Terrorist - finished!

Counter-Strike Terrorist
34 mm





Well, he's done. I thought Photoshopping in a screenshot of the CS map "de_dust" as a background would look good... and it does. I think this is a fantastic mini, I had a lot of fun painting it!

More tiny Germans...

German gun tractors and artillery range finders
15 mm




Again, not masterpiece quality, but done surprisingly fast.

"Achtung Baby!"

My brother recently bought a large army of German infantry for the game "Flames of War". Since I'm staying at his place over Christmas I thought I'd help him paint them.

WW2 German infantry and gun tractor
15 mm



These aren't painted to my usual standards, but the army set contains about a hundred infantry and over a dozen tanks, tractors, and field guns, so speed and efficiency are of the essence... The men will eventually be based in groups of five so the bases aren't finished yet.

Running, buying, grr argh.

'Tis the season to madly Christmas shop, so not a lot of painting is getting done. Instead, here's a pic of the figures I sent to Cindy for the mini exchange (see Dec. 7 below):



Apparently she likes the goblin best, I don't blame her as it's clearly the best sculpt.

Update

I've given him a base, matching the popular Counter Strike maps "dust" and "dust2". And highlighting black is the worst thing ever... And there is so much of it on him :(

I've Got Mail!

Holland, land of windmills, dikes and almost-100%-legal marijuana. And mini painters! Coolminiornot.com's 6th mini exchange is underway, and both my sender and receiver are in the Netherlands.

Received:
from Salvador A:



Dwarf Burglar by Privateer Press.
(I love the round goggles!)

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Sent:
To (the impressive sculptor) Cindy D, some historical relics:
- one Games Workshop knight, c. 1988
- one Grenadier female cleric, late 80's
- one GW goblin, c. 1991
- one GW "nurgling", recent
(I forgot to take pics)

"Go go go!"

I've made some decent progress on Mr. Terrorist:



The armband is sculpted onto the figure, so I guess it should be... a coloured armband. I went with flat red since I don't want this guy to display any specific political allegiance.

I came across this image of an Iraqi policeman on the web. A sign of how screwed up things are in Iraq I guess... :(

"Plant the damn bomb!"

Joseph Conrad's novel "The Secret Agent" describes a group of terrorists who send an adolescent half-wit to deliver their bomb for them. This closely resembles the average game of Counter Strike... except the latter involves a lot more adolescent half-wits.

Terrorist
34 mm



I just had to buy a mini which so closely fits into one of my favourite games (he's actually a Call of Cthulhu mini, not a CS product). I used my Dremel and green epoxy putty to modify this guy's arms a little (long->short sleeves) and gave him a flashbang grenade to make him more closely resemble the game model.

More Sophie

Okay, this is actually starting to look good. I'm trying to make the metal highlights conform to a light source (the sun) over her head and behind the viewer:

Sophie

I've been working on the gold bits on Sophie, using the "non-metallic metal" method. This technique is a freaking pain in the ass! And it looks terrible until almost the moment you finish it, at which point it "pops" (or it may not because I did it wrong).



Of course, "real painters" almost always use this technique, not metallic paints:



Even in this dramatic and bloody work The Third of May, Francisco Goya took the time to carefully render a metallic shine on the soldiers' rifles, using only normal paints. The result is strikingly convincing.

"WOL, that spells owl."

O RLY?
3"x3"

Admiral Ackbar

Well, he's finished, not a prize winning paintjob, just a thing for fun.

Admiral Ackbar
25 mm



Perhaps he is commanding a huge battle fleet of the Rebel Alliance in space, or maybe he is enjoying a cruise on his watery home planet... who knows?

So long, and thanks for all the fertilizer?

Sky Tree
6"x8"
Acrylic on canvas



This is an image that just popped into my head while I was trying to get to sleep a few nights ago. I don't know what, if anything, it means. The tree is loosely modeled on a baobab but turned out more like "generic deciduous".

In Progress

Nothing exciting, just some work on Sophie and Ackbar. I'm going to do the trim on Sophie's wholly impractical outfit in non-metallic gold, which should keep me occupied for a while. Ackbar is a little difficult, there's not a lot of detail to work with on his uniform, but his squid parts have a lot of little fiddly ridges and lumps that are almost too small to see.

