Brambleten Attempts to Paint

Bramblten

New member
Hi folks, welcome to my plog!

First up, I'm Brambleten and I currently live in the rather soggy county of Cumbria in Northern England. And yes, I did manage to spell my name wrong. That's what happens when Newcastle win when you aren't expecting it.

Anyhow. I've been into wargaming since I was about 10, so over 13 years now. Through school I considered myself more gamer than painter then put the hobby on hold through University, where I studied Accounting and rather foolishly researched crowdfunding for my dissertation. At that point I only really bought stuff from Games Workshop but after Uni, I started writing crowdfunding articles for Portal magazine and learned more about the industry away from GW.

Despite only having played a couple of games of Batman in the last year (and before that nothing for 2-3 years), I still consider myself more of a gamer than a painter, because my painting isn't up to much!

I did attend the Wamp Workshop with Scott Hockley and John Keys in August, where I learned more about painting in two fairly hungover days than I did in the last 18 months or so.

Recently I've been adding any new miniatures I buy to a spreadsheet to keep track of them and am slowly adding my back catalogue to them. There is still a decent amount of Games Workshop stuff to be added, but I think the below tables will show up what people have been known to call my "problem".



Yep, that's over 1500 minis there, and I have to say, other than maybe 200 or so from GW, that's all in the last 2 years or so (having an income makes it so much easier to buy stuff!)

I buy from a wide range of companies, which can be seen even easier when I open up the "Others" category on the sheet.





I've tried to keep track of how many miniatures I paint during a year - last year was 49, while this year to date is currently 17.

Here are a selection of this years pieces (working from the start of the year forwards).

My League of Shadows crew for Batman - Deadshot, Yang, Liam Neeson Ra's al Ghul, Lotus and AC Talia al Ghul



Daredevil



GCPD Detective



Steampunk Boudi, who was the subject of our work at the Wamp Workshop. As you can see, she still isn't finished!



Death, from Purgatory. She actually won the single figure category of the painting contest they ran when they released her which I was quite chuffed with, seeing as it was my first contest win and also the first miniature I'd finished since the workshop.







Blackheart from Guild Ball, who I don't actually have any more as he was donated to Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher for their Little Heroes for Little Heroes charity auction that recently finished.



During November I finished Bonnie from Another World, but as she's been entered into their painting contest I'm not allowed to show her off until the results are posted.

So, here's what's on my desk at the moment.

A Space Marine Terminator for my Dusk Raiders and St Peter (minus wings) from Purgatory, both for painting contests due in December.



Also on the desk (again for a contest, but not as high a priority) is Father Griffmas from ArcWorlde.



Oh, I've also been writing for a blog called Noobs and their Paintbrush for almost a year now (it was started up in January). It's a group blog, currently with three of us contributing. My main contributions are pretending I'm going to paint something and buying new miniatures to take pictures of for unboxing reviews.

And I think that's everything up to date!
 

KruleBear

Active member
Welcome to the forum and you have created some solid work.

If I put my minis in a spreadsheet and looked at the percent complete, I would be depressed and grumpier.
 

Bramblten

New member
Thanks for the welcome :)

The list of stuff to paint isn't going to shrink in the near future either. Awaiting miniatures from the Infamy, Heresy Miniatures, Fallen Frontiers, Conan, Raging Heroes and Super Dungeon Explore Kickstarters plus the recent Michael Kontraros Indiegogo campaign (which is apparently in the post :laugh: ). Oh, and my Hellscape Battleboard from Games and Gears, but after two years I've written off that investment.

Then there is Batman releases from Knight Models every month - absolutely in love with the new Animated Series minis.

@KruleBear - it does cause a little depression, but it also gives me some targets. I've set up the sheet to record as I complete minis, and as I pass certain percentage boundaries, colours change (red is below 25%, orange 25-50, yellow 50-75 and 75-100 is green).

Plus I've got a little idea brewing about how to use it once I've got my competition queue clear in the new year.
 

Bramblten

New member
My first proper update. And by proper, I mean the content that tends to get logged more than my painting - my buying.

Some nice expensive miniatures from the continent arrived today :)


Vampire Queen and Werewolf Queen from Michael Kontraros in Greece from his recent Indiegogo project.





Kharis, a vampire bust from Kabuki Models in Italy





Hellenika, The Queen of Hearts and The Hunter, (54mm, 54mm and 32mm respectively), again from Kabuki.





Harley Gattling Brute and more Scarecrow Militia from Knight Models, with Jessica Thunderhawk and Sarah Kilmister from Scale 75. Both from Spain, but via Stockport ;)








The Scale blisters are huge - check out how tiny Sarah is in hers!


