In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
Recently, I was asked if I would paint prizes for a give away over on Simply Warhammer. I was only too happy to agree and last week, the prize arrived. The winner wanted some MK VI marines painted as Crimson Fists, and today I finished them.
They were fun, I love dark blue and red so these were a real pleasure to work on! Here they are:
I have finally finished the Coast Guard commission and I am so proud of the miniatures. I love the tank, and the Warband itself too.
The scheme was blues and gold/yellow and based on the coast guard, as explained in a previous post.
The coast guard symbol is about an inch and a half long, and I’m proud of these miniatures. The faves turned out well, the gold looks deep and the swords well blended.
This is artificer Norric. I painted him for someone who got in touch about the print and paint service we offer at the Foundry. He is painted to Tier 2 quality and was loads of fun to work on. Fortunately. The client sent over loads of pictures of how they wanted him painting, which always helps. Using these I was able to create the mini he was after, as seen below!
Norric was created using HeroForge and printed out using Forster’s Foundry. The link to the service is below:
Sometimes, I get to work on miniatures for myself! I had a day not so long ago where I did just that. I decided I wanted to work on different coloured layer blending. I’ve done plenty using shades of the same colour but not different colours. I picked on the Gaunt Summoner to give it a go.
I have a long way to go with him yet, but I wanted the colours to be bright as it suits Tzeentch. I’m pleased with the green to yellow, but think the blue purple needs work. It’s a Work in Progress and I’m sure I can smooth it out as I go along.
The other mini I worked on was the Warmaster Titan. I want it to look as mean as the Warlord so I’m back on the freehand. It’s going to take some time…
I’ve been up to my knees in Ad Mech and 3D printing for a while, that I forgot to post this guy. This knight was a commission I did recently. It was a challenge as it’s the biggest miniature I have painted and built from start to finish. I thoroughly enjoyed doing so and I loved how he turned out.
The client wanted a dark and sinister scheme so after discussion, we went for black and dark copper. Here is how he turned out:
The last picture I couldn’t resist taking.
Both of us were pleased with how it turned out and I learned a great deal while creating him.
Delving into the world of 3D printing has turned out to be more fun that I though. It’s something that we have talked about for some time, and now we are in the new house, and have the space so we wont get gassed out with fumes, we spent the weekend getting everything set up.
So far, we have a Creality filament printer and an Elegoo resin printer. We rattled off some of the test prints and tinkered until we had all the settings right.
The back end of the kitchen shall be where we keep them for the time being, and we are busy experimenting with different designs and plans:
We have printed off some miniatures that could be used as traitor guardsman – we have a license for them too, and will be selling squads of these when we have some ready!
We are talking about setting up a shop as well, and purchasing more printers, however that is future plans.
I will be working on these over the next day or so, and shall have painted versions of these to show off in the near future.
I wanted to have a go at painting white ceramite – it is not something I have done a great deal of and I wanted to give it a go and see if I could do it quickly. I undercoated some intercessors black, gave them an airbrush of Dawnstone and went from there.
I then drybrushed the miniatures Ulthuan grey quite heavily and then lighter with a couple of layers of white over the top of that. It didn’t take overly long to do and I think they turned out alright. Here are some pictures, with more thoughts afterwards;
I went with red bases so they stood out against the white ceramite. The red and green details also help break up the white. They did not take long to do which was part of the experiment.
The other aspect was the decals. I only had old ones, and they took considerable softening before they would sit in place. What I found was they were still shiny despite several applications of micro-sol, so I sprayed them with matt varnish. This took all the shine from them and made them appear ‘painted on.’
I learned a great deal while I painted these minatures and I am pleased with how they appear. I am not a fan of painting white, but that is no reason to not do so!
These minatures are available in the store.
From time to time, I like to evaluate how far I have come in terms of miniature painting. I like to look at the first miniature I painted, and the last and remind myself that I am only ever competing against myself. I try to express that to everyone else as well. I love seeing other people’s work and what they create, I enjoy trying to figure out how they did a certain thing and seeing if it is something I can try myself. I do not ever really compare myself to them however, as they are on their own learning journey.
So, today, I will put some old pictures next to some newer ones and see how far I have come on my path.
These are from early 2019, I had just finished being a teacher and turned to painting full time.
The second set is my latest work, all from this year at least. Dante is perhaps the oldest here. I can see my improvements immediately. My blending is smoother, I have tackled Non-Metallic Metals and I feel my edge highlights are a lot sharper.
I know I have a lot to learn still, but this is good progress!
Something a bit different was in order today. I wanted to have a break from painting Space Marines and Games Workshop miniatures, so broke out some of the board game ones that have been hanging around the house for ages. Shadows of Brimstone, for those that don’t know is an adventure game. The best way I can describe it is Wild West, Cthulu Warhammer Quest. It has a variety of expansions, and I have been painting some from the Space Ship one, as well as finishing off some others as well. Here they are:
I have used a range of different techniques to paint these miniatures. Including contrast paint over silver, speed painting and using tape to create lines on bases. I have a few more to finish as well, and I will likely work on these over the weekend. Although the quality of the miniature is not the same as Games Workshop, I have really enjoyed the change!
I wanted to build on what I learned using speed painting, mentioned in the previous post. When I was teaching, we always claimed that a person truly understood what they had learned when they were able to apply something in a different context. So I took the same colour palette and techniques and turned them onto the Unmade Warband I had yet to paint for Warcry.
I admit that I had already airbrushed the pale skintone onto them and washed it purple, but aside from that, they were painted with the same method Midwinter Miniatures used in their videos. Here are the results:
The only changes I have made are the bases, I wanted to use some more cracle red and red sand to make the drab looking miniatures stand out a bit, and the red helmets. Contrast paint over silver looks fantastic I think and so I used Flesh Tearers Red to emphasise their helmets.
All in all, I do like the speed painting technique for models that have a lot of fabric. I am not sure how good it would look on a miniature with a lot of flat surfaces, but I shall try one in the future! These took less than 6 hours to do, which is a lot quicker than I would have done them using my usual method!
Heretic Deb! 