Numbat :: In Miniature

Foundry Cowboy by Steve Dean

2009-07-10T17:23:00.001+10:00

This week, I present a cowboy painted by Steve Dean, who is most famous for his use of the three-stage "Dallimore" style. This is one I picked up from Steve's regular Ebay auctions.

The layering looks fantastic in real life, and many of the photos you see of this style really don't do the model justice. I've mentioned before, that the key to this style is neatness - if you can keep your painting within the lines and have good brush control, you won't have any problems applying this style to your miniatures.

A montage view:
Be sure to check out Steve's website if this style appeals to you - I know the technique is quite polarised in the painting community, people either love it or hate it. For me, the technique is perfect for units and large ranks of troops - it strikes a great medium between looking good and getting models painted in a practical amount of time.

Oh, and Steve's forum has regular painting competitions too if you need something to keep you going each month!

Hero Quest Undead

2009-07-06T17:24:00.000+10:00

I'd been on a bit of a Hero Quest painting spree, so here's the first results of my labour. As I said in a previous post, I was inspired by the work done by Insaniak and embarked on getting my own Hero Quest set painted. They were all done using the base-colour followed by devlan mud technique, with the average time to paint a figure in the 10min range. Here's a group shot of the shambling horde!

The skeletons were painted with the following colours, all followed by a Devlan Mud wash:

Bone - Bleached Bone (GW)
Scythe Shaft - Burnt Umber (Prism)
Scythe Blade - Bolt Gun Metal (GW)
Base - Chaos Black (GW)

The zombies were painted with the following colours, followed by a Devlan Mud wash:

Skin - Rotting Flesh (GW)
Eyes - Blood Red (GW)
Hair - Astronomican Grey (GW-F)
Axe Shaft - Burnt Umber (Prism)
Axe Blade - Bolt Gun Metal (GW)
Pants - Fenris Grey (GW)
Jacket - Khemri Brown (GW)
Base - Chaos Black (GW)

The mummies were painted with the following colours, followed by a Devlan Mud wash:

Bandages - Bleached Bone (GW)
Skin - Ghoul Skin (RMS)
Base - Chaos Black (GW)

So there you have it! Simple and fast paint jobs that add lots of flavour to your Hero Quest games. They also make good undead for D&D games too!

Terezinya and Familiar by Alexi Z

2009-07-03T23:59:00.000+10:00

It's time for a new not-painted-by-me Friday, and up this week is Terezinya with her demonic familiar painted by Natalya Melnik (Alexi Z). This is another figure I won off a Charity Auction. It was quite a surprise when I got notified, as Natalya's miniatures are always very popular and hard to get!
You'll notice she's slightly different to the stock miniature from Reaper - Natalya has resculpted the face on Terezinya so it has a better defined cheekbone, lips and chin. The skin is painted in quite a dark (for me anyway) skin tone, and is amazingly smooth and life-like. The NMM and satin finish on the clothing is also a stand-out! Anyway, here's a montage shot:
You can see more of Natalya's miniatures at CoolMiniOrNot, or at her blog. She also does commissions and regularly puts up sales on Ebay.

Back of Beyond

2009-06-29T16:46:00.000+10:00

I love pulp stories and settings, ever since I first saw Indiana Jones as a child. When Copplestone Castings released their Back of Beyond range, I went on a binge, getting several packs and painting them up over the course of a month. I did the following back in 2004, and they placed in the MOAB painting competition that year for Historical Unit (I think).

Armed Archaeologists:

American Adventurers:
Paelontologist and fossils:
British Officers:
German Mercenaries:
These were painted with a simple wash/layer approach. It was a lot of fun picking out colours that would work well for the pulp period. One of the Armed Archaeologists has been done up to look like Rick O'Connell (from the Mummy), and one of the American Adventurers is suppose to be a Young Indiana Jones.

PS. I forgot to make a not-painted-by-me post last week, so maybe I'll do something extra to make up for it this week.

Rackham Ashan'Tyr

2009-06-23T01:56:00.000+10:00

I painted this miniature back in 2003 (won best Large Monster at MOAB Painting Competion for that year too). Ashan'Tyr was one miniature I had to get after seeing Jeremie's version when I stayed at his place in Lyon. She is my favourite out of all the female wolfen sculpts, and a lot of fun to paint. It's also probably the only miniature where I've been happy with the NMM work I did - though now that I look at the it, there's a lot of room for improvement.

