Savanttheory
New member
New thread, new blog, new year!
Finally starting to get back into a more regular painting schedule with the warmer weather. It is just so much easier on my apartment and my nose to be able to step off the porch to prime a couple of figures and just start painting this time of year.
So what have I been up to all these winter months? Practicing for the most part. I redid my painting studio after finding a steal of an armoire on craigslist. Now I can get messy in the middle of a project and when company comes over just close the doors. While it isn't often that my work station gets really messing it is a huge blessing when it comes to my OCD and sense of order.
View attachment 20144
Lately it has been almost all personal projects for myself so I've gone back to an old favorite of mine, sculptor Werner Klocke for a miniature to get me back on the path of the paint brush. This particular fig was from Reaper and while I love the dynamic pose and Klocke's ability to make a miniature look like a Wayne Reynolds painting it suffered from a particularly nasty mold line which cut across the miniature's hair (God does this drive me crazy,) but actually was something of a misalignment of the mold which left a nasty little trench most of the way around the mini. A ton of sanding/filing & filling later I felt like I had a reasonable place to start.
View attachment 20145
Once I was comfortable with my prep, it was time to get him primed. Now I've always had something of a bad habit of over-spraying my miniatures with primer. I thought if primer came in colors surely I should see it every where I intended to paint right? Wrong. Primer essentially consists of two ingredients, the paint which is visible when you spray and the compound which provides the tooth your brushed on paint adheres to. By spraying until all of my miniatures were the color of the primer I was essentially burying detail under layers of unnecessary paint. Taking the cue from a video I had watched of Laurent Esposito I just went with a few light spritzes of primer. I should also note I used to get horrible results with fuzzy primer ever since I switched to Tamiya Fine Surface primer I haven't had any issues priming of any kind.
View attachment 20146
The cloak is one of the more impressive parts of this piece so my plan is to try and attempt some more advanced freehand than what I've done before on it to really do it some justice along with some slight weathering. There are so many buttons and snaps on this piece that I find myself really having to watch where I'm laying down the base coats to ensure I'm staying inside my guides. It was also at this point I realized I'd still not gotten the job done on several of the nasty mold lines. Using the great advice I got from Marike Reimer at Gencon last summer I broke out my gloss varnish to even out the jarring depressions underneath the left arm on the cloak, on the right foot and in the hair line. A few applications and a judicious use of a hair dryer and my fits were over just like that. It almost feels like cheating truth be told but a great tip to get a smooth painting surface every time (the other being a miliput wash.) The color scheme for now is still up in the air but I feel like I'm going to go with a blue/gray cloak and white tunic (challenging color,) I intend to stick to mostly pastels except for the leatherwork and skin tones which should be vibrant in my opinion to add contrast to the piece.
View attachment 20147View attachment 20148
In these pics you also see one of my new toys a miniature holder by Rath. I'm used to painting on corks or bottle tops so this follows a fairly similar concept to what I've normally done but the wire finger rest which rotates 360 degrees is a nice touch. The cork center comes out in two pieces which allows you to hold a pinned miniature firmly in place without doing damage to the cork over time (an issue with the mk I version of this holder.) Overall, I've been very happy with this purchase and am already considering buying a second 32mm version and the accompanying larger size.
Beyond that I've got some Games Workshop Fenrisian Space Wolves put together and awaiting greenstuff so definitely bitten by the painting bug again.
Finally starting to get back into a more regular painting schedule with the warmer weather. It is just so much easier on my apartment and my nose to be able to step off the porch to prime a couple of figures and just start painting this time of year.
So what have I been up to all these winter months? Practicing for the most part. I redid my painting studio after finding a steal of an armoire on craigslist. Now I can get messy in the middle of a project and when company comes over just close the doors. While it isn't often that my work station gets really messing it is a huge blessing when it comes to my OCD and sense of order.
View attachment 20144
Lately it has been almost all personal projects for myself so I've gone back to an old favorite of mine, sculptor Werner Klocke for a miniature to get me back on the path of the paint brush. This particular fig was from Reaper and while I love the dynamic pose and Klocke's ability to make a miniature look like a Wayne Reynolds painting it suffered from a particularly nasty mold line which cut across the miniature's hair (God does this drive me crazy,) but actually was something of a misalignment of the mold which left a nasty little trench most of the way around the mini. A ton of sanding/filing & filling later I felt like I had a reasonable place to start.
View attachment 20145
Once I was comfortable with my prep, it was time to get him primed. Now I've always had something of a bad habit of over-spraying my miniatures with primer. I thought if primer came in colors surely I should see it every where I intended to paint right? Wrong. Primer essentially consists of two ingredients, the paint which is visible when you spray and the compound which provides the tooth your brushed on paint adheres to. By spraying until all of my miniatures were the color of the primer I was essentially burying detail under layers of unnecessary paint. Taking the cue from a video I had watched of Laurent Esposito I just went with a few light spritzes of primer. I should also note I used to get horrible results with fuzzy primer ever since I switched to Tamiya Fine Surface primer I haven't had any issues priming of any kind.
View attachment 20146
The cloak is one of the more impressive parts of this piece so my plan is to try and attempt some more advanced freehand than what I've done before on it to really do it some justice along with some slight weathering. There are so many buttons and snaps on this piece that I find myself really having to watch where I'm laying down the base coats to ensure I'm staying inside my guides. It was also at this point I realized I'd still not gotten the job done on several of the nasty mold lines. Using the great advice I got from Marike Reimer at Gencon last summer I broke out my gloss varnish to even out the jarring depressions underneath the left arm on the cloak, on the right foot and in the hair line. A few applications and a judicious use of a hair dryer and my fits were over just like that. It almost feels like cheating truth be told but a great tip to get a smooth painting surface every time (the other being a miliput wash.) The color scheme for now is still up in the air but I feel like I'm going to go with a blue/gray cloak and white tunic (challenging color,) I intend to stick to mostly pastels except for the leatherwork and skin tones which should be vibrant in my opinion to add contrast to the piece.
View attachment 20147View attachment 20148
In these pics you also see one of my new toys a miniature holder by Rath. I'm used to painting on corks or bottle tops so this follows a fairly similar concept to what I've normally done but the wire finger rest which rotates 360 degrees is a nice touch. The cork center comes out in two pieces which allows you to hold a pinned miniature firmly in place without doing damage to the cork over time (an issue with the mk I version of this holder.) Overall, I've been very happy with this purchase and am already considering buying a second 32mm version and the accompanying larger size.
Beyond that I've got some Games Workshop Fenrisian Space Wolves put together and awaiting greenstuff so definitely bitten by the painting bug again.
