Tag: experiment

miniatures.

Nighthaunt: Reikenor the Grimhailer

DebbieForster1 Comment

First miniature of 2023 and it’s this guy!

I painted him using dry brushing (for the most part). I wanted to remind myself that bright colours look great alongside dark ones and that spooky ghosts are awesome. I used the neon method that I worked on previously, and this is the result:

I am pleased with the result, and think that the bright green looks great with the dark purple underneath. I enjoyed creating the lighter parts too, and the dark silver just finished it off nicely.

This miniature didn’t take all that long to do either, and was a good way of getting back to painting after the Christmas break.

miniatures.

Splintered Fang and Dark Skin

DebbieForster6 Comments

I have been trying to widen my repitoir when it comes to different tones of skin this year, and I believe I made some progress with that recently. I decided to use the vibrant green on a Warcry Warband and take advantage of all that skin on show! I wanted to go for some dark tones to make the vibrant green stand out, and it was as good an opportunity to try something new. This is how they turned out:

I am very pleased with this trial and shall certainly be building on them in the future. Using purple to recess shade has worked particularly well I think, and the very thin layers of doombull brown for highlights worked out as well. I shall be building on this method over the coming days and weeks and who knows, I might even produce a tutorial sometime soon!!

miniatures.

Warcry Chickens!!

DebbieForster1 Comment

Alright, that might be a bit disparaging to this miniature, however I always thought they looked like savage chickens. I had this half of the box of Chaos Beasts spare after I was commissioned to paint the gargoyles and after the drybrush experiment the other day, I thought I would use them as more practice.

What I really like about these is how vibrant the green is against the dark purple body. These are the colours I used before, and I wanted to see if they worked on more than one miniature. It was fun to see them develop and watch the vibrant colours build up.

I only used drybrushing on these creatures – except for the texture paint on the base – and they took an hour to do.

I want to try using this technique with other bright colours. I have pink and orange already, I just need to use the colour wheel to see what dark colours they would work with, find some miniatures to experiment on and see what happens.

miniatures.

Cypher Lords and Skin Tones

DebbieForster1 Comment

As many of you are aware, I have been on a mission to try different skin tones. It started off with ‘The Daily Head’, which was great but I wanted to try other body parts as well. Space Marines tend to hide behind armour, so I picked up some of Warcry’s Cypher Lords to give it a go.

I am pleased with the result. For the dark skin, I used a base of Dryad Bark, with a watered down wash of Daruchii Violet and then Caroshade Crimson. I then mixed Dryad Bark with XV-88 for the highlights. I really like the purple tones to the dark skin this has created and will look into this more next time I come to paint dark skin. For the paler tone, I started off with Cadian Fleshtone. I then washed it first with thinned down Agrax Earthshade and Seraphim Sepia. I then mixed Cadian Fleshtone with Kislev flesh for the highlights. I then used Kislev flesh for the scars. I wanted to keep it simple and it seems to have worked out alright. It will be a spring board for more flesh experiments to come in the future.

The Alpha Legion…
40K · miniatures.

The Alpha Legion…

DebbieForster2 Comments

As we all know, the Alpha Legion like to sneak into other legions in order to learn their secrets and steal them. It worked rather well during the Heresy and I suppose they are still up to their sneaking about in the 40K universe.

A while ago, at a Warboot, I picked up two Alpha Legion miniatures simply because they looked cool and were cheap. I want them to go in the Black Legion but decided to try a technique out to make them still look a bit Alpha Legion. I will show you the pictures and you can see what I mean:

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As well as freehanding a Chaos Star over the Alpha Legion symbol – it is supposed to look a bit rubbish, I wanted to show chips of black paint. Under these I wanted the Alpha Legion sea green and I think I managed to get that to look alright. I painted on silver spots, painted the spots Aethermatic Blue and then edge highlighted them with both the dark grey and light grey to try to give that worn effect.

I have another Alpha Legion ‘specialist’ to go with this one so I will be trying the technique again and refining it as I learn.

Not bad for a first attempt I think1

Basing – Water Effects.
Age of Sigmar · miniatures.

Basing – Water Effects.

DebbieForster2 Comments

A long time ago, I was once told that what makes a miniature look great is ‘bases and faces’. I always remembered this, maybe because it rhymes, so I have set aside some time to really think about how I am going to improve creating bases. For basic miniatures, I am happy to stick to using texture paints, however I want to stretch myself and try new things as well.