Perhaps I should go back and update bits of her paintjob as an Improvometer exercise - although I got a relatively smooth finish for her skin, it lacks contrast and zenithal lighting to match the NMM. The steel NMM also needs more specular reflections and contrast to match the gold. And perhaps make the base more interesting. Either that, or I should work through my other Wolfen first. :)

Here's a montage shot:

Crunchwaffle Angel's Advocate by Zordana

2009-06-19T16:09:00.000+10:00

It's Friday again! So continuing with the tradition started last week... this is the Angel's Advocate painted by Zordana, who lives on the opposite side of the country from me. I think it was a Children-in-Need charity auction where I picked up this one.

Crunchwaffle do some interesting miniatures and Zordana has done a nice job bringing out the hunched monster personality lurking in the Angel's Advocate. Check out that hairy belly! I'm not quite sure what it is exactly that he's advocating...

You can catch up with Zordana and see more of her work on her website, Tiny Souls.

Games Day Orc Warboss

2009-06-15T16:41:00.001+10:00

I finally got around to taking photos of the miniatures I painted last year (and it wasn't really that many, I'm ashamed to say). First up is the Orc Warboss that I did as a test of skin colour and shading for my Ork Kommando unit. He is the special Golden Demon miniature for 2007. I ended up taking this guy to Games Day L.A. and got an Honourable Mention in the Warhammer Single category.

It turned out that (at least amongst OzPainters), this has been quite a popular model to paint - I remember the initial criticism of the model and the official GW paintjob when it was first announced. The paint scheme I chose is very much inspired by the one Sebastian did - pale green skin, lots of bold red, and an arid base with a spotted mushroom.

Here are some pics from different angles.

A good back view. The idea of the checker pattern on the shield's teeth came from seeing a Black Orc boss painted by Sean Gray for a miniature exchange.

A thread on OzPainters if you prefer to comment there. And if you are curious about Orc Warbosses painted by other OzPainters:

Freebooter's Aspera by Jen Haley

2009-06-12T17:32:00.003+10:00

I figured I should do something a bit different on Fridays, so I'm going to show-off a figure not painted by me each week. To start off with, I'm going to go through my own collection of miniatures by other painters (most scored off Ebay or from charity auctions).

So here's Aspera, a Freebooter miniature painted by Jen Haley. I've always admired Jen's miniatures, and for me to actually win this one on Ebay was quite a thrill. One thing I love is the way Jen paints her faces - she adds a lot of depth and character to the miniatures through careful painting of the eyes, skin tones and lips.
The other thing Jen is famous for is her NMM - here's a montage shot of the figure from differnet angles, you can see the NMM at work:
Check out her website, Paintrix Miniatures, to see more of her work. Jen also does commissions and regularly puts up painted works on Ebay, so go check out her site!

Playing with GW Washes

2009-06-10T20:03:00.013+10:00

I have planning to show some photos of my experiments with the new Games Workshop washes for a while, and the other day, I'd been talking to Jenova about it on her blog. So I've picked a few things I've tried the washes on to see how they would turn out.

The Almost Dip Method (aka Devlan Mud Bath)

I collect Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons pre-painted miniatures, and one method they use is base colours and an ink wash to define the details. This technique is also used by army painters in what is referred to as "dipping", where the whole figure is dipped into the (usually) ink/wash mixture - usually a varnish. In fact, a company called Army Painter has released tins of special wash for doing armies in this method. I thought I'd try a more conservative approach, and brush on GW Wash instead of physically dipping the whole miniature in, since GW Washes aren't that cheap.

Here's a photo of some Milton Bradley Hero Quest miniatures I painted recently (I blame Insaniak and his brilliant work on painting Hero Quest that got me inspired to pull out these old miniatures again). Here's a photo of them out of the box... well, however far I got into painting them when I was twelve.
The next photo shows some greenskins done up in GW Foundation paints, the colours painted on neatly in the right places. I painted with reasonably thin coats, which went straight over the top of the crappy paintjobs. I didn't even bother with any black (or brown) lining, I figured the wash would do that for me. Sure they're not going to win any awards, but they're fine for my gaming table (and experimentation).
And here is the result - a very matt finish with the shading in the right place. The magic colour is Devlan Mud, a blackish brown colour that is perfect as a lining colour. Just slather it on, no dilution or anything (water makes it go funny). Unlike Tamiya Smoke or their other clear paints, the GW Washes dry really thin, despite the thick feel when it is wet.

