Brambleten Attempts to Paint

[Terrafirma]

Wow... If I made a spread sheet for all the figurines that I have bought and want to paint ,it would be so disheartening that I would give up and sell everything, but I still can't walk out of a hobby shop without new figures...wtf.
nice work champ , a little late but welcome to the nuthouse

 

[Bramblten]

Cheers ten ball. I'd been eyeing him for a while but didn't get around to picking him up until I got him in the Start Collecting sets.

@Terrafirma - Thanks for the welcome. I get that response to the spreadsheet a lot, I feel it gives me a feeling of more control over what is currently a rampaging horde of unpainted stuff.

Not painted since the weekend (stupid headaches and cold) but I plan to change that this weekend, with the FA Cup on telly. I'll probably be working on the Commissar but in anticipation of receiving Keysha from Purgatory, I need to practice my darker skin tones (which so far stand at one uncompleted Fat Cop from BMG). So I had a rummage in my bag of bagged minis (bagged minis live in a bag, boxed/blistered minis live in boxes - keeps things simple) and found one of the nudes I picked up from Hasslefree for just such a purpose - Misha.

I'll get her primed and do her eyes then give myself maybe an hour to 90 minutes and see how far I can get with her.


I'm also getting excited for the release of the Marvel Universe Miniatures Game, which uses D8s, which I was lacking in. So, a quick visit to The Dice Shop Online (yep, inventive title, does what it says on the tin!) and picked up these lovelies.





I also picked up an Amethyst D20 for my sister's 21st birthday and a dice bag, which, now I have it in hand, might be a tad large...








Plenty of space for more in there

 

[Bramblten]

This post may be considered NSFW.


Right, warnings out the way, I decided that today's painting session would be to work on Misha to see if I could work out a decent recipe for a dark skin tone, which isn't one I have had any experience with before.


I started off with a coat of Deck Tan over the primer





Before messing around with the eyes for a bit first, as I didn't fancy messing up a darker tone with ivory every few attempts.











They look a bit weird just black on Ivory, so I added a flesh tone to the face.








I decided at that point to start working on the flesh itself. I set myself a timer but between being asked to do other things and watching the football, I lost track of that. I'd estimate maybe a couple of hours of painting time though over the evening.


She started off looking like a white lass who has had an accident with the fake tan or just got out of a mud bath.

















Eventually the layers and clicked, but I think it might have been more to do with the the hair not being a "blonde" shade any more, which just seemed to throw the colouring off.





























She's not perfect, particularly the legs which I haven't managed to get completely right, and the layering isn't as smooth as I'd like (which seems to be a running theme at the moment), but I like how her face has turned out.


Part of this practice was to see if I could come up with a tone that I liked, which I think I have, but the second part of it was to see if I could come up with a recipe for said method. According to my palette, the answer to that bit is "nope."





Other than the ivory for the eyes, none of the colours there were used without some form of mixing with others, in ratios that are probably "2 parts this, 1 part that. Oh, a little bit more that. And maybe some Khaki."


Still, a fun distraction from the project I should be working on, and I learned something new in the process

 

[Sicks]

She looks good but I must say I liked her a bit more with the darker skin a few pictures up, you can smooth out the layers a bit by glazing back and forth with your darker and lighter shades, I know how fiddly HF minis can be though so I expect it looks better in person when it's seen at actual sizeEdit: oh and I'm looking forward to seeing what they bring out for the marvel game too

 

[Maenas]

I know eyes are a pain in the a** but I would recommend you to retouch them just a little bit to make them look a little bit smaller, specially the right one. You can get right eye smaller taking a bit off from the lower right side.
Skin looks very nice imo ^^

 

[Bramblten]

@Sicks - Cheers. When I decided I was going to attempt a darker skin tone, I did a little "research" and ended up liking a "lighter" dark skin tone, like those of Jourdan Dunn and Nathalie Emmanuel, among others, so tried to emulate that lighter tone.

@Maenas - Thanks

Another weekend, another update. Good job I decided I wasn't doing OMAM this year, as I haven't finished anything in February yet!


I had another go at Misha's eyes after comments here and on Wamp, with Normski giving me a guide on how he does his eyes. However, they're now not quite aligned correctly but I'm leaving them as is - she is just a test piece after all. In his Q&A for Noobs and their Paintbrush (Part 1, Part 2) Roman Lappat said that during his first few years, he painted 300 miniatures a year, so that's basically 1 model a day each year, with one day a week off. A little more than my combined 75 in the past 26 months...


Anyway. Eyes.











I say she's a test piece, but after the Commissar is finished I'll finish her hair and give her a base, maybe try the marble effect I was going to try on The Artist.


Speaking of the Commissar, here he is at the moment. What do people think of the tone of green? It still needs a highlight, but I'm quite happy with how warm it feels against the cold blue/black of the rest of the outfit.





I've left the lining and belt a stage behind - they might stay a colder green to match the coat.