I have recently started collecting Ioneth Deepkin – so new that I have only assembled twelve of the miniatures, and have been thinking about a theme for them. I love water effects but wanted to look at something a bit different than just have them as a generic sea based force. I thought about different biomes within the water and settled upon a swamp theme. I shall be using greens and browns for the force themselves but more of that when I get to them.

I began by using water effects paint and seeing what it looked like over sand:

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I also used plastic from the blister packs to try and create waves and splashes. They look ok, not great, and not very swampy. Alright for a first play around though.

I then thought about what a swamp looks like, and used Pinterest to do some research. I discovered that swamps have a lot of reeds and plants in them and have a green and brown look to the water as well. So I painted some bases, put different materials on for land. This is how they turned out:

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I think the little plants and the reeds look good. I also really like the sand and the dark brown mud texture paint. I think the green on the bottm of the base it too green though. To me, it looks more like slime than the sludge at the bottom of a swamp. I want to try this again with a browner paint. I also want to try and see if I can add swamp weed into the water. This will take more than one layer of the texture paint however and might be reserved for the character bases.

It is a good start however, and I have a lot of ways forward to explore.

Water effects: An Experiment.
miniatures.

Water effects: An Experiment.

DebbieForster1 Comment

I have been doing some hobby bits for myself today. Shocking I know. A week or so ago, at the meet-up, I bought some Age of Sigmar miniatures with the intention of actually learning to play the game. I have been thinking about what I want to get out of the miniatures I bought and how I want to make them look amazing.

I went for Ioneth Deepkin – or Fish elves as I have been calling them.

I don’t like the plastic stick that holds up some of the miniatures, so I have been looking for a way around using them. Here is what I did today.

First I mixed some liquid resin and painted it over some cotton wool. I have heard of this being done before and wanted to see what it looks like.

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I am not convinced how well this will actually work, but you never know without trying.

I then tried another method, which I think will work better. I cut up bits of blister plastic into triangles and glued them onto a base:

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I then covered the base in gel diorama water effects stuff. I also built a wave and another base to see how they turn out:

I need to let them dry and see how they look then. I suspect I will need to put another layer on as well, but we shall see. It is a start and I am only going to learn by trying different things. Let’s hope one of them will lead to success!

Primaris Chaplain
40K · miniatures.

Primaris Chaplain

DebbieForster2 Comments

It is no secret that I love painting space marines. I love the sharp lines of the armour and trying to get the edge highlighting as precice and pristine as possible. I love painting their hands and around the small sections of their armour as neatly as I can. I sometimes achieve this and sometimes I feel as though I miss the mark. I am still learning after all, and perhaps always will be.

I bought the Primaris Chaplain as I thought it was an interesting miniature and to fulfill the need to paint a space marine. (I also have a Primaris Lt and an Ancient as well but more on them when they are finished.)

I tried a different technique on the dark brown leather of his cloak using a sponge to get the effect rather than a brush, and I think he turned out well in the end. I feel his highlights are sharp as well, which is great.

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I have kept his base simple as I won’t be keeping him, he will be sold. A bonus about this miniature is that it took me three hours from start to finish, which isn’t too bad. I have got a lot quicker these past few weeks!

If you are interested in owning this fine Chaplain, check him out in the store!

https://blackhandmarines.com/store/

fine detail · miniatures.

Slime Splatter

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I made a small diorama as a gift the other day and am only now getting around to posting about it – mainly because by the time this post goes live, the gift will be recieved and it shall be safe to do so. I wanted to create something fun, but I have also wanted to mess about with creating slime. I’ve read several tutorials about using UHU glue and wanted to give it a go. Here are the results:

First of all, UHU is very stringy, so it was perfect for creating ropes of slime between aspects of the miniature. It got stickier as it began to go off, which meant it was easy to shape as well.

I think the hardest part was the first step – attatching bristles to where I wanted the drops to be. It needed a bit of patience to wait for the super glue to go off before I was able to attach the next one.

UHU glue does take paint well, so it was good to put a wash over the top and see it retain its shine. I want to do some more work around this, however I also have a few commissions to work on, all the learning from the Seige Studio course to work through as well as other projects. Maybe there should be a few extra hours in the day so I can get everything done!