 

bgcdazzler

New member
Good lord! It's a mini hoarder's dream. You're so far rather better stocked than our local hobby shop.

Main painting news, I like the glazing/tone of daredevil; the others maybe need a bit more contrasting colours in the palette.
 

Bramblten

New member
@bgcdazzler - I hear that about my stock pile a lot :)

Thanks, I think I'm starting to get my head around the many many layers style of painting. Once I get a little closer, I'll start being a little more creative with my colours and contrasts. But it shall not be this day ;)

It appears the season of festivities is bringing about lots of crowdfunding goodness, as, following on from my Kontraros lovelies, my Infamy: Welcome to the Big Smoke pledge came in.


I will be taking pictures of everything I got, but these show the scale of the problem facing me.





 

Bramblten

New member
@delta 408 - Yep, many minis. That way hypothetically I'm immortal :D

It's time for some painted goodness at last! And I really mean At Last! I usually post things a maximum of 24 hours after they're finished and usually it's a case of "finished mini. Camera. Crop. Photobuchet. Look at this!"


So having to wait 3 weeks to be allowed to post this has kind of grated on me, but those were the terms of the comp.


So, we have Bonnie from Another World, painted up for their 2015 comp, which was supposed to finish at the end of November but was extended by 10 days so a few more people could finish their projects, and there are some real crackers.


Without any more waffling on, here's Bonnie.




















As I said above, she was painted up for the AW comp. There are prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd, which will be judged by a panel, and then also a "People's Choice", to be decided by whichever photo album gets the most likes and shares on the Another World Facebook Page. If I'm honest, I'm not a fan of the whole Facebook votes thing. I find that while some of the people that go and vote on them are there hitting like on their favourite pieces because they consider them the best, others are there because the friend of a friend in another gaming group asked them to hit like and share, so you just turn it into a popularity contest and a fight between who has more people who will like and click for them, not the quality of the pieces on offer.


No contest is perfect, there is always going to be subjectivity and bias, particularly in miniature painting contests. I don't want this to come across as sour grapes because other pieces (as things stand) have more votes than mine. It's not - just something I've been sitting on for a while. There are some fantastic entries and I hope that they get the recognition they deserve.


With that in mind, if you have Facebook, go click the link to their Facebook page and check out each of the albums. If you like them, give them a "like" :)


Now, back to the mini. Things I'm happy with:


- The newspaper under the foot. I had a problem with basing her - screwed up using two tab pins instead of one and she didn't sit flush to the base so the newspaper was added to sit underneath the foot and hide the gap from the back, which it does perfectly - and had some help persuading me to try out the newspaper as I hadn't done that before.


- The Face. Still getting used to painting faces properly, and I think she came out alright, pale and interesting. The bangs weren't a massive help, but the rest of the hair did hide her ears, which I hate painting.


- The sheer stockings. These were my first real attempt at sheer clothing and I think they came out alright, with a semi sheer finish. Definitely going to give this a go again.


Some of the stuff I wasn't so happy with:


- The hair. Just couldn't get the right amount of highlights and depth to the hair, which I'm going to arrogantly put partly down to the sculpt not really offering much depth on the top of her head.


- The Dress. Serious mojo fade occurred while layering the dress, leading to not nearly enough depth, or a defined point of light to give specific highlights.


- The Cleavage. Despite her almost falling out of her dress, I didn't get enough depth to the cleavage. I had a few attempts, but they all seemed to go wrong so I took it back to near the face in colour and struggled to get the shadows worked in. That's why I like being able to constantly post WIP images of stuff when I paint - sometimes stopping to take a picture and posting gives me a little more time to think about the piece, let it rest for a day and come at it fresh or just tweak bits, rather than not being able to do so and rushing into changes and losing motivation.


I'm currently still working on Father Griffmas, hopefully I'll be able to bring out some decent progress shots soon :)
 

KruleBear

Active member
The newspaper is awesome and you manag d to get her eyes pointing in the same direction. Eyes have been killing me on my last few minis.
 

Sigmar3

Member
Hiya, excellent seeing all the stuff you've got to look forward to painting. Could you imagine a world where we weren't allowed or couldn't buy a miniature until we had finished the previously bought one!? I'd save a lot of room for one thing haha.

Good looking work so far, and looking forward to seeing more. I assume you won't be distracted by Newcastle winning too much...heh.
 