Finally, to change up my basing from the current greenstuff/milliput combos, I picked up a couple of new sizes of sand and gravel from Pets at Home - £3.50 a bag, 2kg in each bag





I should really have done more hobby stuff this week, but I've been distracted by the ArcWorlde - Battle For Troll Bridge Kickstarter, one of the many Kickstarters on at the moment. There are currently also campaigns from Twisted (in on that one as well), Privateer Press, CMON, Shieldwolf Miniatures, Red Box Games, Colony 87...

 

[Bramblten]

Yesterday night was power sword night and my first real attempt at the glazing style that adorn so many weapons at the moment. A lot more practice is needed, but I think I'm gradually learning the patience needed for glazing.














I also took some shots in greyscale, which I think show off the tone shift quite nicely.

 

[Bramblten]

Spent the evening watching Boyzie paint on Twitch and did some more work on the Commissar. So far he's actually been a really experimental piece - everything I've done so far (and including this update) has been done either with new techniques or styles or paints I haven't used before. That'll all change when I get to his face, which I'm actually looking forward to as I've grown from hating painting flesh and faces to quite enjoying them over the past 6 months.





The metals were started and I've added a few layers of washes to dull them down. The green tint on the decoration on his arm is actually the Scale Color Emerald Alchemy, one of the almost pearlescent metallics that comes with the Silver Metal n Alchemy set. Usually if I want to shade metallics I go with washes or inks so I tried something different.





I've added the same effect on the generator on the sword, which combined with eventually painting the plasma in the same way as the sword, should add a degree of balance to the model.











I'm not 100% sure the tones work together, but for now I've thrown good taste out the window and I'm just playing with different things.


I also got some new stuff over the weekend, though one of the paints in the Scale box didn't have a dropper section in it, so along with contacting Scale I've ordered some dropper bottles and agitators to persuade myself to start transferring my citadel and P3 paint to droppers.

 

[Zab]

great start on those metals I ordered deathwatch too. love those boxed games!

 

[Gamgan]

Sorry if this was already answered but that news paper you used to fix the model is really neat. Did you make it or is it sold like that? The fine print on it was really cool

 

[Bramblten]

@Zab - Cheers I got all excited and did a quick unboxing of Deathwatch for the blog, then promptly stacked it away with my other GW boxes

@Gamgan - Thanks. It's a really simple little thing to do. I did an image search for "Victorian Newspaper" and picked out a few that I liked and put them in a Word document. I shrank them in to various sizes I thought would be small enough to go onto a mini's base and printed them out on normal paper. It turns out I didn't quite go small enough, so trimmed the one I chose and wrapped it up to look like a folded newspaper. I then added some folds and glued it down with a little super glue. Once it dried, I added a couple of splashes of devlan mud in places it might have been stood on or squashed into mud.

Hope that helps

 

[Zab]

Yeah i have that problem too. spachulk, the assassins one and this all waiting, plus relic, horus heresy boardgame and betrayal at calth, her majesty's service and dogs of war I have a serious gaming problem.

 

[Bramblten]

@Zab - I actually built and played a game of the Assassin one! Everything else has had maybe one of two pieces built. It might take a while to get to, or not. No idea what the random generator is going to give me.

In a day full of sport on the telly, followed by a few episodes of QI, I managed to get my head down and finish the Commissar. I ended up trying another new thing, in highlighting of the black boots up to brown instead of a form of grey.


As he was an experimental piece, I didn't go into great detail on his face, but the sculpt is pretty good and helps give guiding lines for adding character with what was quite a quick job on the face - only 4 or 5 layers instead of a lot!

















The skulls on the front of his top were a pain in the arse. Big enough that I couldn't ignore them, but not enough depth to really make them look good.


As far as my experimentation goes, I think the glazing needs more work, and I probably won't be trying the green metallics again in a hurry, but the black cloth and brown boots were both nice surprises that turned out ok.


While I wait for my Keysha to arrive from Purgatory to crack on with her for her contest, I randomised my next project. I could bore you by showing the whole process (which I have saved should anyone wish to see it), but the next project is these four ArcWorlde Halfling spearmen.





I based them using the gravel I picked up from Pets at Home recently and gave each a tactical rock. It's a slight deviation from my current painting style to have them all on bases already, but as they're grunts, if I can't pick out a detail with a brush from an angle, it's likely that it won't be seen from the tabletop anyway!

 

[Dr. Bob]

The commissar looks great. Your "experimental" painting came out really well. I like the subdued greens and browns.

 

[Bramblten]

Thanks Dr. Bob

The photos of the Commissar that I took yesterday were a little busy, with the main culprit being a S75 bottle. In between letting halflings dry (below), I got a background out to get a cleaner shot of him.





As for the halflings, I intend to run a halved Green and Purple scheme on them. I wasn't too sure how bright to make the green, but as I started doing the trousers and snood things in P3 Thornwood Green I decided a more muted green would look more natural on them, allowing their faces to balance out the colour.