Lazy Bastard

Hmm, I'm slipping again, it's been two weeks. Busy weeks, to be fair. So this is a placeholder post to reassure my scads of readers that new posts will resume now that my social schedule is less hectic. I have some ideas for canvases and a couple of minis to finish!

Works of Heart - mini painters helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I feel all warm and tingly :)

Marion's Mermaid

Well, this is my "secret project"! It was a birthday gift for my friend Marion, some time ago she told me that if I ever painted her a mini, she would like a blue mermaid. I'm happy to say she liked it!

Mermaid
35 mm



The "water" is gloss acrylic medium tinted with paints and sculpted with a brush. Thanks to Maya in Alabama who kindly sent me this mini!

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At Marion's party, some of us painted canvases for her as well. This is my effort, titled "Mark Gothko":



Yes, it's a deliberate homage to the abstract painter Mark Rothko. I had a lot of fun painting this way, in a social setting and with wine involved. People should do this more often!

"It's a trap!"

Well, my secret project is done... soon it will be revealed. In the meantime I've just started a new mini:

Admiral Ackbar
25 mm



He's pretty simple so I'll be able to get him done quickly and keep my momentum up.

(This one's dedicated to my homies at the Fark.com forums, who posted this image so often it became an irritating cliche, surpassed only by the kitten in volume of usage)

Shhh!

I'm working on a secret project!

New! Shiny!

Here's a little vignette I just finished. It's called "The Painter Stripped Bare Before His Critics" - I put it together as a sort of comment on the pressures of trying to paint to a consistently high technical standard.

Yes, exposure to the very best work that people have to offer can paralyze as well as motivate me... I really try to paint for pleasure and not to impress others, but inevitably I find myself frustrated by the staggering amount of effort that goes into improving my style. This does not come naturally to me :(

The shame!

I haven't updated in... 38 days. But then, I haven't really painted anything either. Of course that didn't stop me from BUYING some more minis... in this case some 1980's vintage figures off eBay:

Chaos champion and mummy

Knight, sci-fi mercenary, space dwarf, and two "Techmarines" (with pistols raised)

Another little painting

Just a quickie of a locally available subject - I'm still practicing blending and mixing colours, and shading.


Mango
5.5"x8.5"

Where's my damn beret?

My first canvas:

Prairie Fantasy
5"x7"

BRB

I'm off to Edmonton for a week, hopefully things will be a little more... settled after I get back, and I can FREAKIN' PAINT.

Some good news:

Dear No Such Agency

Thank you for submitting your entry to CMON miniature painting
contests. And congratulations in making top 10 in your contest! To commemorate
your victory, as promised, we would like to invite you be part of the
2004-2005 CoolMiniOrNot annual. Please read the instructions carefully,
as it will make our job a lot easier.
...
Image ID=72679 , Score(7.1)
Competition 4: Darth Mantis (CMON Contest #4) 2004-11-13 15:43:10

Thank you very much for your support and we look forward to seeing more
of your fine work in the future.

CMON staff

Yep, one of my minis will be included in the printed CoolMiniOrNot Annual :D I feel so validated.

Slow Daze...

Busy at work... no energy :(



Did a bit of work on my demonic cowgirl. I like the shade of Hell Kitten Crimson I mixed up for her skin, now I just have to motivate myself to paint.

I've also been trying some "real painting":



Mmm, shades of Grade 8 art class.

Old Bones

Morbid Puppet
28 mm

Finished my skeleton (I think):

I used some non-metallic-based corrosion effects, both iron and bronze here, since he's supposed to have been dead and buried for a while.

Score!

I picked up a lot of old Star Wars minis on eBay yesterday. These figures are over 10 years old and quite rare so this is a pretty sweet find:

Minis are: R2-D2, Luke (Bespin), Chewbacca, Luke (Tatooine/Death Star), Stormtrooper, Rebel pilot, Han Solo, Admiral Ackbar, another droid, Gamorrean Guard. Some have previously been painted but it'll be easy to strip that off.