Pre-Shading using GW Washes

My next experiment was to see if the washes could be used to provide guidance for zenithal highlights, much like using a spray of white paint over a black or grey undercoat to give hints of lighting direction on display miniatures (or other things that won't end up as monsters and cannon fodder in my games).

Colour intensity can be built up over the initial pre-shade through thinned layers of paint, the wash providing a guide as to where to place the layers. Sebastian has written a great article on OzPainters about blending through translucency.

So below is a work in progress Saruman from the GW Lord of the Rings range. He'd been given a coat of Reaper Ghoul Skin, followed by a Badab Black wash. I spread it quite thin over the robes, so it might be a bit hard to see.
You can see I've started to work in the colours - the front parts of the robe near the ground have been blended back up with layers of RM Ghoul Skin and PP Menoth White Base. Here is Saruman again from another angle.
Next up is a figure a bit futher along on the highlighting process, a Jade Triad alchemist from Kraken Edition's Alkemy range. I've actually finished the robes on him - but I used the same technique of pre-shading as I have on Saruman. First I did a coat of Astronomican Grey, followed by a Badab Black wash (a much heavier wash than I did with Saruman), and blended back to the mid-tone of Astronomican Grey, and finally blended the highlights by added Skull White with the grey.
Here's a shot from the back - eventually I plan to paint a dragon going all around his robes as per the official Kraken studio paintjob.

What works for you?
So that's it for now - I'm sure there's lots of other ways the washes can be used. Feel free to leave a comment with your own experiments!

Street Violence from the Collection

2009-06-07T19:51:00.005+10:00

Here are some Street Violence figures from my collection, done in 2002 (back in the days when Counterstrike was going strong with my friends), with the exception of the two guys who snuck into the back ranks of the Yakuza pic. All all these have fairly standard gaming paint jobs - solid colours with a bit of edge highlighting.

First up are two SWAT teams. The sniper is my favourite, I did up his gun to look like the arctic warfare magnum from Counterstrike.
This pack was basically all guys in helmets and MP5's.
And some folks in suits... this is Juno's Crew:
And Yakuza - well the front three are Yakuza, the back two are figures I finished back in January, one is Jules to go along with Vince from Juno's Crew, and the other is a US secret agent by the Assault Group.
One thing I always thought was odd with the Street Violence range was the unexplained extra large guy in the pack, who stood a good head taller than all his compatriots. Probably a result of working off the same dollies I guess. There wasn't one in the Yakuza pack, but you can see it in the two SWAT teams and Juno's Crew. The other thing that is a bit odd is that the underside of the hands on the Street Violence figures have no details. Cleaning is not too bad, but there is still a decent amount of cleaning to be done.

Overall, I think they're decent value for what you get, but be prepared to do some cleaning before painting.

Sasia Samaris Redux

2009-03-26T12:01:00.005+11:00

This is sort of like an improve-o-meter figure, except I didn't strip her down and repaint her. I've had this one sitting in my shelf for years... think I painted her late 2002/early 2003.

I had a spare trophy base sitting around after I re-based my Ork Nob bust, so I decided to do it up as a scenic base, and rebased her on it. I took the opportunity to repaint her head (just scrapped the paint off with a scalpel) and added some more highlights to the red and brown bits, and made the shading on the skin a bit more subtle.
And a back view:
Here is a photo of the original paintjob:

B-Team and Thugs

2009-01-15T02:19:00.003+11:00

So I have been painting Foundry lately, and practicing my 3-Stage "Dallimore" technique. It's great for these sort of gaming miniatures - it's centered around eye-popping contrast and impact, while maintaining an emphasis on clean, sharp brushwork. For me it is good practice, clean and neat is something I sorely need practice in (especially when it comes to doing freehand or patterns on display miniatures). Anyway, without much further ado...
The B-Team! Their guns were a pain - most of the detail they should have had weren't there, so I had to make it up as I went along.

Random thugs (two miniatures from Gazza's Boot Boys, in fact) also finished. Bad guys for the B-Team to kill.