Sicks

Active member
Thatsone nice pile of stuff to paint, I'll be interested in seeing them painted up as I've thought about getting quite a few of them myself
 

Maenas

New member
Hello! and welcome aboard this is Maenas from Barcelona and I want to encourage you to paint, a lot, of that wonderful miniatures you have been collecting.... since there are a ton of miniatures I like too ^^
I would do a nice spreadsheet like yours, but If I do so my painting time would be reduced even more xD xD so my listings were reduced to a handwrited "shopped" list that I left behind in a notebook more than 10 years ago and now I am NOT going to actualize it LOL

Works you have posted seem good to me so far... I see you are struggling with contrast and in some cases with paint smoothness but I also suffer of that. Here we are to learn and learn... and that's you will do almost for sure. As you have seen there is a lot of peeps over here and they are willing to help us all.

Looking for further works/buys of yours ;)

PS: Working on good/very good sculpts really makes a difference imo. A skilled painter can make a good job on a bad sculpt but I am sure a regular painter like us will struggle a lot, because it's easier to paint something sculpted than to "draw" it on the miniature if it did not exist. So better shop for good minis!!
 
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Bramblten

New member
Merry Christmas everyone!

Thanks guys :)

@KruleBear - The best two bits of advice I've had about eyes are to paint them first, and that they don't always have to be looking forward - off to the side is often easier and more looks effective. That way you can mess them up as many times as you need and not mess up any of the face.

@Sigmar3 - I don't want to live in that world :(

@Sicks - I hope to mix up what I'm doing after the end of January so hopefully I can get some fun stuff in the works.

@Maenas - The spreadsheet was done over a month or so in sections, and is updated as I get new stuff so it only really adds a couple of minutes of delay now that it's done. Smoothness and contrast are indeed issues, though smoothness less so now as I'm thinning my paints a lot more and adding gloss and matte mediums to each tray in the palette when I sit down for the session.


No miniatures for me, instead I got a load of BMG research material (RE - Comics!), a box of disposable black gloves for painting in and the obligatory can of primer.


I've forced myself to find time for painting over the past few days, with the OMAM deadline and the Eavier Metal deadlines fast approaching.


After Bonnie's red dress didn't have the depth I wanted, I get the chance to remedy that straight away, seeing as most of Griffmas is red.











After Griffmas, I'll have until the 16th to finish St Peter for the Purgatory Contest, and then it's open season. I'll have 3 entries for the Wamp contest which closes at the end of January, but fancy pushing myself to paint a Wamp mini for it as well. So, I got The Artist cleaned up and since I was doing a base for him, I thought I'd do one for Talia as well, as I've had an idea on how to paint her for a couple of months now, just no time to actually put it into action!





Unfortunately The Artist's brush had a bubble midway up and despite some GS to try and strengthen it, I managed to snap it, so now he's armed with a small paintbrush rather than a normal sized one.





Comic Talia has way more curves than AC Talia...





The two bases. Left is Talia's, right is The Artist's.


 

Bramblten

New member
Thanks Digganob!

Cut this one a little close (comp deadline was midnight today IIRC) and only got him uploaded to it 25 minutes ago, but here's Father Griffmas, the Christmas Mini from Warploque Miniatures for ArcWorlde for last year. He's been entered into the 'Eavier Metal Winter/Christmas/New Year comp.














As a sign of how close a call it was, that red layer of blood effect (there's a brown layer underneath) wasn't dry when I took the pictures.


And that's the last mini for the year!
 

Bramblten

New member
Cheers Digganob. He was indeed fun to paint - the ArcWorlde minis have loads of character and have a completely different feel to a lot other minis - they feel a lot rougher around the edges and have a lovely rustic charm, almost.

It's finally time to share my somewhat loopy new method of project generation.


As some of you may know, I built a spreadsheet to track my miniatures. I'm going to combine this with a random number generator to decide my projects as I finish them. Below is an example of how this will work.


The spreadsheet home page, listing most basic categories of my miniatures.





There are 14 categories, so to choose one, I need to work out the number of lines to count down.





This generates a 10, which takes us down from Guild Ball to Standalone GW and FW, the home of my GW boxed games.








There are 5 categories within that group, so to start, I use a 1-5, getting a 1, and Space Hulk








Same process again, choosing which line I'm going to work on.








If this was an actual project, my next project would be to paint up the C.A.T from the Space Hulk box, seeing as it is already built.


Once that is done, I'd return to the front page and, using Standalone GW and FW as a start point, start the process again!








I'll be keeping the colours on in each section so that I know the last area that was painted so I can use that as a starting point, to offer up the chance for a lot of variety.


For any minis that are listed as boxed, the project will be to build them, unless they need to be painted in many pieces, in which case they get paint as well. Anything that is Built or PIP will be finished.


This isn't kicking off straight away, as I have St Peter due by 16th Jan and I want to get The Artist painted up by 31st Jan.


When I do start, I'll be using Comic Talia as my starting point for the project and will proceed from there!
 
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