Sophie and Old Bones

The exchange figure (see previous post) I chose to start with is "Sophie" - Reaper Miniatures' demonic mascot, in a rather odd form:

I'm also working on this creepy guy - a skeleton warrior in mid-resurrection. He's sort of a techniques test for future projects:

Exchange - Holy smokes!

CoolMiniOrNot.com Miniature Exchange #4

Sent to Todd ("DM of Doom") in Largo, Florida:

 Alternative Armies Feral Orc and Rackham Iron Priestess.

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Received from Ann ("Anatora") in Prattville, Alabama:

So much! Soooo much! Highlights are a limited edition ReaperCon figure (upper right), A "Cabalistic Angel" (lower right), a neat pirate (small unlabeled bag), and "Jain Zar: the Storm of Silence" (upper left). I am truly touched by such generosity :)

Now, which one do I paint first...?

Dark Knight - finished!

Batman

28 mm

"The night... brooding... Gotham's evildoers... etc..."

A big improvement if I do say so myself. Posted on CoolMiniOrNot here.

Slowly but surely

Working up the blue highlights on his cowl & cape...

His base, grey bits and face are essentially done. Just the cape, belt and chest logo to work on now.

Dark Knight

Just a brief update on Batman. It's hard to do anything creative in this heat.

I'm just doing a high-contrast repaint on the grey, highlighting up the black bits with dark blue but it's barely visible so far. His belt looks pretty rough, I'm just hoping I can spoof some better detail with paint alone... on a metal mini I would have filed it off and tried to resculpt a new one.

Finished!

My Legionnaire is finished, and mounted on his brand-new base! (see previous post)

The blue still seems under-highlighted but I don't want it to have near-white highlights or it may make the colour seem less rich. I think all the colours and metallic effects turned out okay, and seem to fit together aesthetically.

Basing Basics

A good miniature tells a story. Maybe not a whole Russian novel, but it should at least stimulate the viewer's imagination to think of the figure as a "character", with context and background. A good display base can enhance or strongly guide how the viewer sees the figure, depending on the creator's preference (and skill). For example, I chose a rustic forest floor base for my Mousling to suggest he is a wandering minstrel traveling between towns. However, more futuristic figures like Princess Leia or "Greybo" require something more artificial/technological.

Right now I'm working on a base for my Black Legionnaire. I contemplated a stone floor representing a temple or palace, but I decided that he too is a wanderer, questing for some arcane knowledge or artifacts for his own mysterious purposes. So he gets an outdoor base. The base I'm making uses thin slabs of cork (from cheap IKEA coasters) to simulate weathered rock.

I'm using snow to indicate the season, mostly because I want to practice the technique, but also because it makes his milieu a little more exotic. The "snow" is sodium bicarbonate mixed with white Elmer's glue. Quite simple, but I don't want to distract from the miniature itself.

Slow week...

I swear brown is one of the most difficult colours to do well. Along with black, white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. I'm currently working on the Legionnaire's rucksack, belts and scabbard: kind of a drab contrast to his vivid regalia. Not very exciting, alas...

In response to your previous query, Liz, he's wearing a metal mask or helmet under his cloth hood. So it's done in non-metallic steel like the rest of the armour. His eyes are barely visible through the vision slit in the helmet.

Legionnaire/eBay/Dark Knight

I'm slowly layering up the blue highlights on my Legionnaire:

I recently made my first eBay purchase - a couple of HeroClix Batman figures. These minis are basically toys, and are made from some appalling rubbery substance. However I managed to strip the paint off with acetone and I'm sure I can give him a much better look.

(VERY Dark Knight)

I'm a big fan of the Frank Miller version of Batman, so I think I'll go with a heavy contrast, near-monochrome scheme on this one.

Update

I did some NMM work on the Legionnaire's axe head, as well as the gold parts of his robe & armour.



I probably should start something else now that I seem to have the impulse to paint. This is the other mini I got from the most recent Miniature Exchange (along with the Mousling). I'm not familiar with the game it's from but it looks like some sort of medieval/technological hybrid soldier. The downside is that I'm not super inspired by it :^/