Ork Bust

2008-11-19T02:09:00.000+11:00

I finished this bust the night before the Australian Golden Demon finals! I entered it in the Open Category, which is the only category you can enter on the day. It didn't place, but it was fun to paint.

OzPainters has compiled a list of results and winners from the 2008 Australian Golden Demon.

Ork Kommandos

2008-11-18T12:00:00.001+11:00

Firstly, thanks to Sebastian for taking some really good shots of my unit! In fact I am going to steal the photo as the first in this thread.

I actually started this unit back in June, I was planning on entering them at GDLA. Unfortunately, due to the excitement of being on holidays, I didn't get a chance to finish them off properly. So I decided I would enter them back in Australia instead.

The conversions have been kept to a minimum - only a few weapon and hand swaps (I didn't like the hand weapons, so I turned them into stikk bombz, and replaced two of the hands with those from the plastic ork boyz).

There are so many little areas I could have improved on, in particular I think I over-did the weathering in some parts and not enough in others. I also found weathering the Dark Angel green a lot tougher than weathering the red - probably due to my colour selections. There are also a number of areas where the painting could have been a bit sharper and crisper - in particular, the backpacks and their grey shirts. Anyway, I got more Orks planned, so it was a good learning experience!

For more information, including step by step photos:
http://www.mainlymedieval.com/ozpainters/viewtopic.php?t=1816

And the same article in chinese, thanks to Panzer for translating and posting:
http://bbs.warac.cn/viewthread.php?tid=11020&pid=94381

MOAB 2008

2008-10-06T16:00:00.000+11:00

Rob, Sebastian, Paul and I ran the MOAB painting competition. Congratulations to all the winners, entrants and others who have contributed their time to make this event happen. Secondly, thank you to the sponsors: Shadowforge, Asmodee Editions, Maidenhead Miniatures, Derivan and Mainly Medieval for providing the prize pool, trophies and certificates!

We have a list of winners and photos at OzPainters.

Rob brought in his pirate town display which really livened up the display cabinet! We need to plan something even bigger for next year!

Games Day LA 2008

2008-09-01T05:37:00.000+10:00

Congratulations to Todd Swanson for winning the Slayer Sword! I had a fantastic time at the Demon Lounge catching up with the US painters, and a few visitors from Europe too. Although I didn't place, I was really happy to make finalist with my Orc boss in Warhammer Fantasy Single - it was a really tough category, and as you can see in GW's coverage, the winners were all fantastic.

Games Workshop's GD LA 2008 Golden Demon Coverage

Games Workshop's GD LA 2008 General Coverage

US Trip in August

2008-07-18T17:29:00.000+10:00

Some of you may know that I will be attending a few conventions in August. Here is my itinerary:

14th-17th August: Gencon Indy (Indianapolis, Indiana)
23rd August: Games Day L.A. (Ontario, California)
29th-31st August: Penny Arcade Expo (Seattle, Washington)

Hope to see some of you there!

Onyx

2008-02-23T22:42:00.002+11:00

Pretty much finished with this one for a friend, but I'd like to hear feedback since I have a few other unpainted wolfen to do in the future. So this was both a bit of practice and also a semi-commission.

I did something a bit different with the base, and actually did it all up with flock and stuff first, and then undercoated and proceeded to paint it it. I like the effect of painted flock, think I'll do this more in the future.

Feel free to leave some comments here: http://www.mainlymedieval.com/ozpainters/viewtopic.php?t=1074

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T00:11:00.000+11:00

Hope everyone has a safe and wonderful festive season! Here's a quick one I finished up, commissioned as a Christmas present for a friend. It's a Reaper knight, with an added cloak. The armour was coloured through multiple washes of liche purple, dark flesh, hawk turquoise, terracotta and oxford blue.

More French Foreign Legion

2007-01-07T23:34:00.001+11:00

I was just mucking around with doing Foundry style all white backgrounds and whipped this up using the Castaway Arts French Foreign Legion I painted a while ago.

Certainly gives a much different look to the figures! Goes to show that different backdrops do make a difference to the way the figures look, or at least, people's initial impressions. I imagine that using an all white background like that you want to have quite bright and contrasting paint schemes so that they stand out.