I've been fairly rough so far, just working between Thornwood Green, Umbral Umber and S75 Ardennes Green with a little VMC Ivory. I'll add some purple into the shading on the green when I next sit down to try and tie the two halves of the shirts together.








Ideally I'd have wanted to be painting these 2-3 weeks ago, as there has been a large resurgence in the ArcWorlde facebook group after Vapnartak and during the Kickstarter thanks to Alex putting OOP stuff on the website just before, so people had minis arriving while the KS was active (smart guy, that Alex) and have been painting them up. I stuck to my plan, however, and finished the Commissar first.


I've also finally gotten around to reading my Retribution of Scyrah faction book for Warmachine. The fluff in there is great, and I'm liking that I actually picked them prior to knowing about the fluff, which probably would have had me pick them if I'd read it first.


The downside is with Warmachine that a lot of the weapons and armour just look really chunky and not quite right in my eyes. That said, the enthusiasm I had for halflings a couple of weeks back I now have for white armoured elves, but I guess it'll move on just as quickly to something else, which is why I let the list decide, not me

 

[Bramblten]

Not really done much hobby stuff this week beyond prep Keysha, who arrived on Monday. Got her primed tonight and also made a start, seeing as Daredevil S2 got dropped on Netflix.














Also, my Marvel stuff arrived today





Really looking forward to working on them, but for now they're going away to let the "Ooh shiny" hype die down and the actual want to paint them to build up, rather than losing mojo halfway through them. I would have picked up the Avengers set as well, but the only one in the box I didn't have was the new Black Widow sculpt, and I already have the old one of her. As it stands, I'll have the chance to do alt schemes on Cyclops and Wolvie at some point thanks to now having two of each.

 

[Bramblten]

It took 2 and a half games of rugby today, in addition to 3 episodes of Daredevil yesterday, but Keysha's base is 95% done.





All that needs adding is a little more central shadow once Keysha is painted and added. I'm rather happy with how it's turned out, as I wanted to keep the look of being wood while increasing the contrast between the lit and unlit areas.

 

[Bramblten]

Had a couple of unexpected deliveries this week - firstly, my Games and Gears battle board finally arrived! Only two and a bit years late, and not the design I initially wanted (they said that if they couldn't ship that board by the end of February, they wouldn't be shipping it). It's been a long road with a lot of bumps so I'll be doing a blog post on it over on Noobs and their Paintbrush sometime in the near future.


I also got a box from Element Games that I wasn't expecting until next week (given the long Easter weekend) with the rather pretty new Stormcast Dragon Beastie and a couple of Retribution pieces that I wanted after finishing reading their faction book. The Stormcast piece isn't a move further into Age of Sigmar (I'm yet to do more with the starter box than build one chaos dude) but to be added to my dragon collection, which now stands at: 1 High Elf Dragon (broken and now rather shoddily painted), 3 Warploque Dragons (Ancient Fire, Arcane and Forest), this one and the Forge World Carmine Dragon.





Managed to spend a chunk of today finally watching the original Mad Max and then the England game (best England performance in a long time, and no Wayne Rooney. Coincidence?), but also doing more work on Keysha.





The back of her trousers are in the shade, both in terms of painting them and from the photo thanks to her pose, so that fits nicely with the effect I'm after.











Next stop will probably be the skin tones for her torso, as I need to get that done before I can attach her Keytar and then do her hands and arms.

 

[Bramblten]

No Keysha tonight, spent doing some building to try and clear a little space in the cupboard, as blister packs just seem to eat space.


First up was probably a more boring task than mold line removal - sticking tape over the gaps in bases. At least this way I have most of a box to work with for future projects rather than doing it at the time.





Got Panther and Nova built for the new Marvel game, and some street bases created. They'll probably just get tab pinned to them tomorrow when the GS bases are dry.





Also did Colossus. As he's standing on a rather large tactical rock, I chose a part of the mold that had a little rubble on it and then pushed him into the mold slightly, creating an impression for the rock to sit in, so it doesn't just look like it's sat on the base.











Aside from those three, I also got Arkham City Scarecrow and the High Court Member from the Court of Owls for Batman built and ready to be attached at a later date.





All told it's only 3 blisters removed from the pile (Colossus and the Court Member are from multi pack blisters) but they'll take up less space in a case than they will in the cupboard.

 

[Bramblten]

Still playing with the super glue and greenstuff, here are the minis that got built today:





Back row - AC Riddler, High Security Prisoner, AK Red Hood, Arkham Knight.
Front - Turk, Pipe Dude, Ivy Plant, Ivy Plant, Poison Ivy.


And all 22 that have had attention this week, in a bad photo.





I decided to go until I ran out of bases that were taped up, so this is where it fell. They'll all go into a case instead of taking up cupboard space, once I finish up the last 5 tomorrow when their bases have cured.


This has also allowed me to put together the photos for a tab pinning tutorial blog article that I'll probably stick out on Noobs and their Paintbrush next week.


Hopefully back to Keysha tomorrow.