Standard and grass painted

And that’s it, except for a layer of varnish and basing, these guys are finished. I’ll add a post on the varnish in my next update as I’ll be trying something new. Overall, these guys took way longer than they should have, probably because I’ve only been sitting to paint for 30-60 minutes a day. When I’m really going I’ll sometimes pull 2-3 hours a day. I can’t do that forever, because nothing else would get done. Look for them in the gallery soon.

Tyler

Washed up and looking dirty

I did a lot of experimenting to get this wash right. It’s been so long since I’ve tried washing, and my results then were so poor, that I’d given up on it as a technique. Basically, I find gives an un-even finish. Since I spent so much time getting an even finish, this defeats the purpose. My next article will be about the experimentation that I performed. Until then, here’s what the wash looks like on Bolg’s Bodyguard.

Tyler

Pelts drybrushed

Ahhh, drybrushing. Something I rarely do. I usually find it better to paint on my highlights instead of drybrushing. Only for very textured surfaces like these pelts do I use drybrushing. Even some styles of hair don’t get drybrushed as I prefer to draw parallel lines along the grain of the hair.

Tyler

Clothing highlight dark blue

Since the miniatures were primed black all I needed to do here was highlight with some very dark blue. At the same time I also basecoated all the fur cloaks many of the goblins are wearing. I was thinking of doing these all different browns, greys and reds, but decided against it. Just one of those decisions made to keep from bogging down on an already overdue project.

Tyler

Give ‘em the shaft boys

Another quick step done and I can smell the finish-line. I’m not going to bother highlighting the weapon shafts or small sacks on the goblin’s belts. At this scale only important areas need highlighting. When I was painting all the belts and sacks I was worried about using too much of the same colour on different items. This is something I often stuggle with, especially with neutral colours. It’s like I can’t use the same shade twice. It’s a silly thing that I’m trying to get over and these miniatures were good therapy.

Tyler

Shields painted

This stage certainly didn’t take very long, as the only parts of the figures painted this colour was the shields and half the unit banner. As you can see I left some of the brown around the black around the metal bits of the shield, which I will still need to paint at some point. It looks sloppy in the big, blown-up view, but don’t forget that these are 10mm miniatures and that sloppiness will disappear to create some warmth and depth to the miniatures when they’re on the table. And besides, they’re goblins, they painted the shields sloppy themselves!

Tyler

Man, I hate painting 10mm scale boots

All the leatherwork on these miniatures are done. Unfortunately it came out much more orange than I would have liked. Which is funny, because I used VMC Mahogany Brown, VMC Red Leather, and VMC Calvary Brown. I don’t know if I have a bad batch, but both the Mahogany Brown and Red Leather come out very orange. I’d mixed three seperate shades, two were applied to the miniature. After the third I decided it just wasn’t worth it for these miniatures. I think this is an important part of army painting, rather than figure painting. Unless the colour is very important it isn’t worth wasting too much time on it. (more…)

The miniatures are starting to look less stark.

Wow, things are rolling right along. I’m actually writing this Oct 13th because that’s when I finished this stage of the miniatures. I’ve been trying to work ahead to give myself the ability to take a day off from time to time and still have posts running along at a regular interval. I’m doing this because I discovered that if I set the timestamp for a post to a future date, it’ll only display it after the world catches up to the timestamp. Basically, I’m sending this post into the future! You, my friends, are hearing me speak from the past. Err, reading me write from the past. (more…)

Shiney metal shows how gritty the casting is.

Finished the chain armour, weapons and helmets on Bolg’s Bodyguard. I didn’t end up drybrushing on the silver. The plan is that I’ll hit everything with a Vallejo Shadow wash once all the colours are finished. I’m not a big fan of washing, it tends to get everywhere and pool on top of surfaces. I’m thinking that I’ll mix isoprophyl alcohol into the wash to this it, instead of water, and see what the effect is. I’ve been using the alcohol as a cleaning agent, I find it helpful for taking the last remnants of acrylic paint out of brushes, reducing the buildup that kills brushes. I know alcohol can be used to thin acrylic paint because Vallejo makes alcohol based acrylic metallics. (more…)

Going Green

Ahhh, it’s nice to be back in the old blogger chair. I must say that blogging is a great motivator for painting. Just don’t let it get you down when you can’t update. I have a lot of painting planned and hope to continue updating this website regularily. (more…)