Thousand Sons Dreadought

2006-11-15T23:00:00.000+11:00

I was very lucky to walk away from the Demons this year with a bronze! I honestly didn't think my Dreadnought would place, it was quite a rush to get it finish, and it is the first year I have entered a stock, unconverted model (due to most of the year being devoted to thesis and other university related work).

Painting related things? Well not much actually. A rather stock standard paintjob I'm embarressed to say! I did try to concentrate more on the weathering though, as it is something often omitted from Tzeentch models. So lots of little metal chips, running rust marks and stains, and dirt build up. I did a small bit of glow effect on the plasma gun, but it is hardly a feature - I kept the glow small and not spread it onto the body or legs, incase I wanted to swap weapons later on (I know, you probably think I'm crazy for having weapon swap options on a Demon winning model!).

The other winners? Well congratulations to Glen, for walking away with his fourth slayer sword! That chaplin model was totally 40k and oozed a lot of character from the universe. Also congrats to Sebastian and Rob for a Chatswood triple sweep of the golds in the Single Figure categories!

Gashapon Repaints

2006-10-17T23:23:00.000+10:00

I finished off these two guys recently, they are characters from an anime called "Kyo Kara Maoh". They were painted as a gift to a very special friend, and originally started life as keychains.

I removed the chain connector from their heads and filled in the holes with Greenstuff, which I then discovered was a bad idea as it was really hard to get a smooth finish (the figures were made of a PVC type flexible plastic). So I removed the Greenstuff and did it again with Milliput that worked much better!

The bases were laminate circles I had lying around, over which I sculpted some flagstone with Milliput. The ducks were litle accessories from Eureka Miniatures.

Overall I am very happy with the way these turned out, as it was not only something out of the ordinary, but also the first figures I had finished after taking almost a year off from painting.

OzPainters

2006-10-13T18:32:00.000+10:00

In discussion with a number of painters, I have set up a new forum called OZ Painters, that will try to consolidate the painting community in Australia and provide a useful resource for anyone interested in painting miniatures for competitions or to a high display standard.

You can find OZ Painters at http://www.mainlymedieval.com/ozpainters

The annual Day Before Demons workbench photo

2006-10-06T14:28:00.000+10:00

So it's Golden Demon Australia time already. Here is my annual tradition of taking a photo of my workbench as I rush to finish my entry - it's actually pretty clean this year!

I only have one entry, a Thousand Sons dreadnought, sitting there in the middle. The Warmachine and Inquisitor retinue models are there for painting reference, as is the book on the right with the Egyptian imagery. Up the back is another Forgeworld Dreadnought - the MK4 Venerable Bling Dreadnought.

My paints are a mix of Vallejo, Palmer, Games Workshop (that Boltgun metal sitting near the Dreadnought was a pain to open!) and Matisse-Derivan. My brushes are taklon brushes, primarly a size 0 and a 5/0 liner brush. Haven't actually had to use anymore than what you see on the table.

Well my next post will probably consist of my MOAB commentary - we had a great turnout for the number and quality of the entries. I'll get photos up very soon! Till then, good luck with last minute GD painting.

McFarlane Dragons

2006-07-14T00:00:00.001+10:00

Ok, so it's been a while since I posted anything. It's been even longer since I've even painted anything! So this is really just a short post to say I am still alive. This week I have been busy preparing the details for the MOAB Painting Competition, to be held at MOAB in October. I'll put some details up later, but I've cut down on the number of overall categories and increased the number of cross-category prizes. Hopefully it will be as good as, if not better than last year!

The other week Rob Jedi did an order to Case Fresh and I tagged along an order for 2 McFarlane Dragons. The order arrived this week and I must say they look fantastic (and they cost the measly sum of approx. $15 AUD each!). I don't think I ever need to buy any more dragons again, especially heavy, unweildy lead ones. These ones come painted and put together and should be good enough for the majority of my gaming needs.

So here they are. This is the Red Komodo Clan dragon from Series 2:

And this is the Blue Komodo Clan dragon from Series 1:

I actually like the Blue one better for gaming, it's a bit more compact and has less movable bits so it isn't as likely to topple over. There is also a larger Green Komodo clan dragon from Series 3 which looks fantastic. I'll need to pick that one up sometime when it is released here.

Did I mention they look really great as display pieces on the shelf too?