (not that they're actually a gang) - Death, St Peter and Keysha.





I'm quite chuffed with being able to keep up with releases, though now that the last one was two releases and Erishkigal launching in May, that'll probably be up in smoke soon.

 

[three little pigs]

Rock'n out!

 

[Bramblten]

@three little pigs - Indeed!

Been a little while since I've worked on the Halflings, so this afternoon I got a few more layers on most of their fabrics and also did some work on their spears.


Start of the day:





End of play:





I've really come to like this way of painting wood - a light base, in this case Deck Tan, followed by a mix of Inktense Wood and Black in various layers.





Next up for them will probably be some flesh tones.

 

[Bramblten]

I had plans to do stuff this week, but tonsillitis for me and Merlin the sprocker being ill as well has led to not much more than a Mythbusters binge happening.


On the plus side, I got a few fun orders in.


Pretty books





Batman stuff, Guild Ball stuff, grass tufts, Cosplay pin up and a couple of Darkstar metallics paints.





Even just testing the metallics on my skin, I'm really impressed with them. They come with a shaker bead already inside, and the dark bronze shade is exactly what I've been looking for. The Scale Color Metal n Alchemy set don't include dark enough shades for my liking. For the silver set I use Vallejo Air Metallics Black Metal, but I've been looking for a similar shade for the gold set for a while and I look forward to giving it a go in the near future.

 

[Bramblten]

With a dramatic entrance fit for The Bat himself, here is Animated Series Batman!





I need to get a 200 Rep BMG gang done by mid June, so after tinkering with my list, I settled on Animated Batman, AK Red Hood, Fat Cop and Stripper Cop. Stripper Cop is already painted, and Fat Cop is WIP so I decided to target Batman. I got him primed and started on Thursday evening (I think) and finished him in my second sitting, this evening.





I can see a couple of places I could have pushed things further, but for the gaming table I'm happy with how he turned out in the time he took.











The scheme of the Animated Series style figure is somehow simple and complex at the same time. It's simple in that it doesn't have many colours to it, but at the same time it's very unforgiving if an area of shading looks out of place.


So, two gang members down, two to go. I'll probably tackle Fat Cop next then hit Red Hood last, seeing as he still needs priming.

 

[Sicks]

Only just seen that you've got your Hailey cosplay mini, still waiting for mine but its nice to know they are rolling them out, good work on the batman, he looks just like the cartoon, from memory at least

 

[Bramblten]

Cheers Sicks. I pre-ordered Hailey pretty early on but Florian at Wonderlands only got the models a few days before Salute. I sent him an email a couple of weeks after that and he said that he'd been tied up in running a one man business, but that she'd be out in the post the next working day. True enough, she arrived early the next week.

I did a little unboxing for her here as well.

 

[Sicks]

That unboxing makes me even more eager to get mine in the post lol, I saw on Facebook that they'd had the first 50 copies and sent them out, looks like you got #11 so that makes sense, I don't know how early mine was, I ordered when I saw the post on here so maybe mine will be in the next batch, I probably would have had her by now if I was one of the first 50

 

[Bramblten]

I'm not entirely sure if the first 50 have been sent out - the website still says that there are 153 left of 200, so at the very most 47 have been bought. Unless some where bought at Salute and haven't had their numbers updated on the site. Send Florian an email with your order number, he should get back to you pretty quickly